Kalos Inbound

Well it has been a while since I've written a blog post on here. In between Team Fortress 2, Pokemon X and simply being forgetful I simply didn't find any time to tap away at the keyboard for a bit even though I had certainly been thinking about it after one or two days down at the Card House. Well, I'm gonna do something about that.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who came in for many of the numerous Pokemon TCG events that were hosted over the school holidays. We may not have had the turn out that Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic gets, but the more the merrier! I even managed to snag a few first places during that time with my Gardevoir/Gallade/Mewtwo deck, though after the third time I started to feel like I was being a little unfair to some of the other players by playing such a nasty deck. What fun would it be for everyone else if a couple of people turn up each time playing ridiculous decks to the point of winning all the time?

So, what does one do about that? Play a different deck, of course! After the third win, I tried playing a dragon deck that I had put together a while ago. While I didn't win, it still gave a pretty decent showing with fourth place. Still, I wanted to build something completely different.

This led me to having a look through my folder, searching for that one card which I could build upon. Eventually I came across a Gigalith which had the attack revenge cannon, an attack which does 10 damage plus another 10 for every damage counter on my benched pokemon. Nearby was a Sandslash which boaster the attack earthquake, which not only hits for 80 damage but also damages all of my own benched pokemon for 10 damage. This is a example of where something may not look very good at all, but in actual fact can be expanded on by other cards. Gigalith just turned the negative of hitting my own pokemon into a positive!

Sadly, while the theory of how the deck was supposed to work was sound putting it into practice turned out to be something of a disappointment. The majority of the pokemon in that deck were weak to water attacks, and Cardhousians seem to like using water pokemon. The end result was that my deck was far too fragile against the most common pokemon type, and while I'm sure it would have been much more successful otherwise the deck simply wasn't living up to my expectations.

So, the solution? Since I'm not finding this deck to suit how I want to play, it's time to plan another one. Fortunately for me the XY pre release is happening two weeks from now (on the 9th February), and with it comes some very new cards. First up it sees the debut of the Fairy type in the TCG (excluding the very popular Chespin deck and the Sylveon collection), introducing both some of the new 6th gen fairy types as well as retyped version of classic pokemon such as Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff. Secondly, it sees the addition of the Mega Evolutions in the form of M Venusaur-EX and M Blastoise-EX. Both pokemon are certainly powerhouses, boasting over 200HP each and some very vicious attacks. They do come with some serious drawbacks though, with high energy costs for their attacks and the fact that not only to they have to be placed on top of a Pokemon-EX, but that mega evolving your pokemon automatically ends your turn. It's debatable as to just how viable mega evolution will be in game, but they will definitely be a force to be reckoned with.

With the pre release, I'm going to be starting up my own fairy deck. A couple of the smaller fairy types are very effective supporters, while they get a heavy hitter in the form of Xerneas-EX. I have the feeling that I'll enjoy playing this deck, especially since it'll combine some of the tactics I've used in the past. XY set, why can't you be here already?

Now I just need to get my hands on a couple of those Sylveons from the collection... anyone got any they might want to trade?

The Pokemon Professor, Troy