Fixing D Tyrannitar with Unseen Forces

I decided to try to fix my old Dark Tyrannitar deck. I loved that deck, and it sometimes worked well. But it ws my first real deck and it suffered from a lack of good trainers and a dogged determination to stick with Tyrannitar and Crobat. It really is nuts to have two main line families that are three stage evolutions. It just takes too long to fire them up to full power.

I was inspired by the new cards, the Unseen Forces cards. There are some sweet tricks in the release. For openers, there are special energy cards that actually function as both energy and trainer cards. For instance:

Warp Energy - provides * energy. When you attach this card from your hand to your Active Pokémon, switch that Pokémon with 1 of your Benched Pokémon.

When you switch out between active and benched, there is normally a retreat cost that is paid by discarding energy cards. Here you switch and not only do you not discard, you get to add an energy!

Cyclone Energy - provides * energy. When you attach this card from your hand to your Active Pokémon, switch 1 of the Defending Pokémon with 1 of your oponent's Benched Pokémon. Your opponent chooses the Benched Pokémon to switch.

So let's say you're getting hammered by some pumped up attacking Pokémon and you can't retreat, maybe because you don't have enough energies to pay the retreat cost or you don't want to discard those energies that took you so long to acquire. Add this energy and force that attacker off the stage. The opponent will be able to retreat the card he brings out in order to bring his previous heavy hitter back into play, but it's going to cost him a retreat card, and you have perhaps bought yourself a way out with the extra energy you've just added. Hope that made sense to you.

And on top of that there are some wonderful new trainers and tools:

Mary's Request - Draw a card. if you don't have any Stage 2 Evolved Pokémon in play, draw 2 more cards.

Man, you can't beat a three draw card, with NO discards! Most of the draw trainers require you to discard from your hand. And of course, if you're working a stage 2 evolution family and they aren't out and evolved yet, you are desperately searching that deck for cards. Extra draws is just the medicine you need for your ills.

Protective Orb - As long as Protective Orb is attached to a Pokémon, that Pokémon has no Weakness.

This is a great card for my Tyrannitar deck because my favorite Dark Tyrannitar, the one with the sand poké power, is weak to grass. If he is attacked by a grass card, the attack counts double. Instead of being hit for 30 points, he is hit for 60 points. =ouch= And there are a lot of grass decks out there.

So, fixing the deck...I decided to finally let go of my Dark Crobats. =waaaah= But I replaced them with Dark Electrode. First off, it's a short hop from the Basic, Voltorb, to the evolution, Dark Electrode. Experienced Pokémon players use this card with Dark Dragonite, which also lets you manoeuver energies around. I just wanted to use it to get out some dark energies and move 'em to Tyrannitar. I figure it's good for maybe two hits before it dies. It's both dark and electric, so though it only hits for 30 (with only one energy, mind you), if someone's playing a water deck I can score a big punch. Here's the card:

Poké-Power - Once during your turn (before your attack), if Dark Electrode has no Energy attached to it, you may search your dekc for a Dark or Dark Metal Energy and attach it to Dark Electrode. ...

Energy Bomb - 30 - You may move all Energy cards attached to Dark Electrode to your Benched Pokémon in any way you like.

So you keep doing that till you are dead. And, of course, I have some Potion Cards that remove 2 damage counters, and I have Mr. Briney, which lets me put D.E. back into my hand before it dies. I've also got a couple of Dunsparce and Goudon in there, but mostly for place holders till I figure out what I really need. I know it's got problems, but I'm going to work on this deck. I kinda like it.

Uh Oh, It's Ho-Oh

Wow!

Yesterday myself, my husband, son JT, daughter Sarah, and Sarah's friend Makenna, all went down to the Irvine pre-release for Unseen Forces. JT has just moved back from NY and, though 26 and well above this sort of thing, decided it might be fun. He was a staunch Magic and Star Trek game player, so this isn't all that wacky to him. Makenna had never been to a pre-release before so she was very psyched about it.

We got there about 10 a.m. and found our way to the meeting rooms. Sarah and I had our POP cards , but the others had to fill out some forms. There were over 60 people, so the organizers decided to split the group. The kids, 14 and under, went to the adjoining room. I was glad Sarah had Makenna for company, though it was easy enough between rounds to hang out as a group. As usual, lots of organizational down time for the players. We got one round done before lunch, but got five rounds done by 5:30 p.m. We saw a lot of familiar faces. There was a lot of trading going on as folks were tweaking and such, before the Worlds. Many people in the room had invitations to Worlds. Impressive.

I love the excitement as you're staring at the shiny booster packs for the theme deck, waiting for the word to open them up. I'd heard there would be some cool changes in this set. When the signal came, we popped them open. THree of us at the same table got EXs! I got the much sought-after HO-OH EX. (Sorry, no images yet. The deck doesn't go commercial till September.)

I got a decent deck and thought I had a real chance to win more than one game for a change. I had HO-OH EX with 110 hit points, a great Poke-Power, and for only three Energies of any kind, great attack.

Poke Power Golden Wing -- If Ho-Oh ex would be Knocked Out by damage from an opponent's attack, you may move up to 2 Energy attached to Ho-Oh ex to your Pokemon in any way you like.

Rainbow Burn Does 10 damage plus 20 more damage for each type of basic Energy card attached to Ho-Oh ex.

To back that up I had Poliwhirl and Poliwag; Groudon, Smeargle and a few other good Basics. I won the first game handily. Then I lost every thing after that, mostly from lack of focus. My head wasn't in it. I don't know what was up. I was busy looking at the cards other folks had, and one guy I knew from other pre-releases was chatting me up a lot, which I found distracting. And, there was a lot of buzz about the upcoming World Championships. So...my attention wandered.

I really like the new cards. There are some very interesting attack moves, and most require only one specific Energy type, making it much easier to have variable kinds of families (water, grass, fire, electric, etc). Here's a link to the Japanese text spoiler for Unseen Forces.

Be sure you're checking in on the Worlds. There are videos and live updates. I intend to check the brackets and see how my buds are doing.

More when the deck comes out...

Pretty cool.

Unseen Forces Pre-release!

Yeah baby, at last a little action.

Sarah and I were sooooo bummed when we realized we couldn't go down to the Pokemon World Championship in San Diego this month because her play is in production that weekend. Arg! But she's got a couple of good roles in this play and we like to support her in this endeavor, which is considerably more important in the long run, than is Pokemon. ...I think...

So there we are, all bummed out and heading over to Eight Ball for a couple of packs of cards as salve on the wound. We figured the Unseen Forces stuff was out, and even though we'd missed the pre-release, we could go pick up some cards, and see what the new theme deck had in store for us. But ho! The young lady who runs the store, and finds it highly amusing that I buy cards, told us that the release was moved forward to August. Delayed. Not yet released. More bummer news.

That sent me running to the official Pokemon Official Play website to see when the pre-release event would be held and whether or not we might still be able to find one in our area. Yesh! August 13th in Irvine at the Atrium Hotel, just like always. I pre-reg'ed us, and we're are ready to rock 'n roll. Sarah is going to ask her friend, Makenna, if she'd like to come along too. Makenna had been a new member of the gym just before the gym lost its lease, so to speak.

I don't know that much about the official, hardcore culture of TCG, but I do find it interesting that they would release a new theme deck only a week before Worlds. Isn't that just going to mess people up nicely! And of course, EX Emerald was only just released in last month; master decks are out too. Man, it's a wild and wooly scene...if you have some cash. I wonder if most Worlds decks will be old school.

I love pre-releases because you have to think fast and work with odds 'n ends of cards randomly given to you. I also love the loosely connected culture of regional people that you only see at events. You feel you know them, from playing a day of cards, and their faces are familiar. I expect we'll see the San Diego college kids, very funny, full of swagger and yet able to laugh at themselves when they don't do as well as they should. They go to several pre-releases to score lots of cards before they hit the store shelf. There will be the little kids from the Orange County who usually win something in their age category. They come with their dad who reads outside. Maybe we'll see the family (an older woman and two sons in their 20s, I think) that drives down from somewhere like Bakersfield. I wonder if the Team Magma kids will be there.

Meanwhile, there's scant online info about the new deck, because of course pre-release is just that, before the general commercial release. We'll have to wait a couple of weeks for the big theme decks and booster packs to hit the stores.

Stay tuned for a report from Unseen Forces Pre-release Event.