Cyrus
Iron Chef - Master Emeritus
Hello Pokegym viewers, and welcome to the finals of the action-packed Deck Contest, "Iron Chef." You can view the match history HERE, at: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=121028&tclass=
We've been doing this contest for quite some time, but now we are down to two titans of deckbuilding, Dendrobatida and Slimeygrimey, the two to go above and beyond the other sixty two competitors, and the two to attempt for the gold in this tense competition.
Now you may be wondering, "Oh Mr. John Kettler, why is this being posted as a poll for us, the VIEWERS, to vote on? :O"
Well, since you so politely asked, I'll inform you! Unlike the previous rounds, where only the judges have chosen the winners, you, yes YOU, will choose who wins by simply going to the poll on the front page. It's really simple!
First, take a look at the two decks posted (one for Dendrobatida, and one for Slimeygrimey), and then based on the decklist's quality,as well as the creativity and card usage put into the deck, decide which cuisine reigns supreme =)
These contests really are a lot of fun, and not only improve/show off their competitors' deckbuilding skills, but also give players new ideas on just how outside of the box you have to be to really "break the format." If you want to compete in the next Iron Chef competition, then be sure to hit up the "Grinder" that'll be up in the "Deck Help and Strategy" forum. If you are a top placer in that, then you can join the hallowed ranks of Pokegym deckbuilders in the "Tournament of Champions," where first place will recieve...oh! You'll have to read the Grinder sign-up sheet for that information
But...SPEAKING of cuisine, they're cooking up some Octillery UF!!! Here are the decks that you will be judging
~~~DENDROBATIDA VS SLIMEYGRIMEY~~~
-Dendrobatida-
"UF Octillery
Unlike many of the other cards we've had this contest, in order to be of any use, Octillery has to be active, and it has to be the main attacker. That it can do well, but it has a nasty time delay on its attack that makes it trickier to use - how do you keep the opponent from breaking the lock, or, worse, just smacking your octillery around in between turns? You could paralyze with azumarill, retreat, then standby, but that negates the usefulness of octillery's pokebody. You could make use of the eeveelutions, but they're a one-shot deal short of playing super scoop up, they're ex'es, and they'd take too much diversification of energy to make them useful backup hitters (they can't use DRE, which octillery desperately needs 4 of to work). That leaves us with pure locking power. For that purpose, it's vicious...
Pokemon:
4 Remoraid (call for family)
3 Octillery (UF)
4 houndour (UF - smog)
3 Houndoom (UF)
Total: 14
Trainers:
4 Mary's Request
3 Copycat
3 TV Reporter
1 Professor Oak's research.
4 Celio's Network
4 Pokemon Reversal
4 Energy Removal 2
3 Desert Ruins
1 Championship Arena (NP)
2 Protective Orb
1 Holon Farmer
Total: 30
4 fire energy
4 water energy
4 DRE
4 Multi Energy
Total: 16
Strategy: Depends on what type of deck you might be facing. This deck's particular strength will be in a tournament setting, 30 minute match, vs. any deck that runs a stable setup basic. We're especially thrilled to see our opponent start with a plusle. In fact, if plusle is the opponent's starting basic, we're 80% to victory already. Cleffa will also work nicely. As soon as your opponent gets a bench of 2 pokemon, you're set, because your setup is an active octillery and one houndoom on the bench. Remoraid is the ideal starter, so that a call for family can get the houndour straight away. An early houndour can also disrupt with a fire or multi, and an early 'doom can both paralyze and create havok with trainer denial. Still, we want to have octillery active ASAP to lock plusle or another anemic basic. Once plusle is locked active, you wait. Assuming they called for family for 2, or have 3 pokemon in play anyway, and you have houndoom in play, there are only 8 ways to break the plusle lock without comboing multiple cards together (you could, for example, play FRLG haunter, confuse yourself, and knock yourself out....) : Mr. Briney's Compassion, the 3 legendary birds, Umbreon -ex, Warp or Cyclone energy, and DX shiftry. In the current metagame, only three of those eight cards are played consistently, and fewer still in tournament settings where decks get more cookie-cutter. If you've successfully managed plusle lock, you can wait until time is called, then blast the plusle to kingdom come for the victory. However, that's not always going to be the best option. If facing a turn-two deck, maneuvering for a very early standby-pulseblast is the way to go. If you can take out a jirachi, that's excellent. If you can take out a medicham, that's even better. We don't worry about dark steelix - ER2 + pulse blast or Houndoom can take care of that problem. If you are concerned about other major threats, reversaling and ER2 will allow you to safely standby, and a pulse blast should take care of the problem. The key will always, if going offensive rather than disruption, be to standby safely without being status'ed or OHKO'ed. Protective orb helps there. In short: vs. slow setup - lock the plusle, pick off heavy hitters when the opportunity presents itself, bide your time for the endgame. Vs. t2 - Take the first hit after you standby, blow away whatever they're offering. Octillery's standby is actually nice with DRE, because you can't be annoyingly ER2'ed yourself by a medicham player. Thanks for the challenge and tourney - tough final card!
Individual card explanations:
-3 octillery and houndoom: with 4 celios and ample draw, we should be able to get one of each out. Since we only want one of each in play to affect the lock, we're not looking to build multiple copies on our bench, and by the time we do need a second octillery, we should have another line in hand to cycle through. 4 of each basic is essential for good starts, but again, we don't need 3 remoraids on our bench...in fact, it hurts us. One less of each stage 1 will let us add a bit more tech and a bit more stability to the draw engine.
-No Steven's advice: I went TVR over steven's advice because houndoom tends to have your opponent watch their # of pokes much more carefully. If they are playing t2 or refusing to add pokes to the bench (which works great for octillery, who will just blast through whatever 2 pokes they're trying to keep around), we want to be able to draw cards. Also, in a waiting game, hand sizes can get pretty large - we don't want to be sitting on 3 useless steven's advice midgame.
-Copycat: houndoom = large hand sizes (not putting down basics, useless trainer buildup)
-POR: tech vs. decking if we're fortunate enough to lock a plusle. Rocket's admin actually helps them in this scenario. Don't want to help the opponent.
-Reversal: Lock our choice. Necessary.
-ER2: Slows down big hitters, buys time for standby.
-Ruins: Locking an -ex deck with ruins in play lets us just sit there while their EX melts away on the bench.
-Championship Arena: Midgame, when hand sizes are getting outrageous, dropping one of these can be downright nasty, particularly when you're in control of playing it. Nothing like forcing the opponent to discard 8 cards...also helps us deck the opponent, avoid him/her recovering deck size with Admin.
-Protective Orb: Anti-electric in general, zapdos in particular. If octillery can take a hit from a Zapdos, it can knock it out after the standby.
-Holon Farmer: we throw away energy....we have pokes with low HP...we run TV reporter...we're a lock deck looking to avoid decking. Yeah, we're playing farmer.
-Multi energy: Great for starting, powering houndour/doom. Only other special energy is DRE, and that takes care of our energy requirements if it shuts this little guy off.
-DRE: Essential. The holon pokemon, unfortunately, don't work, because of the pickup an energy requirement. Octillery needs the 2 energy right away, since it threw away one for standby. Thus, DRE is the only choice.
Great card to think about! I love plusle, so this deck pained me to make....vicious, though...
Thanks!
-Jake/Dendro"
-Slimeygrimey-
"Secret Ingredient: Octillery UF
Pokemon: 18
3 Octillery UF
3 Remoraid UF
2 Houndoom UF
2 Houndour UF
2 Magcargo DX1
2 Slugma DX2
4 Plusle DX
Trainers: 25
4 Celio's Network
3 Rocket's Admin.
3 Mary's Request
1 Steven's Advice
1 Holon Scientist
1 Swoop! Teleporter
4 Pokemon Reversal
4 Energy Removal 2
3 Battle Frontier
1 Desert Ruins
Energy: 17
4 Double Rainbow
7 Fire
4 Water
1 Cyclone
1 Heal
The strategy of this deck is to use Octillery's Stand By attack to charge up its Pulse Blast, then release a massive attack for 120 (or 110) on your opponent's biggest threat. This is the reason reversal is included in the deck - it allows you to bring up what needs to be ko'd. If what you want to ko is already active, that's fine, as it will be unable to retreat due to Octillery's Super Suction Cups. Houndoom helps accentuate this by preventing them from playing switching trainers such as switch or warp point. Unfortunately they will still be able to use warp or cyclone energy, but hopefully your admin and battle frontier will keep them from getting them as easily. Even if they do escape, its not a big deal, there's reversal.
The reason this deck benefits from Houndoom so greatly is that it prevents your opponent from pulling out of the active slot, it slows them down a bit (no rare candy, dual ball, pokeball, etc.), and it semi-locks a stadium in place (as long as you have a smaller bench they can't counter your stadium) You'll want to use this to keep battle frontier in play, as many decks use pidgeot. Against decks such as Medicham and ZRE, you can put down desert ruins. You don't need 4 Battle Frontier because your opponent should already have a hard enough time countering your stadiums if you play correctly.
Magcargo is very useful in that you can use it to fetch reversals or to grab one of your singles such as Desert Ruins, Cyclone Energy, or Heal Energy. It will also help you to set up faster, and it should be fairly easy to get out with 4 Celio. You may be thinking Magcargo is a bad idea since this deck wants a small bench, but you should be able to still maintain a smaller bench than your opponent if Houndoom is particularily useful in the matchup. You should have something like: Octillery active, Magcargo and Houndoom benched, and if you need to, an Octillery/Remoraid building up. That is a bench of 2-3. Most decks will play over this anyway. The decks that won't, such as ZRE and Medicham, you should still be able to do well against. You may not want Magcargo in play in the Medicham match, and you may not need another Octillery building on the bench. Houndoom also hurts these decks more than others as they play a larger number of non-supporters. Against this type of deck you should essentially be able to function well with a bench of 1. You would have Octillery active and Houndoom on the bench. If Octillery dies, Houndoom is a solid attacker.
This deck has the holon scientist as an alternative to copycat. Holon Scientist will work better with Magcargo since it is straight draw. It will likely be very effective as well, since your opponent's hand will be amassing non-supporter trainer cards. The one steven is included over a fourth mary for the times when your opponent has a large bench that you would like to take advantage of, but more might not be a good idea if your opponent is trying to keep their bench small to get around houndoom. The swoop is included to improve consistancy and to help conserve bench space. You don't want the plusle you start with to sit on your bench all game, so you could either swoop it early game to help set up, or retreat it and swoop it later game when you need to start building a new octillery. Energy Removal 2 is included for similar reasons as to why it is included in Medicham. It slows your opponent down, allowing you to do what you need to in order to ko things. ER'ing their energy can save your octillery for a turn, allowing it to use stand by to prepare for 120. The general use of this card will be to slow down your opponent's attacker when you are trying to pull off the stand by/pulse blast combo. You don't need to worry about them retreating, but Octillery's HP is rather flimsy and allowing them to get off one attack could ruin things, so you need to try to take out their energy to keep this from happening.
This deck plays no scramble as it is designed to be fast. Also, the energy requirements are not very high, but there is a lot of discarding. You might find yourself attaching a scramble when behind only to discard it with Houndoom's attack. The four Double Rainbow however, are great for powering Houndoom or Octillery, especially Octillery. Here's how it goes: attach an energy to Octillery, use stand by, discard the energy. Next turn go from 0 to 2 energy and do pulse blast for 110. This can be useful when you first bring out Octillery and haven't had the chance to really power it. Later you can get rid of the DRE for the extra 10 damage the next time you use stand by as long as you attach an energy those two turns, like so, going from where I left off above: Octillery has 1 DRE attached and has just used pulse blast for 110. Next turn, you attach an energy, use stand by, discarding the DRE. The following turn, you attach another single energy and use pulse blast for 120. Since Octillery's attack does not specify the type of energy you must discard, but Houndoom's does, I've included more fire than water energy. Double Rainbow also seems a bit more compatible with Octillery since the damage is higher and -10 isn't as big a deal, so you'll likely use it with Octillery provideing water more often than you will with Houndoom to provide fire. Also, there comes a point in the game after you've taken down a couple of things with Octillery, where speedy ko's will become more useful than waiting a turn, doing 120, waiting a turn, doing 120. When your opponent does not having anything particularily large or threatening in play, you should be trying to attack with Houndoom. The 70 damage it will deal is a smarter play in these situations than either doing 30 with Octillery, or doing 120 every second turn.
The Cyclone energy is included because it can find a use with Octillery's body in some situations. You can force your opponent to switch out of their only threat left in play that would potentially ko Octillery, to something ineffective on the offense side of things, such as pidgeot, magcargo, plusle, etc. You can then use this chance to either garner that last ko you need for the game (if that's all you need), or you can use it to take out their last remaining threat by using stand by and then trying to reversal the threat next turn for the ko. Heal energy is simply a nice card for getting out of sticky situations where that 10 damage or status condition is really getting in the way.
I hope you enjoy my deck. Also, I would like to congragulate my opponent, Dendrobatida, on such a fine job to make it this far; I would like to thank the judges as well and all of the participants in the Iron Chef: Age of Kabuto."
P.S.: as a brief reminder, audience percentages will be worth 60% of the overall score, and judge panel votes will be worth a combined 40%, so even though we keep our say, you guys ultimately decide the winner! Happy holidays!
~Patriarch
We've been doing this contest for quite some time, but now we are down to two titans of deckbuilding, Dendrobatida and Slimeygrimey, the two to go above and beyond the other sixty two competitors, and the two to attempt for the gold in this tense competition.
Now you may be wondering, "Oh Mr. John Kettler, why is this being posted as a poll for us, the VIEWERS, to vote on? :O"
Well, since you so politely asked, I'll inform you! Unlike the previous rounds, where only the judges have chosen the winners, you, yes YOU, will choose who wins by simply going to the poll on the front page. It's really simple!
First, take a look at the two decks posted (one for Dendrobatida, and one for Slimeygrimey), and then based on the decklist's quality,as well as the creativity and card usage put into the deck, decide which cuisine reigns supreme =)
These contests really are a lot of fun, and not only improve/show off their competitors' deckbuilding skills, but also give players new ideas on just how outside of the box you have to be to really "break the format." If you want to compete in the next Iron Chef competition, then be sure to hit up the "Grinder" that'll be up in the "Deck Help and Strategy" forum. If you are a top placer in that, then you can join the hallowed ranks of Pokegym deckbuilders in the "Tournament of Champions," where first place will recieve...oh! You'll have to read the Grinder sign-up sheet for that information
But...SPEAKING of cuisine, they're cooking up some Octillery UF!!! Here are the decks that you will be judging
~~~DENDROBATIDA VS SLIMEYGRIMEY~~~
-Dendrobatida-
"UF Octillery
Unlike many of the other cards we've had this contest, in order to be of any use, Octillery has to be active, and it has to be the main attacker. That it can do well, but it has a nasty time delay on its attack that makes it trickier to use - how do you keep the opponent from breaking the lock, or, worse, just smacking your octillery around in between turns? You could paralyze with azumarill, retreat, then standby, but that negates the usefulness of octillery's pokebody. You could make use of the eeveelutions, but they're a one-shot deal short of playing super scoop up, they're ex'es, and they'd take too much diversification of energy to make them useful backup hitters (they can't use DRE, which octillery desperately needs 4 of to work). That leaves us with pure locking power. For that purpose, it's vicious...
Pokemon:
4 Remoraid (call for family)
3 Octillery (UF)
4 houndour (UF - smog)
3 Houndoom (UF)
Total: 14
Trainers:
4 Mary's Request
3 Copycat
3 TV Reporter
1 Professor Oak's research.
4 Celio's Network
4 Pokemon Reversal
4 Energy Removal 2
3 Desert Ruins
1 Championship Arena (NP)
2 Protective Orb
1 Holon Farmer
Total: 30
4 fire energy
4 water energy
4 DRE
4 Multi Energy
Total: 16
Strategy: Depends on what type of deck you might be facing. This deck's particular strength will be in a tournament setting, 30 minute match, vs. any deck that runs a stable setup basic. We're especially thrilled to see our opponent start with a plusle. In fact, if plusle is the opponent's starting basic, we're 80% to victory already. Cleffa will also work nicely. As soon as your opponent gets a bench of 2 pokemon, you're set, because your setup is an active octillery and one houndoom on the bench. Remoraid is the ideal starter, so that a call for family can get the houndour straight away. An early houndour can also disrupt with a fire or multi, and an early 'doom can both paralyze and create havok with trainer denial. Still, we want to have octillery active ASAP to lock plusle or another anemic basic. Once plusle is locked active, you wait. Assuming they called for family for 2, or have 3 pokemon in play anyway, and you have houndoom in play, there are only 8 ways to break the plusle lock without comboing multiple cards together (you could, for example, play FRLG haunter, confuse yourself, and knock yourself out....
) : Mr. Briney's Compassion, the 3 legendary birds, Umbreon -ex, Warp or Cyclone energy, and DX shiftry. In the current metagame, only three of those eight cards are played consistently, and fewer still in tournament settings where decks get more cookie-cutter. If you've successfully managed plusle lock, you can wait until time is called, then blast the plusle to kingdom come for the victory. However, that's not always going to be the best option. If facing a turn-two deck, maneuvering for a very early standby-pulseblast is the way to go. If you can take out a jirachi, that's excellent. If you can take out a medicham, that's even better. We don't worry about dark steelix - ER2 + pulse blast or Houndoom can take care of that problem. If you are concerned about other major threats, reversaling and ER2 will allow you to safely standby, and a pulse blast should take care of the problem. The key will always, if going offensive rather than disruption, be to standby safely without being status'ed or OHKO'ed. Protective orb helps there. In short: vs. slow setup - lock the plusle, pick off heavy hitters when the opportunity presents itself, bide your time for the endgame. Vs. t2 - Take the first hit after you standby, blow away whatever they're offering. Octillery's standby is actually nice with DRE, because you can't be annoyingly ER2'ed yourself by a medicham player. Thanks for the challenge and tourney - tough final card!Individual card explanations:
-3 octillery and houndoom: with 4 celios and ample draw, we should be able to get one of each out. Since we only want one of each in play to affect the lock, we're not looking to build multiple copies on our bench, and by the time we do need a second octillery, we should have another line in hand to cycle through. 4 of each basic is essential for good starts, but again, we don't need 3 remoraids on our bench...in fact, it hurts us. One less of each stage 1 will let us add a bit more tech and a bit more stability to the draw engine.
-No Steven's advice: I went TVR over steven's advice because houndoom tends to have your opponent watch their # of pokes much more carefully. If they are playing t2 or refusing to add pokes to the bench (which works great for octillery, who will just blast through whatever 2 pokes they're trying to keep around), we want to be able to draw cards. Also, in a waiting game, hand sizes can get pretty large - we don't want to be sitting on 3 useless steven's advice midgame.
-Copycat: houndoom = large hand sizes (not putting down basics, useless trainer buildup)
-POR: tech vs. decking if we're fortunate enough to lock a plusle. Rocket's admin actually helps them in this scenario. Don't want to help the opponent.
-Reversal: Lock our choice. Necessary.
-ER2: Slows down big hitters, buys time for standby.
-Ruins: Locking an -ex deck with ruins in play lets us just sit there while their EX melts away on the bench.
-Championship Arena: Midgame, when hand sizes are getting outrageous, dropping one of these can be downright nasty, particularly when you're in control of playing it. Nothing like forcing the opponent to discard 8 cards...also helps us deck the opponent, avoid him/her recovering deck size with Admin.
-Protective Orb: Anti-electric in general, zapdos in particular. If octillery can take a hit from a Zapdos, it can knock it out after the standby.
-Holon Farmer: we throw away energy....we have pokes with low HP...we run TV reporter...we're a lock deck looking to avoid decking. Yeah, we're playing farmer.
-Multi energy: Great for starting, powering houndour/doom. Only other special energy is DRE, and that takes care of our energy requirements if it shuts this little guy off.
-DRE: Essential. The holon pokemon, unfortunately, don't work, because of the pickup an energy requirement. Octillery needs the 2 energy right away, since it threw away one for standby. Thus, DRE is the only choice.
Great card to think about! I love plusle, so this deck pained me to make....vicious, though...
Thanks!
-Jake/Dendro"
-Slimeygrimey-
"Secret Ingredient: Octillery UF
Pokemon: 18
3 Octillery UF
3 Remoraid UF
2 Houndoom UF
2 Houndour UF
2 Magcargo DX1
2 Slugma DX2
4 Plusle DX
Trainers: 25
4 Celio's Network
3 Rocket's Admin.
3 Mary's Request
1 Steven's Advice
1 Holon Scientist
1 Swoop! Teleporter
4 Pokemon Reversal
4 Energy Removal 2
3 Battle Frontier
1 Desert Ruins
Energy: 17
4 Double Rainbow
7 Fire
4 Water
1 Cyclone
1 Heal
The strategy of this deck is to use Octillery's Stand By attack to charge up its Pulse Blast, then release a massive attack for 120 (or 110) on your opponent's biggest threat. This is the reason reversal is included in the deck - it allows you to bring up what needs to be ko'd. If what you want to ko is already active, that's fine, as it will be unable to retreat due to Octillery's Super Suction Cups. Houndoom helps accentuate this by preventing them from playing switching trainers such as switch or warp point. Unfortunately they will still be able to use warp or cyclone energy, but hopefully your admin and battle frontier will keep them from getting them as easily. Even if they do escape, its not a big deal, there's reversal.
The reason this deck benefits from Houndoom so greatly is that it prevents your opponent from pulling out of the active slot, it slows them down a bit (no rare candy, dual ball, pokeball, etc.), and it semi-locks a stadium in place (as long as you have a smaller bench they can't counter your stadium) You'll want to use this to keep battle frontier in play, as many decks use pidgeot. Against decks such as Medicham and ZRE, you can put down desert ruins. You don't need 4 Battle Frontier because your opponent should already have a hard enough time countering your stadiums if you play correctly.
Magcargo is very useful in that you can use it to fetch reversals or to grab one of your singles such as Desert Ruins, Cyclone Energy, or Heal Energy. It will also help you to set up faster, and it should be fairly easy to get out with 4 Celio. You may be thinking Magcargo is a bad idea since this deck wants a small bench, but you should be able to still maintain a smaller bench than your opponent if Houndoom is particularily useful in the matchup. You should have something like: Octillery active, Magcargo and Houndoom benched, and if you need to, an Octillery/Remoraid building up. That is a bench of 2-3. Most decks will play over this anyway. The decks that won't, such as ZRE and Medicham, you should still be able to do well against. You may not want Magcargo in play in the Medicham match, and you may not need another Octillery building on the bench. Houndoom also hurts these decks more than others as they play a larger number of non-supporters. Against this type of deck you should essentially be able to function well with a bench of 1. You would have Octillery active and Houndoom on the bench. If Octillery dies, Houndoom is a solid attacker.
This deck has the holon scientist as an alternative to copycat. Holon Scientist will work better with Magcargo since it is straight draw. It will likely be very effective as well, since your opponent's hand will be amassing non-supporter trainer cards. The one steven is included over a fourth mary for the times when your opponent has a large bench that you would like to take advantage of, but more might not be a good idea if your opponent is trying to keep their bench small to get around houndoom. The swoop is included to improve consistancy and to help conserve bench space. You don't want the plusle you start with to sit on your bench all game, so you could either swoop it early game to help set up, or retreat it and swoop it later game when you need to start building a new octillery. Energy Removal 2 is included for similar reasons as to why it is included in Medicham. It slows your opponent down, allowing you to do what you need to in order to ko things. ER'ing their energy can save your octillery for a turn, allowing it to use stand by to prepare for 120. The general use of this card will be to slow down your opponent's attacker when you are trying to pull off the stand by/pulse blast combo. You don't need to worry about them retreating, but Octillery's HP is rather flimsy and allowing them to get off one attack could ruin things, so you need to try to take out their energy to keep this from happening.
This deck plays no scramble as it is designed to be fast. Also, the energy requirements are not very high, but there is a lot of discarding. You might find yourself attaching a scramble when behind only to discard it with Houndoom's attack. The four Double Rainbow however, are great for powering Houndoom or Octillery, especially Octillery. Here's how it goes: attach an energy to Octillery, use stand by, discard the energy. Next turn go from 0 to 2 energy and do pulse blast for 110. This can be useful when you first bring out Octillery and haven't had the chance to really power it. Later you can get rid of the DRE for the extra 10 damage the next time you use stand by as long as you attach an energy those two turns, like so, going from where I left off above: Octillery has 1 DRE attached and has just used pulse blast for 110. Next turn, you attach an energy, use stand by, discarding the DRE. The following turn, you attach another single energy and use pulse blast for 120. Since Octillery's attack does not specify the type of energy you must discard, but Houndoom's does, I've included more fire than water energy. Double Rainbow also seems a bit more compatible with Octillery since the damage is higher and -10 isn't as big a deal, so you'll likely use it with Octillery provideing water more often than you will with Houndoom to provide fire. Also, there comes a point in the game after you've taken down a couple of things with Octillery, where speedy ko's will become more useful than waiting a turn, doing 120, waiting a turn, doing 120. When your opponent does not having anything particularily large or threatening in play, you should be trying to attack with Houndoom. The 70 damage it will deal is a smarter play in these situations than either doing 30 with Octillery, or doing 120 every second turn.
The Cyclone energy is included because it can find a use with Octillery's body in some situations. You can force your opponent to switch out of their only threat left in play that would potentially ko Octillery, to something ineffective on the offense side of things, such as pidgeot, magcargo, plusle, etc. You can then use this chance to either garner that last ko you need for the game (if that's all you need), or you can use it to take out their last remaining threat by using stand by and then trying to reversal the threat next turn for the ko. Heal energy is simply a nice card for getting out of sticky situations where that 10 damage or status condition is really getting in the way.
I hope you enjoy my deck. Also, I would like to congragulate my opponent, Dendrobatida, on such a fine job to make it this far; I would like to thank the judges as well and all of the participants in the Iron Chef: Age of Kabuto."
P.S.: as a brief reminder, audience percentages will be worth 60% of the overall score, and judge panel votes will be worth a combined 40%, so even though we keep our say, you guys ultimately decide the winner! Happy holidays!
~Patriarch