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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Deoxys 18 - Deoxys

 

Date Reviewed: 03.04.05

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1
Modified: 2.25
Limited: 3

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  5 is the highest rating.


Johnny Blaze
Deoxys 18 – This Deoxys aka Defense Form. Its Barrier Attack deals 20 and then prevents 30. Pretty straight forward here. This is best used in Limited format where –30 from an attack can be a huge saving for you to win the game next turn.

Unlimited: 1/5 – Don’t see a big impact here even with Form Change capabilities.

Modified: 2.5/5 – Could be an interesting deck idea. Definitely needs Magnetic Storm to get by Psychic resistance. Keep on switching out until you get the Deoxys that you need. Needs some backup such as Gardy/Gex to withstand the onslaught of Bigger Pokes.

Limited: 4/5 – I’m kinda biased to any Deoxys here as I was able to get a 3rd place finish by drafting all forms of 16, 17, + 18 at the pre-release that I attended. The ability to search your deck and see whats in your prizes and also get a Deoxys that you need is just so great. The only negative I can say about these Deoxys is that Amnesia totally shuts them down so make sure to have other attackers in your deck.
 
Jaeger Deoxys 18/107

Hit Points: 70HP is pretty low for something that is supposed to be one of your main attackers.

Retreat Cost: Not much to say one is pretty cheap and easily payable.

Weakness: Once again not much to say most Psychic Pokemon are weak to Psychic.

Attack 1(Barrier Attack): Two energy for twenty this attack is really weak, early game twenty damage probably won't bother them much and late game it still won't hurt them that much and even with the effect of reducing thirty damage there still a chance they can KO you.

PokePower(FormChange): The downside to this power is that you cannot switch the normal version for an EX version. The up side is that since there’s a total of 3 non-EX Deoxys you can switch between it’s like you have three attacks to choose from.

Summary: In my options this card is terrible rarely will twenty damage win you games, you could always you the attack to stall but it would probably not buy you more then a turn or two.

Unlimited: 1
Modified: 2
Limited: 2
 

Otaku

Okay, the good news is I can do today’s CotD.  The bad news is that, once again, a lot of it will be cut and pasted from the last two, due to the natural similarities between the cards and my need to conserve time.

 

Name: Deoxys

Set: EX Deoxys

Card#: 18/107

Stage: Basic

Type: Psychic

HP: 70

Weakness: Psychic

Resistance: None

Retreat: (C)

Poké-Power: Form Change

Once during your turn (before your attack), you may search your deck for another Deoxys and switch it with Deoxys.  (Any cards attached to Deoxys, damage counters, Special Conditions, and effects on it are now on the new Pokémon.)  If you do, put Deoxys on top of your deck.  Shuffle your deck afterward.  You can’t use more than 1 Form Change Poké-Power each turn.

Attack: (PC) Barrier Attack [20]

During your next turn, any damage done to Deoxys by attacks is reduced by 30 (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

 

Attributes: Deoxys is a Basic Pokémon, which is great: easy to search out (Sandstorm Dunsparce, Great Ball, etc.) and to get into play (just need an opening on your bench).  It is a Psychic Pokémon, which is good: Psychic Weakness is seen in reasonable amounts (Sandstorm Wobbuffet, Gardevoir, Gardevoir ex, and Blaziken ex spring to mind).  Resistance isn’t as common as it used to be, but it does exist.  70 HP is solid for a Basic Pokémon that doesn’t Evolve and has no Pre-Evolutions.  It’s enough to take a few blows from all but big Stage 1s and 2s (excluding Weakness).  It does have a Weakness: Psychic.  Three out of the four commonly played Psychic Weak Pokémon I listed are also Psychic, so as you can tell that’s not a great Weakness to have.   Deoxys has no Resistance, which is naturally the worst.  Finally, we have a good retreat cost of just one Energy, which is fairly easy to pay in most circumstances.

 

Abilities: Form Change is very nice.  It allows all versions of Deoxys to naturally combo, instead of them competing for deck space.  It also allows you to essentially have a vast array of attacks on a single Pokémon.  To my knowledge, the only Deoxys currently available are from EX Deoxys, and each has a single attack, but if you run at least one of each (not too terribly difficult) you’ll have three attacks to choose from via Form Change.  Very nice.

 

This is probably the best Deoxys, although that may not be saying much given my estimation of the potency of those Pokémon.  Completely on is own, this Deoxys --referred to as Deoxys (Defense) – would still be an okay opener.  Its attack and the synergy said attack has due to its reasonable cost and this card’s solid HP.  Barrier Attack needs (PC), which isn’t too hard to pay: even outside of a Psychic Energy running deck one could use Multi Energy or Rainbow Energy.  The damage is a hair low for that price: if you’ve forgotten, each (C) energy requirement should yield about 10 damage, and (CCC) is equal to (XX), where X is a specific Energy type requirement of the same type such as (PP), (FF), etc. For those bad at math, that means a single Energy type requirement would yield 15 damage.  Well, obviously we don’t see 25 damage (P+C or 10+15) for this attack since Pokémon uses even increments of 10 for damage, but at the same time we need to get what we paid for.  Well, that extra Energy usually goes into an effect.  On Deoxys, we have a very nifty effect: damage done by attacks to Deoxys next turn is reduced by 30!  Obviously, that’s a bit much to compensate 5 damage (or half a (C) Energy requirement), but then we remember that Deoxys is a Basic without any Pre-Evolutions or Evolved forms, and it works out just right.

 

I said the attack had some Synergy with the card’s other abilities, and here it is.  First, with 70 HP, it means an opposing Pokémon’s attack has to do 100 damage to KO Deoxys (assuming it just used this attack) in one hit, or 80 for two hits, 60 for three hits, etc.  Anything scoring less than 30 damage (and of course, assuming no other effect) can’t touch Deoxys.  Second, thanks to form change, you can switch Deoxys (Attack) on the next turn, add one more Energy, and probably score a quick KO against many decks.  Assuming you survive (probable against some decks that will need time to recover), you can then switch back to peck away while they build up their new attacker and try to repeat the process.

 

Uses and

Combinations: This is the Deoxys to run, probably supported by the “Attack” form.  Combined with either extra Energy attachments (common to most top decks), Energy manipulation (still pretty common to most decks), and good Pokémon manipulation (not as common, but still not rare) you can speed this up quite a bit.  For example, maybe you TecH this and one “Attack” form into a Dark Heart (Dark Dragonite/Electrode) deck.  Shift a Dark Metal Energy and play a Rainbow Energy (or if it works with your theme, run actual Psychic Energy), and you have a decent shot at opening with this first turn (and on its own Dark Electrode can have it ready for second turn.  Do I recommend this?  Probably not, but thinking this way can lead to other combo.  You can use Swoop! Teleporter to turn a Dunsparce into this for a solid opener as a more realistic example.  Energy Switch could be useful as well.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1.25/5-The Deoxys cards just aren’t that great here, and damage is too high for 30 to matter in most cases.  Might work in a Wall/Stall deck if you can avoid running into Baby Pokémon (unlikely).

 

Modified: 3.25/5-Start with it to peck at them safely early game, then switch out to the “Attack” version we reviewed on Wednesday for a surprise assault.  Not enough for their own deck, but if we can find some decent support… Pidgeot and Bellosom maybe?

 

Limited: 3.5/5-If you pull more than one Deoxys, it’s worth a 4/5.  Pulling multiple copies of this “series” of Rares was a comparatively common occurrence in this set.  Expect to see it in once in roughly every ten decks with a second or third Deoxys (usually of a different “form”).  On its own, it can just be a good opener for splashing a little Psychic into your deck.  You’ll have to worry about Special Conditions and the like more in this format, but cards like this are why you try to run those anyway. ;) If you pull this with a copy of the “Attack” version like I did, you’ll get a great boost to your deck.

 

Summary

The best of the Deoxys (excluding the Pokémon-ex versions), its still not strong enough on its own.  However, all the Deoxys are basics that need but a single Psychic Energy for their attacks (though needing one or two of any Energy to finish it off), allowing them to be added as a support line into almost any deck.

 

-Otaku

 

 


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