Pojo's Pokemon news, tips, strategies and more!

Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles


Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play


Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel


GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual


Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar


Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List


Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
-
Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us


Magic
Yu-Gi-Oh!
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman



Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Old Rod

EX Dragon Frontiers

 

Date Reviewed: 11.22.06

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1
Modified: 1.1
Limited: 2.5

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


Jason
Klaczynski
"Ness"
2006 World
Champion
OLD ROD
Modified:
With a 50% chance of doing something, Old Rod is a pretty weak card. One
fourth of the time you will be able to get a Pokemon back to your hand,
which is an overall mediocre (at best) effect. Two tails, however, provide
one of the very few ways of getting a trainer back to your hand. This
effect is not as good as it was in unlimited, when cards like Energy
Removal, Gust of Wind (and other broken trainers) could be used effectively
in groups. Now, the trainers that work best in groups are often coin flips.
Modified: 1.5/5

Unlimited:
If you want Pokemon back, use Pokemon Retriever. If you want trainers back,

use Item Finder. Neither will simply do nothing half the time.
Unlimited: 1/5

Limited: In limited, getting back a strong basic Pokemon can be helpful.
However, you will not have trainers in your discard often, or if you do, you

will have very few to choose from.
Limited: 2.5/5
 

Alex
"Chuck" Brosseau
5th place Worlds 2006 (Also current "best looking player")
Old Rod

Old Rod is one of the few BAD Trainers in this game. 50% Chance of a DECENT effect, and 50% NOTHING. Definately not worth it.

Unlimted: 1/5

Not worth the space

Modified: 1/5

Not worth the space, AND its shut down by Houndoom/Disconnect. DOUBLE WHAMMY!

Limited: 1.5/5

I guess any trainer is decent here. Getting back a decent attacker on 25% can be useful I s'pose.
 

William
Hung
My reviews and ratings are for Modified only.

Old Rod

Modified 1/5 - Too situational. 2 Heads = Pokemon, 2 Tails = Trainer, but 1 Head & 1 Tail = Nothing! Yep, nothing! It is the same reason why Dual Ball isn't the best choice for many decks - you can't be happy to take a 50% chance for total failure.
 

ninetales
1234

Usually, when you want to get a card out of your discard pile, it does matter what kind of card you are getting, but with Old Rod the card chooses for you, so the usefulness of this card is limited. Old Rod is just another coin-flip card and only works half the time. You have a 25% chance of getting a Pokémon, and a 25% chance of getting a trainer.

 

Advantages: -Unlike other cards, when you get a trainer, you are not restricted to getting only tools or only supporters.

-Old Rod does not dictate what kind of Pokémon you must get.

-No supporter rule.

-No conditional requirements.

 

Unlimited: Item Finder, Pokémon Retriever, plenty of cards to get stuff out of the discard pile. 1/5

 

Modified: Perhaps useful if you are indifferent to whether you want to get a trainer or a Pokémon out of the discard pile, but you will probably never be in that situation. 1.4/5

 

Limited: It is not uncommon to find yourself in a situation in which you only have one copy of a card in your deck, and you really need to get it out of your discard pile. 3/5

 

Questions/comments/corrections? E-mail: ninetales1234@hotmail.com

 
Espeon Old Rod:

Unlimited: 1/5
Much better trainers out there.

Modified: 1/5
Much better trainers out there. Unreliable.

Limited: 3/5
Unreliable, but it's still a trainer than possibly mean card advantage, but unreliable still.
 

Otaku

If you find the review is too long, skip straight to the Ratings and Summary! 

 

Name   : Old Rod

Set       : EX Dragon Frontiers

Card#   : 78/101

Rarity   : Uncommon

Type    : Trainer

Effect Text: Flip 2 coins.  If both are heads, search your discard pile for a Basic Pokémon or Evolution card, show it to your opponent, and put it into your hand.  If both are tails, search your discard pile for a Trainer card, show it to your opponent, and put it into your hand.

 

Trainers hit a low point in the Neo sets.  There were a few that were potent enough to hang with the Base Set Trainers, most were either weak or flippy.  Old Rod is an example of this latter problem.  What makes it sad is that it is so close to being a really useful card.  Old Rod has a 25% chance of being a “free” Item Finder.  It also has a 25% chance of being half a Pokémon Retriever (the half that lets you return a Pokémon to hand).  The problem is that half the time it does nothing.  I wouldn’t want the successful part to be anymore potent: that tends to lead to overpowered cards like Focus Band, even when they are “tails fails” more than a potent but “safe” card like Energy Removal 2 or Pokémon Reversal (which were thought horrid when they first came out).  Still, I think with this card needed was to get a Pokémon (as it does) on a heads/tails split, and only do nothing on double “tails” (getting a Trainer on double “heads”). A quarter of the time it’d be a waste, but as long as you had a useful Trainer in the discard, a quarter of the time it’d rock as well, and half the time you’d get something of potential value.

 

Okay, enough “what ifs”: I seriously doubt TPC’s R&D read these CotDs, so what is the practical use for the card?  Well, if it wasn’t for Holon Transceiver and the Holon’s Supporters: it may be limited to said Supporters, but Holon Transceiver isn’t flip based and can of course search your deck for a Holon’s Supporter as well. 

 

There still might be one, very small, use though.  If you discover a deck that needs a lot of a certain Trainer (and it isn’t a Holon’s Supporter), then it is the only Modified, Trainer based form of Trainer recursion you’ll find.  In the future, maybe they’ll consider creating some Trainers that are sort of the Trainer equivalent of Pokémon* and thus recycling one might be worth the effort, but realistically such cards would just cause Pokémon that can recycle Trainers via attacks to be worth trying, and even if not then Old Rod would have to remain legal.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1/5 – We have Item Finder.

 

Modified: 1.25/5 – We have the Holon Trainer engine.

 

Limited: 4/5 – With resources so limited, the only reasons even a 50% chance of recycling something doesn’t score a perfect 5/5 are the fact you may not get that many Trainers, you may not often draw into it when you have that many in the discard, and you might need the room in your deck for something more reliable and/or needed by the deck.  Old Rod, even though recycling a Pokémon is so powerful here (let alone a Trainer), would still just be optional power.

 

Summary

Good idea, poor execution, this card was from a time when TPC seemed to be unable to find a happy middle for Trainers: either they were too good or very bad.  Old Rod is probably best left on the ash heap of TCG history, remembered for three reasons: as an example of what not to do, a challenge of how to make a card or cards to combo with it an be worthwhile, or to try and inspire an updated, useful-but-balanced modernization.

 


Copyright© 1998-2006 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.