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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Drapion (Triumphant)   Hello, and welcome to another Triumphant week on Pojo’s CotD, in which we start to work our way through some of the rares.   We kick off the week with Drapion: one of those Pokémon which probably falls into the category of ‘too ugly to be really good’.   One thing Drapion has got going for it is being a Dark type. Boosting your attack with Special Dark Energy is always fun, as is being able to hit the ever-popular Gengar for Weakness (while praying that you can avoid the Fainting Spell flip). Attacking is definitely something that Drapion needs to do, as 100 HP and Fighting Weakness mean that you can’t really rely on it to hang around for very long. Psychic Resistance is very useful though (most decks will have a Psychic attacker of some kind, even if it’s just Uxie and/or the Level X). Finally, a Retreat cost of three is horrible. If this thing is active, that’s where it’s staying.   So, on to the attacks. Unfortunately they are both very expensive. Toxic Fang does give you a coin flip for double Poison damage, but for a cost of [D][C][C] and with a base damage of just 40. Add another Dark Energy to that cost and you get Land Crush, a vanilla attack that just does a straight 80 damage.   It’s not really the damage output that is the real problem, though: it’s the cost, coupled with Drapion’s vulnerability. Even with Double Colourless it will take 2-3 turns to get going and that’s more than enough time for your opponent to come up with an answer to it. Then once it’s gone, so has a large Energy investment, especially if you have used those precious Special Darks.   Recently, there has been a slight upsurge in interest in Drapion decks, centering around Drapion SF’s ability to lock the Defending Pokémon active (for no Energy!), and the LV X’s Triple-Poison inflicting PokePower. This new Drapion does nothing for that deck, however, and is inferior to the older version in almost every way possible (HP, Weakness, attacks . . . ). I can’t see Drapion TM getting any play at all, I’m afraid, even if people are looking at the LV X once more.   Rating   Modified: 1.25 (if you use this, you’re using the wrong Drapion) Limited: 2 (still slow and expensive)   Fun fact   This Drapion resists Psychic, while the SF one is Weak to it . . . yet they are both Dark. Huh? What’s going on? (I’d understand if one was a Grass (= Bug) type).
virusyosh	Welcome back Pojo viewers to another week of Triumphant reviews! We are going to kick the week off by reviewing one of the new holographic rares in the set, Drapion. Drapion is a Stage 1 Darkness-type Pokemon. Dark types see some play, with Spiritomb AR being rather popular, as well as the occasional Tyranitar Prime deck. Additionally, Dark types can make great use of Special Darkness Energy to increase their damage output, and Drapion is no different. 100 HP for a Stage 1 is really good, but still may be a bit too low given the nature of some common attackers (Gyarados and Machamp come to mind). Fighting weakness makes your matchups against Donphan, Machamp, and Promo Toxicroak G even worse. Psychic Resistance is great against Gengar, the pixies, and whatever other Psychics you may run into on a regular basis. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 3 is terrible, so try switching Drapion using something like Switch, Warp Point, or Warp Energy. Drapion has no abilities, but two attacks. The first attack, Toxic Fang, does 40 damage for [DCC] and can badly poison (remove 2 damage counters in between turns) on a coin flip. Badly poisoning the opponent is potentially good, but since most decks have very easy ways of switching around all of their Pokemon (free retreat costs, Unown Q, even the random Flygon RR or Metagross UL), the special condition isn't quite as good as it could be. For this attack's Energy cost, I can't help but think that the Poison condition should have also been automatic. Finally, 40 damage for 3 energy is quite bad in this format, as the damage is disappointing and the attack is slow, even with Double Colorless Energy. The second attack, Land Crush, does a vanilla 80 damage for [DDCC]. Can be potentially increased with Double Colorless Energy, but if you're insisting on using a Dark type with an expensive attack, use Tyranitar Prime instead. It has more HP and can deal a lot more damage. Modified: 1.5/5 Drapion's attacks cost too much for what they do. If you want to base a deck around Poison, try running something like Victreebel (from this set) or even Crobat Prime. If you want a very powerful Dark-type heavy hitter, use Tyranitar Prime instead. Limited: 3/5 Pretty good here, actually. Badly poisoning the opponent in a format where retreating can be difficult is great, and Land Crush's vanilla 80 is much better than many of the flip attacks that are generally common in the Limited Format. However, Drapion is really slow, so it may have to sit on your bench for a while or take a few hits before it can really start dishing out damage.
conical	11/15/10: Drapion(Triumphant) My apologies, this is going to be a short review for Drapion today, if you liked to read my longer, more rambling reviews. Today, we have Drapion, a Pokemon who has never had much hype, despite having a Level X; however, I believe that Drapion/Vileplume had a small following during Battle Roads. As for this card, Land Crush is overpriced, though I suppose some Special Darks could fix its damage output some. Toxic Fang is more interesting; it does 40, plus 20 for poison damage at the end of your turn. It's useful, but at the same time, Drapion X has 30 poison damage between turns for a Power, and even barring the possibility that Toxic Fang and Tri Poison somehow stack, the problem lies moreso in keeping the defending Pokemon in the active slot for poison damage to be relevant. On that note, Drapion SF has an energyless attack that is guaranteed to keep the Defending Pokemon from retreating, barring Warp Point/Warp Energy shenanigans. So if I were to build Drapion/Vileplume, I'd probably use it. I will give this card this: it has cooler art than Drapion SF. They're both weird-looking scorpions, however. Due to the brevity of today's review, I'm feeling pretty generous with the ratings. Therefore: Modified: 2.25/5 Limited: 3/5
Otaku	We come to our third week of HS – Triumphant cards.  We kick things off with Scorponok Megazarak Drapion!  That’s right: it isn’t a Pokémon Prime but I am still making with the Transformers references.  In the video games, Drapion is a Dark/Poison Pokémon.  This version is just a Darkness-Type, and quite frankly if you have to choose that is the winner: while Weakness isn’t huge you have to love the ability to pump damage and power attacks with Darkness Energy (Special Energy version).   Drapion is a Stage 1 Pokémon that Evolves from Skorupi.  There have been four Skorupi made with three remaining Modified legal.  Unfortunately, none are Darkness-Type since Skorupi is a Poison/Bug.  You can pick between one Grass (from Bug) and two Psychic (from modern Poison grouping) versions.  The Stormfront version is the Grass-Type that has 60 HP, Psychic Weakness +10, a Retreat Cost of two, and for (C) hits for 10 while blocking the Defending Pokémon from retreating or for (CG) hits for 20 and depending on the coin toss, inflicts Paralysis (“heads”) or Poison (“Tails).  The Supreme Victors version is Psychic and has only 50 HP, the same HP and Retreat Cost with two incredibly overpriced attacks: Poison Sting for (PC) and only doing 1 damage with Poison on a coin toss and Tail Smash for (PCC) to do 40 damage but requiring a successful coin toss to do anything.  The newest version is also a Psychic-Type, with 60 HP, Psychic Weakness x2, a single Energy Retreat Cost and a very iffy attack: for (CC) Paralyzing Clamp requires a coin toss to work, but when it does work it does 30 points of damage and inflicts Paralysis.  Makes you miss the Diamond and Pearl version that is no longer legal: 60 HP, Psychic Weakness +10, two to retreat, (P) for a coin toss to inflict Poison, but for (CC) you get four coin flips and 10 points of damage per “heads”.  No version has Resistance, and in the end I would go with the Stormfront version to have the best HP/Weakness combination and pack Call Energy if you think you’ll need to attack.   Getting back to Drapion itself, it has a solid 100 HP for a Stage 1 Pokémon.  This is marred by Fighting Weakness: while not the worst, Fighting Weakness is problematic due to the periodic strong Fighting-Type decks and strong Fighting TecH available.  You do get to enjoy Psychic Weakness -20, but again the bottom stats prove scary as you are saddled with a hefty three Energy Retreat Cost.   Drapion has two attacks.  The first is Toxic Fang: for (DCC) you hit for 40 and on a successful coin toss you “double Poison” the Defending Pokémon, that is you place two damage counters on it between turns instead of one.  It is good the attack can use Double Colorless Energy, but I’d rather the attack hit for less damage and required less Energy – either a single Darkness Energy or the two Colorless requirements – so that you could attack the instant you can evolve into it.  I’d also rather it didn’t need a flip, again even if it did much less damage: the attack doesn’t have the raw damage it needs for the Energy going into it anyway, and ultimately feels too weak by current standards.  The second attack, Land Crush, requires an elephantine four Energy at (DDCC).  Again, it is good that you can use Double Colorless Energy for some speed, but it hits for a flat 80 which is disappointing.   There is only one other Modified legal “plain” Drapion, from Stormfront.  I enjoys 110 HP and Psychic Weakness +20, but with the same Retreat Cost and no Resistance.  What makes me like it better is that it also has three attacks: for no Energy you can use Scorpion Grapple to hit for 10 points of damage and either Paralyze or block the retreat of the Defending Pokémon (“heads” or “tails” on a coin toss, respectively).  For (CC), the price of a Double Colorless Energy, you can flip four coins and do 20 points of damage for each heads, plus score Poison if you get at least two heads.  For (DDC) you can hit for a reliable 60 points of damage while discarding all Special Energy from the Defending Pokémon.  All Special Energy, not just one!   Can the Level X option save this version?  You lose your Psychic Resistance but gain 30 HP.  However, you also gain a spiffy Poké-Power (Tri-Poison) that gives you a coin toss to inflict triple Poison on the Defending Pokémon.  That’s three damage counters between turns!  You also gain Sniping Tail, which does 40 damage to one of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon (so no Weakness/Resistance/most other modifying effects for damage) and blocks the Defending Pokémon retreating, but it needs (DDCC), same as Land Crush.  It is nice that the Triumphant version would provide a solid attack to slug the Defending Pokémon with, and as long as you weren’t stuck with only enough Energy for Toxic Fang, you could use it only when Tri-Poison failed so that it’d take two failed coin tosses to avoid an enhanced Poison status.  Ultimately, I think I’d rather use the Stormfront version: it just gives you more options.  Both versions have to be careful if Tri-Poison is successful, so they don’t help the opponent out by dropping it down to a lesser Poison status.  Tri-Poison with Derail looks kind of sweet, though: shred all Special Energies while hitting for at least 60 points of base damage and enjoying at least another three damage counters placed on the Defending Pokémon between turns.  If they are stranded, you could snipe the Bench with Sniping Tail and the accumulated damage from your previous Tri-Poison/Derail should be enough to take out just about anything.  60 points of damage + 3 x 3 damage counters = 150 total damage!   At least this version looks better than the first Drapion we got in Diamond and Pearl.  That version was Psychic and had worse attacks.  This Drapion is also a solid choice for Limited play.  Special Conditions are nasty in this format, and a solid 80 strike will KO probably half of what you’ll face (Basics and small/injured Evolutions).   Ratings   Modified: 2/5 – While you can build a solid deck with this version, any such deck would be better with the Stormfront version.   Limited: 3/5 – If you pull multiple Drapion and Skorupi (or other Darkness-Type Pokémon), go ahead and run it.  If you didn’t, then skip it: the restrictions of this format bump it from sub-par to “good”, but not to “great”.   I am still selling my former collectables on eBay.  I’ve had a lot of hobbies over the years, so at various times I’ll have comic books, manga, action figures, and video games on the auction block.  You can take a look at what’s up for bids here.  Just a reminder, Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions and was merely kind enough to let me mention the auctions here. ;)