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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

		Magmar #42/102 HS Triumphant Date Reviewed: Nov. 22, 2010 Ratings & Reviews Summary Modified: 1.75 Limited: 2.50 Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 being the worst.  3 ... average.   5 is the highest rating. Back to the main COTD Page
Combos With:

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Magmar (Triumphant)   Hello and welcome to a short week of reviews here on Pojo’s CotD. Apparently, this is because our American readers are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. I hope you all have a great time doing whatever it is you do at this time of year: I’m not too sure, but I’ll take a wild guess that it involves plenty of eating!   We kick off the week with Magmar. It’s an evolving Basic, so we already know that its playability depends on two things: how good its evolution options are, and whether or not there are any better Magmar in the format. Before we consider that, though, let’s have a look at the card itself . . .   Well, for a start, it’s reasonably donk-proof (unless it runs into something like Machamp SF or an Expert-Belted Donphan of course), with a very nice 70 HP. Being a Fire Type is a pretty good thing at the moment, as you hit several playable Pokémon for double damage (Dialga G, Steelix, Scizor), and the Water Weakness isn’t too much to worry about. That Retreat cost of two is a bit of a concern though.   Magmar does boast a one Energy attack, which is fairly necessary for a Basic. Shame it’s not a really good one. Eruption discards the top card of both player’s deck and does 20 damage for each Energy discarded. If you get lucky (bear in mind that most competitive decks run fairly low on Energy), you could do 40 for one Energy, which is a decent return, but unlikely to get you a Prize. If you get lucky in another way, you could discard something your opponent really needs like a Double Colourless Energy or a Poke Turn. On the other hand, you could end up discarding a valuable card from your own deck and helping your opponent out by pitching a Magikarp when facing a Gyarados deck. The attack is just way too unreliable to be useful. To be honest though, it looks spectacular when compared to Magmar’s second effort. Combustion costs [R][C][C] and does 30 points of vanilla damage . . . that’s Arcanine SV levels of awfulness and needs to be avoided.   So, are there any Magmortars around that make this worth playing? I think that’s doubtful. The SV Magmortar is a possible tech option in decks that abuse Special Conditions (Leafeon Ul anyone?), but both the UL and TM versions are somewhat slow and luck-based cards that are not really suitable for competitive play. Even if that were to change, I would still stick with Magmar SV as my Basic of choice: a +20 Weakness trumps an x2 one, and it also has a lower Retreat cost and a single Energy Smokescreen attack which gives it a better chance of survival.   So, an inferior Basic of an Evolution that sees very little play. Don’t anticipate a big score here.   Rating   Modified: 1.25 (even in the unlikely event that you will play Magmortar, don’t use this Magmar) Limited: 2.25 (good HP, and the first attack is not too bad, seeing as most limited decks tend to be 50% Energy)
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! Today we are going to review one of the new Fire-type cards from the new Triumphant set, an uncommon. Today's Card of the Day is Magmar. Magmar is a Basic Fire Pokemon. Fire Pokemon aren't commonly seen in the current Modified metagame, with the exceptions of a few random Charizard decks and the very commonly used Blaziken FB. A few people will sometimes use Infernape 4, as well. Magmar has 70 HP, which is pretty good for an evolving basic, so it should be able to take a hit. Water weakness makes you Gyarados bait, along with any Kingdra or Rain Dance decks you may run into. No Resistance is the worst kind, and a Retreat Cost of 2 is pretty average, but I still probably would use something like Switch, Warp Point, Warp Energy, or something similar. Magmar has two attacks, and neither are really all that spectacular. Eruption discards the top card of each player's deck and deals 20 damage times the number of Energy discarded in this way for the bargain price of [R], but since most decks don't run very much Energy nowadays, this attack is going to be very unreliable. The second attack, Combustion, does a very expensive 30 damage for [RCC]. Way too expensive to seriously consider using. So, where would you use Magmar? In a Magmortar deck, presumably. There are currently 3 Modified-legal Magmortars: SV, Unleashed, and Triumphant. The SV Magmortar has a Poke-Power that when it comes into play it Burns and Confuses, can snipe for 30, and does an expensive 60 damage. The Unleashed Magmortar is your standard high damage/slow Fire type that we've seen over the years, being able to discard the top 3 cards of your deck and dealing 50 damage times the number of Energy discarded in this way, as well as doing 100 for 4 Energy while discarding two. Finally, the new Triumphant Magmortar can discard the top card of your opponent's deck for each Fire Energy attached to it, but has the possibility of losing them all if you flip tails. It also can deal 60 damage and auto-burn for 3. None of these seem like attractive options in the current fast paced metagame that we find ourselves in today, but who knows, maybe a Magmortar deck will be viable in the next rotation? Modified: 1/5 If you insist on using a Magmar for a Magmortar deck, I would probably recommend using the Magmar from Supreme Victors, as it has a +10 Water Weakness and a Retreat Cost of 1 instead of x2 and 2, respectively. Limited: 2.5/5 Magmar is actually pretty good here, especially with the tons of Grass types in this set. Eruption can also work really well here as this is a high Energy format, and even though Combustion is expensive, it still can be decent, especially if you are powering up to play your Magmortar anyway.
conical	11/22/10: Magmar(Triumphant)   Reviewing basics, when there's still rares to talk about? It's like Christmas!(Or rather, like Thanksgiving.)   So anyway, we have Magmar, who hasn't seen much play since its Fossil incranation. In that time, it's gotten a prevolution and an evolution, and both have seen more play than this.(Technically, Magmar would need to be played to use Magmortar, but work with me here.) Magmortar hasn't really been used since it played second fiddle on the HP-on Gardevoir tour of 2008, but new hope shines forth in the form of Magmortar TRI, not to mention the rogueish possibilities of Magmortar SV/Leafeon UD.   The most useful effects a basic can have are to either let it stay alive longer or to somehow speed up one's strategy, such as a Call for Family attack, draw, or rapid evolution. Sadly, Magmar has none of these attacks. It has Eruption, which mills slightly, and does damage depending if Energy is flipped. It's a risky attack; however, given that Magmortar TRI's goal is to mill with its attack, I feel that Magmar would be an appropriate basic.   For any other Magmortar deck, however, I'd use Magmar SV, who has a Smokescreen attack that may help it avoid damage for a few turns.   Modified: 2.75/5 Limited: 2.75/5 Combos With: Magmortar TRI