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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Burned Tower (Undaunted)   After yesterday’s silliness, it’s back to the serious business of Pokémon with this new Stadium card from Undaunted.   Burned Tower has quite a lot of text but a pretty simple effect. When it is in play, you and your opponent can flip a coin and, if heads, retrieve a Basic Energy from the Discard pile.  If this card had come out in the previous format, I would have immediately dismissed it as worthless. Now that we have lost Roseanne’s Research and Night Maintenance, however, most (non-SP) decks are having to do without their primary method of searching out Basic Energy and getting it out of the discard pile. Burned Tower can, in effect, do both.   Does this elevate it into the realms of the playable though? Well, there are serious issues to consider. Firstly, Burned Tower is flippy, so you cannot always rely on it to do the business for you when you need it. Secondly, it can be of great benefit to your opponent, especially if they flip heads more often than you. The most important thing holding this card back, though, is the stiff competition it faces from other Stadium cards. For Stage 1 and Stage 2 decks, it would be very difficult to play this over Broken Time-Space, which speeds up those decks considerably. Most Basic decks don’t play stadiums, but those that do will almost certainly prefer cards like Galactic HQ or Snowpoint Temple. Then there are those decks that make great use of niche, specialised Stadiums like Sunnyshore Gym, Conductive Quarry, or Stark Mountain.   In the end, Burned Tower does something quite useful, but it is just not useful enough to justify it’s inclusion over other cards. If you are running a deck that discards a lot and suffers Energy droughts, you may want to give it a try, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before you go running back to Broken Time-Space.   Rating   Modified: 1.75 (not good enough to make the cut) Limited: 2.25 (most limited decks are 50% energy anyway, so getting it back is not really a priority)   Combos with . . .   Cards that enjoy wasting Energy . . . Lugia Legend anyone?
virusyosh	Happy Friday, everyone! Today's Card of the Day is a Stadium card from the new HS Undaunted set, Burned Tower. Burned Tower has a fairly simple effect: Once during each player's turn, that player can flip a coin. If heads, they get to search their discard pile for a basic Energy card and put it into their hand. This card functions as a more general form of Conductive Quarry, which sees play in many Lightning decks focused around discarding energy (like decks based around Raichu, for example). Burned Tower takes this a step further and will work for any type of basic Energy, however this also means that your opponent will be able to flip to get Energy back as well. Given how few basic Energy are run in decks nowadays, this card may be good to run in order to get those basic Energies back, as well as being run as a "counter-stadium" to get rid of any problem Stadiums your opponent plays. However, most decks are generally efficient enough without this sort of recursion, and can probably go on without it. Modified: 2.5/5 Yes it's flippy, but Burned Tower is generally pretty good at what it does. If you have a deck that is based around basic Energy, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put a few of these into the deck as long as you have the deck space. Limited: 3/5 Stadiums are pretty much always good in Limited unless they have a really terrible effect, and Burned Tower is definitely usable. Since you are more likely to be playing many strange lines and different types during Limited, using Burned Tower to get a certain type of Energy back from out of the discard pile is really nice. Plus it's a fairly decent Trainer/Supporter/Stadium, why wouldn't you run it in Limited? Have a great weekend! Jeff / virusyosh
Otaku	We commemorate Friday, that day of feeling burned out and yet reinvigorated with the upcoming weekend by reviewing Burned Tower, a Stadium card that can re-energize your hand.  The effect specifically states that once per turn, either player may flip a coin and if heads, add a basic Energy card back to their hand from their discard pile.  Besides the name and mild wording change, this card seems identical to Energy Stadium from way back in Neo Destiny.  That saw a little bit of play, but was usually overshadowed by something better.  I get the feeling that is what will happen to Burned Tower as well, unless they release some cards that specifically reference it.  Getting an Energy card back from the discard pile, even if it can only be a Basic Energy card, is a small benefit for most decks and a good deal for others.  Working roughly just half the time isn’t so great, though, and since it is for both players the fact that it can work in just about any deck probably hurts more than it helps; how paradoxical.  What decks can really use this card?  Honestly, I’d say decks that have a high discard cost… from hand!  In such decks, it basically becomes a coin toss to eliminate the discard for an effect.  If your opponent doesn’t play a card that sabotages your hand, you can try and build up some extra Energy over a few turns (also true for general use) and that can take the sting out of flipping tails: if you aren’t discarding every turn, the build-up means you’re still ahead.  If your opponent is messing with your hand, even with the annoying 50% chance of failure, you might be better off fetching Energy from the discard or using them to create a buffer between the discarding effect and more valuable cards in your hand.  Unfortunately in all cases, you still can be ruined by luck, and of course if you are relying on a lot of shuffle and draw Trainers, you’ll have to be careful with timing to avoid shuffling a bunch of Basic Energy cards back into your deck… where for most players they’d effectively be dead draws as you can only play one Basic Energy per turn, and so two in hand means one dead card for the turn.  Another use for this card is universal to all Stadiums: the filler Stadium.  Given the high amount of Special Energy cards most decks run, this might be a good option for taking out other Stadium cards.  There are currently 13 other candidates (Stadium cards) you could run, plus a few non-Stadium cards that can get rid of Stadiums.  Burned Tower can help your opponent, but just as it can only do so much for you, it probably does no more for them; possibly less again because Special Energy usage is so high right now and your deck can be tailored to use a little less and a little more Basic Energy.  Odds are that one of the other Stadiums will work better: either you’ll have a deck that can benefit from the more specific abilities of other Stadiums, or you’ll find something with even less of an impact on the game.  It depends on if you’d rather risk your Stadium being dead weight or that luck may favor your opponent and your Stadium helps said opponent more than you.  I’ll end with the usual summation of the card in Limited play.  Like so many cards, the lack of other options greatly boosts the usefulness of Burned Tower.  The fundamentals of “Stadium Control” can matter much more (though it is less likely a problem with this set).  The specific effect reclaiming basic Energy from the discard is huge, though: most of the time a good Limited deck is forced to run at least three types of Pokémon.  Even if you manage to run cards with mostly Colorless attacks (or even all Colorless attacks), said Pokémon will simply have better moves available if you can attach the right Energy.  This can allow you to run less Basic Energy, leaving room for other cards, or it can allow you to more safely run the different Energy types you need to maximize your Limited deck.  This can save you from being stuck without the needed Energy type because you were forced to use it all up earlier, or at least take the sting out of Retreating (which is a much more important maneuver in Limited play).  Here, the only thing really hurting the card’s play is the potential for it to backfire and help an opponent with a poor build or luck win.  Ratings  Modified: 2/5  Limited: 3.5/5  Combos with: Ninetales (HGSS, 20/96) as a representative of “filling discard requirements”.  It could allow you to run less Fire Energy if you were splashing Ninetales in another deck, I suppose.  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.  I usually add new stuff on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Just a reminder, Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions and was merely kind enough to let me mention the auctions here. ;)