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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Simisear (B&W) So, we come to our first review of one of the new Pokémon, and we have a problem. You see, experienced players will realise that since HeartGold SoulSilver, the card designers have been pulling back on the power a fair bit, meaning that the recent Pokémon are just not as hard hitting, or as cheap, as the stuff from earlier sets. This trend continues in Black & White. That’s not a problem in Japan, where they immediately rotated to a HGSS-on format as soon as B&W was released. For the rest of the world though, this means that until we get a similar rotation, the new cards will sit uneasily alongside overpowered monsters like the SP Pokémon, Gengar SF, Gyarados SF, and Machamp SF. As a result, any almost all Pokémon from the new set are going to score pretty low when rated for the current modified format (a format they were not really designed for). Please bear this in mind when reading the ratings. Once we get HGSS-on (which I really hope we do for next season), these cards will do a whole lot better. Anyhoo, let’s start with Simisear. A Stage 1 Pokémon from the Monkey Trio. It has a low 90 HP and a double Water Weakness, so you can already see that it wouldn’t stand a chance in today’s metagame. That’s a shame really, as its first attack, Flame Burst, is actually pretty good. For only one Fire Energy, it does 20 damage to the active and 20 damage to two Benched Pokémon. That’s some nice cheap spread right there, and if spread were ever to become viable in future, this would be a decent card to get the ball rolling or to finish off weakened Pokémon for multiple Prizes. Unfortunately, while we have Garchomp C LV X, Poke Turn and the like in the format, it just won’t cut it. As for the second attack, that wouldn’t really cut it in any metagame. [C][C][C] for three coin flips, doing 40 for each heads, is just not something you would want to use. Yes, 120 damage for three Energy is good even at the moment, but your average damage output of 60 for three just isn’t, and getting zero or one heads on this attack would spell disaster. Smart player need consistent, reliable damage because that’s what wins games. Attacks like Fury Swipes are only for use when in desperation mode, and that’s no reason to use a card. So . . . no real use for the moment with Simisear, but give it time and you may see it should spread ever make a comeback. Rating Modified: 2 (really nice first attack . . . in a different format) Limited: 4 (spread damage is a very viable tactic here, and there’s a lot of Grass in the set too)
virusyosh	Happy midweek, Pojo! Today we continue our Black and White reviews by reviewing a Pokemon that comes in the newly-released Red Frenzy Theme Deck. It should also look pretty familiar to anyone that has gotten through most of the Black and White video games. Today's Card of the Day is Simisear. Simisear is a Stage 1 Fire Pokemon. Fire Pokemon have a pretty good presence in Modified right now, with Charizard/Typhlosion and Blaziken FB being somewhat popular, and this popularity should only grow with the release of Emboar and Reshiram from Black and White. 90 HP is decent for a Stage 1, but still could afford to be a bit higher. Water Weakness is unsurprising, as is no Resistance. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 1 is totally payable if you find yourself in a position to pay it. Simisear has two attacks: Flame Burst and Fury Swipes. Flame Burst does 20 damage for the low cost of [R], and also deals 20 damage to two of your opponent's Benched Pokemon. There are probably better spread effects available in Modified, but in Limited, this attack is excellent for its cost, and will probably be able to net you a KO or two in a few turns. As for the other attack, Fury Swipes makes you flip three coins and does 40 damage times the number of heads for [CCC]. This attack is way too unreliable for its cost in Modified, but it may see use in Limited if you feel that you can net a few KOs with it or if you run out of things to Flame Burst. Modified: 1.75/5 The spread effect of Flame Burst could be pretty good here, only Simisear's HP lets it down and doesn't really have anything notable to combo with. Fury Swipes is also basically unusable, and there are generally better options for Fire-type Pokemon. Limited: 3/5 Flame Burst is excellent here, and Fury Swipes is at least usable if you can stock up the Energy for it. Even still, 90 HP isn't that much, so don't expect Simisear to swing for the fences for the entire match.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Simisear (Black & White)   Today we have our first Poke'mon review for B&W, and it seems to be some weird fire-juggling monkey. Will this be one of the new Poke'mon to fear?   The vital statistics: Simisear is a Fire type non-evolving Stage 1 with 90 HP, Water weakness, a retreat cost of 1 and 2 attacks. The 90 HP is the main concern, with Simisear being an easy 2HKO for all of the popular single energy attacks you'll run up against and the Water weakness makes both Gyarados and Kingdra a nightmare. Any heavier attacks will just roll right over the poor clown you don't want to invest much in the way of resources to get Simisear out and powered up.   Let's see the attacks. Flame Burst is the first attack and for the cost of [r] you deal 20 damage to the Defending Poke'mon and 2 of the opponent's Benched Poke'mon. This is definitely good value for money (or energy) but unless you run a lot of Cherrim SF on your own Bench, you aren't going to be able to deal a lot of damage to the Defending Poke'mon when you need it.   Fury Swipes is the second attack, and it has the heavy damage covered. For the relatively high cost of [c][c][c] you get to flip 3 coins and deal 40 damage per Heads result to the Defending Poke'mon. While Fury Swipes delivers the needed firepower with an optimum damage of 120 (before applying bonuses) the fact that you have to flip for it (which has been the case with every Fury Swipes attack in the history of the TCG) kills the consistency (a 12.5% chance of getting the maximum damage isn't good enough and dealing less than 120 will leave to many Poke'mon damaged but very much able to fight). So this attack gets the gong and Simisear goes from being a good prospect to being prerelease fodder.   On that note, Simisear is brilliant at prerelease and draft events where Flame Burst can quickly stack on the damage as well as finish of a damaged Poke'mon that got away while Fury Swipes becomes worth the investment with an even chance of dealing 80 or more damage (for an all-Colourless attack that is a high number). The Uncommon rarity means you will have decent odds of drafting more than one line of Pansear and Simisear so you can get this little monkey out relatively quickly to dominate the game. Unless your opponent pulled a lot of Panpour and Simipour cards, in which case you are deep in the ca-ca.   In the end, the low health coupled with the flippy second attack makes Simisear nothing more than set filler. It's pretty and new players can make good use of it while they are building up their collection but competitive players won't use the poor monkey anywhere except the prerelease.   Modified: 2.5 (Make the second attack cost [r][r][c] with [r] discard for 60 to 2 Poke'mon and boost the HP to 110. Then Simisear wouldn't get laughed and CharPhlosion would have a potential replacement main attacker when the rotation comes around)   Limited: 4 (The HP is not such a problem here, and the spread from Flame Burst is pure gold, especially if you can run a swarm of Simisear and/or Emboar)   Combos with: those other 2 weird monkeys that came out in Black & White. I'm not saying you should actually play them, but they look nice together in the binder.
conical	4/13/11: Simisear(Black & White)   Yay, it's the new Pokemon that I know relatively little about! I probably should play B/W eventually...   Simisear brings up a question that has been discussed to a degree: do certain types favor certain strategies? Personally, while I don't think there's a set strategy, like in Magic, I do think that some types definitely lean towards certain strategies.   Why does Simisear bring up this question? Well, if you ignore the second attack, which is a decent backup attack but probably shouldn't be the main feature of a card, you'll likely notice the first attack, which looks to be a fairly decent spread attack. The problem, in my opinion, is that this card probably needs something else to back it up to spread more damage, and unfortunately, Fire doesn't have many spread cards. In fact, Fire may be the least supported type for spread. I haven't looked it up, but I'd guess that Psychic and Water have plenty of options for spread. As for everything else, well...Fighting had Dark Tyranitar and Earthquake variants that cause damage to both benches, Lightning has decent options, from Manectric PL to Electivire TRI, Metal has various Bronzongs, Colorless has, like, everything, and Dark has more Tyranitars. The only type with less spread support would probably be Grass.   Don't get me wrong, Fire has options, and personally, I think a Simisear/Infernape 4, if built well, should manage to at least not embarrass itself. Otherwise, though, I don't see this guy getting much play.   Modified: 3/5 Limited: 3.5/5 Combos With: Infernape 4