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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Duosion #56

Black & White

Date Reviewed: June 13, 2011

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 1.25
Limited: 1.37

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


Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

Duosion #56/114 (Black and White)

Hello and welcome to another week of ploughing through Black and White here on Pojo’s Cotd.

We kick off the week with Duosion. It’s an evolving Stage 1 and, yes that means you won’t want to have it active: it’s basically just how you get to Reuniclus without using Rare Candy. In fact, you wouldn’t ever want to have Reuniclus is the active slot: it’s used for its Ability only (assuming you can find a worthwhile use for it) – the attack and HP are just embarrassingly bad.

And it’s pretty much the same deal with this Stage 1. Horrible low 60 HP is combined with an attack, Recover, that heals all damage at the cost of discarding an Energy. I’m sorry, but pretty much every deck in the format isn’t going to give it a chance to use that attack. As for Rollout . . . 30 points of effectless damage for [P][C] on a 60 HP Stage 1? Not today, thank you.

All of which means that Duosion is actually worse than most evolving Stage 1s. If you’re lucky, it won’t ever matter . . . you’ll either use Rare Candy or have this sitting on the Bench for a turn while you wait for Reuniclus. Is Reuinclus worth waiting for? In my opinion, its Damage Swap Ability is one of those things that looks interesting in a combolicious way, but ends up being not worth the effort due to the speed and heavy-hitting in the format. It’s a bit of a shame really, as the whole evolution line is kind of cute . . . in a very odd way.

Rating

Modified (HGSS-on): 1.25 (the only reason it doesn’t score 1 is that it can evolve)

Limited: 1.25 (even in Limited, its HP will be laughed at by the other Pokémon)


Otaku

Duosion is a Stage 1 Psychic-Type Pokémon, capable of Evolving into Reuniclus. Let’s take a closer look to see if it has any merit in and of itself. As a Stage 1 Pokémon, it is faster than a Stage 2 Pokémon, but one would it to intentionally not be as powerful as a Stage 1 that couldn’t Evolve since that make the latter completely irrelevant to the game. It might get skipped in favor of Rare Candy, especially when Broken Time Space rotates out. In the MD-On version of Modified, support for Psychic-Type Pokémon is limited to Azelf Lv.X (Legends Awakened, 140/146) to neutralize Weakness on your Psychic-Type Pokémon and Miasma Valley, which places two damage counters on Basic Pokémon that are not Psychic-Types when you Bench them from your hand, though the latter also applies to Grass-Type Basic Pokémon as well.

There is actually more support for Psychic Energy than Psychic Pokémon themselves: Gardevoir (Platinum, 8/127) can move Psychic-Type Energy from your Benched Pokémon to your Active, Jirachi (Unleashed, 1/95) gets to flip three coins when Benched from hand and attach a Psychic Energy to itself for each “heads”, Metagross Unleashed, 4/95) zeroes out the Retreat Cost of an Active Pokémon with a Psychic-Type Energy attached, Mismagius (Unleashed 5/95) which lets you move a Psychic-Type Energy attached to one of your Pokémon to another of your Pokémon once per turn, Roserade (Unleashed, 23/95) Poisons the your opponent’s Defending Pokémon when a Psychic-Type Energy is attached to it from your hand, and Vileplume (Legends Awakened, 45/146) similarly Poisons your opponent’s Defending Pokémon when you attach a Psychic-Type Energy card to it from your hand. In either case, things drop off once the card pool shifts to HeartGold SoulSilver and later sets: no direct Psychic-Type Pokémon support and Psychic-Type Energy support loses Gardevoir and Vileplume.

Duosion has a mere 60 HP, making it easy to OHKO for pretty much any main attacker not using a back-up attack… and sometimes still being KO’d by such attacks or even supporting Pokémon normally not used for attacking. I generally prefer Stage 1 Pokémon clock in at about 100 HP, though as a transitory Stage it could get by with 90; either way this falls far short. At least this makes the Weakness almost meaningless: Psychic Pokémon often attack with alternate strategies (Special Conditions, damage counter placement, etc.) and most that do use brute force attacks will OHKO it regardless of the Weakness. It will matter, but very, very rarely. The lack of Resistance is disappointing since it might have provided a single match-up where Duosion wasn’t begging to be OHKO’d so easily. The single Energy Retreat Cost is easy to pay but given how terrible the rest of the stats are, you’d think it could have gotten a free Retreat Cost instead.

So what can it do? Duosion has two attacks, Recover for (C) and Rollout for (PC). With Recover, it can flush away all damage on itself by discarding an Energy. Too bad it has to survive to use this, and as it is your attack not only is your opponent free to whack you again, but with another turn of building he or she is probably within OHKO range by that point! Rollout can only hit for 30 damage; base don the raw Energy invested that’s five extra but… it’s the only offensive attack on the card and this is a Stage 1: even when they can Evolve into a Stage 2 they deserve a bit of a bonus over, say a Basic that Evolves twice. I guess Solosis is worse: a Basic Pokémon that clocks in at the minimal HP score of 30 (no plain Pokémon has had less) and in order for its attacks to be fairly priced all Psychic Energy requirements need to be Colorless. Of course, even if that were true it’d need even more to compensate its horrible HP. With all this taken into consideration, clearly the assumption is that Reuniclus is incredibly powerful and needs such weak lower Stages to balance it out.

If you remember my Reuniclus review, I wasn’t so sure that it was all that great. I’ve seen some mean looking decks using it, but ultimately they were still stall decks and thus will naturally have a hard time with Organized Play and the time limits imposed on matches. Even in Limited play I’d avoid it: Solosis is begging to give up a Prize and even if you get this out, you’d have to constantly use Recover to avoid being KO’d… which means you’re just wasting Energy and giving your opponent time to build something that can OHKO Duosion. Only run this if you also got Reuniclus (who is amazing in this format like most potent cards).

Ratings


Modified (Current):
1.25/5

Modified (HGSS-On):
1.5/5

Limited:
1/5 – Bump to 4/5 if you got Reuniclus.

Summary

Reuniclus has a great power, but this is one of the few times I think you need to just take your chances with Rare Candy. Devolution effects are that common and your odds of surviving that are probably better than your odds of keeping a Duosion alive to Evolve a turn later.

Just a reminder, please check out my ebay auctions, but remember that Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions.

Mad Mattezhion
 Professor Bathurst League Australia
Duosion (Black & White)
 
Just a quick review today, Duosion has so few redeeming characteristics that you may as well ignore it.
 
The stats: Duosion is a Psychic type evolving Stage 1 with 60 HP, Psychic weakness, a retreat cost of 1 and two attacks.
 
I look at that HP and think to myself that the designers must really hate this Poke'mon. Then I look at the next stage up (Reuniclus) and know that the designers reeeeeally don't like the cutesy split-brained ball of goop. Poor Duosion.
 
With that HP the rest of the stats are pretty much irrelevant since any turn Duosion spends in the Active slot will usually be its last. With no support for Psychic Poke'mon in the current card pool Duosion is up the creek without a paddle (the support for Psychic energy doesn't really help because no sane player will attach any energy to Duosion).
 
The first attack is one of the greatest jokes in Poke'mon. At a cost of [p] with a [p] discard, Recover will heal Duosion to back to its maximum HP. Which is hilarious because Duosion will amost always suffer an OHKO with no chance to heal.
 
Forget the second attack, attaching 2 energy to this travesty is just plain crazy.
 
End result? A goofy looking face for the greatest clown in the game. Sorry Mr Mime, your reign is over, steal back the crown with the next version they release.
 
Modified: 1 (a better justifcation for Rare Candy has never been printed)
 
Limited: 1 (don't even consider it, Reuniclus isn't worth the effort)
 
Combos with: a complete lack of respect


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