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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Plusle  #39

Dark Explorers

Date Reviewed: July 5, 2012

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 2.25
Limited: 4.25

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

We finish off this short week with two cards that are very often linked together for obvious reasons. It’s a bit strange reviewing them separately, but then I guess reviewing Pokémon cards is a bit of a strange job anyway . . .

Plusle is a Lightning Type unevolving Basic who is pretty adorable if you can look past the fact that he looks suspiciously like a Pikachu remake. With only 60 HP, Fighting Weakness, and a Retreat cost of one, there is nothing in this card’s stats that would jump out at you and demand to be played. In fact so far it is looking a bit like an easy Prize for your opponent.

Plusle’s first attack is his main attraction. The second attack, Positive Ion, gives you a cheap 20-30 damage, but really you would only play this card for Tag Draw. Tag Draw costs just one Energy of any Colour, it doesn’t do any damage, but it does let you shuffle your hand into your deck and draw a fresh hand of four cards. So far, so meh . . . it’s just a bad Cleffa really . . . but the real good stuff happens when you happen to have Minun on your Bench. Now you shuffle your hand in and draw EIGHT cards. That’s huge and actually much better than Cleffa. What’s more, it won’t stay asleep at awkward times either.

Of course Cleffa will soon be leaving the format, along with our most popular shuffle-draw cards like Professor Oak’s New Theory and Copycat. This could create a niche for the Plusle/Minun combination as a means of setting up. The obvious drawback is that you need two Basics out on the Field to pull it off and, given that Pokémon Collector and Dual Ball are also going out of rotation, players are more likely to prefer Call for Family Basics like Elgyem or the forthcoming Emolga for decks that can afford to spend a turn or two on set up.

I wouldn’t discount Plusle totally though. There may well be decks which emerge in the new format that will benefit from the hand refresh. It’s certainly something you should bear in mind when deckbuilding, though I suspect that the deckspace the combo requires will put a lot of players off.

Rating

Modified: 2.25 (slightly gimmicky, but who knows? Some deck may depend on it in the future)

Limited: 4.25 (I will take any kind of draw/refresh I can get my hands on in Limited)


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