Pojo's Pokemon news, tips, strategies and more!

 

Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles


Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play


Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel


GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual


Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar


Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List


Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
-
Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us


Magic
Yu-Gi-Oh!
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman



Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Vespiquen  

- Plasma Storm

Date Reviewed:
April 1, 2013

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 1.50
Limited: 2.75

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: See Below

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

Vespiquen (Plasma Storm) 

Hello and welcome to another week of Plasma Storm reviews here on Pojo’s CotD. We kick off the week with a look at Vespiquen, which appears to be a kind of queen bee/flying beehive combination thing: weird, even by Pokémon standards. 

Vespiquen is a Stage 1 Grass Type with just 100 HP. Certainly nothing to recommend her to players there, although the Fire Weakness isn’t much of a problem and the retreat cost of one is fine. Basically, she will need some pretty spectacular effects if she wants to see some play. What we get instead is a couple of quite strange attacks that look as if they should be part of some kind of combo deck . . .  

The first, Gather Order costs just a single Grass Energy. It doesn’t do any damage, but it does allow you to search your deck for as many Combee as you like and Bench them. Would you actually want a bunch of Combee on your Bench that badly? They only have 30 HP and their attack is little more than a novelty: 30 damage for one Energy, and you shuffle it back into your deck. I suppose the idea is that you use Vespiquen to keep filling your Bench with a never-ending swarm of Combee which you use to take slow and drawn out KOs against 180 Hp EX Pokemon. I think we all know that’s not a very realistic scenario and any attempt to try it will just result in your deck of low HP Pokémon being overwhelmed very quickly. Vespiquen does have an offensive attack of her own. For a Grass and a Colourless, Damage Beat does 20 damage for each damage counter on the Defending Pokémon. Yes, all it takes is a couple of sacrificial Combee attacks, before she can storm in and finish things off . . . like that is going to happen. 

Vespiquen comes off as one of those cards that tries very hard to be ‘on-theme’: she brings a swarm of (Com)bees to work collectively to bring down a larger foe. At least I assume that’s the theory. The actual execution is very weak and of no real practical use. Even as a fun deck, this would be frustratingly ineffective to play. 

Rating 

Modified: 1.5 (just a gimmick, really)

Limited: 2 (I guess if you pull a load of Combee . . .)

virusyosh

Welcome back, Pojo readers! Today we're reviewing a new Stage 1 Pokemon from Plasma Storm. Today's Card of the Day is Vespiquen.
 
Vespiquen is a Stage 1 Grass Pokemon. Grass Pokemon aren't all that common right now (especially since Blastoise/Keldeo usage has dropped, at least in this area), but that will likely change with the release of upcoming expansions. 100 HP is just about standard for a Stage 1 Pokemon these days, which is somewhat unfortunate because many common attacks in Modified will easily KO Vespiquen. Fire Weakness isn't too big of a deal right now, as Ho-Oh is a somewhat rare play, and things like Reshiram aren't too common anymore. To round out the bottom stats, no Resistance is unfortunately normal, and a Retreat Cost of 1 is easily paid.
 
This queen bee has two attacks. Gather Order allows you to search your deck for as many Combee as you want and put them onto your Bench, shuffling afterward. This attack can work nicely if you get a very fast Vespiquen in your dedicated Vespiquen deck, but somehow I doubt that there are too many of those, given that there haven't been any intriguing Vespiquen in a while. Anyway, you'll probably want to use a Trainer to grab your Combees in Modified, but this attack can be good in Limited to fill your Bench quickly (especially good if you pull multiple Vespiquen). Damage Beat deals 20 damage times the number of damage counters on the Defending Pokemon for a Grass and a Colorless. This attack is interesting, but not great on its own, since it takes a long time to actually build up damage on the Defending Pokemon, and the Defending Pokemon needs to have previous damage for Vespiquen do even do anything (it's 20x, not 20+!). Therefore, this attack works best with some other Pokemon to spread damage around quickly, or in combination with Hypnotoxic Laser + Virbank City Gym.
 
Modified: 1.5/5 Vespiquen isn't quite powerful enough to compete in Modified. Gather Order will rarely be useful, and while Damage Beat is potentially powerful, it requires too much setup in order to be of real use. Use more powerful options instead.
 
Limited:  3.5/5 Vespiquen is a really unique card, with heavily restricted search capabilities as well as an attack that is potentially very damaging. Gather Order will only be useful if you pull multiple Combee and Vespiquen, and even though Damage Beat requires previous damage in order to be used, it is incredibly effective in a relatively slow Limited environment (and even more so if you pull Hypnotoxic Laser). Overall, Vespiquen is a solid secondary attacker that can set itself up, which is a pretty good thing to have if you're playing Grass in Plasma Storm Limited.


CopyrightŠ 1998-2013 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.