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

Pikachu Anatomy

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

 

 Gliscor

- Phantom Forces

Date Reviewed:
Jan. 29, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 1.88
Expanded: 2.18
Limited: 3.90

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

You know, Gliscor here comes out with an interesting attack. It's the sort of attack you'd think could have the vast potential that something like Seismitoad-EX has with Quaking Punch. It's just so good! At least, you'd like to think so except for all the problems that come with it. 

Let's start with the obvious attack to get out of the way: Poison Jab. Now Poison Jab isn't entirely bad; though it's a 3-for-60 strike with a coin flip for an effect, the effect does end up being Poison, which is probably one of the better statuses to inflict due to Virbank. Of course, you're usually inflicting that damage via HTL, so you're never gonna have to worry about the coin flip and thus should never have to worry about Poison Jab's effect. 

Submission Hold is different. It's an attack that works similarly to Seismitoad-EX's Quaking Punch but with several differences. For starters, it's cheaper at 1 Fighting Energy but deals only 20 damage. It restricts what your opponent can play, but it's only Energy on the Defending Pokemon (aka the one that Gliscor hits with the attack). And lastly instead of being attached to a big bulky EX, it's on a meager Stage 1 with only 90 HP. 

Gliscor has something going for it, but in the presence of a behemoth like Seismitoad-EX, there's just no hope for him. Still he's better than a lot of the Stage 1s out there, and on top of that he does get Fighting support, so he does alright. It's a shame too; in an ancient format, this could've been a really devastating card to have. 

Rating 

Standard: 2/5 (for now in this format, he's alright) 

Expanded: 2.5/5 (mostly for the search Items to get him out) 

Limited: 3/5 (unless your opponent has Bronzong ready to tear you apart, Submission Hold will at least force them to put their Energy on some other Benchsitter while you hammer away, though you lose some support) 

Arora Notealus: Gliscor's alright in my book as far as the Gen IV evos go. He could've been a lot worse! Not sure if I should believe the claim that, with the right wind involved, he can fly across the world without ever flapping his wings. Come to think of it, we've been reviewing a lot of Gen IV evos as of late, haven't we? 

NOTE: So a couple of things got brought to my attention that I should address. For starters, my Heatran review mentioned or else may have implied that Steel Drop destroys Stadiums - which it doesn't! This makes it even better as it can capitalize off of the presence of any Stadium in play - yours or your opponent's! The other thing is my Regigigas review may have implied something to the effect of "if the damage getting dealt is 40 or less, ignore it; otherwise, it deals the amount." This is mostly due to my wording, which I'd like to clear up that when I said as such, it was meaning that the first 40 damage being dealt would be ignored rather than if the total was 40 or less then it would be ignored. PHEW!! Long note! 

Next Time: THE CUDDLIEST DRAGON EVER ARRIVES!!...well, if you wanna cuddle, I mean you'll have to clean yourself afterwards.


Otaku

The week begins its wind down with Gliscor (XY: Phantom Forces 47/119), for when you can’t decide whether it is more fun to run a bat or a scorpion!  No, okay well then let’s break the card down.  It is a Fighting-Type, which really is great: many Colorless-Type Pokémon and most Darkness-Types and Lightning-Types are Fighting Weak plus XY: Furious Fist left it as probably the overall best supported Type.  It isn’t all good since Fighting Resistance is the most common and the most played Darkness-Type happens to be the Fighting Resistant Yveltal-EX.  Still, -20 to damage is far less a problem than x2 damage is an advantage.  Being a Stage 1 though is definitely a disadvantage, though not crippling; there are a few that still see play.  Its 90 HP is small enough to be OHKOed by most decks, barring a poor set-up; slight bonus in Expanded is that you can use Level Ball to search Gliscor out because of it, and it’d take at least another 20 to seriously improve its chances of survival.  Water Weakness isn’t too bad right now; yes it means Seismitoad-EX will actually see some big hits against Gliscor, but while there are a couple great Water-Type attackers, they just aren’t seeing heavy play right now… other than the aforementioned Seismitoad-EX.  Lack of Resistance is disappointing though not major; most cards lack it.  The single Energy Retreat Cost is pretty good but with what we’ve seen of the card so far still somehow feels overpriced to me. 

Gliscor has two attacks, the first of which is Submission Hold for [F].  This attack hits for 20 points of damage plus prevents your opponent from attaching Energy to the Pokémon you attacked with Submission hold.  This is a nifty little effect in that if you can keep your opponent from changing out their Active (or Evolving when that is an option), you might be able to create a soft lock.  The second attack has an Energy cost that works well with that of Submission Hold; Poison Jab just requires [FCC], so something like a manual Energy attachment of a source of [F] Energy the turn before means a Double Colorless Energy brings this attack online.  Unfortunately it hits for just 60 points of damage and a coin flip for Poison.  Either the Poison needed to be automatic or the damage at least 10 (preferably 20 or 30) points higher.  That still wouldn’t be good, but at least it would be the going rate and enough to half-KO the typical Pokémon-EX before factoring in the unreliable Poison damage.  With reliable Poison damage and of course Virbank City Gym, it would still hit that amount (more if the opponent failed to get rid of Poison on his or her own turn). 

Gliscor needs to Evolve from Gligar and we have two options: BW: Boundaries Crossed 80/149 and XY: Phantom Forces 46/119.  Both are Basic Fighting-Type Pokémon with Water Weakness, Retreat Costs of [C] and no Abilities.  BW: Boundaries Crossed 80/149 enjoys 70 HP, Lightning Resistance and two attacks: Tail Smack for [F] doing 10 and Wicked Jab for [FC] doing 20 with a coin flip for Paralysis.  XY: Phantom Forces 46/119 has just 60 HP and no Weakness, plus one attack: for [CC] it can use Rock Cannon, allowing you to flip a coin until you get “tails” and score 20 points of damage times the number of “heads”.  Though I do like the threat factor of “flip until ‘tails’ attacks” and this one can be fueled by  just a Double Colorless Energy card, 10 more HP, Lightning Resistance and a slightly-more-expensive-but-can-Paralyze two Energy attack makes me favor the older BW: Boundaries Crossed 80/149 version.  Speaking of that set, Gliscor (BW: Boundaries Crossed 81/149) is the only other Gligar that is Standard or Expanded legal as well; it has same Type, Stage, Weakness and Retreat Cost of today’s version, but 10 more HP, Lightning Resistance and of course two different attacks.  For [F] this version can use Poison Ring, good for 20 damage, Poison and an effect that prevents the Pokémon you attacked from manually retreating for a turn; another soft lock.  For [FC] it can use Night Slash to hit for 40 points of damage when change places with a Benched Pokémon, making it a weaker Donphan (BW: Plasma Storm 72/135). 

Both versions of Gliscor have similar problems; soft locks don’t tend to be good unless they’ve got something big backing them.  You have a choice between using Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted 54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW: Legendary Treasures 68/113) to block Abilities or using Abilities yourself to try and block other options (most notably manually Retreating).  Looking ahead a little bit, you might be able to do a little of both once we get Silent Lab, a Stadium that shuts off the Abilities on Basic Pokémon however besides Gliscor getting even more competition in general, some of the Abilities that would prove problematic for the soft lock are found on Evolutions; for example Fairy Transfer is found on Aromatisse and that makes the inability to attach Energy to the Active from hand relatively meaningless. 

Ratings 

Standard: 1.75/5 - Interesting effect on the first attack, but there isn’t enough you can do with it to make it effective. 

Expanded: 1.85/5 - I’ll give it a small boost for the sake of Level Ball. 

Limited: 4.8/5 - If you didn’t pull a big, Basic to build a +39 style deck around, then as long as you can work in some Fighting Energy without really undermining your deck’s reliability, you should probably make room for this.  That isn’t exactly a huge feat; its a solid Stage 1 with a decent Basic form and in Limited, that is already a good start.  Both attacks become better here because as the format’s name suggests, players tend to have more Limited options here. 

Summary: The effect of the first attack is interesting, and it might have been something to fear has it appeared on a Basic Pokémon-EX, backed by 170 or 180 HP plus either either a good Ability or second “big” attack.  As is, Gliscor is a toy for those that want to challenge themselves but not so much other players and should be enjoyed as such… if that is an appealing facet of the game for you.  I’m torn myself; while I love to come up with new uses for cards, to me it “doesn’t count” unless it has at least some competitive merit.


Copyright© 1998-2015 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.