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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Korrina

- Furious Fists

Date Reviewed:
Jan. 6, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 3.70
Expanded: 3.87
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

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

Korrina 

This was the only card I chose for my personal top 10 of 2014 that didn’t make it into the final list. I can see why: it’s only one of many cards that support Fighting-Type decks, and the similar Skyla is played in a much greater variety of decks. Nevertheless, it’s an important card and worth another look. 

 Basically, if you run a deck with Fighting Pokémon in it, Korrina is your best friend. She’ll grab whatever Pokémon you want, plus the Item that best serves your purposes. Need a Landorus EX and a Hypnotoxic Laser? A Terrakion and a Professor’s Letter? A Donphan and a Muscle Band? Then Korrina is the versatile solution to your problem. She smooths out the running of Fighting decks in a way that is just too good to pass up and she gives you Pokémon search under Trainer Lock which is something that a lot of decks don’t have due to their complete reliance on Ultra Ball. 

Outside of Fighting decks, you will want to stick with Skyla as she will fetch the Supporters and Stadiums which are beyond the reach of Korrina. However, she is one piece of the whole that makes Fighting decks incredibly strong right now, and as such she is having a considerable impact. 

Rating 

Modified: 3.5 (narrow in scope, but very strong in the correct deck)

Limited: 3.25 (Fighting is still strong, but other Pokémon search cards are available)


aroramage

As I mentioned back in my first review of this card, Korrina is all about consistency - primarily with Fighting decks. She can grab out a Fighting Pokemon and even an Item card to go along with it, adding them straight to your hand! That's an instant Landorus-EX and Muscle Band, or Lucario-EX and Battle Compressor, or Hawlucha and Head Ringer! The possibilities are endless! 

Combined with Skyla, the female duo make Fighting decks go by in a flash, getting them every card they need! The only problem these days though is Seismitoad-EX's popularity skyrocketing - that Item you grabbed could just be locked forever in your hand, and as we know locked Items aren't very useful! At least you can thin your deck out a little with Korrina, but in a situation like that, you're better of with Sycaper. 

Which is probably the main reason Korrina shoots just shy of the Top 2014 list. Not to mention it's hard to compete against cards with such widespread utility as Lysandre and Battle Compressor unless you're really powerful for your deck like Strong Energy and Yveltal-EX. Don't think she's not powerful though - Korrina is a valuable asset to any Fighting deck, and I imagine most Fighting decks will continue to run a couple copies of her to benefit the most while suffering the least! 

Rating 

Standard: 4/5 (makes Fighting decks consistent, and that's loads beneficial)

Expanded: 4/5 (keeps them consistent here too!) 

Limited: 4.5/5 (you kidding? the whole set might as well be Fighting!) 

Arora Notealus: Korrina's still kicking as much butt as she ever was! Still not sure what roller skating has to do with fighting though...maybe it's the aerobics? Acrobatics? Hmmm... 

Next Time: That's one rough rhino!...wait, that's not a rhino...


Otaku

Welcome to our second “Honorable Mention” for our Top 10 list of 2014.  This is a card that either made at least one reviewer’s personal Top 10 list, but not the collective effort and also hadn’t been reviewed too recently (if the second part sounds unfair, remember the first part).  I’ve never been one to write all or even most of my CotDs back-to-back (unless I’m already past deadline and trying to play catch-up); yesterday we were coming off the weekend meaning I had a bit more time to write, so it just seems to make sense to schedule to easier-to-review cards for Tuesday and Thursday, creating a buffer zone around Wednesday and before Friday.  That is why today we look at Korrina, a card that finished in fourth place for our Top 10 of XY: Furious Fists and was last reviewed September 2, 2014. 

In a format that (unfortunately) is far too dependent on Supporters for a deck’s primary motive power, with Items still managing to clock in before Pokémon effects, Korrina was eagerly anticipated because we also are used to ridiculously powerful Supporters.  I will resist my usual lecture (I hope by now it seems well reasoned enough not to be merely a rant), but in short we are used to some of the most powerful Supporters ever released in terms of raw draw power, for better or worse we don’t have enough for your deck to reliably run on nothing else.  Thankfully we haven’t eclipsed some of the highlights of Supporter based search but we’ve come close, and today’s card is an example of that; one Supporter that searches out two cards.  The first card must be a Fighting-Type Pokémon and the second an Item, but in terms of plays that is about two-thirds of what most decks need: a beatstick and a trick to put it over the opponent’s beatstick. 

Breadth: Korrina can function in any deck technically, though burning your Supporter just to see your deck’s current contents and then shuffle is pretty desperate.  Fighting-Types tend to have low Energy costs and while (again, thankfully) we don’t have something nasty that can easily use any Energy-Type for attacking, many just need a Rainbow Energy or even a clutch basic Fighting Energy to work.  Still a ways from universal, but few decks lack Items; Korrina can function as a substandard Skyla if it fails to snag a Pokémon and already players are speculating that could be the case if no significantly impressive Supporters show up in the next few sets before rotation.  Yes, already speculating about the 2015 rotation!  Korrina is universal in competitive Fighting-Type decks because when you get both searches, often in high counts.  Besides obviously being a poor choice for non-Fighting decks, looking at it from other decks needing to react to Fighting decks running it, it just streamlined the process of quickly getting a specific Fighting-Type Pokémon and Item into hand; raw draw power plus Item based search coupled Skyla usage on turns when one’s hand was still flush meant we were already used to dealing with a slightly less efficient version of this in general. 

Depth: Again, Korrina refined what was already present for the most part.  Skyla can get Supporters or Stadiums but well… options.  If you can spare a slot or two for VS Seeker (and before that, Random Receiver) you can fake getting a Supporter pretty well.  Getting a Stadium is a nice trick, but not one most decks will use frequently, so Skyla really softened the impact Korrina when it comes to depth.  Korrina still made a big difference, greatly improving reliability for some standard combos Fighting-Type decks favor, but for the most part it was already present.  The mostly or mono-Fighting-Type deck can thank Korrina for being a serious presence… well that and the many awesome Fighting-Types plus Fighting Weakness being present on most Colorless-, Darkness- and Lightning-Type Pokémon. 

Time: XY: Furious Fists didn’t become tournament legal until September 3rd of 2014, so Korrina missed out on over half of the year.  With all the Fighting-Type support that set contained and Fighting-Types already a serious presence on the competitive scene, so Korrina almost instantly saw a lot of play.  By the end of the year (and with XY: Phantom Forces) Korrina was still seeing a good deal of competitive play, but the metagame had some new toys to work with (some of which resulted in decks that so far haven’t gone away), diluting the playing field some more.  So Korrina basically got three months of being awesome and two of being “...another deck specific good Supporter.” 

Ratings 

Standard: 3.65/5 - This is quarter a point lower than the first time I scored Korrina; she isn’t less useful in Fighting-Type decks and they haven’t vanished from the face of the metagame, but its still a specialization in a format where even if I feel like most decks play the same, there are more viable decks being played.  In a mostly or mono-Fighting-Type deck, this is still a staple and VS Seeker is a nice fallback for when you realize next turn you’ve only got a Supporter if you get it on your draw for the turn. 

Expanded: 3.75/5 - As above but there are more options for Items and for decks to run; a smaller bonus than I gave last time because once again, the effects are being diluted. 

Limited: 4.95/5 - This card wasn’t reprinted in another set so it is just as last time: there is a just plausible enough chance you won’t have a Fighting-Type or Item worth running in your deck, but if I wasn’t one for such details I could have simply said it was a “must run”. 

Summary:  Korrina really is a great card but I remember now why I left it off of my own list.  She missed out on almost three full quarters of the year for Organized Play and is essentially the Fighting-Type’s (slightly) improved Skyla.  Throw in that with only 10 slots I wanted to represent the year and game as fully as I could, and it felt like the list didn’t need both Korrina and Strong Energy, so I went with the latter.  Should I have done that?  I’ll let you decide as I am uncertain myself. 


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