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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Shedinja (Roaring Skies)  Dunno about you, but I always want to say and write this Pokémon’s name as Shedninja. Whatever, Shedinja is one of the weirdest Pokémon around: a frail ghost of a shell of a Pokémon that has less HP than its Basic. The TCG designers usually do something interesting with it though, and it usually tempts players into attempting some kind of combo that exploits Shedinja’s weird properties. This one is no different.  The focus here is Shedinja’s Hopeless Scream attack, which costs just one Energy (any Colour will do) and does 50 times the number of damage counters on Shedinja. You can get the required damage in a number of ways -  Rainbow Energy, Frozen City, Team Magma’s Secret Base will all do the job – but what you are left with is a Stage 1 that can hit for up to 100, but is only 10 HP away from being KO’d. Clearly that’s not satisfactory, and so players look for other solutions.  The obvious one is to use Mew EX to copy the attack. With its massive (ahem) 120 HP, Mew can take a few more damage counters . . . enough to be able to exchange OHKOs with other EX Pokémon anyway. Even Megas will be taken out if you can find a way to get 50 damage on him, which is easier said than done of course: just how many Rainbow Energy can you get on a Mew before it hits the discard pile? A more realistic aim is to inflict 30 damage and use a Muscle Band for 170. Another way to go with this deck would be to play multiple copies of Floette FLF, whose Flower Veil Ability will boost Shedinja’s own HP and it as your attacker. This method is slower, but at least it doesn’t concede two Prizes per KO and you also get to use Silver Bangle to hit for 180.  Either way, you can see that the whole combo is pretty high maintenance and relies on extremely vulnerable Pokémon. As a casual deck, it could be fun to play, but I don’t think it can hang with the big boys at a serious tournament: especially when one-shotting a Mega is near impossible.  Rating  Modified: 2 Expanded: 2 Limited: 2
Emma Starr	Shedinja has always been a really interesting Pokémon to me. I’d also imagine that if Pokémon were real, it’d be partially responsible for so many ‘deaths’. I mean, have someone you don’t like? Just have Shedinja come out of your Pokeball, and make the other person look at its back. Then you’re left with a human body with no soul, and a Shedinja with…two souls inside it? IDK, bot good luck dealing with crimes like that, Officer Jennies…                 Anyway, creepy-tastic Pokedex entries aside, this card also has something else you hardly ever see: no weaknesses. Other than most of the other Shedinja cards, when have we last had a Pokémon with no Weaknesses? I’m not sure myself, but maybe one of the other reviewers touches upon this. It’s not like it matters in the long run though, since with 30 HP, you’re hardly surviving anything anyway.                 His first attack, Cursed Rain, lets you put 1 damage counter on every Pokémon your opponent has out, for one Grass Energy. So, this means you could possibly do 60 damage, or even 80 if someone has Sky Field activated. But if you’re at the point of the game where your opponent has 6-8 Pokémon out, Shedinja is probably going to get knocked out instantly. But you knew that, right? All in all, he’s trying to be a sniper, but he’s just not as efficient as some of the others we’ve reviewed lately.                 His second attack, Hopeless Scream, does 50 damage times the amount of damage counters on him. So, he’ll either be doing 0, 50, or 100. The good news is that it has a single Colorless Energy cost. The bad news is everything else. If you can somehow manage to have Shedinja ONLY get 20 damage in one turn, you deserve to get that 100-for-1 damage onto your opponent. But let’s be honest: You’re basically giving your opponent a prize if you use this.                 Standard: 1/5                 Expanded: 1/5                 Limited: 1/5
Otaku	We end this week with Shedinja (XY: Roaring Skies 11/108).  This is another Stage 1, Grass-Type Pokémon.  This means it takes a little extra effort to get out over Basic Pokémon (at least it is easier than most Mega Evolutions) but is still pretty reasonable.  The Grass-Typing, as I’ve been saying all week, holds potential: hit big nasties like Primal Groudon-EX and Seismitoad-EX for double damage due to Weakness, never worry about Resistance, maybe use some of the support, and hope you don’t run into an oddball that packs some of the anti-Grass-Type cards (there are a few - none worth detailing, just read any strange cards so you don’t walk into it).  Shedinja has a mere 30 HP - not uncommon for Shedinja but this is the minimum amount we see printed on Pokémon (though things like Items that act as Pokémon have been seen with less).  This is all but crippling and means the card will need some pretty potent effects to compensate.  It does enjoy a perfect (lack of) Weakness and Retreat Cost, though also has the usual lack of Resistance.  There are two attacks: for [G] the first attack (Cursed Rain) places a damage counter on each of your opponent’s Pokémon.  Then Shedinja switches itself with one of your Benched Pokémon, provided you have any.  Not bad considering this is from the same set that gave us Sky Field, a Stadium that allows players to have up to nine Pokémon in play at once, in addition to Pokémon that take advantage of additional Bench space.  The second attack (Hopeless Scream) requires [C] and does 50 damage for each damage counter on Shedinja.  That is a great damage return, obviously kept in check by the HP… unless we apply some combos.  Before that, Shedinja was a Stage 1 so we should look at the Basic form, Nincada, and any other Shedinja still legal.  Plus Nincada is also the Basic form of Ninjask so we should look at that as well… and we already did yesterday so click here for a refresher.  For Nincada, use BW: Dragons Exalted 10/124 though it is only an option for Expanded: you’re stuck with XY: Roaring Skies 9/108 for better or worse in Standard.  You could always include either or both Ninjask and/or the other Shedinja but they don’t really mesh with the strategy.  What strategy?  While it has no Top 8 finishes from the Spring Regionals to prove its merit, I have faced off against decks using today’s card.  Mew-EX is usually used to copy Hopeless Scream.  Damage is inflicted to Mew-EX through Rainbow Energy and either Frozen City or Team Magma’s Secret Base, and with three damage counters and a single Energy Mew-EX swings for 150 damage.  Add in a Muscle Band and you’re taking out 170 HP Pokémon-EX in a single hit.  Hypnotoxic Laser brings 180 HP targets into range as well.  If faced with even bigger targets, while difficult, one can try to get more damage onto Mew-EX to still score a OHKO.  Other decks will use HP boosting effects on Shedinja itself so that it can try and hold more damage counters to replicate the output of Mew-EX while only giving up a single Prize.  More out there ideas would be things like Reuniclus (Black & White 57/114; BW: Dragons Exalted 126/124) to get damage to where it is desired, or an attacker like Dugtrio (XY 59/146) that can hit the opponent’s Active for 60 and just a source of [F] while also hitting everything on your own Bench for 10.  This would allow you to use something like Training Center as your Stadium.  Some builds (whatever else is paired with Shedinja use Floette (XY: Flashfire 64/106) as its Ability (Flower Veil) adds +20 HP to each of your Grass-Type Pokémon.  All the HP boosting options suffer the problem of being relatively easy to shut off, which could result in mass KOs.  Still this looks like it should at least be a good “fun deck” and just maybe, someone will figure out what it is that is missing to make it competitive.  Normally this would mean it would be awesome in Limited but… that 30 HP is even more scary here.  Maybe if you are running Ninjask and want to use Shedinja as a “pivot” Pokémon: something with a free Retreat you send up anytime something is KOed, but then retreat for your next preferred Active.  Ratings  Standard: 3/5  Expanded: 3/5  Limited: 1.1/5  Summary: As you can tell I like Shedinja and I’ve seen it stomp my decks, even when I thought I was taking appropriate actions against it.  Perhaps I am just failing to remember that I had an iffy set-up those games, but in the end I think Hopeless Scream actually has good potential and that this deck might just be waiting for one last element to help it really take off.