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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

21times	Oricorio (Guardians Rising, 56/145) debuted in the Guardians Rising expansion set.  A 90 HP Basic Psychic Pokemon, Oricorio has two colorless, single energy attacks.  Revelation Dance does thirty damage but only if a Stadium is on the table, and Supernatural Dance allows you to place one damage counter on your opponent’s Pokemon in any way you like. Clearly the focus of this card will NOT be Revelation Dance… although one of my opponents actually used it twice on me last Friday in Indy.  Supernatural Dance has made Oricorio a very popular one of tech in to many decks because it can serve as a strong counter to Vespiquen (Ancient Origins, 10/98).  Although Karen probably is the best direct Vespiquen counter, Oricorio does give you the opportunity to still use your Supporter for the turn, and dividing damage between multiple Pokemon can devastate your opponent, especially when they usually have multiple low to mid range HP Pokemon camped out on their bench.  Furthermore, Oricorio does potentially have use against other decks as a possible late game attacker.  I could see a scenario where if you were going up against, for example, a Decidueye GX (Sun & Moon, 12/149) Vileplume (Ancient Origins, 3/98) deck, that’s a deck that could potentially have a number of Pokemon in the discard late in the game. Oricorio has become a very popular card – I saw it last Friday in Indy in a Tapu Bulu GX (SM Promo 32) deck and in a Mega Rayquaza EX (Roaring Skies, 105/108) deck as well.  Overall, however, I don’t think it adds much value to most decks.  Especially since Vespiquen will rotate out in a couple of months, I simply think that many other cards out there will do more to help you win against most decks than Oricorio will. Rating Standard: 2 out of 5 Conclusion Oricorio will definitely help you beat Vespiquen, but it might not do you much good beyond that.  I’ve heard that it also counters Night March in Expanded, but overall I just think that in just about every deck, you can find something other than Oricorio that will increase your win percentage more than Oricorio.  Moreover, it goes without saying that you certainly wouldn’t build a deck around Oricorio, it’s at best a tech in and definitely not a feature Pokemon.
Otaku	Our abridged week begins with Oricorio (SM: Guardians Rising 56/145).  It is a Basic, Psychic-Type Pokémon with 90 HP, Darkness Weakness, Fighting Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], and two attacks which both have a [C] Energy requirement.  The first is Supernatural Dance, which has you count the number of Pokémon in your opponent’s discard pile, then allows you to place that many damage counters on your opponent’s Pokémon; total, not for each.  You may distribute this amount as you see fit between multiple targets, or drop it all on one.  The second attack is “Revelation Dance”, and it does 30 damage unless there is no Stadium in play, in which case it does nothing.  Being a Psychic-Type doesn’t mean much as this card doesn’t do damage and is designed to work in just about any deck, though Dimension Valley still allows it to attack for free and Mystery Energy can still be used to give it a free Retreat, which are nice when it is being run on-Type.  Being a Basic is huge as this card is designed to slip into a variety of decks; being a Stage 1 or more would make it too cumbersome.  90 HP means it might survive a hit while Active, but probably not; at least it means Level Ball can fetch it.  Darkness Weakness it is even more likely that Type can score OHKO’s against Oricorio, while Fighting Resistance makes it a slightly less probable OHKO in that match-up.  The Retreat Cost is low enough that you can probably afford it once or twice, but it isn’t meant to be a pivot Pokémon; this is that Night March counter for which too many have begged.  Revelation Dance can do a bit of spread or sniping against most decks, and late game it might even get into OHKO range for a Benched Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108).  It mostly exists to punish decks that keep a lot of Pokémon in their discard pile.  The best known is probably Night March, which features the 30 HP Joltik (XY: Phantom Forces 26/119), the 60 HP Pumpkaboo (XY: Phantom Forces 44/119) and often the 60 HP Mew (XY: Fates Collide 29/124), Mew-EX, or both.  Flareon (BW: Plasma Freeze 12/116) is slightly heartier at 100 HP, and Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) still has 90 HP, so it too is less likely to enable massive, multi-KO turns, even though they also like to have a lot of Pokémon in the discard pile to fuel their iconic attacks.  Night March is the one where you’ve got to have either a 30 HP or 60 HP Pokémon in play for the strategy to work at all.  None of these are safe from upsets, though.  So should every deck be running this to counter those two?  Only when such decks climb their way back to the top.  I haven’t got data for recent Expanded tournaments, but Night March wasn’t a big deal there anymore.  In Standard, Vespiquen still has some chops, and in both formats Shaymin-EX is still a thing, but there are other ways to deal with those.  Of course, there have been other ways to deal with Night March as well; like I said, it wasn’t one of the big decks last I checked (though it wasn’t totally dead, either).  I’ve said before, I didn’t think Night March needed a counter as much as people needed to learn how to approach the match calmly or accept their deck wasn’t competitive (or demand a more balanced future from the powers-that-be, but that doesn’t apply to only Night March).  There are other Oricorio cards, but I am pressed for time and most seem geared for entirely different decks.  We might look at them later, but for now I’ll have to skip them.  Oricorio is quite good against a particular strategy, but against more general match-ups it will be doing well to be a surprise Shaymin-EX counter… that will be outclassed by running an extra Lysandre.  Other spread decks might consider it, though.  This applies for both Standard and Expanded play, though Night March (even though it is no longer near the top) means Oricorio might actually be better there.  For Limited play, I say go for it; Limited decks tend to run heavy on Pokémon, and while most are only hitting the discard pile through KO’s and there are only four Prizes to take, the 90 HP goes just a little bit further, being easy to splash means just a bit more, and your opponent is just a bit more likely to have something not-yet-Evolved and thus easier to KO sitting on the Bench, as well as injured former Actives.  Oricorio shows up in both the Hidden Moon and Steel Sun Theme Decks that released with SM: Guardians Rising; most of the benefits of being in a Limited deck apply, but with fewer of the drawbacks, so it should be a pretty good card here.  Ratings  Standard: 3.15/5  Expanded: 3.25/5  Limited: 3.5/5  Theme: 3.75/5  Conclusion  Oricorio snuck into a some of Top 8 decks from this past weekend’s North American International Championship tournament, and across all three age groups.  What did not join them was Vespiquen, so I don’t know if that is cause-and-effect or coincidence, and even if it is cause-and-effect, I don’t know if Oricorio helped keep Vespiquen out of said Top 8 or if it was a waste because few skilled players were trying to win with Vespiquen at the event… but Oricorio is still a solid card regardless.  It is just that it could be clutch if something like Vespiquen gets big enough again.  Finally, a card that is not from the site’s Top 15 + Runners-Up, though it did slip into 25th place for my personal rankings.  Only my Top 20 was submitted to the site, however.
Vince	I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!   Hello readers! Vince here and today’s Pokemon card of the day is Oricorio from the Sun & Moon Guardians Rising set.  There are multiple Oricorio cards, but 56/145 is what we’re looking at today.  It is a Psychic type, which can hit a good chunk of Fighting and Psychic types for weakness.  90 HP is quite low, but for Oricorio, I guess that’s decent for the HP size.  It is weak to dark types, and there’s plenty of good dark type attackers such as both Darkrai-EX, Yveltal (both the regular, EX, and Break), and Zoroark (both stage 1 and Break).  Resistance to Fighting is a small bonus, though with enough damage buffs, Fighting types can still OHKO Oricorio.  And a retreat cost of one is easy to pay, and Skyarrow Bridge makes it free retreat.   Oricorio has two attacks that both cost one colorless energy (Dimension Valley makes both attacks cost free!).  Supernatural Dance lets you put damage counters for every Pokemon in your opponent’s discard pile and assign those damage counters to any of your opponent’s Pokemon in any way you like.  Revelation Dance does 30 damage if there’s a stadium card in play, otherwise this attack does nothing.  Having to play a stadium in order to deal damage is lackluster because stadiums may eventually be discarded due to Field Blower, so it must be Supernatural Dance that caught my eye.   I can see Oricorio be a tech against Plasma Flareon’s Vengance, Vespiquen’s Bee Revenge, and the Night March Crew.  Since those Pokemon needs Pokemon in the discard pile to do respectable damage, this also helps Supernatural Dance do respectable damage as well.  Flareon and Vespiquen needs 23 Pokemon to OHKO anything in the format (barring Fighting Fury Belt users).  Oricorio will then place 23 damage counters in any way you like; this could cause multiple knock outs; take out two of any energy loaded Flareons or Vespiquens, and pretty soon your opponent will lose board position.  Night March needs 11 Night March Pokemon in the discard, so 11 damage counters will be against the night marcher.   Besides countering those three archetypes, Oricorio can’t do much against other decks if decks have recovery options such as bringing Pokemon from the discard back to the deck.  Much like Karen ruins those three archetypes, she can also mess up Oricorio since after using her, Supernatural Dance will do nothing.  So, it’s risky to use in Standard and Expanded.  In limited, Oricorio can’t do much against decks that utilizes the +39 (meaning one Pokemon and 39 energy), but there are four different stadiums in Guardians Rising, making Revelation Dance do any form of damage (Aether Paradise being an exception, since basic grass and lightning Pokemon laugh at it).   Ratings:   Standard: 1.5/5 (Besides countering Vespiquen, it can’t do much)   Expanded: 2.5/5 (Expanded adds Plasma Flareon and Night March to counter, and free attacks due to dimension valley)   Limited: 3/5 (just hope you don’t go up against Grass or Lightning decks in prerelease)   Notes:  Oricorio has an interesting attack, and could prove useful if those three archetypes are rising to prominence.  Don’t forget about this card.   Coming up: A bizarre place in the Sinnoh region where Pokemon can evolve instantly!
aroramage	So FIRST of all, it's been brought to my attention that I'm actually terrible at using Aether Paradise Conservation Area because I can't read! It only affects Basics and NOT Evolution Pokemon, as advertised in the Golisopod review from last week, so Armor is Golisopod's only real means of lowering the damage done to it. This does impact its survivability, and therefore it would reduce my rating by a half-point on all its format categories. Thanks go out to the avid reader(s) who catch my mistake and don't take my advice at face value, because even reviewers can make basic reading mistakes! Trust me, it's not the first time this has happened to me, and I'd like to apologize for this embarrassing habit I've imposed on myself because I forget to read words like "Basic".  This is what I get for just assuming all Stadiums work the same!  Anywho, moving right along, Oricorio here is what a lot of people would call the definitive counter to discard-based attacks that deal with lots of Pokemon, such as Night March and possibly Vespiquen. And yes, that makes him a terrible counter to Garbodor, but it does provide a powerful set-up thanks to Supernatural Dance. Most of these decks tend to dump as many Pokemon in the discard as early as they can, meaning that as a tech option, Oricorio's Supernatural Dance can spread a bunch of damage counters around. For 1 Energy of any kind, the Supernatural Dance lets Oricorio place a damage counter on any opposing Pokemon for each Pokemon in the opponent's discard pile.  So let's do some quick math here! Vespiquen's Bee Revenge does 20 damage plus 10 more for each Pokemon in your discard pile. To OHKO, say, a Basic Pokemon-EX/GX, you'd need around 170-180 damage, so outside of boosts from cards like Choice Band, the minimum number of Pokemon you'd need is around 15-16. Pretty big number, wouldn't you say? That's an entire quarter of your deck that needs to be in the discard pile! And to be able to OHKO anything in the game - so around 250 HP - you'll need 23 Pokemon at the least in your discard pile, prior to any boosts. Is it any wonder we love cards like Choice Band so much? But what this means is that Oricorio's Supernatural Dance can deal out 15 damage counters MINIMUM to ANY Pokemon that you'd like - that's 150 damage right off the bat, well more than enough to OHKO Vespiquen and severely damage another Pokemon! And if Vespiquen's armed enough to OHKO the biggest baddies around, then Supernatural Dance can not OHKO the one Vespiquen - it can OHKO the next one and STILL have damage leftover to hurt another Pokemon! That's insanity!!  Course this attack is highly reliant on what's in your opponent's discard pile in the first place, but luckily Oricorio can be a tech option in any deck against this kind of deck, since his attacks are both Colorless. At that point, it just depends on how popular the Vengeance-style deck is, and while in Expanded it might still be alright, I think Garbodor's presence has caused a lot of Item-based decks to rework their strategies and slow down a bit. Though I'm not 100% sure on that, but it is something to consider in your own Vengeance deck, as well as to keep Oricorio in mind.  Oh, and Revelation Dance is bad. Don't bother with it.  Rating  Standard: 3/5 (he's a pretty powerful check against one specific deck archetype) Expanded: 3.5/5 (so whatever format that archetype's popular in, you can expect Oricorio to show up)  Limited: 2.5/5 (otherwise, he's really not that big of a deal)  Arora Notealus: Oricorio having four different forms based on different dances is pretty neat, to be honest. I wonder if they'll do something like that in the future with later generations, kinda like with Eevee and Eeveelutions?  Next Time: We're going BACK IN TIME!!...and space.