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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Gumshoos-GX
- Sun & Moon

Date Reviewed:
March 8, 2017

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 3.18
Expanded: 3.18
Limited: 4.25

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

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

And now we come to another GX, this time the unusual Gumshoos! 

To be honest, as far as Stage 1 Pokemon-GX go, Gumshoos-GX isn't that bad. His Ability, Search the Premises, helps gather information on what your opponent's got in their hand, allowing you to prepare accordingly. His regular attack, Headbutt Bounce, is a decent 3-for-100 vanilla strike, though probably the biggest drawback that he's got. And his GX attack, Gumshoe Chance GX, starts out at 1-for-10 and goes up by 50 for each Energy attached to your opponent's Active Pokemon, thus a heavy-punisher against Pokemon that need a lot of Energy for their attacks. 

So what keeps Gumshoos-GX out of most decks, seeing as he can technically be run in anything? Well the Stage 1 investment line-up is probably another factor when coupled with the Headbutt Bounce. On top of that, if you're not making Gumshoe Chance GX your one GX attack for the game, then Gumshoos-GX just becomes a glorified investigator, and that can make him a huge target for anyone who wants 2 Prizes. Granted, they'll still need the effort to KO him, what with 210 HP, but the right conditions will bring a lot of trouble on poor Gumshoos-GX. 

If you wanted to run a Colorless-GX, honestly Tauros-GX is pretty much the standard, but don't fret if you get a Gumshoos-GX instead. It only takes a little tweaking to make him work, and his GX attack can certainly tilt things in your favor. 

Rating 

Standard: 3/5 (not the absolute beast that Tauros-GX is, but certainly a good pick) 

Expanded: 3/5 (though a 210 2-Prized Investigator is probably not the most ideal usage for two slots in a majority of decks) 

Limited: 4/5 (let the record show though that he has potential) 

Arora Notealus: Gumshoos-GX has a great deal of potential going for him, but he might not be the greatest attacker. I'd think the best use for him is at the start, where you can get a lot of information very quickly and begin to counteract your opponent's strategy. Course I don't think if you've got another GX attack that's better than Gumshoe Chance GX that you waste your GX attack on him, but if you needed to get out of a pinch or else take those last couple of Prizes, you could easily fuel him up to get away with it. 

Next Time: Well now we're going way back...to the beginning of TCG time...


Otaku

Note: I’ve been falling behind in my reviews again, but my Monday review for Tsareena and my Tuesday review for Repel have both been posted (since I finally submitted them).  Monday’s may be particularly interesting because I try to clear up some misunderstandings about how that card’s Ability functions. 

Time for another Pokémon-GX, and this time it’s Gumshoos-GX (Sun & Moon 110/149, 145/149, 157/149)!  First, let us cover the fundamentals of being a Pokémon-GX: it isn’t a Stage (like being a Mega Evolution), but it is a recognized in game classification, as it is a mechanic like being a Pokémon-EX.  In fact, just like Pokémon-EX, Pokémon-GX give up an extra Prize when KO’d.  As of yet, there aren’t any detrimental effects that target them or beneficial effects that exclude them, but we know that Choice Band is on the way, and it is a Tool that seemingly anything may equip to do +30 damage when attacking an active Pokémon-EX or Pokémon-GX, so it’s on the way.  Pokémon-GX so far have all enjoyed higher HP scores than is typical to their regular counterparts, and have either an Ability with two attacks or three attacks with one of those attacks being the once-per-game GX attack.  Yes, most of this is quite obvious, but remember that there are new players joining our ranks all the time, and for some (especially younger) players, keeping all this straight can be a chore.  As a Colorless Pokémon, Gumshoos-GX won’t be able to exploit any Weakness, but at least it won’t have to deal with any Resistance, either.  It might be able to tap into some of the Colorless Type support like Winona, but I don’t have any data to back that up.  Like almost all Colorless Types, if there isn’t any Type-specific support involved, Gumshoos-GX will work just as well mixed with another Type as it will with all other Colorless Pokémon. 

As a Stage 1, Gumshoos-GX isn’t as easy to put into play as a Basic, but it is easier than any other Stage of Evolution save BREAK Evolutions which Evolve from Basics, and unlike those, this can tape some handy Stage support (more on that later).  It makes its 210 HP less impressive than if it had been a Basic, but not by too much; this is still a good score that should let Gumshoos-GX survive a hit much more often than not.  If your opponent isn’t at a point where he or she can average at least 110 damage per turn, Gumshoos-GX can even survive two hits; I just don’t expect that to be an overly common occurrence.  Fighting Types should have an especially easy time with Gumshoos-GX thanks to its Fighting Weakness; the Type is already quite good at stacking damage bonuses to enable hard, fast strikes.  The HP isn’t completely mitigated by the Weakness, but anything with some substance behind it like attacks that require two or more Energy or just one Energy but with a large combo will pull off the OHKO.  Lack of Resistance is almost a non-issue; I wish there was some but given that Colorless Pokémon represent the Normal Type and how video games Types were converted to TCG Types, there just isn’t a good option to use.  -20 damage for a single match-up, even an obscure one, would have been nice, but most cards lack Resistance entirely, so it doesn’t hurt Gumshoos-GX.  The Retreat Cost of [CC] is too expensive to easily pay, but not so pricey you won’t usually manage it; not really an advantage or disadvantage. 

Gumshoos-GX has the Ability “Search the Premises”, which allows you to look at your opponent’s hand, but only once for each copy of this Ability you have in play.  Constantly seeing your opponent’s hand can actually get a bit clunky in the implementation, and I’d prefer just being able to look at often as one likes, but this is still enough to aid in general planning or improve the effectiveness of hand control/disruption.  Could be better, but it is still good. The first attack is “Headbutt Bounce” for [CCC], doing 100 damage.  The going rate right now seems to be more like 130, since this enables a solid 2HKO of just about everything in the competitive sphere, but 100 is still competent, especially if this card isn’t your main attacker.  I know one must be careful when considering future releases, as Japan sometimes gets something way ahead of us, or even something we won’t get at all.  Translations can sometimes have subtle errors as well, so take it with a grain of salt as, for the second time this review, I bring up Choice Band; that boosts Headbutt Bounce into that good 130-for-three range.  “Gumshoe Chance-GX” requires only [C] to use; its base damage is only 10, but for each Energy attached to the opponent’s Active, Gumshoe Chance-GX does an extra 50 damage.  This isn’t a guaranteed killer play in all matchups, but it hits anything with two Energy attached for 10 more than Headbutt Bounce, anything with three Energy attached for 60 more than Headbutt Bounce, and past that we are looking at KO’s against Energy hogs.  This is one of those GX attacks that are good because you can have more than one GX-attack in your deck, even if you may only ever use one in a single match.  These effects don’t have tremendous synergy, but they do work reasonably well together for the very reasons I kept saying they were good. 

Gumshoos-GX Evolves from Yungoos, and so far, our only option is Sun & Moon 109.  This is a Basic, Colorless Pokémon with 70 HP, Fighting Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Ability, and two attacks.  For [C] it can use “Tackle” to do 10 damage, and for [CC] it can use “Bite” to do 20.  This card is vanilla filler, doing nothing to aid in getting Gumshoos-GX into play and with two completely generic attacks.  At least they aren’t absolute garbage vanilla attacks, and it sports one of the higher HP scores seen on Evolving Basics (excluding Pokémon-EX) but without a hefty Retreat Cost.  [C] is actually pretty good.  It may just be a stepping stone to Gumshoos-GX, but at least Yungoos isn’t a bad stepping stone.  So how does one best utilize this card?  If you have room for a Stage 1, it actually looks like a decent fit for anything that won’t shut down its Ability.  If it isn’t integral, even an unreliable 1-1 line could be worth the effort.  As it probably won’t be the main focus, a glance at recent tournament results (which don’t include full decklists, at least not yet) means I don’t know if it is seeing some worthwhile competitive play or is being ignored.  I am thinking it would be useful for a hand control/disruption deck, or with Eeveelutions.  Flareon (XY: Ancient Origins 13/98), Jolteon (XY: Ancient Origins 26/98), and Vaporeon (XY: Ancient Origins 22/98) allow it to exploit up to three forms of Weakness, and you could include Espeon-GX and/or Umbreon-GX to cover two more forms of Weakness.  It also gives you two more technical GX-attacks; they aren’t super specialized, but they aren’t general purpose either; it ought to be a rare occasion when none are worth using in a given matchup.  If one is really worried about that, Tauros-GX is still a generic powerhouse that could slip into such a deck. 

For Standard play, I expect something from Gumshoos-GX, but I’m not quite sure what yet.  Same for Expanded play; as is so often the case, until I have proof otherwise I think the increase in combo options, competition, and counters will more or less balance out.  If that seems a bit odd (I listed two negatives), you’ll also have more counters to the counters; dealing with Ability denial such as Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122) is a lot easier here thanks to Startling Megaphone, Tool Scrapper, and/or Xerosic helping with discarding the Pokémon Tool needed to trigger “Garbotoxin”.  Gumshoos-GX is a great pull for Limited play; only leave it out if you pull a big, Basic Pokémon-GX you think is strong enough to risk running completely solo.  Every aspect of Gumshoos-GX, excluding combos, is better here than in either Standard or Expanded play. 

Ratings 

Standard: 3.35/5 

Expanded: 3.35/5 

Limited: 4.5/5 

Summary 

Gumshoos-GX is a good, all-around Pokémon-GX.  It would be a must run if it was a Basic (even assuming slightly worse HP and damage output), but as a Stage 1, it costs just enough space that it plummets to “Something to consider” for most decks.  There are a few builds that might make excellent use of it, but we’ll have to wait and see if they perform at tournaments as well as they do in theory.  So far, that hasn’t happened. 

Gumshoos-GX received a “B” from me both times I evaluated it while creating my personal Top 10 list.  I didn’t expect as much from it as some, but I expected more than we’ve seen; converted to our usual Pojo scoring system, that would be a 3.75/5!  Gumshoos-GX didn’t make my personal top 10, nor show up on anyone else’s list, but it did make my personal top 12 in 12th place.


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