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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Gengar - Skyridge

Date Reviewed: 06.10.03

Ratings & Reviews below

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating.

Random	Tuesday - Gengar (SKY) Well guys, I'm back to the crew. It's summer now, I have no excuse not to. Anyways, on to the review. Gengar is a decent Stage 2. 100 HP. The bottom stats are iffy, though. 2 Retreat. Weakness to DARK. Resistance to Fighting, always nice to shield from Tyrogue. It also has very good evolutions, if you use the Gastly from Fossil and LC, and the Haunter from Fossil and LC. The pokemon power, "Manipulate", reminds me of another Pokemon power. It's somewhat like Beedrills, where for it to work you have to evolve as the active. This is really easy to do. If you play this deck solo, most likely nearly every pokemon in your deck will have free retreat (except Gengar, of course), so this isn't a problem. The next part of it is interesting. You get to bring a basic from your discard into play, and flip 3 coins to attach energy from your discard pile to it. That's nice, especially with that new Mewtwo ex coming up. The attack is mediocre, costing PPCC for 40. Burn is always nice, but since you can retreat to get rid of it, don't expect it to be long lasting. Then, of course, there is the confusion part, which is REALLY nice. The problem with this card right now is, what basic are you going to use? You can't use Sneasel in unlimited because the power says "BASIC" energy. And we all know Modified isn't being swarmed with solid basics right now, especially psychic ones. Overall, it's a great idea if you can build the right deck around it. I don't write cards like this off because SOMEONE will make it soon enough. But until Mewtwo ex is released by Nintendo, I don't see this card having all that much use. Unlimited: 1.5/5 (Good until you realize it doesn't work with Sneasel) Modified: 2.5/5 (Need Mewtwo ex) Limited/Draft: 3.5/5 (Get a big basic, and you've got yourself a deck.) ~ RaNd0m
X- Act	Skyridge Gengar Interesting card, this. When it evolves, it lets you get a Basic Pokemon from your discard pile onto your Bench with up to three Basic Energy cards (also obtained from the discard pile) attached to it. But how do you put Pokemon and energies in the discard pile? There are various ways. One of them is to use Skyridge Haunter's second attack, which lets you discard two cards from your hand and then draw two cards. Speaking of attacks, Gengar's only attack, a [PPCC] for 40 for Burn or Confusion, might be a tad overcosted. Or maybe not, considering its sure Status inflicting. And a Heads followed by a Tails results in a Confused and Burned Pokemon with at least 80 damage. I believe that with the release of Mirage Stadium, Special Conditions have slightly improved in Modified. (Mirage Stadium has the potential to be a really abusive card.) Anyway, so this Gengar has 100HP. Wait... 100HP? That's the most any Gengar has ever had. Unfortunately, so is its retreat cost of 2 (ok, it ties with the evil Dark version). :/ The problem with this card, in my opinion, is that it takes too much time to power up. One solution to this problem is to include Energy Switch, and as soon as you evolve Gengar and place your Basic Pokemon from your discard pile to your bench (with hopefully at least one energy card), you just Energy Switch from the Bench to Gengar to attack turn 3. Still, that's not exactly an exciting combo, but you could try it out. ;x Unlimited: Hmm. It's weak to Darkness. So Sneasel with two Darkness Energies needs just two Heads for its Beat Up attack to OHKO the Gengar. Not very nice. :/ 1.5/5 Modified: Here, the Neo Genesis Sneasel is absent, so Gengar can breathe a sigh of relief. Or can it? I still see an occasional Tyranitar being played in Modified. Umbreon, too. And even if your opponent doesn't play Darkness, unless you use the Energy Switch (=\), you'll lag behind your opponent's swifter setup more often than not. It's not bad once it has been setup, though. 2.5/5 Draft: The Gastly from Skyridge is Common. The Haunter, surprisingly, is also Common (with a card-drawing attack, pretty nice in this format). Well, if you happen to have drafted them, go ahead and draft the Gengar, I suppose. Status effects are pretty deadly in this format, and Gengar guarantees at least one. On the negative side, its attack is pretty expensive and not very splashable, it's a Stage 2, and the Psychic type in general is, understandably, usually not a very good type to Draft. I guess you could win with it, but I wouldn't bet on it. 2/5
TR Shadow	Gengar It has an interesting Pokemon Power. It would work well with swarming decks. The attack has some nasty side effects. Burn and confusion are, IMO, two of the worst side effects in the game. A sure one of those is something worth looking at. Forty damage isn't the best for four energy, though. They could have easily added another ten or twenty damage on to that. The status effects make up for the lack of damage, I guess. 100 hp isn't something to overlook either. Not many stage twos have that much. Two retreat isn't bad, either. It may be a little high, though. Weakness to dark will probably hurt it since Murkrow is still played. You don't see him too much though. Houndoom is probably Gengar's worst fear right now. Unlimited 2/5 Modified 4/5 Limited 3/5 ~TR Shadow~
BondiBorg	----- Gengar 100 HP Psychic Stage 2 (Evolves from Haunter) Weakness - Dark Resistance - Fighting Retreat - CC Poké-Power - Manipulate When you play Beedrill from your hand to evolve your Active Pokémon, you may put a Basic Pokémon (excluding Baby Pokémon) from your discard pile onto your Bench. Then, flip 3 coins For each heads, choose a basic Energy card from your discard pile and attach it to that Pokémon. PPCC - Hydrokinesis - 40 Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Burned. If tails, the Defending Pokémon is now Confused. I LOVE this card, especially with the re-introduction of Hitmonchan and Electabuzz to Modified. You can turn an empty bench space into a fully-pumped heavy hitter, in one turn. For Unlimited, this only has a place as a fun deck. Having Weakness to Sneasel is never a good thing...the opponent would have to get absolutely horrible flips not to kill it, though a heads on Hydrokinesis would Burn it, giving you the chance to work past the Focus Band that's probably on it. For Modified, this is where the card's most potential is. In a deck with Juggler, you can go anywhere you'd like. I've tested a few variants of it, one using Espeon (return an Eevee with Manipulate, and any Psychics you put back on it with the flips also allow you to flip for Energy Evolution, making it possible to have a fully-pumped Espy with ease), one with Haymaker-type Pokémon, and for a final bit of fun, Shining Pokémon. Scizor and Steelix can be Burned or Confused to slow them down, and any rogue Xatu decks you come across would be easy to tear through. The best part about the card is the ability to include whatever Metagame critters you like in the deck. Fearing Expedition 'Gatr? Toss in some Electabuzz. Neo1 'Gatr? Promo Scyther. Big Fire? Mantine. Scizor? Magmar. The lists go on...and the ability to attach whatever kind of basic Energy you like from the discard makes it possible. In order to get the Basics into your Discard without waiting for them to be killed, use Energy Retrieval. Discard it, then simply choose to get back 0 Energies. ^_^ For Limited, this card would be heavenly if you could get it out. If drafted with Legendary, you've got a good chance of getting the best Haunter and the best Gastly. A chance to get one of your big hitters back, complete with Energy, would be awesome. 40 damage is solid, and the either of the two best Status Effects depending on a flip is great. Haunter (if it's from LC) has a Power that will help it live long enough to actually accumulate 4 Energy, too. Unlimited - 3.0 Modified - 4.1 Limited - 3.0 (4.5 if drafted with LC) ~{BondiBorg}~
Meganium45	Gengar, Man, oh man, if this card's attack was only psychic, colorless, colorless, I would find it truly playable! Now at least it is splashable. 100 HP - Great for Gengar Fighting Resistance - Great for Tyrogue Darkness Weakness - Murkrow Bait. Retreat cost 2 - Average Pokemon Power - interesting. When you play Gengar from your hand onto your active, you get to take a basic pokemon out of your discard pile and place him on your bench, you flip three coins, and for each heads you attach an energy to that Pokemon. Man, can you imagine pulling a Mewtwo EX, or a Kyogre EX out of your discard pile, flipping a few heads, and attacking with that Pokemon on the same turn! Wow, a great late game "surprise" hitter. The attack - four energy, 2 of which have to be psychic, a bit high for a pokemon that does only 40 damage, but heads burned, tails confused! Wow auto status! And none of this poisoned stuff that big bad AQ Scizor can get around! This pokemon should be anticipated in many decks that use big basic pokemon. Tough to pick this Gengar over its Legendary Cousin, but he's a close second. I may even play 3-1 to maximize my late game effectiveness in my gengar deck (3 LC - 1 SK) The other great thing about Gengar are his underlings. Legendary/Fossil Gastly is a broken basic card. Always has been. Fighting resistance, 0 retreat, 50 HP, no weakness, and a decent one energy attack. Haunters are not as good, but I prefer Transparency from LC/Fossil. Let's face it, any card DMTM likes can't be all bad! I was hoping that the last theme deck would be a DMTM "Gengarlicious" theme deck, as opposed to that eevvee thing. The weakness to this card is it takes too many energy (4) to power up, and its attack does not hit extremely hard, in this new land of the giants (Gatr, Cargo, Beedrill, lightning Cube) My ratings are as follows Unlimited - 1/5. Will NOT be played here, great, you get the pokemon out of the discard, but unless it is a ditto or a Rocket's Zappy, who cares, and noone uses basic energy here anyway. Too much effort for too little reward. Modified - 3/5. Will see some decks experimenting with this card, but could have trouble against the big hitters of the day, none of which are weak to psychic. Dark Gengar and LC Gengar should always be more popular choices here. Limited - 3/5. this is a line I will always take a chance on. If he gets up and running, he is hard to stop, and in SK, if you get him out, his Power could change the game for you! More fun coming soon! Anyone working on a Kyroge Ex - Poitoed Center deck yet? Meganium45

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