Pokemon Card of the Day - Pokemon Tips - Pojo.com

Rand0m	Wednesday - Arcanine (SKY) Similar to Beedrill from SKY, this dog has a lot to offer. It's power is excellent with decent flips. Figure this: You attach fire to Growlithe turn 1, meanwhile using Juggler to get 2 fire in the discard. Next turn, you play Arcanine, you get 2 heads. Instant 70, turn 2. Now also similar to Beedrill are the combos behind this. Using cards such as Lure Ball, Retro Energy, Undersea Ruins, and Hyper Devolution Spray, Arcanine can continue to produce 70 EACH turn by continuously activating it's power. Very good card. The bad parts are obvious: Weakness to water, "ONLY" 80 HP, and 2 retreat. However, if you get going fast enough, it can rip through anything. Unlimited - 2/5 (Could be a threat, or not...) Modified - 4/5 (Very good) Draft - 4.5/5 (Worth it)
X-Act	Skyridge Arcanine COTD This isn't a bad Pokemon, but let me say it immediately: we were getting accustomed to Arcanines with 90+ HP. Seeing a new Arcanine with 80HP isn't very exciting. Anyway. As soon as you evolve your Active Growlithe, you may flip up to three coins, and for each heads, you attach a Basic Energy cards from your discard pile to Arcanine. Very nice, but note that you need to evolve your Active Pokemon for this to work, exactly like Beedrill. It then has two attacks. For a Colorless, you do 10 and force your opponent to switch. For a Colorless and 2 Fire energies, you do 70 and discard all Fire Energies from Arcanine. Using Fire Recharge Typhlosion, you can do 70 almost every turn if you're reasonably lucky. Note that Hyper Devolution Spray or Retro Energy/Undersea Ruins + Lure Ball are not good combos with Arcanine, since you cannot evolve the same turn you devolved, and hence you are skipping a turn if you devolve. So you're actually better off not devolving anyway and attach a Fire Energy, then next turn attach another one and do 70. Or use the Typhlosion. A Retreat Cost of 2 hurts this card. Overall, however, in spite of its comparatively low 80HP, Arcanine can be pretty nasty, especially in a Modified environment where two of the top decks are weak to it. After all, Magcargo also has 80HP, and you can't say that it's bad. Unlimited: If you really want to play an Arcanine in this format, this isn't the one you should choose. 1.5/5 Modified: Typhlosion/Arcanine might work here. Doing 70 damage per turn is not to be overlooked, especially since Scizor and Beedrill are so popular. However, Water Pokemon will easily kill this card... just 40 damage will do the trick, like for Magcargo. If you find a way to counter Water, this could be a pretty viable deck. 3.5/5 Draft: Overall, this card isn't that good to draft. Despite the fact that if you're drafting Aquapolis with Skyridge, you have access to 3 different Growlithes and 2 different Arcanines, this Arcanine's attack is not very compatible with Draft play. It's not splashable, AND you need to discard the Fire Energies every time you attack. However, you can use it late game as a cleaner, especially if you had also drafted the other Arcanine from Aquapolis. Depending on how you play it, it might do well or it might do badly. But isn't that the case with every other card? 2.5/5
pERfeCt 0nE	Arcanine (Skyridge) I've tried to combo this a few times with Typhlosion, but I never thought it was very good. For now, Hyper Devolution Spray is still usable with it, as well as Juggler to drop the fire energy for its effect. I doubt anyone will use SHAKE though. If the opponent has only one pokemon, then it would really help. This may seem a little "out there" but i think using it with scoop up to get back a bare Growlithe, sending up another Growlithe, using Lureball and evolving- in hopes of using WHITE FLAMES every turn, will be a possibility. The "comes into play" poke-powers are very interesting now. Unlimited- Not worthy of much. It will be hard for it to attack to begin with. Wigglytuff and Clefable will survive and kill it as easy as pie(...=/...). rating--- 1 Modified- ...Potentially deck-worthy...=/... With enough testing and effort, this can be used quite effectively. Use it with Jugglers, scoop ups (maybe), Typhlosions, Hyper devolution spray, and possibly Undersea ruins with Lureball. He takes out Scizor nicely, does his share of damage against cargo, but loses badly to Politoed and G8rs. rating--- 2.75 Draft- Very nice. SHAKE can be used more efficiently here- as WHITE FLAMES will be VERY hard to use every turn. Its HP is nice, its only stage 1, and 70 damage can rule the game in a draft match! rating--- 3.25
dontknow09	Skyridge Arcanine There have been plenty of Arcanines around. The best probably being base set one or Blaine's version. Could this card live up to its early legends? Comparing its stats, this new one doesn't shine too bright. 80HP is the lowest an Arcanine has ever had. That's not good... especially when it carries that water weakness. 2 retreat is just there. Of course, if were like the Aquapolis version, it could have 0. At least this Arcanine has the biggest arsenal. A Poke-Power and 2 attacks. The Poke-Power is a good one to get an empty Arcanine charged up. But like a lot Pokemon lately, its activated only when its active and when you evolve it. Shake disrupts nicely, unless they have a baby. White Flames is an overly priced attack. Discard 2 fires to do 70. Then you're basically open for attacks for 2 turns, which by that time Arcanine would have been KO'd already. Unlimited- I don't think this will do too nicely. A lot of pokemon are basics and almost have the same amount of HP. It's just too low. The attack's won't get you anywhere. Maybe one prize, but that's about it. 1.5/5 Modified- If I recall correctly, the base Arcanine was reprinted. Even if it wasn't reprinted, there are many fire pokemon that could do better than this. This Arcanine is too slow compared to other pokemon. 2/5 Draft- Shake is real good. It might force someone to put some pokemon up that they don't want to put up. That gives time to build up for White Flames. 3/5 -dontknow09

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