Name:
Alakazam*
Set:
EX Crystal Guardians
Card#:
99/100
Rarity:
Pokémon*
Type:
Psychic
Stage:
Basic
HP:
80
Weakness:
Psychic
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
C
Pokémon* Rule:
You can’t have more than 1 Pokémon* in your deck.
Attack#1:
(P) Psychic Select
Put any 1 card from your discard pile into your
hand.
Attack#2:
(CCC) Skill Copy
Discard a Basic or Evolution card from your
hand. Choose 1 of that card’s attacks. Skill
Copy copies that attack. This attack does
nothing if Alakazam* doesn’t have the Energy
necessary to use that attack. (You must still
do anything else required for that attack.)
Alakazam* performs that attack.
Attributes:
Okay, if this Pokémon* isn’t to be mere binder
fodder, it needs to be quite good: after all, at
just a single copy it really can’t star in the deck
unless you include a large amount of Pokémon
recycling cards. Alakazam* has 80 HP, which
is good for a Basic. Psychic is an okay type:
Weakness and Resistant both exist at reasonable
levels, so Type matching may factor in with it.
Alakazam* itself is Psychic Weak as most Psychic
Pokémon are, so much of the time it will be “who
hits first?” deciding Psychic versus Psychic
match-ups. No Resistance is depressing as always,
but a single Energy retreat cost is quite nice. All
in all, solid stats for a Pokémon*.
Abilities:
Psychic Select is an ‘okay’ attack on its own, but
nothing too Special: if you can supply the Energy
requirement it might be okay in certain decks to get
back useful Trainers and Special Energy. However,
it’s clearly intended to reload for your second
attack, Skill Copy. Skill Copy is interesting. In
many ways, it turns any Pokémon into Alakazam’s
own personal Technical Machine. This is a great
attack and had this been on a “normal” Alakazam
it could have anchored a deck. Yes, you need the
Energy to use the attack, but you can’t deny that it
is incredible for an opponent to have to worry about
anything hitting them.
Uses and
Combinations:
Holon’s
Pokémon are you friend. With any two of Holon’s
Castform, Holon’s Electrode, or
Holon’s Magneton, only 14 attacks on 14 Pokémon
can’t be copied… but with one more Energy of any
type, they all can be copied. Of course, there are
some 900 that can be copied with said four or less.
Many Pokémon have all or mostly Colorless attacks at
one, two, three, and four Energy so there are indeed
many options.
However, this almost needs to be the focus of a
deck. If only there was a way to abuse the attack,
like by giving it to another Pokémon. And there is:
let Mew ex use Versatile to copy this, and
instead of needing a Bench full of Pokémon to copy,
you can keep most in hand and remain flexible.
Decent draw/search power combined with recursion
like Holon Farmer and Pokémon Retriever
should give you a handy little combo and free up
more Bench space, plus let you copy Pokémon you
normally couldn’t fit into the deck: you could run a
floater like a Stage 2 Pokémon entirely on its own.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2/5 – Not too bad of stats for this format, and
there are quite a few Pokémon that a Double
Colorless Energy would let you abuse. If you
want to go crazy, have a bench full of Slowking,
Sabrina’s Alakazam active, and this on the
Bench, and a large amount of crazy Pokémon in the
deck to use for their attacks. I don’t expect it to
revolutionize the format, but hey it should be fun!
Modified:
3.5/5 – Given the relative potency and ease of use,
it is one of the best and may be the best Pokémon*
we have right now, and may become a strong ally of
Mew ex. Even without adding any other extra
Pokémon to the deck, it’s nice to surprise the
opponent by dropping this and then, for example, use
Versatile to use Copy Skill to use an attack from a
Manectric ex from hand.
Limited:
5/5 – Alakazam* is brilliant here, but you may not
want to run it due to its value. Still, it can be
used with any kind of Energy and even to access
attacks for Pokémon you might not be able to run due
to lacking their lower Stages. You still can’t use
attacks without having the right Energy, so don’t go
too crazy – Charizard δ, for example, would
be a bad choice to use as attack fuel.
Summary
While I am not entirely thrilled with the rarity of
Pokémon*, I would rather they were hard to come by
and at least moderately useful than nothing but
collector candy that… well… made the game look like
a joke. Harsh, I know, but if they want something
super rare for collectors to chase down and don’t
want to mess up the metagame by making a great card
really rare, they have other options: they already
were intelligent enough to change first edition
cards to parallel holos (a wonderful decision I
love), so alternate artwork would be a good way to
please collectors without needlessly cluttering a
set. ;)
As for the card itself, Alakazam* looks to be
almost exactly what a Pokémon* should be, at least
so long as there are Pokémon that can copy its
attack. If it didn’t have that, it’d sadly still be
a bit underpowered (but still superior to most of
its contemporaries). Good job, TPC. :-D
