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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Combusken

EX Holon Phantoms

 

Date Reviewed: 06.27.06

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1
Modified: 2
Limited: 3.35

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


Otaku

Skip straight to the scores and summary for a concise overview.

 

Name: Combusken

Set: EX Holon Phantoms

Card#:

Type: Fire

Stage: 1 (Evolves from Torchic)

HP: 70

Weakness: Water

Resistance: None

Retreat: C

Attack#1: (CC) Slash [20]

Attack#2: (RCC) Super Singe [40]

Flip a coin.  If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Burned.

Name: Torchic

Set: EX Holon Phantoms

Card#: 83/110

Type: Fire

Stage: Basic

HP: 40

Weakness: W

Resistance: None

Retreat: C

Attack#1: (C) Peck [10]

Attack#2: (RC) Flare [20]

 

Attributes: Combusken is a Stage 1 Fire Pokémon.  Being a Fire Pokémon is fine: Weakness is fairly common but Resistance is somewhat scarce.  It Evolves from Torchic, and can Evolve into Blaziken.  The Torchic from the same set doesn’t do anything special, and in fact has sub-par HP and an over priced second attack.  Unless you absolutely have to have a single Energy attack for it, go with the EX Trainer Kit version.  The Blaziken from its same set (see its CotD) has nice, solid attacks but nothing that really stands out.  Unfortunately, the story is the same for the other currently Modified legal Blaziken.

 

While it currently doesn’t have any brilliant Evolved forms, it still is a Stage 1 capable of further Evolution, and will be scored accordingly.  So its 70 HP is acceptable: anything less would be too low and a major risk.  We still have Ancient Technical Machine [Rock] and De-Evolution attacks are getting a little more common.  70 HP is also high enough that it will take a fairly big attack to reliably OHKO it, which means most other Basics and Stage 1 Pokémon aren’t going to be doing that.  The exception being Water Pokémon, as Combusken is Weak to Water.  This Weakness isn’t great, but it is pretty common for Fire Pokémon and thus easy to plan for (Holon Energy FF might be a good idea).  There is no Resistance, which is as always a disappointment, perhaps more so since it appears to be the direction the game is going.  Finally we have a nice, low Retreat Cost of a single Energy.  This is fairly easy to pay: you should rarely be stranded.  Additionally, since this is a Fire Pokémon, a High Pressure System would then make it into a free Retreat Cost.

 

Abilities: Slash is a straight up 20 for (CC) attack.  It is mostly a place holder attack that you use before you get that third Energy for Super Singe: true it could be used in a deck that lacked Fire Energy (or a reliable source of it), but at the moment there’s no reason to play this card in such a deck, and Super Singe only needs one of its three Energy be a specific Type (Fire).  Super Singe hits for a respectable 40 damage, and gives you a 50% chance of Burning the opponent.  The way Burn is normally priced, that means that you over all get a discount of (C) on the attack.  I feel Burn should be priced the same as Sleep due to its extraordinarily flippy nature.  Either way, it’s not that much better than any other Combusken, though neither is it really any worse.  The main problem is the lack of synergy between the attacks: the supporting attack is merely a place holder.

 

Uses and

Combinations: This card exists to help get Blaziken into play, as well as function as a decent opening/closing attacker if you are in a bit of a bind.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1/5 – Not really seeing Blaziken played here, so no Blaziken means no Combusken.

 

Modified: 2/5 – If you really needed a Stage 1 Fire Pokémon line to add to a deck, you could do worse.  It’s just you could also do much better.  It doesn’t help that no apparent deck for the currently legal Blaziken exist.

 

Limited: 3..35/5 – Here it is hurt a bit because the set has so much Pokémon δ support that it’s basically a disadvantage not to be one.  Still, it’s a good solid attacker for decks here, even as the focus, and if you pull the Blaziken for this set its also a lot better here than in Constructed play.

 

Summary

Love it in Limited.  Ignore it in Unlimited.  If you decide to play around with a Blaziken, consider including a copy with it.

 

-Otaku

 

0bsol33t Combusken - Holon Phantoms

Unlimited

It's a really tough call between this Combusken and the one from Ruby/ Sapphire that has Flare and Double Kick. Both have their strong points, if you're running a Blaziken deck anyway. This Combusken can use a Fire and Double Colorless to use both attacks, same as the other. I like having the option of Burning the opponent - especially with Full Flame available. In fact, if you really felt like it, you could run a Char (Neo Genesis Quilava) deck with Burn as an added bonus. RCC for 40 with half a chance to burn is nice...it gets my vote (just barely) over the other one, in case you're running Meteor Falls or Recall and can use the attack as a Blaziken.

3.1/5


Modified

I like this Combusken in Modified. Blaziken (both versions) have possibilities, and the ability to Burn through Meteor Falls is always helpful. 70 HP is decent for a Stage 1 that's more of a temporary stop to a heavy-hitting Stage 2. 1 Retreat can be solved with High Pressure System, if you feel like running it. Just keep in mind that it will help Water Pokémon, which is Combusken's weakness anyway.
However, Holon Energy FF will get rid of that pesky Weakness, and you've got Fire Energy in the deck anyway, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to add in. Scramble Energy, if you deem it necessary, will fund the RCC for Super Singe.

3.3/5


Limited

If you can get ahold of the Torchics, then this card would be great to run in Draft. Not only are most of the Energy costs Colorless, but Special Conditions are awesome in Draft. It's always a hassle to have to face "Retreat or Die" when Energy is such a commodity and Trainers are few and far between in a format. 1 Retreat won't hurt you here, and Water may or may not be commonly seen, depending on what's pulled from the deck. I'd say run it with some Grass or Electric, just in case - you can afford the Energy diversity, thanks to the attack costs.

3.6/5


- 0bsol33t
pojo0bsol33t @ exyxe.com
 

William
Hung
My reviews are ratings are for Modified only.

Combusken HP

Modified 2/5 - It's a decent version of Combusken, but you really want to just get to Blaziken. I mean you don't want to use Combusken as a main attacker.


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