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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Cloyster Lv. 40

Diamond & Pearl
Secret Wonders

 

Date Reviewed: 12.17.07

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1.00
Modified: 2.10
Limited: 2.90

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

Back to the main COTD Page


Jermy101
2005 World
Champion

Check out my eBay Store
Unlimited - Bad HP, bad attacks. 1/5
 
Modified - Spine Missile is pretty good, almost like a mini Spinning Tail if you get the flips to go your way. But I think this guy is too mediocre to play in a competitive modified deck. 2/5
 
Limited - Bench hitting is very good in this format, because you can take out whatever your opponent is building on the bench. 3/5

Greenzan
goose
Cloyster Lv. 40 SW
 
‘Morning, today’s COTD is an uncommon from the new SW set that isn’t the best, but could be worse. With only 80 HP it doesn’t take much to KO it. The first attack is too risky, if I’m going to flip a coin to see if something works it isn’t going to be an attack. The second attack is also very flippy, but the potential for 80 damage being spread around for only (c) and (w) it is only a matter of beating the odds. 2 Retreat cost is horrible for a stage 1 that is water (Most being pretty swift while swimming.) But the weakness isn’t bad.
 
Pros –
Protects itself for nothing but a flip
Spreads damage quickly
Two headed coins =P
 
Cons –
2 retreat cost
Flippy attacks
Only 80 HP
Me being so unlucky at coin flips =P
 
Unlimited – Use Sneasle to win here. 1/5
 
Modified – Too flippy, but if you are very lucky it could work. 2/5
 
Limited – spread damage here is OK. 3.5/5
 
Only 8 days till Christmas!!!
 
“War is not nice.”

Alex Bramham

UK Nationals Finalist 2007
Cloyster

Cloyster can actually be quite dangerous when it nails those heads but otherwise it's just average. 80HP is very poor for a final stage of evolution, as is its retreat cost. As long as Cloyster has that 80 snipe potential, your opponent is under threat and much prepare for that possibility. The sad overall truth is that there's just going to be too many games where Cloyster isn't a shell-shocker-fish of terror and deals a lowsy 40 while stalling the odd turn. Not impressive.

Unlimited: 52% chance of staying awake after sleeping gas and then OHKOing Gastly with the 2/3/4 heads needed. 1.52/5
Modified: 2.3/5

Otaku

 

I am not certain why, but I love this card.  Oh, not for actual use: I believe it is the first to posses a certain ability, which I will get to later.

 

Name/LV: Cloyster LV.40

Set: Mysterious Treasures

Card#: 47/132

Rarity: Uncommon

Type: Water

Stage: 1 (Evolves from Shellder)

HP: 80

Weakness: (L)+20

Resistance: None

Retreat: CC

Attack#1: (C) Withdraw

Flip a coin.  If heads, prevent all damage done to Cloyster by attacks during your opponent’s next turn.

Attack#2: (WC) Spine Missile

Flip 4 coins.  For each heads, choose an opponent’s Pokémon in play and this attack does 20 damage to those Pokémon. (You may choose the same Pokémon more than once.) (Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)

Name/LV: Shellder LV.10

Set: Secret Wonders

Card#: 105/132

Rarity: Common

Type: Water

Stage: Basic

HP: 50

Weakness: (L)+10

Resistance: None

Retreat: C

Attack#1: (C) Shell Rest

Remove 2 damage counters from Shellder.

Attack#2: (WC) Tongue Slap [20]

 

Attributes: Cloyster is a Stage 1 Water-Type Pokémon.  Water is a good Type still: while there is a bit of Resistance about there is also a bit of Weakness to Water floating around as well.  Being a Stage 1 Pokémon, Cloyster must Evolve from Shellder.  For Modified play, definitely go with the newest version: the only other legal version is a Pokémon δ variant which is a Fighting-Type, needs a Fighting Energy to attack, has 10 less HP, and the classic “(L)x2” Weakness.  The Secret Wonders Shellder isn’t great, but it has “average” Evolving Basic stats and attacks.  It just should have been a bit better since, unless I missed it (still possible since the latest batch of Pokémon is still new to me) there isn’t a Stage 2 form for the line, just Basic and Stage 1.

 

Cloyster has a mere 80 HP.  This would be low if it was still “Pre-Diamond/Pearl”, before we started seeing a 10/20 HP bump for Stage 2 Pokémon and Stage 1 Pokémon.  It would still be passable if Cloyster had a Stage 2 form, but as is, it hurts the card.  At least Cloyster has merely a +20 Weakness to Lightning attacks.  This is fairly “middle” of the road, as it still makes it easier for them to KO Cloyster, but no where near as easy as classic “x2” or the more recent end Stage “+30” would have made it.  Unfortunately, there is no Resistance to compliment it.  At least the Retreat Cost is only two energy: this is low enough you can pay, but high enough you’ll want to include at least a few cards to avoid it.

 

Abilities: This is what could have saved Cloyster, but I am afraid it just qualifies it for a foot note in the annals of Pokémon history.  The first attack, Withdraw, is well known to us: 50% chance they can’t damage you next turn.  Given the low HP of Cloyster and its high video game Defense score, they really should have made this some sort of Poké-Body/Power or at least a free attack.

 

What is really interesting is the attack: Spine Missile is the first attack, I believe, to offer you this kind of damage and spread.  We’ve had attacks that allow you to distribute damage counters as you see fit, but I don’t think we have had one where you generate damage  via coin flips (a robust four in this case), and then can choose to distribute them amongst the opponent’s Pokémon as you see fit (at least, within the increments of the coin flip).  It was ruled on December 6th that first you flip the four coins, see how many increments of 20 you scored, then you choose how you distribute them between opposing Pokémon and finally apply any effects that would alter the damage done (like Double Rainbow Energy or Weakness/Resistance if you were hitting the Defending Pokémon and not the Bench).

 

Still a bit muddy?  Here are some examples:

 

Example 1: Bob and George are playing.  Bob is using a Fire deck while George is Cloyster Active and powered up in whatever deck he is running.  Bob has a Fire Pokémon with 90 HP and +30 to Water Weakness Active with two more Benched.  George has Cloyster use Spine Missile, and all four coins come up as “heads”.  So George has three “heads” hit the active for 60 damage (20+20+20) base and another 30 damage from Weakness for the KO, while the last head whacks one of Bob’s Benched Pokémon for base 20 damage (Weakness and Resistance aren’t applied for Benched Pokémon).

 

Example 2: Bob and George are playing again (they play a lot as they are brothers, okay?) and everything is the same as before (Bob has three 90 HP max, Water Weak Fire Pokémon with one Active and two Benched, and George has a Cloyster in play) except Bob’s Pokémon each have only 20 HP left and George just had to run a mostly Electric deck, so Cloyster is being powered with a Double Rainbow Energy card.  This time George flips three heads, so he has one hit the Defending Pokémon for 20 base damage, less 10 damage for Double Rainbow Energy, and plus 30 for Weakness, or 40 damage overall.  He then uses the other two “heads” results to hit one of the Benched Pokémon, and it does base 40 (20+20), less 10 for Double Rainbow Energy (it is applied to each grouping of damage separately), for 30 damage (as Weakness would not be applied for a Benched Pokémon).

 

Hopefully that makes things clearer.

 

Uses and

Combinations: This is an interesting Bench hunting Pokémon: if your luck is great you can either spread the damage or take out one Pokémon.  If your luck is mostly average, it can still spread some damage around the opponent’s Bench.  Just remember that Double Rainbow Energy is not recommended, since it will reduce it “cluster” of damage by 10.  If you get four heads and use them all on the same opponent, yeah it would still be 70 damage, but if you wanted to spread the damage out among four Pokémon, it would only be 10 to each!

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1/5 – Probably not a surprise, though if it did just 10 more damage per heads, it just might have been an interesting idea for Raindance decks.  After all, four heads could then KO an Active Sneasel from Neo Genesis plus a Neo Discovery Tyrogue and Neo Genesis Cleffa on the bench.  It still could KO a single, healthy, Slowking, but only on four heads so nope, shouldn’t use it.

 

Modified: 2/5 – Not worthless, yet not worth enough to use: if it had something to protect it while spreading damage or had a way to reliably do damage (discard a Water for 20, or even flipping a coin for each Water Energy attached, etc.), it might have be a great opener/closer for Water decks.

 

Limited: 4/5 – Here its attacks are far more effective, and a single Water Energy in the cost of Spine Missile makes it easy to fit into most decks.

 

Summary

Something of a novelty due to how its attack functions, it lacks the power to be a brute and the defenses to be more a technical fighter.

 

-Otaku

 


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