Pojo's Pokemon news, tips, strategies and more!

Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles


Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play


Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel


GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual


Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar


Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List


Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
-
Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us


Magic
Yu-Gi-Oh!
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman



Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Staraptor FB Lv. X

Supreme Victors

Date Reviewed: 08.21.09

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 2.87
Limited: 3.25

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

Jigglypuff13 8/21 Staraptor FB Lv.X (SV)

Hello, and welcome to the final day of this Supreme Victors week, and we end on a card that has received a lot of hype, and one you will see me have a rant about, yes, it's Staraptor FB Lv.X! First, the basics of the card, and it has 100 HP, which is actually a little on the low side. It's the lowest for an SP Lv.X, and is just slightly higher than the lowest for an Basic Lv.X (90 HP for the pixie Lv.Xs), so I wouldn't count on it surviving anything really. x2 Lightning Weakness is annoying simply due to the fact that Luxray GL Lv.X (RR) is likely to be a popular tech, who will be able to OHKO this card (well, so long as the deck has at least 1 energy can be provide Lightning anyway). -20 Fighting Resistance is nice, but since the main Fighting Pokémon that's likely to see any play is Machamp (SF), I don;t actually see it being that useful. No Retreat Cost is perfect though, there is no other word for it. Finally, it's an SP Pokémon, so has access to all that lovely SP support.

Abilities now, and it's need good ones to make up for a fairly bad frame, and these are the reason why it's been hyped, and why I'm about to launch into a rant. Fast Call, it's Poké-Power, allows you to search your deck for a Supporter and put it in your hand. Sounds nice, getting a Supporter that you may need for the turn. However, before you start adding a 1-1 (or 2-2) line of this to every deck you have, I want you to think about something: how many Supporters do you actually play in your deck? 4 Roseanne's Research, possibly 4 Bebe's Search (unless it's an SP deck, at which point maybe 2 maximum), 4 Cyrus's Conspiracy in SP decks, a maybe a little draw, probably Cynthia's Feelings or Looker's Investigation. That's maybe 12 Supporter you are running, but probably less (I personally play 7 in my latest deck, if you wanted to know (which you probably don't)), and really, since you are probably running Claydol (GE) or Uxie (LA) (or both) already, you'll probably draw into what you need, be it what you were going to search for with your Supporter or the Supporter itself, so why do you need Staraptor FB Lv.X? I think very few people have complained about losing a game due to not having the right Supporter at the right time (unless it's Roseanne's Research early game, but Staraptor FB Lv.X isn't exactly going to help you there now), so as far as I can tell, there is very little reason to play this card for Fast Call.
So maybe the attack makes it good then? Er, no. Defog is a rather bad CCC for 40 damage base (or CC and an Energy Gain, but that hardly makes it better). However, if there is a Stadium in play, you may discard it to deal 70 damage instead. It's still not enough to even get me remotely excited about this attack. Not every deck plays Stadium cards, so you are going to have to fill your deck with Stadiums to power the attack, which is something which, unless you are also running Skuntank G (PL), I don't actually see being that helpful. Get 2 Stadiums out in 2 turns in a row, and I suppose you are 2HKOing most of the format, but you have to be able to do that, and there is no reliable way of searching for Stadiums in this format (not unless they reprint Scott anytime soon) bar Honchkrow G (PL), and even he isn't that great.

As you may be able to guess, I'm not a big fan of this card, on it's own at least. However, I suppose there is at least 1 combo that makes the card semi-playable, and that is Porygon 2 (GE). He allows you to use an extra Supporter per turn, so you can search with Staraptor FB Lv.X, then use it straight away, then if you have another Supporter in your hand, you can use that as well. Now, you will need plenty of Supporters in your deck including plenty of drawing Supporters, which I'm not a big fan of doing since it takes up too much deck space. It also takes up too much bench space. 2 spaces as opposed to the 1 of Uxie or Claydol. I suppose the only thing that is quite nice about the Supporter engine with Staraptor FB Lv.X is that it gives you mega deck thinning, giving you better chance of drawing what you need when you do properly draw cards. Claydol and Uxie can't do that to quite the same extent, but you can draw plenty of cards to decrease the chance anyway.

Counters, and really, it's actually quite hard to counter. You can't reduce the damage output that easily since Staraptor FB Lv.X discards it's main way of increasing damage, so you can't discard them before hand to reduce the damage. It does also actually counters Flygon (RR) quite nicely, getting rid of their own Stadiums before Flygon can Sand Wall it away and have a turns worth of protection. I suppose there are only really 2 ways of countering Staraptor FB Lv.X. The first is the same for almost every SP Pokémon, and that is to use Machamp (SF), since it can just Take Out every un-Unown G'ed (GE) SP Pokémon. The other counter, and this one is specific to Staraptor FB Lv.X is Luxray GL Lv.X, since it can Bright Look a benched Staraptor FB Lv.X active, and then OHKO it.

Ratings:

Modified: As you maybe able to guess, I'm not a big fan of the card. For Fast Call, you have a choice to either use it with Claydol/Uxie, or on it's own. With Claydol/Uxie, you probably aren't running that many Supporters in your deck, so your probably better trying to draw into what you need, and if you are running it as it's own engine, you need far too many Supporters to make it worth while, and it'll take up way too much space in your deck to really be that useful. Defog is just plain horrid. 70 damage maybe be a 2HKO against most, but you have no real way of getting Stadiums out consistently to make the 2HKO when you need it. I suppose it might be alright, but it's not a Claydol/Uxie replacer, not by a long way. 2.25/5

Limited: Fast Call is still pointless here, since you'll get few Supporters here to make best use of it, though if you do get any, it'll be helpful to be able to search for them. Defog is also pointless, since players will get few Stadiums here, though again, if you face someone with Stadiums (or got loads and shoved them in your deck), then it'll be helpful, and 70 damage will OHKO most of what you find, but may have to settle with 2HKOs (and one of those attacks probably won't even need a stadium to be discarded). Getting Staraptor FB Lv.X out will be quite hard though since you'll probably only get a 1-1 line, so I'm undecided if it's actually worth using, or if it'll be a waste of deck space. 2.75/5
 
drtomoe123
Professor
League Leader

Staraptor FB Lv. X
Supreme Victors
Secret Rare
 

Getting further into the Lv. X cards from Supreme Victors, we've seen some really interesting cards. Blaziken FB Lv. X is probably going to take over Infernape 4's duties, and there could be some Electivire FBs running around come Battle Roads, along with the occasional Rayquaza C Lv. X deck, and maybe even a Charizard G Lv. X here and there (I mean, even though the card is only mildly playable, and really only with Typhlosion and Heatran, it's still Charizard!). However, today's card is primarily useful because it's set to become THE non-Uxie/Claydol draw engine. 

And I think it's pretty worth it.

Of course, basics first. It's got 100 HP which isn't too good for a SP Lv. X, right around the same level as Gallade 4 Lv. X (but it won't matter because you don't want Staraptor in the Active spot to begin with). Its 2x Weakness to Lightning allows it to be completely fried by Luxray, which is unfortunate. The -20 Fighting Resistance is typical, and it protects against the Machamp (with Unown G, of course) and even the Mankey match-up, which may be a popular Lv. X tech from now on (especially with the way it KOs Luxray!). Retreat Cost, however, is GREAT. Send out Staraptor FB, level it up, and then you get to take advantage of it's Power on the bench. What power? Let me get to that...

Staraptor FB Lv. X's Pokemon Power, Fast Call, is why people are hyping up this card. It allows you to search your deck for any supporter and add it to your hand. That's great to begin with, but it gets even better when you combo it with a card like Porygon 2 (GE), and then you can use the supporter you just pulled immediately. While this really isn't a true replacement for Claydol/Uxie, it still manages to be really close as long as you have a wide range of Supporters in your deck.

Unfortunately, that's about where the card's usefulness ends. The Lv. X's Defog attack does a potential 70 for 3 Colorless IF there's a Stadium in play, but then the Stadium must be discarded, so you'll probably be stuck doing the base 40 most of the time unless you're playing a deck/against a deck that runs tons of Stadiums. Either way, if it's your stadium, you probably won't want to get rid of it, so you'll only want to use it if you're playing against something with huge stadium usage, such as Broken Time Space-centered decks. Regardless, it's not too much of an attack, and Staraptor FB's attacks aren't anything to write home about either, unfortunately.

Ratings:

Modified: 4/5 This card could potentially be one of the big draw engines after the next rotation, which is still a bit of time away, because it still just doesn't stand up to Uxie/Claydol. However, when paired with Porygon 2, this card becomes a BEAST because of its Poke-Power. Use it, get friendly with it, but just keep it on the bench and only bring it out and attack when you need to.

Limited: 3/5 Most Lv. X's are great in this format if you can get one of the normal cards and the Lv. X...which is usually hard to do. The card is pretty average here because of the lack of Supporters in decks. Still, it's no pushover, and I can say that because a deck with this card killed me in my most recent pre-release.


Joshy
Staraptor Lv. X

Staraptor FB Lv. X is a card that doesn't impress me much. Its got an okay power, and 100 HP with free retreat. Other than that it doesn't do much. In order for its attack to really do anything you're going to have to play a stadium (because I don't see your opponent playing one anytime soon if you have this out). It would be a lot better if its power could search for any card, or even a trainer/support/stadium - but no. I just feel there are such better search cards out there and this one can take a while to get to.

Weakness to electric shouldn't be too bad, just fear the random raichu. Fighting resistance is pretty good. And free retreat is the best you can get!

Rating:
Modified: 2/5
Limited: 4/5 - like it better here since it can search fast.


CopyrightŠ 1998-2009 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.