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

Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Swoobat #51/114 (Black and White) The best thing I can say about Swoobat is that its Basic form is based on one of the cutest animals in existence – the Honduran White Bat (thanks, Bulbapedia!). Apart from that, Swoobat is one of those cards that will get notice only because it is so utterly, utterly useless. It won’t achieve the same level of notoriety as Arcanine SV did, but it’s not too far off. For a start, the 80 HP is below par for a Stage 1. There’s little point in complaining about the Lightning Weakness, as it’s an easy KO for competitive Pokémon of that type anyway. Fighting Resistance is nice, I can’t deny it, but rather pointless on a card that does as little as Swoobat. Swoobat’s first attack, Attract, costs one Energy of any Colour and means your opponent will have to flip a coin on their next turn in order to attack with the Defending Pokémon. Yes, it’s easy enough to play around by just promoting another attacker, but that isn’t even the point. While an immunity attack like this might be useful in helping an evolving Basic to survive, it simply isn’t something you want to see on a final Stage Evolution. I mean, really, is this what you run a Pokémon line for? To set up an extremely flimsy, easily avoided attack lock? It’s not even as if Swoobat has anything else to offer. Heart Stamp is 40 points of effect-free damage for the cost of [P][C]. Bleh. That’s all I have to say about that. I honestly cannot think of a single game-related use for this card that would be worth the time and effort. Rating Modified (HGSS-on): 1.25 (Fighting Resistance aside, everything about this card is seriously lame) Limited: 1.5 (still bad)
virusyosh	Hello once again, Pojo readers! There are still quite a few cards left to look at in the Black and White expansion, so keep checking back and you may be able to find a favorite card or two, even if it's not thought to be popular or useful in Modified. Our COTD week this week continues with Swoobat from Black and White. Swoobat is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon. Psychics have seen a drop in popularity lately in Modified, with the errata to Rare Candy making Vilegar decks a slightly more difficult play. Therefore, Swoobat itself is going to need something special in order to make it worth playing. 80 HP is terrible for a finally-evolved Stage 1, meaning that Swoobat will probably not be able to take many major hits from opposiing Pokemon (and even worse, it is OHKO'd by the likes of Garchomp C Lv. X, Reshiram, Magnezone, and many other common Modified threats). Lightning Weakness is also terrible right now with the popularity of Luxray GL Lv. X, Magnezone Prime, and Zekrom; although admittedly Swoobat wouldn't have much of a matchup against these Pokemon anyway. Fighting Resistance is always nice to have against the random Donphan or Machamp that you'll see, and a Retreat Cost of 1 is decent: not bad, not good. Since Swoobat's upper and lower stats are relatively unimpressive, its attacks or abilities will have to stand out in order for it to see play. Swoobat doesn't have any Abilities, but it does have two attacks: Attract and Heart Stamp. Attract costs a single Colorless Energy, and turns the Defending Pokemon's next attack into a "tails-fails" deal, where if they flip tails, the attack does nothing. Unfortunately, this is easily dealt with by simply having your opponent switch out, which is very common in MD-on Modified with the use of Warp Point and many free retreaters. Heart Stamp, Swoobat's only form of offense, deals a vanilla 40 damage for a Psychic and a Colorless. Nothing impressive or noteworthy here, either. Modified: 1/5 Bad HP, terrible weakness, and lackluster attacks make Swoobat basically unusable here. One notable thing about Swoobat is that it's a Psychic-type that isn't weak to Psychic, but really, Lightning is an even worse Weakness to have. Limited: 2.5/5 Swoobat is incredibly average, even in Limited. If you draft something really great in Psychic (like Reuniclus or maybe some others) it might be good as a filler card, but on its own, it's definitely not worth building a deck around.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Swoobat (Black & White)   Today we have a Valentine's Day themed card. Too bad we are in June instead of February, and too bad this guy doesn't have an evolution because it really needs one.   Swoobat is a Psychic type non-evolving Stage 1 with 80 HP, Lightning weaknesss, Fighting resistance, a retreat cost of 1 and two attacks.   As I said before, those stats Would be great for an evolving Stage 1 moving on to a Stage 2, but as Swoobat does not evolve that HP is too low. The weakness is bad with Zekrom and Magnezone waiting to ruin your day and the retreat cost, while easy to manage, is still an insult between the HP and the fact that Swoobat has wings. At least the resistance will hold off Donphan and other Fighting types.   The first attack is Attract, and it costs [c] for a coin flip. A Tails result means the attack does nothing but Heads will give you a single turn of immunity to attacks. Aside from the 50% failure rate, Poke'mon Circulation and Poke'mon Reversal will happily remove that immunity while Poke'mon like Blastoise UL and Entei & Raikou Legend will just snipe around Swoobat. While a cheap shot at immunity is always appeciated, it will never make a card playable on it's own, especially if the attack you are using doesn't deal any damage.   So it comes down to Heart Stamp to save Swoobat from the shoebox. At a cost of [p][c] for 40 vanilla damage, the attack name is more interesting than the attack itself. The price might be fair but it is definitely not main attack material which puts Swoobat smack-bang in the middle of the 'unplayable category'. Both the stats and attacks would be forgivable, even great on an evolving Stage 1 (especially the immunity) but on a Poke'mon that doesn't evolve? No way.   Modified: 1.25 (they put these stats and attacks on the wrong card)   Limited: 2 (immunity is always good for stalling and the second attack is at least cheap)   Combos with: the shoebox. And a reprint with these exact attributes, but name it 'Golbat' to go with Crobat Prime.