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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

		Top 13 Pokemon Cards of Dragon Exalted: #13 Drifblim 51/124 Date Reviewed: August 6, 2012 Ratings & Reviews Summary Modified: 3.45 Limited: 3.40 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
Combos With:

virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! We're finally going to start Dragons Exalted reviews this week, and we're going to count down what we consider the best cards from the set, as voted by Pojo's awesome COTD staff. Due to some scheduling stuff, we're going to have a Top 13 instead of a Top 10, and we're going to start that today! We'll kick things off with Drifblim from Dragons Exalted.   Drifblim is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon. Psychics aren't all that common aside from Mewtwo-EX, but there are quite a few new interesting Psychic Pokemon in Dragons Exalted, including Mew-EX, Drifblim, Sigilyph, and Golurk, to name a few. Whether or not they see play largely depends largely on the metagame. As for Drifblim, 100 HP is fairly good for a Stage 1, as Drifblim should be able to take at least a medium-sized hit before going down, unless it's getting hit for Weakness. Darkness Weakness is pretty bad right now, as Darkrai-EX will easily OHKO. as will other Pokemon like Zoroark. No Resistance is kind of odd for the Blimp Pokemon given its video game typing, but alas, it doesn't get one here. Finally, a single Retreat Cost is easily payable.   Drifblim has two attacks. Shadow Steal is why Drifblim may see some play, dealing 50 damage times the number of Special Energy cards in your opponent's discard pile for a single Colorless Energy! Double Colorless and Prism Energy are both fairly popular, and with the release of the new Blend Energies, Special Energy will continue being a dominating force in the metagame. Therefore, if your opponent has even just a couple of these Energy in their discard pile toward the middle and end of the game, Drifblim could be dishing out huge amounts of damage for cheap. Of course, you can also speed the process up yourself by running something like Enhanced Hammer or a Pokemon with an Energy-discarding move, like Garchomp or Kyurem-EX.   Plentiful Placement, Drifblim's second attack, allows you to place 4 damage counters on one of your opponent's Pokemon for a Psychic and a Colorless. While 4 damage counters is not a lot by any means, being able to put that damage anywhere can be good to pick off one of your opponent's Benched Pokemon.   Modified: 3/5 Since Special Energies are a dominant force in the Modified metagame, chances are Drifblim will see a bit of play here. However, whether or not the Blimp will be successful depends on the popularity of its biggest adversary: Darkrai-EX. Given all of the Dark support in Dark Explorers coupled with the new Hydreigon, Darkrai isn't going away any time soon. Therefore, if you decide to use Drifblim here, be sure to watch out for Darkrai, as it's one of Drifblim's best counters.   Limited: 3.5/5 Drifblim is good in Limited. 100 HP is great, and both attacks are cheap, even though Psychic Energy is required for Plentiful Placement. Shadow Steal is amazing for the cost even if your opponent only has one Special Energy in the discard pile, and Plentiful Placement can easily pick off some low HP basics (Swablu, perhaps?) or any of your opponent's annoying support Pokemon. Overall, Drifblim is a solid choice for Limited, albeit one that's a bit reliant on your opponent to get the best results.   Combos With: Enhanced Hammer, other Special Energy-discarding cards
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Our Dragons Exalted Top 10: #13 Drifblim   I know that starting our new set Top 10 countdown at #13 is somewhat incongruous, but bear with us. There are some very powerful cards coming out, and more importantly some interesting mechanics are being explored by Poke'mon's design team.   So this week is being shortened by a two day holiday and Bill, in his infinite wisdom, has extended the top card countdown to compensate. Now i'm finished waffling, so onto the review!   Today we start with one of the cards I'm hoping to pull at the local prerelease this Sunday. Drifblim has been a favourite of mine ever since I ran the Stormfront version alongside the Sableye from the same set and the Ninetales from Platinum. This version looks to continue the tradition of flaunting an alternative way to put the hurt on the opponent.   As far as the vital statistics are concerned, Drifblim is a featherweight. Being a Psychic type is great for hurting Mewtwo, but the 90 HP won't keep Drifblim in play if Mewtwo gets to swing first. Similarly, the Dark Weakness is a crippling liability against Zoroark BW, Zoroark DEX and Darkrai EX while the lack of the traditional Fighting Resistance means Terrakion NV won't have any trouble taking Drifblim out. The single energy retreat cost is almost an afterthought which doesn't cause any major hassles, but free retreat would have been both justifiable and appreciated.   Lacking an Ability, Drifblim is relying on its attacks to impress the audience. Of course if this was an ordinary terminal Stage 1 piece of set filler it would not be on this list so rest assured that Drifblim has what it takes to fit into a tournament viable build.   Shadow Steal is the cheaper of the two attacks, and also the most powerful. For the bargain cost of [c] Drifblim will belt the defending Poke'mon to the tune of 50 damage per Special energy in the opponent's discard pile.   Of course this attack is entirely situational and it won't do squat against an opponent who only uses basic energy in their deck. Fortunately, all of the most proven decks currently in Modified all use Special energy with both Double Colourless Energy and Prism Energy being at least a 3-of in any deck that can use them. The two new Blend Energy are also likely to be tournament staples so Drifblim has a good chance of being able to reach the magic 200 damage threshold that spells doom for any defending Poke'mon. All without needing to splash an extra type of energy.   Of course, the problem of how to get those energy into the discard pile in the first place still hangs over Drifblim's head. There are 4 methods at the moment and at least 2 are viable.   Method 1: Knock Out the Poke'mon carrying the Special Energy. This is the best way to discard an opponent's energy, but if you already have another Poke'mon who can handle that role then you don't need Drifblim.   Method 2: Discard the Special Energy from your opponent's hand. This would be awesome, except that the current archetype which strips away the opponent's hand to win (the Weavile UD/Houndoom HGSS/Slowking HGSS deck) is going to lose all of its pieces in the rotation and we don't have any reliable replacements in the current card pool. Again it's a bust, but if a future release gives us another hand-shredding Weavile or equivalent, Drifblim will make an excellent beater to close out the game and take those Prizes.   Method 3: Discard the Special Energy from the opponent's deck. This is one of the two viable strategies I mentioned above, because between Aggron DRX with Devolution Spray/Super Scoop Up and massed Durant NV it is possible to strip away massive chunks of an opponent's deck within a few turns. The potential problems with this build are that the loss of Poke'mon Collector and Dual Ball will wreck the old Durant Mill deck and I'm not confident that the new deck will be quite as competitive. Still, a mill deck will be more than good enough for messing around at League and Drifblim will make a great backup plan with which to smash defiant Poke'mon EX, buying you another turn to finish destroying your opponent's deck.   Method 4: Discard the Special Energy directly from Poke'mon in play. This is where Drifblim will truly shine. The repeated use of Crushing Hammer and Enhanced Hammer will most certainly burn through your opponent's energy in a hurry and Sableye DEX is excellent at retrieving them to use over and over again. While both Zoroark and Darkrai are excellent at taking out disabled Poke'mon after Sableye has helped remover every single energy in their deck, there are several energy recursion decks (Mono Entei EX, Zekrom/Eelektrik and anyone playing Dark Patch come to mind) that won't let your game progress that far. Those same decks still face the problem of being unable to restore Special Energy however, so Drifblim will be able to deliver the 1HKOs that will be necessary to win (something Zoroark and Darkrai have a little trouble with)   I think that covers Shadow Steal pretty well, so now we get to Cursed Drop. This attack is a carbon copy of the same attack used by Gengar Prime, and it suffers from the same problems. Sure, dropping 40 damage in any configuration you like without worrying about Eviolite is great, but you have to remember the much larger number of damage counters that the opponent is going to drop on your head in return. Throw in the fact that you will have to add Psychic energy to your deck to pay the [p][c] cost (an open invitation to use Mewtwo EX instead) and it becomes clear that Cursed Drop will never be used outside of Limited.   So there you have it folks. Our first card of the countdown is a new tool for Sableye energy removal decks and will almost certainly be a staple in future hand destruction and milling decks. Don't forget about Drifblim as new sets are released because it may decide to haunt you out of nowhere.   Modified: 4 (a 1-1 line is almost an auto-inclusion for anyone abusing the use of Hammers, and if Aggron/Durant mill takes off it will also see play there. The only current, practical way to retrieve Special energy and foil Shadow Steal is to use Recycle, which almost no one touches due to the flippy nature of the card. Or people could stop playing Special energy out of fear, but I don't think Drifblim will seem quite that powerful)   Limited: 3 (much less impressive here, Drifblim is still good for sniping the bench. And if your opponent loses a Blend Energy, so much the better)   Combos with: the health-preserving, card-discarding nature of energy removal, mill and hand control archetypes both now and in the future.
Jebulous Maryland Player	Drifblim   Drifblim is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon with 100 HP.  It has a weakness to Dark and a retreat cost of 1.  The Dark weakness is a change from the normal Psychic weakness, but having a Dark or Psychic weakness is still not good.  It's out of reach of the searching Balls.   'Shadow Steal' coast 1 Colorless energy and does 50 times the number of Special Energy cards in the opponent's discard.  This is magical IF your opponent runs Special Energies.  It is about the cheapest you can get for an attack (other than no energy needed) and it has a potential of doing 200+ damage (OHKO any EX).  If you use Enhanced Hammer, you will power this attack (:nudge: :nudge: combo).   'Plentiful Placement' costs 1 Psychic and 1 Colorless energy.  It allows you to place 4 damage counters on 1 of your opponent's Pokemon.  I am assuming this gets around Eviolite since it is placing the damage counters.  For the cost the 'damage' output is alright, still not as good as the first attack.   So from the looks of it, 'Shadow Steal' is where this card shines. Run a bunch of Hammers and hope for your opponent to run Special Energy.  That included DCE, Prism, and Blends.  Honestly, I don't know how well this would do.  It depends on what the metagame is like after Dragons Exalted is released.  If a lot of decks run Special energies, then this guy will be good.  If people run minimal Special Energies, then it will be doing minimal damage (0-100 damage won't get you far against EXs and 'Outrages').   Modified: 4/5 Limited: 3.5/5 Combo's With: Enhanced Hammer   Questions, comments, concerns: jebulousthemighty@yahoo.com
HD	Drifblim: The Special Energy Avenger Hello everyone, I'm HD! I'm new to Pojo, and somewhat new to TCG, but I pride myself on researching the game both past and present and putting it together to provide solid analysis on current cards. I also do a lot of playtesting with Otaku and make my own speculations about the upcoming format.  I would like to note that all of my reviews from here on out are based on the BW-on format rather than the HS-on format due to HS-on being irrelevant after Worlds, which is when the set comes out. I will note this in every review I make, but I just wanted to make sure you guys knew.  So, getting to the matter at hand, here we have Drifblim. First, let's look at it's defenses. 100 HP is not a fun number to have, as it is still an easy OHKO for most decks without being searchable by Level Ball. Darkness Weakness is terrible with all the Darkrai EXs running around, and no Resistance, although not good, isn't especially relevant either. 1 Retreat Cost would be nice if it was affected by Skyarrow Bridge, but being a Stage 1, it sadly isn't. So, things aren't looking too good yet, so what we want to look at is the offensive side.  Offensively, Psychic typing is nice as Mewtwo EX is weak to it (although Mewtwo EX probably won't be as prevalent as it used to be), but it's also bad at the same time because Darkrai EX resists it.   This is a rare case where the first attack is better than the second, so let's go over the second attack first. For (PC), Plentiful Placement allows you to put 4 damage counters on one of your opponent's Pokemon. While this may not seem worthwhile, it can actually combo well with the first attack in certain situations (which I will explain). This attack is also good for being able to snipe some weak Bench-sitting Pokemon as well (Tynamo).  The first attack is Shadow Steal and why everyone is looking at this card in the new set. For the low low price of (C), you get 50 damage for every Special Energy in your opponent's discard pile. If decks start focusing on the two Blend Energies (to be reviewed at a later date) as a main form of Energy, Shadow Steal is going to gain a lot of power. It combos well with a recent card, Enhanced Hammer, which discards a Special Energy your opponent has in play. If they have 4 Energies discarded, Shadow Steal does 200 damage! That's only for 1 Colorless Energy! Plentiful Placement is useful because it lets you set up the KO on an Eviolited Darkrai EX or a Giant Cape Wailord. Just remember that if the opponent has 2 Special Energies in the discard, you're up against a Pokemon that resists Shadow Steal and is equipped with Eviolite/Giant Cape, and you aren't using Plentiful Placement to snipe, then Shadow Steal is the superior choice.  Now, the main problem with this Pokemon is obvious; it can't do too much to a deck that doesn't use Special Energy. Although it is an interesting card, I don't think it will live up to the hype.  I can't really see Drifblim doing too much in Unlimited. There are so many better options out there that it's unlikely Drifblim will be able to survive the first turn. It's a mixed bag in Limited, since if your opponent didn't pull any Blend Energies or pulled the wrong Blend Energy, Drifblim is going to end up a bit less useful. However, sniping via Plentiful Placement is great, plus there are two Drifloons, making it a lot easier to pull a full evolution line of it. If you're using a Psychic deck, then Drifblim is definitely a solid pick. Modified (BW-on): 3.5/5 Unlimited: 1/5 Limited: 3.5/5  Combos: Enhanced Hammer-As I already mentioned, you need a way to get your opponent's Special Energy in the discard, and most people are pretty hesitant to discard Special Energy before Drifblim comes out. Tool Scrapper-The only way to OHKO Eviolited Darkrai EXs and Wailords with Giant Cape without setting up a Plentiful Placement first (unless you're somehow able to find and discard 5 Special Energies).
Otaku	We begin our Top 10 Top 13 Promising Picks of Dragons Exalted! Not only does the set contain a lot of interesting and/or potent cards, but instead of closing out with the near misses, we are starting with three of them. As the cards are not tournament legal until after Worlds and there isn’t much happening between then and the rotation just over two weeks later, I’ll be scoring only for BW-On Modified. We’ll begin the milking with Drifblim (BW: Dragons Exalted 51/124)! Stats Drifblim is a Psychic-Type Pokémon, allowing it to tap the small amount of Psychic-Type support (which it won’t need) and enjoy double damage from hitting Weakness against Mewtwo EX and the handful of other Psychic-Type Pokémon that have seen play, are seeing play, or are likely to see play. As a Stage 1 Pokémon, it can’t be sprung as a surprise against the opponent and will take about twice the space to run as an equivalent Basic Pokémon would, so it won’t be a surprise (or easy to accomplish) if you do. Still, a 1-1 line isn’t impossible to make work in a deck. 100 HP is a OHKO for several prominent decks, and a near OHKO for the rest; definitely unhappy points for the card that will require it perform exceptionally well. Even worse is the Darkness Weakness; Darkrai EX scores a OHKO without any help, as do several Darkness-Type Pokémon hoping to see play. The only upside is that this makes it a Psychic-Type Pokémon that is not also Psychic Weak. There is no Resistance to compensate for the devastating Weakness, and at 100 HP a hypothetical Resistance could actually matter. To add insult to injury, this floating ghost has a single Energy Retreat Cost; in and of itself that is good, but for a 100 HP Stage 1, it could really have used a free Retreat cost for the ever-so-slight edge it would grant. Effects The first attack, Shadow Steal, makes or breaks this card. For (C) you hit for 50 points of damage per Special Energy in your opponent’s discard pile. You have a limited amount of control over that, but historically Special Energy is good and regularly (if not heavily) played. I consider this to be a pretty good attack; good damage that can be unreliable but for a single Energy. Plentiful Placement is a bit of a disappointment; for (PC) you just get to place four damage counters on one of your opponent’s Pokémon. It is good it can snipe (four damage counters is enough to take out a Tynamo), and damage counters will get around various protective effects, but you’ll really only need this attack when your opponent isn’t running much Special Energy (or you can’t seem to get it into the discard pile). Still I feel like it is overpriced for what it provides, and certainly couldn’t carry a Drifblim focused deck, nor does it really compliment Shadow Steal. Usage You have two Modified legal Drifloon to choose from, and both are sort of just “there”: 60 HP Basic Psychic-Type Pokémon with Darkness Weakness, no Resistance, and single Energy Retreat Costs. If I had to pick one, I would go with BW: Dragons Exalted 49/124 over 50/124 because for (P) it can place a damage counter, which is barely more useful than hitting for 10 for (C) or 20 for (PC). Your best bet in running Drifblim is to run it with a lot of Crushing Hammer and Enhanced Hammer; the former fails on “Tails”, but hits basic Energy as well. Discarding basic Energy won’t improve damage, but it might help Drifblim survive the turn, and of course it still can hit Special Energy. In fact, most decks only aren’t maxing those two cards out for the usual reason; not enough room. Drifblim simply has to make the room, at least being used this way. Despite being a Stage 1 and a minimum of four extra Items to run, this really isn’t that much when you consider the general usefulness of the Items and the probable potency of Drifblim. I can think of a few ideas, but keep in mind that none will work unless one or both of the following is true (and maybe still not even then): Special Energy must be used abundantly (over four per deck) and the rest of the deck must be able to pick up the slack when you just can’t get enough into the discard. Even though it is also Darkness Weak, Golurk (BW: Dragons Exalted 59/124) could be a tempting partner; it can be hard on Evolution decks that are unprepared. Toss in a copy or two of Terrakion (BW: Noble Victories 73/101, 99/101) to revenge-KO the still prominent Fighting Weak decks alongside Sigilyph (BW: Dragons Exalted 52/124), Bouffalant (BW: Dragons Exalted 110/124) to frustrate Pokémon EX heavy decks, and you’re a threat to anything relying on Special Energy cards, Pokémon EX, or Evolutions. Of course, that’s more a mess than a deck, but I hadn’t considered it until writing this. It is almost tragic (or is it actually for the best?) that Weavile (HS: Undaunted 25/90) will rotate out before it could be partnered with Drifblim; a deck heavy on discarding from the hand could prevent savvy players from merely holding onto their Special Energy cards. Regular Professor Juniper usage will likely make it very hard to hoard the Energy in hand for more than a few turns anyway, but with the recently re-released (and enhanced) Devolution Spray (BW: Dragons Exalted 113/124) Weavile could simultaneously take out threatening cards before they hit the field and fill that discard pile with Special Energy by spamming its coming-into-play Poké-Power. I don’t want to have to potentially waste an attack, so all remaining options I can think of are out. If we can’t discard from the hand, we might be able to discard from the deck. We still have access to Durant (Noble Victories 83/101) and we gain access to Aggron (BW: Dragons Exalted 80/124), who has an Ability that discards the top three cards from your opponent’s deck when it comes into play, allowing you to spam it with Devolution Spray. It seems unlikely, but perhaps Durant can make a comeback backed up by the big lug, or simply Drifblim. Other than these three, perhaps simply splashing a 1-1 line into an aggressive deck is the best way to go; if you are KOing several Pokémon with Special Energy, you’ve got a great sweeper, and if not it is only two slots from your deck. With Modified covered, let us look at Unlimited and Limited play. In Unlimited, for now it won’t matter; we have decks that win first turn, sometimes without attacking, so despite the less competitive decks often having large quantities of Special Energy, the availability of Evolution acceleration, and strong Trainer-based hand disruption, Drifblim is not worth the effort. For those who don’t want to know of a card recently reprinted with some “updates” in Japan and how it can affect Unlimited… SPOILER ALERT! There is a new, one-copy-per-deck mechanic in Japan, the “Ace Spec” card. It is one Ace Spec card, not one copy of a card with that name, and most importantly Computer Search has been released as an Ace Spec Item card. Following standard procedure, this means all older Computer Search will be treated the as saying the same thing, and thus first turn win decks will take a big hit, losing three of the four Computer Search they regularly run. This may help a lot in Unlimited, or perhaps not. END SPOILER ALERT! In Limited, Special Energy cards are going to be an unlikely pull, and certainly not a plentiful one. Even if you can pull and make good use of the two different Special Energy cards in this set, who knows when or if that Energy will ever hit the discard, and thus Shadow Steal is pretty much worthless. Fortunately if you do pull this card, Plentiful Placement becomes useful as a sniping attack, due to this format regularly hiding building or badly injured Pokémon on the Bench. You’ll need to be able to run at least a little bit of Psychic Energy to use it, but it could be pretty handy. While the two Drifloon still aren’t thrilling, at least there are two and thus pulling a full line is a little easier. Ratings Unlimited: 1/5 Modified: 3/5 Limited: 3/5 Combos with: Crushing Hammer, Enhanced Hammer Summary Drifblim may be most useful as a “threat” card, scaring players into running more basic Energy for fear of a clutch copy splashed into a deck; I don’t think it is good enough to build a deck around, unless you can come up with something kind of creative or alternatively, something strong that can actually spare two to four slots! For those curious, Drifblim made my own top 20, but at 18th place. Please check out my eBay sales by clicking here. It’s me whittling away at about two decades worth of attempted collecting, spanning action figures, comic books, TCGs, and video games. Exactly what is up is a bit random. Pojo.com is in no way responsible for any transactions; Pojo is merely doing me a favor by letting me link at the end of my reviews.