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 Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Countdown: Top 10 Plasma Freeze Cards

#9 - Team Plasma Badge  

- Plasma Freeze

Date Reviewed:
May 14, 2013

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 3.50
Limited: 3.33

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: See Below

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

#9 Team Plasma Badge 

Now that we’ve had two Plasma sets, the Plasma support is really starting to kick in. Energy acceleration via Thundurus-EX and Colress Machine; damage boosting from Deoxys-EX; immunity from the pain that can be inflicted by Frozen City; and (more obscurely) the little tricks that the Plasma Freeze Eeveelutions offer. Wouldn’t it be nice if all Pokémon could benefit from all this goodness? Well, now they can, thanks to the #9 card on our countdown. 

Team Plasma Badge is a Pokémon Tool with an effect that you could probably guess from the name. When you attach it to one of your Pokémon, it becomes a Team Plasma Pokémon. In and of itself, this is not much help . . . it’s all about what you do with it. 

And this is why Team Plasma Badge seems to be a good card, but it is also what makes it very hard to review. It’s all about the potential you see, about what players discover to combo with it. Everything is up for grabs really, from using it on a Tornadus-EX so that you can go for a first turn 100-170 damage with maximum Deoxys-EX, Colress Machine, and Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank, to benching multiple Umbreon PLF and turning Regigigas-EX or White Kyurem-EX into a huge tank, complete with massive Outrage-style attacks. Are these ideas any good? Probably not, and I’m sure you can think of better ones. 

And that’s a good thing. Any card that helps players to think creatively and expands our current pool of deck types is very welcome. There are downsides to bear in mind though: you will need to find room for the Badge in your deck, and Tool Scrapper could really ruin your day. Will Team Plasma Badge have an impact on the format? Who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that someone is working on it though. 

Rating 

Modified: 3.5 (Lots of potential . . . a real boost for creative deckbuilders)

Limited: 1.75 (almost useless, really. Unless you are trying to do something with the Eeveelutions and a non-Plasma Pokémon)

virusyosh

Hello once again, Pojo viewers! Today we're reviewing #9 on our Top 10 Cards of Plasma Freeze countdown, and today's card is a Pokemon Tool that could see some play in Plasma variants. Today's Card of the Day is Team Plasma Badge.

Team Plasma Badge is an Item card, meaning you can play as many of them as you'd like during your turn. In addition, Team Plasma Badge is also a Pokemon Tool, so you can attach it to a Pokemon that doesn't already have a Tool attached for an additional effect. Team Plasma Badge's effect is quite simple: it makes the equipped Pokemon a Team Plasma Pokemon! This opens up the attached Pokemon to all sorts of cool support, including Colress Machine (very important for Energy acceleration), and protects them from the effects of Frozen City. While there aren't too many Plasma support cards out right now that interact well with a Pokemon wearing the Team Plasma Badge, our next set will likely have more Team Plasma support, so this card will likely get better with age.

Modified: 3/5 Team Plasma Badge will work well in any deck wanting to accelerate with Colress Machine and Plasma Energy, and it will also work well in decks utilizing Frozen City. Again, there's not a ton of Team Plasma support out right now that can interact with this (Shadow Triad and Team Plasma Ball won't work), so you'll want to save it for that Pokemon that needs breaking with Energy acceleration, or to supplement your non-Plasma Pokemon in your Team Plasma deck.

Limited: 5/5 Team Plasma Badge appears to be useless in Limited, but Frozen City can become a huge problem in the format. Therefore, Team Plasma Badge can easily protect your important Pokemon, and stop them from taking damage while your opponent can be stuck in a similar situation.


Otaku

Today we look at the number nine card from our Top 10 Promising Picks of Plasma Freeze, Team Plasma Badge!  Behold the power of accessorizing!

 

Stats

 

Miscellaneous: Team Plasma Badge is a Team Plasma card, allowing it access to their support.

 

Category: For want of a better name, this is where I point out that this is a Trainer.  While obvious, I needed a place to point out that Trainers in general have two pieces of support in the current format; Skyla to search them from your deck and Dowsing Machine to retrieve them from your discard pile.  It seemed silly to have to bring this up in the Usage section as if it were a specific combo.

 

Type: Team Plasma Badge is an Item, a Type of Trainer.  There are a few ways to block their usage in Modified; Zebstrika (BW: Next Destinies 48/99) and Dragonite (BW: Plasma Freeze 83/116) do so via attacks while Gothitelle (BW: Emerging Powers 47/98) has an Ability that prevents Items from being played while it is Active.  Exploud (BW: Plasma Storm 107/135) has an attack to reveal the opponent’s hand and discard any Items found there as well.  Dragonite is new and seems to be generating a lot of buzz, while the others have not seen any recent play in the competitive scene.  I’ll explain later why you can’t completely count any of them out.

 

The only worthwhile piece of support for Items is Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers 62/108), though its Junk Hunt attack has proven potent indeed in the right decks, reclaiming two Items from the discard pile.  Not every deck can afford to run a 70 HP Basic Pokémon and have it attack, or the (D) Energy requirement of the attack, but those that can usually do.

 

Sub-Type: Team Plasma Badge is a Pokémon Tool, which gives it just a little more support than other Items, but also makes it more vulnerable both because some effects specifically target Pokémon Tools and Items in play, as well as the fact that being in play just gives the opponent more opportunities to affect it than a normal Item that would have to be targeted in the deck, hand, or discard pile.  It is also important to remember that as you only can equip one Pokémon Tool to a Pokémon at a time, there is effectively a “Tool slot” resource factor in the game; many a good Pokémon Tool hasn’t seen play because there was a better one to run in its stead.

 

There are multiple attacks that can target and discard Pokémon Tools in play, as well as a few that reward Pokémon Tool usage/punish lack of use, but none see serious play to my knowledge, so I’ll focus on Tool Scrapper.  Tool Scrapper is an Item that discards up to two Pokémon Tools in play, something anyone not new to the game should be familiar with.  Its use waxes and wanes because the more everyone expects it and adjusts their decks accordingly (running fewer Pokémon Tools), the less are needed and this is a format where you can’t afford wasted space in your deck.  There is no similar “support” for Pokémon Tools that is easy to work into any deck.

 

Effect

 

While it is attached to a Pokémon, Team Plasma Badge causes that Pokémon to be treated as if it were a Team Plasma Pokémon.  This is an effect that has been longed for since the “affiliated” Pokémon first started showing up, or at least since there were beneficial effects that were applied only to their own in play.  It is simple and due to the vulnerability of the card, can’t be relied upon long term as right now, it is expected that Tool Scrapper will remain at least a piece of tech for the average deck.  For that matter, most Pokémon that see competitive play are doing good to last three turns, so unless you are running multiples, some form of protection, recursion, etc. this card needs to be profited from quickly.

 

Usage

 

Card Family: Now that we have BW: Plasma Freeze, the Team Plasma card family has become a lot more robust.  Team Plasma Badge benefits directly from Metagross (BW: Plasma Freeze 52/116), which can search it from your deck via its Ability, though that is pretty selective as most decks won’t be able to run a Stage 2 just for that.  It can be reclaimed from the discard pile via Shadow Triad.  I do not think any other Team Plasma support benefits it directly, though as it enables the equipped Pokémon to access Team Plasma support that targets Pokémon in play, more cards help it indirectly.

 

Combos: The two major combos I see being experimented with the most right now are using Team Plasma Badge to enable a Pokémon to receive Plasma Energy from the deck via Colress Machine and to enjoy +10 points of damage to Active Pokémon while attacking thanks to Deoxys EX and its “Power Connection” Ability.  Many Pokémon with expensive and/or under powered attacks are worth a second glance if they had decent effects now.

 

Also worth mentioning is that Team Plasma Badge would also protect plain Pokémon from the effects of Frozen City and how Snorlax [Plasma] benefits indirectly from Team Plasma Badge; it allows you to support it with non-Team Plasma Pokémon while still being able to reach the full potential of its Teampact attack.  Lastly, this would be another Pokémon Tool that Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted 54/124) could take advantage of… just don’t try to combo it with Abilities.

 

Future: Japan has some more Team Plasma cards we haven’t received yet, as well as having gotten cards that counter-Team Plasma Pokémon; I don’t think that will ruin Team Plasma Badge but it would affect its usage.  There are also a few cards more cards that support Pokémon Tool usage; perhaps they will be worth running or may even reinvigorate what we do have that does not see much play.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: I cannot think of any first-turn-win decks that would benefit from this more than their normal support.  This does unlock a lot of combos that I haven’t had time to explore, including for some lock decks, and most importantly there is just a certain degree of “fun” that comes from creating a Team Plasma Rocket deck, and that is worth something to me. 3/5

 

Modified: Already there are multiple deck lists going around where this is a key card; despite the risk of it being discarded by attack or Tool Scrapper, the two major combos mentioned earlier happen on your own turn, so you should still have generated advantage with the card.  A new “pseudo archetype” seems to have arisen with this card as its lynchpin.  4/5

 

Limited: Reminding us why I need to explain scores, Team Plasma Badge is useless unless you have non-Team Plasma Pokémon and Team Plasma support it would enable to you tap (I don’t recall any generic, beneficial, Pokémon Tool-enabled effects).  The only reason to run it without those is to try and psych out your opponent, which would result in a minimum score.  If you do have something like this, the card pretty much becomes a must run even if the odds of you having both out at the same time are low.  3.25/5

 

Summary

Team Plasma Badge is a card full of promise; I have already designed a few “Plasma Proxy” decks myself though they are currently untested.  Others are farther along than I am, and reporting enough success to keep me optimistic and confident that this is a great card.  On my own Top 10 list, Team Plasma Badge secured the number seven slot, two places higher than on the group average.


Copyright© 1998-2013 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.