Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Linoone
(Ruby Sapphire)
Unlike yesterday’s Pokémon, Linoone
has never been especially notable, or even noticed much.
It’s basically from the line of standard rodent-type
Pokémon that you meet at the start of every game. It
didn’t manage to achieve the same cult/meme status as
Bidoof and
Bibarel either, despite the
fact that it’s also a good HM slave with the slightly
bizarre ability to learn Surf.
It wasn’t easy to find a playable
Linoone, though, and this is the best I can do.
It’s clearly intended as a starter/set up Pokémon and is
actually pretty good at that job. Seek Out costs just
one Colourless Energy and lets you search your deck for
any two cards, which is honestly brilliant: grab a rare
Candy and a Stage 2, for example, or whatever else you
need, and you’re in a great position on your next turn.
The problem?
Linoone is a Stage 1, which
means you have to wait a turn for it and devote more
deckspace that you do to a
Basic starter. When this attack was reprinted as Keen
Eye on Secret Wonders Furret
it was very popular for a few brief months until
everyone switched to Claydol
GE. Poor old Linoone also
had some fantastic cards in direct competition with it,
including Dunsparce SS
(arguably the best starter ever printed) and later
Wishing Star Jirachi from
the Deoxys set.
Linoone
dates from before my time in the Pokémon TCG, so I can’t
say for sure if it was ever played much. As far as I’m
aware, it’s not a card that gets remembered very often .
. . sadly, you can say the same about the Pokémon
itself.
Nostalgia Rating
Unfortunately, an anonymous Pokémon and an outclassed
card: 2
|
HEZ
Intro to
Unlimited 150 |
Linoone (Ruby Sapphire)
Continuing the theme of Pokémon that haven’t been
printed on cards for 6 years is Linoone!
Modified:
A card from the first set in the original ex series, you
should remember there’s been incredible power-creep
since then, which is unfortunate as Nintendo kept it in
check all the way up until the end of the original ex
series. This card didn’t really see any play though as
it was obsoleted in the same set by another Stage 1
Colorless Pokémon, Delcatty which did see play in
competitive decks. Being able to draw 3 random cards
from the Bench is much better than any 2 and using up
your attack. Still, the old “Flip a coin until you get
tails” style attacks are alluring to some who love the
chance to KO anything with one attack, even if it’s a
slim chance… I know I did!
Limited:
This Linoone is only an Uncommon, so it would be fairly
easy to pull 1 or even 2. Once you get it out and able
to attack you can use Seek Out to find the real “bombs”
in your deck. Even just 1 coin flip of heads nets you an
acceptable 40 damage, not bad considering the maximum HP
in the whole set is 120.
Unlimited 150:
Being able to search out any card at all is very
important in a 100 card deck format, 2 is even better.
However, much like when it was in Modified, there’s
Pokémon that can do a similar job from the bench (Magcargo
from Deoxys and Pigeot from FRLG spring to mind) meaning
it’s probably not worth wasting a turn using an attack
to achieve the same. Still, if you absolutely love
Linoone, there’s much worse cards you can play. The
Great Encounters Zigzagoon can retrieve any 1 card from
your discard pile too which is a very powerful effect
when you only get 1 of each card. You can get some
decent utility out of these Pokémon but with no other
remotely playable Linoone you’ll have to decide if your
love of speeding badgers exceeds the risks of playing a
1-1 line.
Ratings.
Modified: 2
Limited: 3
Unlimited 150: 2
|
