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

Pikachu Anatomy

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

 

Jirachi

- Roaring Skies

Date Reviewed:
June 19, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.37
Expanded: 2.25
Limited: 4.00

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

When you wish upon a star, Jirachi comes down and grants it - and then he smites your enemies! Dawwww, who's a cute little ender of hopes and dreams? You are! You are! 

Okay not really, but this Jirachi is not unlike his EX counterpart in one particular fashion: he can retrieve a card from the deck for you! The main difference being Jirachi-EX only needed to be played from the hand in order to grab a Supporter from anywhere in your deck while Jirachi's Diminutive Desire needs 1 Metal Energy to attack and grabs any card you want from the top 7 cards of your deck. But details, right? At least the Metal Energy won't be hard to attach if you've got Bronzong. 

And that may be what helps Jirachi out the most. See, he's also got this attack Doom Desire that discards all of his Energy - which, he only needs 2 at most? So you know, that's a thing - and when he does, he eliminates the opposing Pokemon during the opponent's next turn. This can easily net you 1-2 Prizes if your opponent doesn't have a Switching ability of some sort - whether through Keldeo-EX (not for much longer in Standard), manual switching, or the actual Switch card. Not bad! 

So Jirachi will never hold a Muscle Band, but he's still got enough power to take on the biggest baddest guys of the bunch. With Doom Desire and a little bit of help from Diminutive Desire, Jirachi can lend you a slow strategic victory - besides, even if they do KO Jirachi, Doom Desire lingers till the end of their turn before KOing. Not bad for a non-EX! 

But Jirachi is not without flaws - as mentioned before, Doom Desire can get shut down by switching around, and if that happens, there's not much stopping anything from trampling Jirachi's 70 HP. Keep him safe though, and you can result him with all that Metal Energy! 

Rating 

Standard: 3/5 (he forces choices at times - put resources into getting Doom Desire off, or let one fall to KO the small fry? most of the time the opponent will want the former) 

Expanded: 3/5 (while the search attack ain't so strong here, Doom Desire still has a powerful presence) 

Limited: 4/5 (things are a little slower without Bronzong, but less damage and only needing 2 turns to pull off Doom Desire can demolish any Pokemon standing in your way!) 

Arora Notealus: So Jirachi goes to sleep for 1000 years, and if you write a wish and put it on its head, it will grant it when it wakes up. He's like some kind of wish-master business man, just call him up and he'll be like, "Yeah, sorry, napping, zzzzzz..." Although if you wish for immortality and then die before Jirachi grants the wish, do you come back normal or as a zombie? 

Weekend Thought: Will you be running any of the Electric types from this week? What about Jirachi in your Metal decks? Or maybe he's better suited in his own deck? You gonna try and make that work?


Otaku

We wrap up this week with Jirachi (XY: Roaring Skies 42/108).  This is a Basic, so like our last two cards (and unlike our first two) it enjoys being as efficient as it can be in terms of deck space and time to get it into play.  Being a Metal-Type allows it to tap a decent pool of support, though it hasn’t been all that impressive lately.  We’ll see if the recent banning of Lysandre’s Trump Card makes a difference or not.  Peeking ahead it doesn’t really matter that all Fairy-Types and some Water-Type are Metal Weak while most Lightning-Types released in the XY-era have been Metal Resistant: this card doesn’t do any damage!  Jirachi has just 70 HP so its a OHKO for most decks, most of the time.  The FIre Weakness matters, but not in a dramatic way as Fire-Types generally hit hard and fast, just with things like Energy discards from the attacker; as such this will help a few secondary attacks do the job instead, and potentially save you the need of a Muscle Band or optional Energy discard.  The Psychic Resistance won’t make a huge difference but it is appreciated since it is 20 more damage for something like Mewtwo-EX to supply.  The single Energy to retreat is good; easy to pay and recover from in most decks and just one away from a perfect free Retreat Cost. 

Jirachi sports two attacks instead of any Abilities or Ancient Traits.  The first (Diminutive Desire) requires [M] and allows you to search the top seven cards of your deck; you get to add one of the cards you find there to hand and then shuffle the rest back into your deck.  The second attack (Doom Desire) requires [MM], and then has you discard all Energy attached to Jirachi in order to place a condition on the Defending Pokémon, causing it to be KOed at the end of your opponent’s next turn.  I actually was a bit surprised because I didn’t realize more than one Jirachi of the past had similar effects, with the most similar being Jirachi (DP: Legends Awakened 31/146).  This would have been legal during one of those times I wasn’t able to pay much attention to the game during this time (lucky to make Pre-Releases once every few months) and I’m not seeing a CotD for it, so I can’t tell you if it was effective or not.  I can tell you it looks like today’s iteration only better: a no Energy attack (One Desire) to search your deck for any one card (instead of just the top seven cards) and then the same attack as today’s card just following older template rules.  Same HP, Resistance and Retreat Cost and the only reason the Weakness isn’t the same is because it was released during the period when most cards switched to adding a certain amount of damage (in this case +20) instead of multiplying damage by two. 

That tangent tells you that I don’t think this card’s prospects are great.  I just outlined how the first attack is a nerfed version of something older and in a format where cards are pretty easily shuffled away from your hand on your opponent’s turn.  The second attack is a bit more complicated; at a glance it looks great since a small Basic Pokémon and two Energy for a guaranteed OHKO sounds awesome - rarely will you be trading more resources than your opponent and often you can snag an extra Prize.  Except there is an issue: attack effects reset when a Pokémon is Benched or leaves play, and Doom Desire is no different.  There is a deck that has been built around this Jirachi that I’ve heard of but not seen and am not turning up any lists for with a quick search.  If you find a way to completely prevent your opponent from retreating, then Doom Desire becomes a legitimate threat to your opponent; otherwise a Super Scoop Up, Switch, regular manual retreat, Evolving, etc. all remove the “to be KOed” effect.  So the only place to really use this is in Limited, where its only drawback is that it needs at least one [M] Energy, probably a couple.  You see both attacks are valuable here due to the constraints of the format. 

Ratings 

Standard: 1.75/5 

Expanded: 1.5/5 

Limited: 4/5 

Summary: At a glance Jirachi looks like an interesting card, but in practice you’re only going to seriously benefit from it in Limited play, though it might be decent as a distraction/bluff/opening attacker in Standard or Expanded.  If you can spare a spot on your Bench making your opponent think you’re actually planning on using Doom Desire can steer them towards less optimal plays.  Not enough of a reason for me, but it is there.


CopyrightŠ 1998-2015 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.