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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Top 5 Double Crisis Cards

#1 - Team Magma's Secret Base

- Double Crisis

Date Reviewed:
April 3, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 3.50
Expanded: 3.47
Limited: 4.50

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

Back to the main COTD Page

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

#1 Team Magma’ Secret Base 

The number one card on our Double Crisis countdown (and it wasn’t even close), is the card which I think has the most potential. Admittedly, right now I don’t see clearly how that potential will be realised, but . . . it exists. 

Secret Base is a Stadium card with a neat effect: whenever a player Benches a non-Team Magma Basic, they have to put two damage counters on it. There is an intended combo with Team Magma’s Groudon EX here, as Magma Quake’s damage output gets boosted from an unimpressive 80 to a very nice 160 if the Defending Pokémon already has counters on it. I doubt it is a coincidence that the Groudon/Secret Base combo delivers the magic 180 damage needed to OHKO almost all EX Pokémon. Even so, Magma’s Groudon is somewhat slow and a little too dependent on the combo to really be a top competitive deck. 

So, what are the applications outside of a Team Magma deck? Well, that 20 damage sure does help when it comes to scoring critical OHKOs. A simple example is the fact that Yveltal EX’s Evil Ball needs one less Energy; a slightly more complex one might be that Seismitoad EX’s Grenade Hammer can one-shot 170 HP EXs with a Muscle Band. There are a lot of possibilities and calculations to do. Damage Spread decks (which don’t exist at the moment) and damage manipulators like Dusknoir BCR would obviously enjoy having some extra Bench damage to play with, courtesy of Secret Base. Of course, the downside is that you also risk bringing your own Pokémon within range, but if you can Bench them before playing Secret Base (or use Fresh Water Set if you are really worried), you can manage the effect. 

We’ve seen Stadiums with a similar effect before (Galactic HQ, Frozen City, Miasma Valley, the original version of today’s card), and they’ve been somewhat played without having a tremendous impact on the game. They are simple to counter (play your own Stadium before triggering the effect), and so not completely reliable. It will be interesting to see if players can devise a way to take advantage of Magma’s Secret Base: maybe if it just helps a deck’s damage maths enough, or if some kind of spread deck becomes viable again, this card can start to fulfill its promise. 

Rating 

Modified/Expanded: 3.5

Team Magma Deck: 4.5


aroramage

And now let's take a look at the card you WANT the most: Team Magma's Secret Base. 

Wait what? But I wanna be Team Aqua! Well of course you do, but let's be honest here. Of the two Secret Bases...Team Magma's is inside a giant volcano. How else would you explain the GLOWING ORANGE TUBES OF LAVA in the pic? But yeah, no, Team Aqua for life for real guys. It's just that in terms of what this Stadium can do...geezus. 

Here's the summary: if your name doesn't include Team Magma in it, and you're a Basic Pokemon, you take 20 damage the moment you're put into play. 

Know who's safe against that? Team Magma's Pokemon and anything you played at the start. And that's it. You might say that the card's a bit situational, that the extra 20 damage doesn't mat-okay, HOLD THE PHONE IF YOU'RE GONNA SAY THAT, cause we've had HTLBank, Muscle Band, and Strong Energy in the format for a long time, so you're NOT gonna say an extra 20 damage doesn't matter.

This is the card I imagine people will side in as a means to 1) take out their opponent's Stadiums, 2) put some pressure by applying damage counters to everything they play, ultimately making them EASIER to beat, all the while 3) either not caring about the damage due to some form of healing, Team Magma-ness, or just not caring period and ultimately 4) making the game go by that much faster. Let's face it, if everything coming in has 20 damage on it already, that's already a good chunk missing.

20 damage. It matters. Let Team Magma's Secret Base prove that to you if you've not gotten the message by now. 

Rating 

Standard: 4/5 (the truth is it can backfire on you if you're not careful or you're going up against another Team Magma deck, but aside from that, this card's extra damage is just...like do we really need another damage-dealing card?)

Expanded: 4/5 (seriously though, you combine this with Muscle Band and Strong Energy alone, and that's 60 damage going in. Throw in HTL for another 10 between rounds, and you've practically KO'd a good chunk of Pokemon with a CHEAP attack) 

Limited: 5/5 (DAMAGE SO GOOD) 

Arora Notealus: Seriously. Lava flowing through tubes. I gotta admit, Pirate Cove will always hold a special place in my heart, but MAN that's some cool shenanigans you got there, Team Magma! Flaring props to you! 

...get it? cause you're HOT!! 

Weekend Thought: Whose side are you on after this week's picks? Do you even care for them? Does this affect any of your strategies? Do you hate Water and Fighting Pokemon yet?


Otaku

Our final card this week and number one pick from XY: Double Crisis is… Team Magma’s Secret Base (XY: Double Crisis 32/34)!  Yes, our top card is the other Stadium in the set; this time its effect is that whenever a non-Team Magma Pokémon is played from the hand to the Bench, it ends up with two damage counters placed upon it.  This is an update of Team Magma Hideout (EX: Team Aqua VS Team Magma 83/95), but unlike Team Aqua’s Secret Base and Team Aqua Hideout, this time things have been adjusted some for power creep: the original only placed a single damage counter.  So why is this card useful?

Well its easy extra damage if you either 

  1. Run a Team Magma themed deck.
  2. Run a deck that wants damage on its own Pokémon.
  3. Can deal with damage on its own Pokémon.

The first option may be the weakest, but still if you’re going the Team Magma’s Groudon-EX route, you just need a single damage counter to trigger the text clause of its Magma Quake Attack.  What does that do?  Well the attack costs [FFFC] and does just 80 damage, but if there is at least one damage counter on the opponent’s Active when you attack, Magma Quake hits for 160 damage.  With two damage counters from Team Magma’s Secret Base, you can effectively OHKO anything with 180 HP or less… as long as it was put into play from your opponent’s hand while Team Magma’s Secret Base is in play. 

This can be a decent trick for decks that want to damage Outrage-style attackers, but they also have Frozen City (so unless they are a Team Plasma Pokémon, that lets you get more than two damage counters easily).  The real winner are things that can just cope with the damage counters; usually because it puts something said deck wants to hurt into pseudo-OHKO range while also without significantly shifting your own Pokémon down on the KO scale.  Since you control when you play Team Magma’s Secret Base and can elect to run healing, you may be able to largely avoid it damaging any of your own Pokémon, even if they aren’t Team Magma’s.  Why would you do that?  Well Team Magma’s Groudon-EX isn’t the only one with a trigger for pre-existing damage counters.  Off the top of my head, Groudon-EX (BW: Dark Explorers 54/106, 106/108) needs two damage counters for its Giant Claw attack (costs [FFC]) to hit for 80+40 damage.  Yeah, that is going to which on the effective OHKO front against most Pokémon-EX that aren’t Fighting Weak (even with Muscle Band its just an effective 160), but it was off the top of my head.  It may be more useful in the future when Frozen City is gone and some decks still want to try for extra damage counters before attacking.  Granted by the time we lose Frozen City, Viribank City Gym should also be gone, so Team Magma’s Secret Base won’t have so much competition. 

Ratings 

Standard: 3/5 - Solid effect unless the entire format becomes Team Magma dominant and I don’t see that happening. 

Expanded: 2.9/5 - More potential combo partners but more competition mean that the score drops for Expanded.

Limited: 4/5 - Probably good for the mirror match. 

Summary: Our top pick was also my top pick, edging out Team Magma’s Camerupt due to the latter being deck specific.  It was also the only card to make all three reviewer lists.


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