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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	...okay, alright, I'll admit it, this one was all me. But hey, you gotta admit Deoxys here has some SWEET artwork!  Welcome to the new frontline support for Gengar-EX and other Psychic decks: Deoxys! Frontline support, you say, what do you mean by that? Well, you remember the time period where Emolga was a big deal? Being a free Retreater with access to Call to Family? In an era of dangerously powerful Pokemon-EX? Emolga is what I'd like to think of as "frontline support" - he comes out first and foremost to get your deck running, supporting the whole theme!  That's Deoxys...sort of. He's no stellar entity...I mean, he is, but not how I'm referring to him at the moment. He's got this interesting attack that a couple of other cards have seen as well. There's this strange line of text reading, "If you go first, you can use this attack on your first turn." So wait...if I go first...I can attack when I normally couldn't?! VAMPIRIC LEECH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY POKEMON TCG?! Yugioh references aside, having the ability to attack on your first turn is a treasured ability that so few can use - most card games make sure you can't attack on your first turn in some form or another. In fact, I think most of them have some sort of clause like, "You can't declare an attack on your first turn if you went first," or some such thing. I think Hearthstone's the only one that makes exception to that, but that's mostly cause of summoning sickness and most Level 1s not having "Charge..."  ANYWHO, coming back to Deoxys here, he's got Close Encounters, meaning he gets to net you two cards. That's pretty nice, gets some modest draw power that's not Supporter-based, and you can use it on your first turn! It's niche but don't underestimate it - it could very well spell DOOM!! Or at least it could, coupled with the fact that if you play Dimension Valley, you don't even have to attach Energy to Deoxys to use it - I smell a set-up!  Overdrive Smash is alright, it only costs one more Energy and does 30 damage - or 90 damage on your next turn after using it. I don't imagine Deoxys will hang around long enough for that to happen, but it's a nice quick offensive option if your opponent is being slow at getting rid of Deoxys. Really though, I'd stick around with Close Encounters to mooch off draw power like no other and only use Overdrive Smash if there's an opportunity - which again, you only need 1 Energy with Dimension Valley.  He's nice tech support, but I probably ranked him higher than I should have honestly. He's certainly no monstrosity, but he's pretty good at what he does, and with Dimension Valley he's amazing. Psychic decks rejoice - your savior has come!...unless we get a new Deoxys-EX in the next set, in which case hope it's good!  Rating  Standard: 3.5/5 (good support for Psychic decks, made only better by Dimension Valley)  Expanded: 3.5/5 (still good!)  Limited: 4.5/5 (draw power in a slow environment, and a cheap attack that can do lots of damage? yes please!)  Arora Notealus: I don't think anyone's in the middle about Deoxys' design - you either love 'im or you hate 'im. Personally, I'm leaning on the "lovin'" side, though that's just cause I like him. I mean come on, he's based off of DNA - FREAKIN' DNA!! And he's an alien with psychic powers! And he's got different forms and has crazy changes based on them! How could you not like that?...unless you hate his design, in which case there ya go.  Next Time:...wait a minute, didn't we already review this guy?
Emma Starr	Hello everyone, today, we look at a card based on the space-virus-turned-legendary-Pokemon himself, Deoxys…which isn’t being followed with an EX after his name!  At first glance, you can see he has 110 HP, which is…okay. It’s not higher than some of the better Stage 2s lately, but that’s to be expected. I mean, he is a basic, non-EX. His weakness can be troubling due to the ever-present Mewtwo EX threat, but other than him…Psychic decks aren’t too popular, so, it isn’t actually a very bad weakness currently. So, does Deoxys stand out at all? Well… Well, his first attack – Close Encounter – although very, VERY situational, due to the fact that you’d have to have him on your starting hand, unless you have a nice searcher (such as Ultra Ball, but you’d be discarding 2 cards, which is already making his attack quite neutral, a Draw engine, or Supporter like Birch, or even Sycaper – although then, you’d be discarding 7 cards if you did that, outweighing the attack in the long run, but is still an option. On the plus side, it has an energy cost of only one basic energy, which means it’s splashable in any deck! But is it worth it just for this? If you REALLY want this guy on your first turn reliably, you’d probably want to run three in your deck, but is he really worth it for just this effect? Well, let’s take a look at his second attack to find out.  Overdrive Smash costs a Psychic and colorless, so unless this attack is really good, you’ll probably want to only run this in Psychic decks. And in this case…the attack is pure rubbish. 2 energy for 30?! Many basics can do 1 energy for 30! Sure, you can do 90 in two turns, but...you’re doing 90 in two turns. Obviously this guy isn’t meant to be an attacker, that’s for sure. Although it can be nice for a Basic non-EX to do 90, I doubt this guy can even last 2 turns most times…unless you get him in early, which is kind of the concept of the card anyway, really.  So, what’s my verdict? You can probably tell from what I wrote about him already, but if you want this guy to actually be useful, you’ll want him on Turn 1, which means either getting lucky, or searching him out using various balls. And even then, you only even have a 50% chance of going first at all anyway, which means he’ll only truly be useful 50% of the time, even under the best circumstances. Talk about Tails-fails! And what if you find this guy in your hand in the mid-late game, when everyone’s heavy hitters are already out? Since you might be running 3 copies, that’s certainly a higher possibility! So, even though there aren’t many Pokemon that provide Draw power themselves currently, I think you’re simply better off without him, even with Seismitoad EX around. Standard: 1.5/5 Expanded: 1.5/5 Limited: 2.35/5 (Well, 40 cards is less than 60, so that’s a plus, I guess…there are better cards, but again, he is splashable…)
Otaku	As the week winds down we come to our seventh place finisher: Deoxys (XY: Roaring Skies 33/108).  This is a Psychic-Type which enjoys some solid support (like Dimension Valley) and opportunities to exploit Weakness (a decent chunk of Fighting-Types and Psychic-Types are Psychic Weak) though Psychic Resistance (found on most Darkness-Types and Metal-Types) is more common among the uncommon mechanic that is Resistance.  Being a Basic is the best right now; in Expanded the Stage even has its own small pool of dedicated support while in general the pacing and strategies in the game simply favor Basic Pokémon.  110 HP is high enough Deoxys is about as likely to be OHKOed as not, perhaps slightly favoring the “not” side of things.  The good news is that is the rest of this card may make that sufficient.  Its Psychic Weakness is a big risk (we haven’t forgotten Mewtwo-EX), its lack of Resistance is typical and it has a good Retreat Cost of just [C]; any cost lowering effect turns it into a perfect free Retreat Cost and unless something raises it, it will usually be easy to pay and from which to recover.  Deoxys doesn’t have an Ancient Trait or Ability, but it has two attacks with effect text.  The first is Close Encounter; for [C] you can draw two cards, but it includes a clause stating you may use this attack on your first turn even if you go first.  For the record, I usually use “Turn 1” or “T1” to refer to the turn of the player going first, “Turn 2” or “T2” for the first turn of the player going second, and keep counting from there.  I don’t think that is how the official turn counts are supposed to work in Pokémon, but for the sake of this article it makes discussing this effect a lot easier to use the above terminology how I have just defined it.  The second attack is Overdrive Smash for [PC], which hits for 30 but it places an effect on itself so that if it uses Overdrive Smash again the next turn, it will hit for an additional 60 points of damage (before Weakness and Resistance), so 90 for two.  Both attacks are inexpensive and Dimension Valley allows you to use Close Encounter for free and Overdrive Smash for just [P].  Close Encounter is adequate and Overdrive Smash is just a little lacking - even if you can pay for Overdrive Smash you can’t open with it (which is bad for the card’s playability but good for game balance) and attacks with similar effects have proven difficult to use because of how easy it is to avoid the extra damage the next turn; you just have to get the attacker (in this case Deoxys) out of the Active slot either by sending it to the Bench, bouncing it back to your opponent’s hand, sending it to your opponent’s deck or KOing it.  There are no other Standard or Expanded legal versions of Deoxys of which I am aware; the Pokémon TCG uses names for identification so as far as it is concerned Deoxys-EX is a different a card from Deoxys as Mewtwo-EX is.  If they are going to experiment with attacks you can use even on your first turn even when you’re going first, I would like them to be dedicated to aid in set-up.  This might be a solid choice for some decks.  I would actually prefer if the designers stop making cards that can hit for damage/place damage counters/etc. on a player’s first turn in the hopes that once most of the current card pool had rotated out (because they feature such attacks) that we could get first turn attacks restored; if all they can do is aid in set-up or perhaps cause early game disruption, I don’t really see a problem and the formats where your first few attacks were about setting up I find preferable to the ones where your deck must go on the offense immediately.  As an “opener”, Deoxys functions in most decks; after all Close Encounter requires just [C].  Being “functional” does not automatically equate to being “good” though.  This card’s major draw is granting you a T1 attack when you normally couldn’t attack at all, but doing so requires lucky break or building your deck (and thus investing more resources) so as to make its absence an example of bad luck.  If you’ve got to use things like an Ultra Ball and Switch to ensure you’ve got it up front T1, those count against the simple two card draw it is providing.  You’ll need to attach an Energy to Deoxys as well, making the yield underwhelming even when you do naturally open with it while going first.  If you go second, you don’t even gain a “bonus” attack.  Tossing one (maybe two) into a deck that already runs Dimension Valley might work, especially if the deck has an easy way of making a Deoxys you had to search out Active, needs a meatshield up front to protect the set-up happening on the Bench and has a somewhat complicated but rewarding set-up in the first place.  That sounds like a Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces 33/119) deck, but that already has some great openers even for the Dimension Valley using variants; Wobbuffet (XY: Phantom Forces 36/119) doesn’t need to attack to be useful in the Active slot T1.  I’d say the true competition comes from Latios-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 58/108, 101/108); it also has an attack that states it may be used first turn called “First Raid”.  The attack costs [P] so it isn’t quite as generic but fits into decks running basic Psychic Energy or any of the Special Energy cards that can provide [P] while attached to a Dragon-Type.  First Raid does 40 damage.  The damage isn’t high, but it is enough to threaten the smallest Basic Pokémon (yes, even in the competitive metagame there are 30 and 40 HP Pokémon that see play) and with a few buffs it can take out slightly larger targets: Muscle Band with Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym isn’t a guaranteed opening combo but its been used for a while now, and allows the card to score an effective FTKO against anything with 90 or less HP and sets up most everything else for a 2HKO.  Most decks can’t afford to run a lot of Basic Pokémon; you need them to not lose but once your Bench is full they become dead weight until another Bench slot opens up.  This means an full on aggro deck can shoot for an actual donk, an effective donk or simply try to apply constant pressure and prevent the opponent from getting any substantial set-up by spamming this low Energy attack.  So in Standard and Expanded, its hard to recommend.  Expanded even has more competition for it; Deoxys is really only impressive if it is attacking T1 so really any worthwhile opener (yes, even the ones that can’t attack T1) is serious competition.  For decks not locked into another Stadium, Tropical Beach is likely to draw as much or more than Deoxys and be more useful as the game progresses.  As such it is only Limited play where Deoxys has a chance to shine.  The general principles apply: this is a Basic with 110 HP so even if it was just a filler, meatshield it would have decent odds of being worth a slot.  In this case it has Close Encounter, which would make it a near staple even without its clause to bypass the “no attacking T1” rule.  It seems highly unlikely your deck won’t have room for at least a few basic Psychic Energy cards so you can use Overdrive Smash and here, that attack becomes a lot better.  Not only will the pacing be slower but a lot of the mechanics that makes the “hits harder if used at least twice in a row” such a difficult task are only available if you pull and attack with particular Pokémon, instead of being easily available in Trainer form.  It isn’t strong enough to run in a +39 deck; the HP isn’t high enough and while Overdrive Smash can eventually get to the point where its hitting for 90 over and over again, you’ll have two attacks before you reach that level and if your opponent hits you with a Special Condition you may both miss an attack and have the next one hitting for just 30 again.  In a typical deck though, it should be a great pull.  Ratings  Standard: 1.75/5  Expanded: 1.5/5  Limited: 4.8/5  Summary: Deoxys has a nifty trick by being able to attack T1, but it only applies to an underwhelming set-up attack.  I prefer that to having a devastating offensive attack on the cheap which would likely be too effective, but with the format showing no signs of slowing down Deoxys really needed a top notch set-up attack and not a mere “draw two cards”.  There are worse things to run, even if you’re not a budget constrained beginner, but there are so many better things to try to open with; even if you want to build a deck around the capacity to attack T1, there is the new Latios-EX.  As you have probably guessed by now, this didn’t make my Top 10 list; the card did catch my eye when I first read the effect but after my initial excitement died down, I realized it wasn’t as good as I thought.  Then I wrote this review and realized it was a little worse than that.