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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	So to wrap up our quick weak, we've got Salazzle, giving us the Red to our White and...Purplish...bluish...dangit, so close.  Salazzle's got an interesting Ability in the form of Hot Poison, and since Flamethrower is pretty much the 3-for-90 discard a Fire Energy attack that you already know everything you need to know about, let's talk HOT POISON!! Once Salazzle evolves from a Salandit, she'll hit the opponent's Active Pokemon with an unhealthy dose of Burn and Poison simultaneously - that's a guaranteed 30 damage after your attack, with at least 10 damage from Poison between turns beyond that (maybe even 30 if your opponent keeps the Burn).  So what does that all mean? Well if 30 damage every turn is a mysterious magical number that makes Rough Seas viable for healing, then being able to dish out 30 additional damage each turn is probably even better! It stacks on top of things like Choice Band, which can make those high numbers much easier to get to! But keep in mind that that 30 damage only is as good as that first turn, and the longer it lasts, the less likely it'll be 30 damage and instead 10 damage. It's still good, but let's also consider that the longer it lasts, the more likely your opponent will counteract the Status Condition or have their Pokemon KO'd, and then Salazzle just ends up sitting on the Bench for a while.  And we know you ain't using Flamethrower.  Rating  Standard: 2.5/5 (Salazzle herself has a particular use that I imagine will be capitalized on)  Expanded: 3/5 (and if you can take advantage of it, Salazzle can really aid in a fight)  Limited: 3.5/5 (but outside of her Ability, I don't see a lot of use for Salazzle) Arora Notealus: Ain't it curious that female Salandits are rarer and the only ones who can evolve into Salazzle? I mean that seems rather odd, but then it's like, what if it's cause they're bandits, and the men are the tough grunts, and the mob boss masters are usually women cause they're tougher and stuff? Like a Honchkrow/Murkrow thing but with females on top. I dunno, just speculating mostly.  Weekend Thought: For those who celebrate, hope you enjoyed the 4th of July! And how were this week's cards for you? Expecting great things from stuff like Salazzle? Missed out on all the crazy things that happened when Broken Space-Time was around? Did APCA confuse you too? It's okay, it got a lot of us.
21times	Salazzle (Guardians Rising, 16/145) burned its way into the meta from the Guardians Rising expansion set.  A 110 HP, Stage 1 Fire Pokemon, it raised the eyebrows of many of us when we initially saw its ability.  Hot Poison, when played from your hand to evolve Salandit (Guardians Rising, 15/145), puts a Poison and a Burn counter on your opponent’s active Pokemon.  Therefore, you automatically do at least thirty damage by playing this card, and it’s not unreasonable to assume that it will frequently do more than that. As a reminder, Poison does ten damage after each player’s turn.  Burn initially does twenty damage immediately after your turn, and then does twenty damage after each successive turn unless your opponent flips heads, in which case the Burn counter is removed. A number of Pokemon might pair nicely with Salazzle: ·         Sceptile EX (Ancient Origins, 7/98) ·         Toxicroak (Steam Siege, 59/114) ·         Alolan Muk GX (SM3) ·         Seviper (SM3) However, I chose to try it with Incineroar GX (Sun & Moon, 27/149).  In twelve matches, I went an even six wins and six losses with it.  It’s about what you would expect: Grass and Metal decks are easy wins, Water decks are pretty much autolosses.  Against non-weakness opponents, it pretty much beat the non-top tier decks and lost to the best decks in the format.  I did, however, have two nice wins against a couple of Tapu Bulu GX (SM32) Vikavolt (Sun & Moon, 52/149) decks. I made Incineroar GX’s Hustling Strike the focus of the deck, and this was the attack that I used the vast majority of the time.  I hit for more than 100 damage most of the time, using Sky Field (Roaring Skies, 89/108) to broaden my bench and Oricorio (Guardians Rising, 14/145) to help get Salandit and Litten (Sun & Moon, 24/149) out.  I did use Burning Slam GX a few times – with Salazzle it’s guaranteed to do at least 230 damage, and if you get lucky it might even KO 250 HP Pokemon.  That, however, isn’t too much of a problem because most of the 240 and 250 HP Pokemon that you’ll commonly see (Decidueye GX (Sun & Moon, 12/149) and Metagross GX (Guardians Rising, 85/145)) are weak to you anyway.  I did use Tiger Swing a couple of times when Sky Field got bumped, and I’d probably sub out one of the Oricorio in favor of a Victini (Guardians Rising, 10/145) in the future to help with that, but Tiger Swing was definitely the least used of the three attacks. Salazzle did help boost damage output on a number of occasions, but one problem I noticed was that there were a couple of times when I played down Salazzle and either had another one in my hand or successively drew into one and then had to discard or reshuffle the second Salazzle because it does no good to play another Salazzle in the same turn or if your opponent’s Pokemon is still affected by the special conditions – it doesn’t allow you to put multiple burn or poison counters on the active Pokemon.  Howver, there were also a couple of times when I offered up a Salazzle for my opponent to KO, and then I promptly pulled it out of the discard with Rescue Stretcher (Guardians Rising, 130/145) and used it to evolve another Salandit that was already sitting on the bench.  I actually added Rescue Stretchers and took out Max Potions (Guardians Rising, 128/145) after five matches because I just couldn’t draw into the Potions when I really needed them. Here’s the list I used.  Like I said, it’s not going to win worlds, but if you’ve got a Fire Daily Challenge on PTCGO, I’d highly recommend giving it a whirl: ****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ****** * 3 Litten SUM 24 * 1 Litten PR-SM SM02 * 4 Torracat SUM 25 * 4 Incineroar-GX SUM 27 * 4 Oricorio GRI 14 * 4 Salandit GRI 15 * 4 Salazzle GRI 16 * 4 Professor Sycamore STS 114 * 3 Rescue Stretcher GRI 130 * 2 Timer Ball SUM 134 * 2 Rare Candy SUM 129 * 1 Super Rod BKT 149 * 4 Random Receiver FAC 109 * 4 N NVI 92 * 3 Level Ball AOR 76 * 1 Max Potion GRI 164 * 4 Sky Field ROS 89 * 8 Fire Energy XYEnergy 4   Rating Standard: 2.5 out of 5 Conclusion I had a lot of fun with this deck, and Salazzle frequently gave Incineroar’s attacks the little bump needed to turn a 2 shot KO into an OHKO.  I don’t know how many other decks it might help with, but Salazzle certainly served as a valuable tech in to this deck, and it helped win a number of matches.  I’m 100% certain I would have won less than six matches without Salazzle.
Otaku	One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.  Schlemiel! Salazzle! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated. We're gonna do it!  …  If you actually get that joke, don’t worry; I think it is proof there is something wrong with me.  We end this short week of reviews with Salazzle (SM: Guardians Rising 16/145), a Fire-Type Stage 1 with 110 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], an Ability, and a single attack.  The Ability is “Hot Poison”, which triggers when you Evolve one of your in play Pokémon into this Salazzle from hand; you may then Burn and Poison the opponent’s Active.  For [RCC], Salazzle can use “Flamethrower” to do 90 damage, but she also has to discard an Energy from herself.  For now, I expect the Typing to mostly just matter should you find yourself attacking with Salazzle, and I don’t expect to attack with her all that often.  Being a Stage 1 isn’t as good as being a Basic, but it is better than being any other Stage.  110 HP isn’t going to last long - probably not even one hit while Active - but it is enough that it isn’t an overly easy OHKO.  No Weakness is the only good Weakness, and the metagame has been jumping around enough I’m not sure if it belongs in the “bad” or “less bad” category.  Lack of Resistance is typical, and we’re in a hurry, so we’ll move onto the Retreat Cost of [C].  This is low enough you’ll be able to afford it, but even a single Energy starts feeling costly if you have to pay it over and over again.   Hot Poison is usually good for three extra damage counters between turns, possibly more if your opponent doesn’t shake Special Conditions and Burn doesn’t go away on its own.  It is enough to have a decent chance of shifting KO counts.  Flamethrower does a solid 90-for-three, and can even make use of off-Type Energy acceleration like Double Colorless Energy.  It isn’t enough to make you want to attack with it, though.  There is only one Salazzle and one Salandit; the latter is SM: Guardians Rising 15/145.  It is a Basic, Fire-Type Pokémon with 70 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], and two attacks.  “Scratch” costs [R] and simply does 10 damage, while “Venoshock” costs [CC] and does 20 damage, plus another 40 if the opponent’s Active is Poisoned.  Not the worst starting point, but not very good, either.  So, is Salazzle worth using?  Not unless you’ve got a deck that needs an extra 30 damage where Choice Band and/or Professor Kukui isn’t enough.  The good news is that, as a Stage 1, so adding a Salazzle line to a deck as something like a 2-2 line is plausible.  I just don’t know of any deck that will really capitalize on it, plus the Fire-Type is really Basic focused right now, thanks to Volcanion-EX.  I think this card has potential, even more in Expanded as there are cards like Ninetales (BW: Dragons Exalted 19/124; BW: Black Star Promos BW66) that might better combo with Salazzle, plus Virbank City Gym so that it’s an effective five damage counter bonus.  Wonderful for Limited play, where you can make great use of it as an attacker and a supporting Ability.  I haven’t tried the “Hidden Moon” Theme Deck, but I am guessing it works similar to Limited play, maybe better since it is a Theme Deck and not the best you can do with your pulls.  Ratings  Standard: 2.75/5  Expanded: 3/5  Limited: 4/5  Theme: 4.25/5
Vince	Today’s card of the day is Salazzle!  Fire and Poison is a unique type combination; I don’t recall other Pokemon with the same dual typing.  But this is the TCG, and Salazzle is assigned to be the fire type.  So, what can it do to prove itself worthwile?   Well, there’s Flamethrower that costs RCC for 90 damage with the forced energy discard clause.  Not too bad, since that’s enough damage for Basic EX/GX Pokemon with fire weakness to get OHKOed.  Hot Poison is a coming-into-play ability in which it inflicts Poison and Burn Special Condition.  And both special conditions place damage counters between each player’s turn!  That’s a guaranteed 30 damage between turns (10 for poison and 20 for burn); Poison stays there while Burn may get a 50/50 chance to get removed.  Virbank City Gym makes poison tack on two more damage counters, so that’s 50 damage we’re talking about (30 for poison, 20 for burn).   There are issues to using this kind of strategy of “whittling down until the Pokemon’s done for”.  Special Conditions can be removed by retreating/switching (yes, they can still retreat even if burned and poisoned) and other healing related items such as Full Heal and Pokemon Center Lady.  Then there’s Pokemon and items that flat out blocks all special conditions such as Sparkling Robe, Virizion-EX’s Verdant Wind, Slurpuff’s Sweet Veil, and Comfey’s Flower Shield.  And with some source to constantly switch their Pokemon such as Float Stone Keldeo or Zoroark and Ultra Road Solgaleo, it is inevitable that you’re going to take the extra effort to perform the same trick.  You have to use a viable attacker that does lots of damage, enough to bring the range where the residual damage of burn and poison knocks out the Pokemon.  By that, it would be 160+30 for Basic EXs sans Wailord-EX, 180+30 for Basic GXs and stage 1 GXs (Wishiwashi GX has 210 HP, some stage 1 GXs has 210 HP), and 220+30 for anything!   Interesting ability, but not practical these days.   Ratings   Standard: 2/5 (It has some things going for it)   Expanded: 2/5 (But when there are other factors and counters, that may affect the viability of this card)   Limited: 3.75 (Hot Poison and Flamethrower are great here)   Notes: I think maybe someone will make great use of Salazzle, and worrying that I lowballed it when it comes to scoring cards.   Coming up: I actually don’t know what’s next at the moment, but enjoy your weekend!