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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Spoiler alert, Shadowy Knot won't make Wobbuffet amazing.  We've seen these kinds of attacks before, and the only reason it's probably getting any notoriety is because it is coming in a time where Evolution Pokemon - which are usually better known for having high Retreat Costs in general - are becoming more dominant. Shadowy Knot costs 3 Energy and does 50 damage for each Energy noted in the Retreat Cost of a Pokemon, but that doesn't make it good. For one, the attack is 3 PSYCHIC Energy, it's reliant on the Retreat Cost of your opponent's Pokemon which will usually be geared towards lower numbers in general (2 is the likely average, meaning you're hitting for 100 damage), and Wobbuffet himself, while bulkier than most Basic non-EX/GX Pokemon, isn't going to be able to carry a deck to victory on his own.  It's no Trashalanche, but it's not worth overlooking either. Perhaps a fringe choice in some Psychic decks, but acceleration for Psychic Energy in particular would be a must.  Rating  Standard: 1.5/5 (otherwise it's overcosted for what it can do)  Expanded: 1.5/5 (it targets well, but won't always hit more than 100)  Limited: 2.5/5 (and that's being generous)  Arora Notealus: Someday, Wobbuffet. Someday you'll be amazing, right? Maybe not today, but maybe when you get an Ability that works with your...quirk.  Next Time: A blast from the past...it's paperwork.
21times	Wobbuffet (Burning Shadows, 49/147) pops back up again in the Burning Shadows expansion set.  A 120 HP Basic Psychic Pokemon, this version has just one attack, Shadowy Knot, that (for three Psychic energy) does fifty damage for each * in the active Pokemon’s retreat cost. It took me two matches to figure out that our friend Wobbuffet has a HUGE Achilles heel: if the Pokemon it is attacking has a Float Stone (Breakthrough, 137/162) attached to it, Wobbuffet’s Shadowy Knot does a grand total of ZERO damage to the opponent’s active Pokemon.  The card text on Float Stone reads as such: “The Pokémon this card is attached to has no Retreat Cost.” Whether you agree with it or not, whether it’s logical or not, it is what it is.  If your opponent’s active has a Float Stone attached to it, you do no damage to that Pokemon. I didn’t spend any additional time trying to see if Alolan Dugtrio (Sun & Moon, 87/149) would actually increase the retreat cost by one even if Float Stone were attached, and I didn’t bother with trying to see if I could get Field Blowers (Guardians Rising, 125/145) in a timely enough fashion to counter Float Stones attached to my opponent’s active.  The fact that simply attaching a Float Stone will completely shut down Wobbuffet just makes it unplayable. Rating Standard: 1.5 out of 5 Conclusion If it weren’t for Float Stone kryptoniting Wobbuffet, this card would actually be pretty good.  I actually won a match against a Zoroark (Breakthrough, 91/162) Drampa GX (Guardians Rising, 115/145) deck.  If you can get a couple of Dugtrios on the bench, you’re going to hit most feature Pokemon for 200 or even 250 damage.  And if you run four Field Blowers, maybe Puzzle of Time (Breakpoint, 109/122) and Skyla (Breakpoint, 122/122), it might be possible to get your Field Blowers quickly enough to minimize the oppression of Float Stone.  But to me, it’s just way too easy for your opponent to render Wobb completely powerless, and way too hard for you to overcome that dominance.
Otaku	Today we’ll check out the newest card for my second favorite Pokémon, Wobbuffet.  Wobbuffet (SM: Burning Shadows 49/147) is a Psychic-Type Basic Pokémon with 120 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CCC], and the attack “Shadowy Knot”.  For [PPP],  Shadowy Knot does 50 damage per [C] in the Retreat Cost of your opponent’s Active Pokémon.  Being a Basic is still the best Stage of Evolution, and being a Psychic-Type is solid as is the 120 HP.  Psychic Weakness isn’t the worst but can still be dangerous (especially in Expanded), while lack of any Resistance is technically the worst Resistance but it is largely inconsequential.  The Retreat Cost of [CCC] is painful to pay, but most decks should have at least some means of bypassing, eliminating, or at least reducing it; slight benefit in that it makes Wobbuffet a legal Heavy Ball target, so in the end it seems fairly average.  Shadowy Knot has big Energy cost; three of a specific Energy-Type is generally only affordable with the appropriate Energy acceleration.  That exists, but only in certain decks right now and only Metagross-GX strikes me as contemporary, successful example.  I suppose you could really push your luck with Max Elixir, if you wished.  For this much Energy, I’d want a vanilla attack to hit for 100-120 damage, so how does this attack’s effect compare?  I’d expect to swing for less most of the time; besides Pokémon with nice, low Retreat Costs naturally being popular, Float Stone (or similar cards) are not uncommon in decks where the Retreat Costs would fuel big hits. It isn’t all doom and gloom for Wobbuffet, though, as you can do a few things to help it out.  One can partner it up with something that can handle opponent’s that just aren’t going to take enough damage from Shadowy Knot, either directly (by being an alternate attacker) or indirectly (by improving the odds of the opponent’s Active having a high Retreat Cost).  With the former, it might work best to look for decks that already exist and might want Wobbuffet as an alternate attacker.  The only thing I can think of which might fit are Metagross-GX decks; the [PPP] cost of Shadowy Knot isn’t so bad when you have the “Geotech System” of Metagross-GX to attach Psychic Energy from your discard pile, and Wobbuffet can be used to pound on chunkier Pokémon (in general) while giving up only one Prize and Fire-Types in general, since they can really put the hurt on your Fire Weak Metagross-GX.  For example, Volcanion-EX has 180 HP with a Retreat Cost of [CCC], so with a Choice Band Shadowy Knot will score a OHKO.  This brings us to the second big piece of support; Field Blower; it will allow you to discard Stadium cards like Fairy Garden and/or Tools like Float Stone, which zero out Retreat Costs.  Other possibilities are to see if you can build a Garbodor (SM: Guardians Rising 51/145)/Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122) deck; you’ll still want multiple copies of Field Blower in there as well.  The newer Garbodor serves as an alternate (possibly the main) attacker, while the slightly older one denies another reasonably common means your opponent has for reducing Retreat Costs: Abilities.  The third and final approach I’ll touch upon is the least impressive; use cards that can increase the Retreat Cost of your opponent’s Pokémon.  The big issue is that you can only do so much with Trainers (mostly just the odd Stadium); you’ll be employing Abilities and so it requires too much space to work with the Metagross-GX idea and clashes with the double Garbodor approach as well. Still, you can use Alolan Dugtrio (Expanded includes some other options) to tack on an extra [C] per copy in play to the Retreat Cost of your opponent’s Active.  Sounds slick, since that means Wobbuffet could use Shadowy Knot to do 200 damage, even when something has a natural free Retreat Cost, but that would require a really excellent setup to accomplish in the first few turns of the game.  It would also be vulnerable to Abilities being shut down or Float Stone counters; at least for now, Field Blower is your best counter to both.  Getting out multiple Stage 1 Bench-sitters while also managing to get [PPP] on Wobbuffet once seems daunting; the fact that Wobbuffet will be doing well to survive one attack from your opponent’s Pokémon makes me think this is best served for a “fun” deck.  Maybe enjoy Wobbuffet in Limited Format play, assuming your deck runs heavy on Psychic Energy.  Ratings  Standard: 1.75/5  Expanded: 1.75/5  Limited: 3/5  Conclusion  Wobbuffet is a very, very specialized Pokémon and I don’t think its specialization is very effective.  The powers-that-be seem to like effects that zero out Retreat Costs, and those overwrite effects that raise them, leaving this Wobbuffet too likely to whiff.  A radical shift in the metagame could change this, but it isn’t a chance I expect to see happen.  Wobbuffet was 21times’ 15th place pick, but didn’t make my own list; unofficially, I guess it would be our 25th place pick.
Vince	There’s not much to be said on today’s card, Wobbuffet.  It has only one attack called Shadowy Knot.  It costs PPP and does 50 damage times the number of retreat cost of the defending Pokemon to the defending Pokemon.  This could range from terrible (zero damage) to great (200 damage).  The attack cost is hard to meet without some max elixirs and depending on the matchup, it won’t do as much damage than you think.  Greninja BREAK laughs at Wobbuffet while Trevenant BREAK and Volcanion EX takes heavy damage from Wobbuffet!   Rating: Standard: 1.25/5 Expanded: 1.25/5 Limited: 2/5
Retro	Wobbuffet cards are normally disruption cards or utility cards. And all Wobb cards are great at doing so. But this time, we have a new Wobbuffet card that essentially is an attacker. So how does it stack up as one?             This new Wobbuffet is a Basic Pokemon, so it does avoid the Wynaut phase, meaning that Po Town (SM Burning Shadows) isn’t going to lay a finger on it. It has 120 HP, which is a bad HP count to have since there are an awful lot of Pokemon that can hit for 120 damage, cleaning up Wobbuffet fairly easily. Being a Basic Pokemon, you have the option of using Fighting Fury Belt (XY BREAKpoint) to boost Wobb’s HP to 160, which is nice and you also have the extra 10 damage boost, which may come in handy. It also has a retreat cost of 3, which is big, so the FFB does compete for the Tool slot against Choice Band (SM Guardians Rising) for extra damage but it doesn’t boost the HP, and also Float Stone (XY BREAKpoint) to give Wobbuffet free Retreat. Which is really confusing, because now you need to choose between survivability or damage.             Speaking of damage, its only attack, Shadowy Knot costs 3 Psychic energies. Being a basic Pokemon you can use the item card Max Elixir (XY BREAKpoint) to get energies quickly to Wobb, which makes it able to attack in a single turn. And for those 3 Psychic energies, you get to deal 50x the number of energies in your opponent’s Retreat cost. Let me tell you, a 50x multipler is huge and can deal the damage quickly. And luckily in this meta we do have ways to add up the damage to be phenomenal. Although we do lose the Stadium card Team Aqua’s Secret Base (XY Double Crisis) which adds 2 more retreat cost to each non-Team Aqua Pokémon in the Active slot, we do have Alolan Dugtrio (SM Base Set) that has the Tangling Hair ability, increasing your opponent’s Retreat Cost by 1 for each of these moles in play. So if you can get at least 2 Alolan Dugtrio in play, you add +100 damage to Shadowy Knot, meaning you can hit for extremely big numbers. Against the 2 retreat cost Pokémon, which are here in the format, you can hit for 150 stock and 250 with the 2 Alolan Dugtrios in play. This card is amazing, and it does have a bright future ahead of it. But is it?             You see, this card is defeated by one card, and one card only. Yep, it’s Float Stone (XY BREAKpoint)! The same card that you might consider putting in the Wobb deck. What Float Stone does, for those new to TCG, is that it eliminates all the Retreat Cost of a Pokémon the Float Stone is attached to. So no matter how big you can make the Retreat cost of your opponent’s Pokémon, when they have the Float Stone there, your attack will deal zero damage. One might argue that you can just use Field Blower (SM Guardians Rising) to remove the Float Stone, there are many instances where you just can’t find them by drawing cards, and so there will be numerous possibilities that the damage of Wobb will remain zero. Of course you can use a Float Stone of yours to improve your mirror match, but that will be weird. Another weak point is the combination of Psychic weakness and low HP; with such threats like Espeon-GX (SM Base Set) and Garbodor (SM Guardians Rising) running around, they are practically able to kill you like slicing paper.             So at the end, Wobbuffet is a very cool conceptual card with a unique attack that abuses a very important fact in the TCG game, and that alone is cool. But in practice it doesn’t turn out that way, which is a shame. Rating: Standard: 2.8/5 (A very cool deck concept, but it’s not that good in practice. Too slow and seriously inconsistent.) Expanded: 2.8/5 (The same reasons as in Standard) Limited: 3.8/5 (A basic Pokémon that can abuse an important aspect of the game is very good, and it can deal massive damage relatively quickly. A must on Psychic decks.)