www.pojo.com
  

Gym Challenge- Good Things, Bad Things, Ideas

The Wizards of the Coast store by my house got some 1st edition Gym Challenge boxes in, and I bought some right away. In my first few packs, I noticed a few things, and then after getting a box, I noticed that there were 4 errors or changes made in these cards, from the Japanese versions.

1) Rocket's Minefield Gym
It's a stadium card. Many of you are probably familiar with what it does from reading translations in magazines. "Whenever a player puts a Basic Pokémon onto his or her bench from his or her hand, he or she flips a coin. If tails, put 2 damage counters on that Pokémon."
Well, I'm afraid our version is a little broken, heh. It reads:
"Whenever a player puts a Basic Pokémon onto his or her bench from his or her hand, he or she flips a coin. If tails, put damage counters on that Pokémon."
Oops. Forgot the 2. I'm pretty sure this is an error Wizards will correct, unlike non-holo Dark Vileplume's weakness to fighting.
::pictures a little girl benching a Pikachu, flipping.. tails. "Oooh I'm sorry Suzy!" and a bag of damage counters are thrown on to helpless Pikachu.::

2) Blaine's Charizard
Okay, Blaine's Charizard is a complicated card, but we'll keep it simple. Energy sign mistake! Same one on Dark Vileplume non-holo. A fire symbol is instead a fighting symbol in it's first attack. The attack instructs you to "Discard all Fighting energy attached to Blaine's Charizard." That,
hopefully, will be corrected, and announced, too.

3) Brock's Ninetales
I'm pretty sure this was changed from the Japanese version. (Wasn't Nightly Garbage Run also?) Brock's Ninetales has a complicated Pokémon Power, I'll type it out for you.

Pokémon Power: Shapeshift: Once during your turn (before your attack), you may attach an evolution card from your hand to Brock's Ninetales. (This doesn't count as evolving Brock's Ninetales.) Treat Brock's Ninetales as if it were that Pokémon instead. It can't evolve, devolve, or use the Pokémon Power of that Pokémon. During your turn, you may discard the evolution card attached to Brock's Ninetales. This power can't be used if Brock's Ninetales is Asleep, Confused or Paralyzed. If Brock's Ninetales becomes Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed, discard all evolution cards attached to it.

Now, what I remember, is Brock's Ninetales not stopping Pokémon Powers of the evolution card you attach to it. Oh well. If it didn't stop Pokémon Powers, a theory my friend and I thought of is, Shapeshift to Blastoise, Rain Dance, then next turn Shapeshift to Charizard.. that would be nice. It's the only time a base Charizard would ever be useful, in my opinion. Remember this combo is
not legal with our version.

4) Sabrina's Drowzee
Sabrina's Drowzee, the one with the Energy Support attack. I read in magazines and here, on Pojo, that Energy Support allowed you to search your deck for a psychic energy and attach it to one of your benched Pokémon. Sabrina's Drowzee's Energy Support now reads "Search your deck for a psychic energy. Show that card to your opponent, then put it in your hand. Shuffle your deck afterwards." Weird...

Here are some things I noticed right away, also:
Sabrina has some nice stuff! Her Golduck is nice, and Sabrina is a nice combo with her cards, especially her Gastly with the Pokémon Power: Gaseous Form.

Chaos Gym is going to effect Pokémon forever, I think, it's only weakness is being replaced by another stadium. I am playing them in my Wigglytuff/Trapper deck to help against topdecking Oak. It is bad for you by stopping your searching for PlusPowers, that's why I try to get PlusPowers back in my hand with Item Finder, Computer Search etc. before casting Chaos Gym. Tails with PlusPower will not help your opponent.

Rocket's Zapdos is so good, it's another broken card in Gym, and I'm sure it will be in many tournament-level decks soon, maybe even Trappers.

Koga and his Pidgey's "Messenger" attack are interesting.

There are many other good cards in Gym Challenge, and it feels weird to see that we're waiting for Neo now!

NeSS
I love hearing from players! E-mail me!

www.pojo.com