Hi Pojo, and everyone who reads this. I'm gonna talk about the 3 Movie 2000
Promo's, Articuno, Zapdos, and Molters. All of them are basic Pokemon, with
no weakness, a fighting resistance, a singe colorless energy retreat cost,
and 70 HP. Some of the best cards, Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, and Scyther have
70 HP as well. Are these 3 cards as good? Let's take a closer look at each of
them. A major problem I see is that all 3 of these guy's attacks involve coin
flips, something I don't like.  I'll only list their attacks, as all of the
other information was stated above.
(W) is water energy, (L) is lightening energy, and (R) is fire energy.
Articuno
(W)(W)(W)Diamond Dust. 20 damage. Flip a coin. If heads the defending Pokemon
is paralyzed and this attack also does 10 damage to each of your opponent's
benched Pokemon. (Do not apply weakness or resistance to benched Pokemon)

    70 HP should keep this guy out long enough to get 3 (W) energies on him.
A Raindance deck could get this guy ready to attack very quickly. 20 damage
isn't that much. Since no Pokemon is resistant to water, you'll always hurt
the opponent. A 20 damage for 3 Water Energy attack may not seem that good,
but a heads on a flip makes the attack great. If you're opponent is
paralyzed, you'll be able to have those 2 damage counters from each attack
add up quickly, without losing any damage. Great! Doing 10 to the bench is
wonderful, too. You could easily pick off weaklings like Bulbasaur with
Articuno. Also, this is the only of the 3 Promo Cards that does not have
penalty when you flip tails. All the others hurt themselves in one way or
another.
    I think that the fossil Articuno is great too. It can do 30 damage and
possibly paralyze the opponent for the same cost as Diamond Dust. It's second
attack does 50 damage for 4(W), and you have to flip a coin. Heads, 10 to all
of your opponent's benched Pokemon, tails 10 to all of yours. Even though the
second attack of this guy can hurt you too, 50 damage puts a huge dent in
pretty much anything.
    The Promo Articuno tries to combine both of the Fossil Articuno's
attacks. It gets the side effects down perfectly, but fails pathetically with
base damage. A plus Power or two makes this much better. To tell you the
truth, neither of these is really much better than the other. I suggest using
2 of each in your raindance deck, if you can get them.

Zapdos
(L)(L)(L) Lightening Burn. 30 Damage. Flip a coin. If heads, and if the
opponent has any benched Pokemon, Choose one of them and do 30 damage to it.
If tails, Zapdos does 30 damage to itself.

    30 for 3 Energies is normal right off the bat. But with a chance of doing
30 do a benched Pokemon is great! Say goodbye to Rattata or Magikarp! But
Flipping Tails does 30 damage to Zapdos. With 70 HP, Tails twice leaves you
with 10 HP remaining. This attack is a huge gamble. But if you make a deck
with this guy, be sure to include Defender. Then, if you get tails, you only
do 10 to yourself. And your opponent's next attack does 20 less too! Those
two cards are meant for eachother.
    I feel that this guy should only be used with Defender, Potion, or maybe
Alakazam. But as ZAP! showed us, Psychic and Lightening don't often work well
together. If you're lucky with coins, this Zapdos is a must.

Moltres
(R)(R)(R) Hyper Flame. 60 damage. Flip a coin.  If heads, discard 1 F energy
attached to Moltres.  If tails, discard all energy cards attached to Moltres.
 If you can't discard energy cards, this attack does nothing.   

    3 energies for 60 damage is GREAT! But getting tails will be your
ultimate downfall. Moltres, like many other fire Pokemon, likes to discard
energy. Even if you get heads, you lose one energy card. But with heads,
you'll be ready to attack each turn. There is no pokemon that is resistant to
fire, so you'll always be able to do 60 damage. That's pretty good, isn't it?
With a one energy retreat cost, you can get this guy back and forth easily.
So if you flip tails, you can get get Moltres on your bench, but you won't be
able to attack any more energies. Another Gamble card.

    Overall, these 3 Promos are very risky cards. Flipping tails could mean
you lose the game. Articuno is the safest to use, but his attack does little
damage. Zapdos will do 30 damage to itslef 50% of the time. But every turn,
Moltres will lose at least one (F) energy. If you don't like coin flips,
you'd probably want to stay away from these guys. I think it will be very
interesting to see how people will play these guys when they become
available. Oh yea, these 3 are randomly given out June 28th or later by
seeing Pokemon the Movie 2000. That's all!

Ryoga-
Send all comments and questiosn to Ryoga95@aol.com