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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Latios - Deoxys

 

Date Reviewed: 03.28.05

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1.5
Modified: 2.25
Limited: 3.25

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  5 is the highest rating.


Johnny Blaze
Latios – Another very very rare Shining Pokemon this time we are taking a look at Shining Latios.
For 1C Miraculous Light lets you remove 1 damage counter and all special conditions from Latios.
Then for 1G,1L, and 1P Latios’ Shining Star can dish out a whopping 150 damage to an evolved Stage 2 Pokemon. 
 
Unlimited: 1/5 – Colorless weakness will hurt and Clefable pwns this Pokemon.
 
Modified:  2/5 – It will actually do good against Venusaur-ex or any grass status effects deck.  Other than that Crystal Shard will hurt it a lot.
 
Limited: 3/5 – With its 1st attack removing status and healing it can actually survive a bit to power up for its Shining Star.  Definitely play it if you also draft Lady Outing.
 

Otaku

This week I thought we’d finish up the “collector candy” of the set; that is the remaining Pokémon* and the box topper/Secret Rare.

Name: Latios*

Set: EX Deoxys

Card#: 106/107

Stage: Basic

Type: Colorless

HP: 80

Weakness: Colorless

Resistance: Grass, Fighting

Retreat: (C)

Pokémon* Rule: You can’t have more than 1 Pokémon* in your deck.

Attack#1: (C) Miraculous Light [10]

Remove 1 damage counter and all Special Conditions from Latios*.

Attack: (GLP) Shining Star [50]

If the Defending Pokémon is a Stage 2 Evolved Pokémon, discard all Energy cards attached to Latios* and this attack does 50 damage plus 100 more damage.

 

Attributes: First, this is a Pokémon*.  So far, all Pokémon* (also called “Shiny Pokémon” or “Pokémon Star”) have been Basics, but no Evolved Pokémon have been made into Pokémon* anyway.  Pokémon* are not Shining Pokémon!  Some people still make this error; they are very similar, but Shining Pokémon have “Shining” in their names, and only that specific card is limited to one per deck.  The rule printed on all Pokémon* is that you are allowed a single Pokémon* per deck.  You can have Latios* or Latias* in your deck, but not both at the same time.  So all Pokémon* compete with each other for deck space.  As a whole, so long as the attacks receive adequate compensation (I say this because the rest of the card’s attributes merely reflect being a Latios and not a Pokémon*), then this can still be a good card.  Even if you wanted to more or less focus your deck around it, it shouldn’t be too bad: Here Comes Team Rocket! could help deal with it getting caught in prizes, and Pokémon Retriever/Great Ball can handle it if it’s hiding in deck.

 

Latios* is Colorless, which is a great type now that Colorless Weakness is so common (at least amongst certain high end decks) though watch out for Resistance.  There is a downside to being Colorless though: Crystal Shard let’s anything fake being Colorless for a turn to exploit Weakness or avoid Resistance.  Obviously, that combo won’t work for Latios*.  Fortunately, Resistance is limited to Gengar ex and EX Deoxys Sableye.

 

Latios* has 80 HP, solid for a non-Evolving Basic with no “Pre-Evolutions”.  We are going to need all the HP we can get though, since Latios* video game type is Dragon; they gave it the dreaded Colorless Weakness.  A Pidgeot’s Clutch attack can OHKO our boy here.  At least we have two different Resistances.  Fighting Resistance is good: even though most Fighting Pokémon seem to specialize in getting around Resistance, it’s going to inconvenience things like Machamp, Magma, and Monarchy (Nidoking/Nidoqueen) decks.  Grass hasn’t found a strong mainstream deck, at least not yet, but I have seen a few contenders.  If not, it’s only slightly detrimental (since it’s my understanding that Colorless Weakness is viewed as so crippling that the dual-Resistance is supposed to offset it).  However, as long as some Grass decks that at least occasionally use a straight out attack crops up, the balance is met.

 

The retreat cost is a simple single Energy.  As long as it’s not going to cripple the cards Energy intensive second attack, it’s good.

 

Abilities: The first attack, Miraculous Light, is the token inexpensive opening attack on a card like this.  It serves its purpose.  Doing 10 for (C) is expected.  Since it’s an “isolated” Basic, you’d expect a little extra on top of that.  Removing a damage counter and all Special Conditions fits the bill.  For one thing, the best that can mean is removing one damage counter, Poison, Burn, and Confusion; you can’t attack if you are Asleep or Paralyzed.  If you are trying to ditch Confusion, also remember that you’ll have a 50% chance of the attack placing 3 damage counters on you instead of its real effects.  Still, early game this isn’t so bad.

 

The second attack is what should determine if you make room for this card or not.  Shining Star does base damage of 50.  You put in not only three colored Energy, though, but of three different types.  That’s easily enough to warrant the damage, and an effect.  There is an effect present: if the Defending Pokémon is a Stage 2, discard all Energy attached to Latios* and you get to inflict a total of 150 damage.  Let’s see, minimum (and most likely) discard of the same Energy used to pay for the attack would warrant doubling the damage, plus there is a restriction on what gets the bonus… that would easily justify another 60 to 80 points of damage, so adding 100 is not much of a bonus, especially when you consider the effect is not optional.  Still, it’s enough damage that only a few Stage 2 Pokémon ex can survive it.

 

Over all, I’d say the abilities are… decent, maybe a hair sub-par.

 

Uses and

Combinations: Electrode ex, plus this, could net you enough Energy to power this up with its Poké-Power (which KOs Electrode ex but let’s you attach 5 Energy from your discard to your Pokémon in play however you would like) and nearly power up most other Pokémon.  In this scenario, I’d recommend focusing on using Shining Star to nuke an opponent’s big Pokémon ex.  A classic Firestarter build wouldn’t like this card: using an Electrode ex, it’d be possible to launch a three for four trade; Electrode ex uses its Poké-Power giving your opponent two prizes but powering up Latios*, then Latios* could OHKO a Rayquaza ex and then a Blaziken ex.  Not too likely, but feasible.  The main thing would be to focus on relative speed.  If you do the Electrode ex trick turn two, you could really frustrate an opponent’s set up (especially if you did nail a Pokémon ex) and likely have Latios* survive another turn or three.  Toss in the Mass Destruction version of Electrode, and Electrode ex could be setting you up to take down two big Pokémon in just two turns.  Yes, you’re prizes will also take a hit, but that is devastating to an early set up.

 

You could also TecH a copy into decks that can move around certain Energy types.  Just use it to toss as many Rainbow Energy as needed onto Latios*, and use it for the coup de grace.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 2/5-Easier to power-up (Harvest Bounty Venusaur) and it can really put the hurt on Raindance, but unfortunately not much else.  Looks fun though.  Given the fact that we only have mentioned roughly 10 cards for the deck (Venusaur-line and a Latios*) you might be able to toss a standard heavy like Neo Genesis Sneasel in.

 

Modified: 2.5/5-Harder to power-up, but given all the Stage 2 Pokémon that deck’s are centered around, this could really put the hurt on them, especially the one’s that use Stage 2 Pokémon ex with 150 or less HP.

 

Limited: 3.5/5-Solid pick.  I see roughly 10-20% of player’s set up a usable Stage 2 line… and those are the one’s that will put the hurt on you.  Miraculous Light (as well as being a big Basic) is much more potent here, and EX Deoxys at least was very friendly to tri-color decks.

 

Summary

Latios* is as hard to play as Latias* and harder to play than the previous Pokémon* from EX Team Rocket Returns, but it is arguably as strong as or stronger than all of them.  Still, especially given its rarity, it looks like this will mostly be sticking to collector’s binders.

 


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