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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Sableye

Holon Phantoms

 

Date Reviewed: 06.23.06

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1.00
Modified: 1.00
Limited: 2.10

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


Otaku

Name: Sableye

Set: EX Holon Phantoms

Card#: 31/110

Rarity: Rare

Type: Darkness

Stage: Basic

HP: 60

Weakness: None

Resistance: Colorless

Retreat: C

Attack#1: (C) Paralyzing Gaze

Flip a coin.  If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed.

Attack#2: (DC) Knock Off [10]

Choose 1 card from your opponent’s hand without looking and discard it.

 

Attributes: Sableye is a Basic Darkness-Type Pokémon.  This is about the best you can be without being a Dual Type.  This type combination allows it to use Darkness Energy to boost the damage its attacks do, and as a Basic it is quite easy to get into play.  Sadly it is an “isolated” Basic; it lacks a Stage 1 to Evolve into or a pre-Evolution.  Needless to say, a  Stage 1 would be handy, since it means that is Sableye is good, it gets played, but if the Stage 1 form would be good, Sableye could still see play.  A pre-Evolved form has rarely mattered, but one or two have proven quite useful.

 

Sableye has 60 HP.  This is a bit low for a Basic that can’t Evolve.  I am starting to think that 70 HP has become “the magic number” for Basics once again (if it ever wasn’t), at least when they are isolated like this.  So the HP is a bit low.  It is still playable if it has some really potent or useful ability, like EX Deoxys Jirachi, or for you Unlimited fans, Neo Genesis Sneasel.

 

Something that will make that 60 HP last for a while is a lack of Weakness, as good as it gets.  So no lucky “30 points of base damage for a OHKO” match ups.  While nice, I wonder if this is good for the game: much like no Resistance, no Weakness feels incomplete.  However, if it is for game balance, its okay, and I sincerely doubt they’d do this with all cards: Sableye just has a somewhat odd video game type mix (Dark/Ghost).  This also leads it to not only have a Resistance, but an interesting one: Colorless.  This is reasonably nice since at least for now Pidgeot from EX Fire Red/Leaf Green is still a common sight.  A retreat cost of one is nice and low: it’s pretty rare you can’t afford to discard an Energy.

 

Abilities: In a word, Paralyzing Gaze is just weak.  You pay for 10 points of damage, and get a mere 50% chance at Paralysis.  A Colored Energy requirement, that is to say (X) where X is one of the eight Basic Energy types (yes, Darkness and Metal are still Basic Energy types even though no Basic Energy card exists for them), normally yields 10 damage and a flip to inflict one of Burn, Confusion, Paralysis and Poison, or automatically inflict Sleep.  That is the cost even on a Basic Pokémon with two Stages of Evolution available to it.  I have often argued that Burn should be downgraded to the cost point of Sleep (as there is often a 50% chance that Burn will do next to nothing as on a Heads, they take no damage and then can retreat out of it or Evolve).  If you recall in past instances, I have pointed out that (CCC) = (XX) = 30 points of damage, or that (C) = 10 and (X) = 15 points of damage (which is usually put towards a secondary effect or altered by assorted bonuses/penalties from other aspects of the card.  So if (X) normally yields 10 points of damage and a flip to inflict the more costly Special Conditions, then that means the cost of said Special Conditions is about 5 points worth of damage or half of (C).  So for twice that amount (a full Colorless Energy requirement) one expects automatic success on the Special Condition.  Granted, Paralysis is the exception, since automatic Paralysis is very, very potent (no attack, no retreating out – it requires another card to break a “Paralysis Lock”).  Still, it is overpriced and they should have added either a secondary effect or just upped the cost to make it better.

 

Unfortunately for this card, Knock Off is also a weak attack.  You have paid for 25 points of damage.  Instead you get 10 points of damage and an interesting effect: randomly discard one card from your opponent’s hand.  Discard effects are pretty rare in modern Pokémon play, and for a very, very brief time there was a potent combination that had a good chance of annihilating one’s opponent’s hand.  That was then, this is now.  Now, hand control is very hard to accomplish, and the best trick is to use a Rocket’s Admin.  Now, unless you are behind in Prizes, this isn’t a huge thing.  So all in all, Knock Off is pretty weak.  After all, this format has Pidgeot and its Quick Search as well as Magcargo with Smooth Over, both making it quite easy to get a draw card and replenish your hand.  Plus, you might not even hit anything especially vital.

 

Uses and Combinations: If you feel you have to run this, right now the best I can think of is using the standard “forced prizes” set up: Electrode ex, EX Team Rocket Returns Magmar, Pow! Hand Extension, and Rocket’s Admin.  Dump Energy like mad (and draw) with the Magmar, blow up an Electrode ex or two to help set up fast and lower your opponent’s Prize count, use Rocket’s Admin. to drop their hand size, and finally try to keep them low on cards in hand (no cards in hand, if you are fortunate).  Dark Slowking could also be helpful, just to have some control over the opponent’s topdecks.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1/5 – If you wish to go for a “control” theme, focus on making cards in hand useless, like with Vileplume ex or Neo Genesis Slowking.  Even the old fairly potent control Trainers just aren’t used as often here: a lucky topdeck basically makes all the control cards wasted: Professor Oak, Neo Genesis Cleffa, etc.   You can even use something like Neo Discovery Tyrogue to stall like mad while trying to draw into something.

 

Modified: 2/5 – I can think of only one high risk, low return deck for it.

 

Limited: 1.75/5 – Paralysis is a bit more useful here, the HP is a bit better here, if you manage to pull a card that can meet the Darkness Energy requirement randomly discarding a card is better here, but over all it just isn’t worth much.

 

Summary

Good idea, poor execution, yet ultimately, I’d rather this was next to useless (which it is) than some new hand control staple.

 

-Otaku


William
Hung
My reviews are ratings are for Modified only.

Sableye HP

Modified 1/5 - Useless, because Hariyama ex is so much better - Knock Off dealing 40 damage and disrupting the opponent with random discard.


Kevin89
Kevin89

Today's card is Sableye HP

Unlimited;
The first attack is near-useless and it's second one is overcosted and doesn't do enough damage. 60 HP is decent and it's other stats are way cool :D but it's still a bad card to play.
1/5

Modified;
Knock off has little effect here, but the main problem is that the attack does only 10 damage. Paralyzing gaze is still near-useless here. Sableye will get overrun by stronger evolution cards. Or even stronger basic pokemon.
1/5

Limited;
I still dont like the first attack. it gives you some time, but, without doing damage, this kind of stalling is usually pointless.
Unless you know for sure you have a stronger deck and are not behind in prizes it could work. Knock off's effect slightly increases here, you could randomly discard one of the opponents cards that they only play 1 or 2 times in their decks. Like a certain evolution card, or darkness/metal energy. However, Knock off has a problematic attack costs which requires one energy that provides dark. If you got real darkness energies and not dark metals, Sableye could be decent.
2.2/5
 

Raichu88
My name is Sableye
I live beneath the land
When I use Knock off
I’ll discard from your hand

Unlimited: We have better Darkness Pokemon namely Sneasel.

Rating : 1/5

Modified: Having no Weakness and Resistance to Colorless is nice but Paralyzing Gaze isn’t worth playing it. If you want to Knock off choose Hariyama ex.

Rating : 1/5

Limited: Nice Knock off actally works here and Paralyzing Gaze can be annoying.

Rating : 2/5
0bsol33t Sableye - Holon Phantoms

Unlimited

The nicest thing I can see about this card for Unlimited is the complete lack of Weakness, and the Resistance to Colorless. This, along with Sprout Tower or Unown N, would make it very easy to push around a Wigglytuff or Clefable deck. The problem is, the most damage you'll get out of Sableye is 10, plus whatever you can tack on with Pluspower, Strength Charm, Solid Rage, or Darkness Energy. Not having to flip for Knock Off to discard from your opponent's hand is nice, but aside from an early-game stall tactic, I would think that would be little more than an irritation. A Retreat of 1 isn't that bad here, but the HP's a little low for my tastes, since it doesn't evolve.

1.9/5


Modified

This would be a somewhat nice basic to start off and stall a bit with - Paralyze the opponent as often as possible, then start ditching stuff from their hand as soon as you can to try to hinder their progress. As soon as things start getting set up, Swoop! to a better Basic and evolve, with 1 Darkness and one or two other Energy on there to help things out. Colorless Resistance is nice, and for this format the Retreat cost is decent.

2.4/5

Limited

This card would be really fun to play in a Draft tourney - having the ability to discard the opponent's hand is always fun. Over the course of time that 60 HP will last, you can probably discard about three cards, depending on how well-constructed the opponent's deck is. The only issue is, that requires a Darkness Energy, and if you pull one of those in Draft, I'd actually recommend using it on a Pokémon that will do better damage than this one. Toss it in the Draft deck, use it in a pinch, but don't count on being able to commonly use anything but a 50/50 chance on Paralysis.

1.9/5

- 0bsol33t
pojo0bsol33t @ exyxe.com


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