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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario Top 4 UK Nats	Lapras HGSS   In contrast with yesterday’s Pokémon, Lapras is one of my favourites. The art on this card is great too. I reckon this must be a picture of the Lapras that you can catch on Fridays in the Ice Cave in the Heart Gold and Soul Silver video games.   For a Basic Pokémon, Lapras HGSS is very sturdy. 90 HP is great on a non-evolving Basic and the double Metal Weakness is probably about the best Weakness you can have at the moment. The Retreat cost of two is not exactly a shock on a Pokémon like Lapras. If you ever had it active, you would probably try and wall with it rather than get it out of harms way.   But should you ever have it active in the first place? Well, in the absence of Powers or Bodies, it all depends on Lapras’s attacks.   For [C][C] Ice Beam does 20 damage and gives you a flip for Paralysis. Not horrible (Paralysis is nice) but . . . well, it isn’t really going to do very much to advance a game state in your favour against super-fast SP decks and big-hitting Stage 2s, is it? The same can be said for Lapras’s second attack, Ice Blade, which costs [W][W] and will do 30 to any one of your opponent’s Pokémon. Snipe attacks are always nice for taking out weak Basics or finishing off damaged Pokémon, but generally you want your snipers to be a bit faster (Honchkrow G can use Energy Gain) or more powerful (like Garchomp C LV X). Lapras is just a bit too slow and a bit too underpowered to work well in Modified.   Limited is a different matter though. With no Metal Pokémon in the set, Lapras is an effective Basic tank. The fact that the format is slow and most Pokémon have low HP means that its attacks are much better here, making it a decent pick in a prerelease, even if it will never really have a place in the modified format.   Rating   Modified: 1.75 (snipes and stalls but doesn’t do either well enough. I’m not rating it lower than that ugly Granbull though) Limited: 3 (solid wall with useful attacks)
Otaku	We end the week with Lapras, a Basic another isolated Basic Pokémon.  We are looking at the recent HeartGold & SoulSilver version, which is a Water Pokémon with 90 HP.  For a Basic, 90 HP is pretty good: outside of its Weakness Lapras is going to survive an attack from anything less than a deck’s main attacker, probably two.  Metal Weakness is nice… oh there are some nasty Metal Pokémon that will be able to shred Lapras because of it, but its not the most common Weakness on Water Pokémon (technically here because of Lapras being part Ice) and that can help when countering an opponent’s attempt at Type matching.  No Resistance still feels like a copout on the designer’s part, and requiring two Energy to retreat isn’t bad given the HP and stage.   Lapras has two attacks, and neither is thrilling.  Ice Beam is a decent start, though: any two Energy for 20 damage and a 50% chance of Paralysis.  Early game, this is decent damage can frustrate an opponent’s set up.  With Double Colorless Energy, any deck could give a weak Water hit that could be fatal from Paralysis.  Ice Blade requires two Water Energy and is a sniping attack: choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon and hit it for 30 damage.  If it is Benched, of course Weakness and Resistance are ignored.  I actually wish that it was higher priced but did more damage: then I’d definitely consider this for Feraligatr Prime decks.  I still might, but it’d be a piece of TecH in case you had to KO something on the Bench.   Lapras ends up being a big Basic with useful attributes decent attacks.  It won’t change the format but at least it’s functional outside of Limited.  Of course, in Limited it is a great pick: good HP, obscure Weakness, Colorless first attack, Special Condition, and sniping if you are running Water Energy.  All this minor benefits in constructed formats are major benefits in Limited.   Ratings   Modified: 2.5/5   Limited: 4/5
virusyosh	As a quick note before doing today's COTD, I accidentally referred to Granbull's second attack "Chomp" as "Champ" in my review yesterday. Sorry about that, for some reason I consistently misread the card. Anyway, today we are ending our COTD week by reviewing Lapras from HGSS. Lapras PL sees some play in Rain Dance decks as a pretty potent attacker. Will this Lapras see some play as well? Lapras is a Basic Water Pokemon. Being Water is pretty decent right now, as Gyarados and Kingdra are pretty good decks right now, as well as the occasional Rain Dance. 90 HP is what we'd expect for a non-evolving Basic, but it would be nice if it were a little bit higher. Double Weakness to Metal is pretty bad, as Dialga G Lv. X is still quite popular. Unfortunately Lapras has no Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 2 is rather expensive, so use Switch or Warp Point. Lapras's first attack, Ice Beam, deals 20 damage for [CC] with possibly Paralysis for a coin flip. While paralysis is always great, 20 damage is a bit weak. It still is quite a decent attack when building up something better, though. The second attack, Ice Blade, allows you to choose one of your opponent's Pokemon and deal 30 damage to it for [WW]. Not a bad attack by any means, but again, it may not do quite enough damage to be competitive. Modified: 2/5 Lapras has decent attacks for the Energy cost, but they are probably too weak to be used in any competitive decks. Limited: 3/5 Paralysis can be great here, as well as sniping. It also has a decent amount of HP, and can snipe. All around a pretty good card for Limited.