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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Musharna #49/114

Black & White

Date Reviewed: April 20, 2011

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 1.50
Limited: 2.87

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

Back to the main COTD Page

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

Musharna 49/114

Yesterday’s card borrowed one attack from its pre-evolution. Today’s borrows two!

Actually, it’s worse than that. Take a look at Musharna, and then go and google Base Set Haunter . . . see what I mean?

To be fair, Musharna does improve on the damage that Munna can do, so let’s see if that’s good enough to make the grade.

The 90 HP is fairly average for a Stage 1 and not really good enough to be playable at the moment. Psychic Weakness can be nasty as long as every single deck is running Uxie, and the Retreat cost of two isn’t brilliant either. Musharna’s first attack is pretty decent though: 20 damage plus auto Sleep for only a single Psychic Energy. That might buy you some time and cause your opponent minor inconvenience but really . . . that’s not enough to justify running a Stage 1 in today’s format, so does Musharna have anything else to offer?

Well . . . sort of. If the Defending Pokémon is still asleep on your next turn, Musharna can use Dream Eater to inflict a very substantial 90 damage for only two Psychic Energy. The trouble is, that’s a pretty big if: they would need to flip tails between each turn and be unable to evolve, Level Up, Poke Turn, or use a switching card to get out of the Sleep Condition. That’s a lot to hope for and as far as I can see your chances of using Dream Eater against a competitive deck are really very small.

Which only leaves you with Hypnotic Ray, and that just won’t do. If you had some other way of inflicting Sleep with a Power on your turn (like the old Wigglytuff GE did), then this card would be better, though still short of tournament standard. As things stand, this goes straight into the binder.

Rating

Modified: 1.5 (A fragile, unreliable wall)

Limited: 3 (decent here: cheap attacks, slower format, and less chance they can dodge the Sleep)

virusyosh

Happy Wednesday, Pojo viewers! Today we are reviewing yet another new Unova Pokemon from the upcoming Black and White expansion, this one not being one of the starters. Today's Card of the Day is Musharna.

Musharna is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon. Psychics are fairly common in today's metagame, with Gengar commonly played in various forms, be it VileGar or LostGar. Additionally, some SP decks use the Psychic Toxicroak G, and most Modified decks use the Sinnoh pixie trio of Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. Musharna has 90 HP, which is just about average for a Stage 1, meaning it should be able to take a weak hit, but will be taken down against stronger threats. Psychic Weakness is to be expected, meaning opposing Gengar and Uxie Lv. X will hurt considerably. No Resistance is also to be expected, but is still less than optimal. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 2 is payable, but most of the time you'll want to use something like Warp Point or Warp Energy.

Musharna has two attacks. The first, Hypnotic Ray, does 20 damage and puts the Defending Pokemon to sleep for a single Psychic Energy. This isn't terrible for its cost, but it won't work very well in Modified, because the damage is too low for that format. In Limited, this attack is significantly better, as your opponent will have fewer ways to deal with the Asleep condition, and 20 damage for 1 is pretty acceptable.

Dream Eater, the second attack, deals a very nice 90 damage for two Psychic Energy. The downside? The Defending Pokemon has to be Asleep for the attack to work. This means that in order for Dream Eater to work, you will have had to put the Defending Pokemon to sleep on your previous turn, and your opponent would have to fail their sleep check twice, giving you a 25% chance of your opponent still being Asleep, not even factoring in things like Switch/Warp Point and Super Scoop Up. Needless to say, this won't work at all in Modified where ways to switch your Pokemon around are incredibly common and easy, and it may not even work that well in Limited, either.

Modified: 1/5 This card reminds me a lot of Base Set Haunter: It wasn't good then, it isn't good now. It's nice that Hypnotic Ray does damage in addition to the sleep condition, but really, 20 damage isn't enough to cut it here, and you'll almost never be able to use Dream Eater.

Limited: 2.5/5 Hypnotic Ray is great for the cost here, and Dream Eater may even work some of the time, just because there are generally fewer ways to switch out of Special Conditions in Limited. However, the odds are still against you, so just remember that your mileage may vary. If you draft a lot of Psychic it may be worth running, but outside of that, probably not.

conical

4/20/11: Musharna(Black & White)
 
Oh boy! A Base Set Haunter clone! Whoo!
 
So basically, Musharna's strategy is to put the Defending Pokemon to sleep with Hypnotic Ray, then hit them next turn with Dream Eater for 90 damage. Granted, 90 damage is pretty good for 2 energy, even two colored energy. However, the problems with this card are the problems that have existed for everything that tries to abuse sleep: the coin flip to remove sleep between turns. What's worse for Musharna, in order to attack with Dream Eater, you have to flip heads twice. 90 damage is good, but it's not really worth it if you only have a 25% chance of even working. That said, there is hope for this card; Hypno HGSS can put them to sleep before they can flip. Granted, Hypno's Power is also a flip, but it's still less risky than hoping for Hypnotic Ray.
 
Modified: 2/5
Limited: 2.5/5
Combos With: Hypno HGSS
 
BTW, if you need a deck to be fixed, be sure to stop by Conic's Section. You can find the link here. Please send in your decks! Because otherwise I'll be bored. :/

Mad Mattezhion
 Professor Bathurst League Australia

Musharna (Black and White)
 
Today we have some sort dream Poke'mon from the new games. We give you... Musharna!
 
Musharna is a Psychic type non-evolving Stage 1 with 90 HP, Psychic weakness, a retreat cost of 2 and two attacks.
 
Musharna isn't going to survive a big hit, and the Psychci weakness means the pixies and other Psychic techs/attackers will quickly whittle away the HP Musharna does have. The relatively heavy retreat cost will also cost you since Musharna will quickly faint when affected by Poison and other attack effects.
 
Since Musharna is 'squishy' (easy to Knock Out) by current standards, the attacks had better be brilliant. Hypnotic Ray is the first and costs [p]. For that low price you get 20 damage and inflict Sleep on the Defending Poke'mon. This is good value and offers some options for stalling, but Sleep is the easiest Special Condition to remove so the second attack needs to be strong if Musharna is to be playable.
 
Dream Eater is an old standard and costs [p][p] as well as requiring the Defending Poke'mon to be Asleep (otherwise the attack does nothing). If you meet these conditions you deal 90 damage, which is actually quite high compared to similar attacks (especially when you consider that Psychic is the second most common weakness). However, you lose the healing effect often associated with Dream Eater and 90 damage still isn't enough damage to be a truly serious hit, especially up against Psychic resistance (common to Metal and Dark type cards). Also, your opponent has to have remained Alseep, which means you either have to use a Poke'power to cause Sleep or hope your opponent flips Tails twice (meaning you'll only be able attack 25% of the time) and doesn't remove the Asleep condition some other way.
 
Musharna is inconsistent with too little HP and dealing too little damage. Even if future formats result in lower HP and damage, incosistency in attack is never a good thing. It isn't good for setup either, and a flippy tech card is only tolertaed if the effect is brilliant when it works (see Victory Medal, Super Scoop Up and Energy Removal 2). At least the attacks fit the theme of a dream Poke'mon like a glove.
 
Modified: 3 (The firepower is above average but inconsistent while the average HP isn't enough so I'm giving the middle score for synergy, and because this is likely to be the benchmark of average for future cards)
 
Limited: 3 (With the reduced options in Limited, the inadequate HP becomes workable and the damage from Dream Eater will mean an OHKO or close enough that you can finsh it with Hypnotic Ray, which becomes cheap damage-and-disruption that seasoned draft players have learned to love)
 
Combos with: Hypno HGSS fits the theme with that Sleep inducing Poke-power and Ivysaur SV can also inflict Sleep via Poke-power, as can Vileplume LA. Take your pick and build a fun deck, or forget Musharna altogether and stick in the binder to give yourself sweet dreams.


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