Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles

Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play

Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel

GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual

Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar

Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List

Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
- Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us

Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Samurott #31 (Black and White) The Water starter line is by far my favourite of the Pokémon you can choose at the beginning of the Black and White video games. Oshawott is a lot cuter than he first seemed and Samurott is easily the most impressive looking of the Stage 2s. I mean, Smugleaf is cool and everything, but that pig thing just gets beaten with the ugly stick every time he evolves. As with the other starters, Samurott gets two cards printed of him in the BW set. As with the other starters, one of those cards is significantly better than the other one. Today’s review card is the inferior version of Samurott, lacking the damage-reduction Ability and potentially huge attack power of the other one. But he’s still pretty solid and has something going on as we will see. Samurott comes with a very solid 140 HP, a Weakness to Lightning (which means Zekrom decks will hurt), and a high-ish Retreat cost of two. I’m leaning towards recommending Switch in a lot of decks in HGSS-on (yes, Warp Point will be rotated). His first attack, Pike, costs two Colourless Energy (hello Double Colourless!) and does 30 damage to the active and 30 to a Benched Pokémon of your choice. Now a total of 60 damage for [C][C] may not sound anything special, but in an HGSS-on metagame without the stupidly cheap attackers we got in Stormfront and the Platinum Block, it is very good value. The ability to snipe is also going to become somewhat rare as we wave goodbye to Garchomp C LV X, so the fact that Samurott can do it at all is nice. That 30 damage will OHKO a Baby Pokémon, finish off something heavily damaged, or set you up for a future KO. In case you hadn’t guessed I like this attack a lot. Surf is a bit less impressive, but it’s still pretty decent. For the cost of [W][W][C] it will do an effect-free 80 damage. Not bad, not great. A reasonably hard hit for a reasonable price. I don’t like the fact that it effectively wastes the Double Colourless that you could use to pay the cost of Pike, but you can’t have everything I suppose, and if you were using Feraligatr Prime’s Rain Dance for Energy acceleration (which you probably should), you wouldn’t need the DCE anyway. Overall, this Samurott is a solid, but not spectacular, Stage 2 that might well be worth teching into a Samurott deck for his sniping ability. Probably the best of the worse versions of the starters.(If you see what I mean). Rating Modified (HGSS-on): 2.75 (the other Samurott is better, but this is decent enough to be considered) Limited: 3 (cheap snipe? I’ll take it, even on a Stage 2)
Otaku	Today we look at Samurott (Black & White 31/114), a Stage 2 Water Pokémon. So far, so good: Water has some great support, and a new, hopefully better partner for Feraligatr Prime would be appreciated. I confess that being a Stage 2 is finally the burden it was meant to be now that Rare Candy has received an erratum and cannot be used the first turn a Pokémon is in play. Still, with great card investment hopefully comes great benefits!  Samurott has 140 HP. This isn’t impressive as the Emboar we looked at on Monday, but is still a good amount and overall on the high side for Stage 2 Pokémon. Lightning Weakness is pretty bad right now. I haven’t had a chance to keep up with what older decks are still popular, but I can’t imagine they’d all be gone even if they were no longer good, so expect to encounter several Pokémon that abuse it. No Resistance feels lazy and is a bit frustrating, but probably isn’t a huge loss, either. The Retreat Cost of two is high enough you won’t want to pay it, but low enough you’ll usually be able.  Samurott comes from Dewott which in turn Evolves from Oshawott. There are two Dewott I know of in English, both from Black & White. I’d favor 30/114 because the more Water Energy is attached to it, the harder it can hit (though it is coin toss based); if Samurott is a late to the party and you can dump a lot of Energy on it, it has the potential to KO almost anything. Of course, I already indicated I am leaning towards running this with Energy acceleration, so if you aren’t then perhaps 29/114 is a better fit, and it does have 10 more HP and can still do okay damage. We have four choices for Oshawott and in this case all are 60 HP Basic Water Pokémon with Lightning Weakness, no Resistance, and a single Energy Retreat Cost. You really don’t want to be attacking with this unless you have to, so in all honesty any would probably suffice. A few can inflict Sleep, but as an overpriced attacks requiring a flip, making the defense so unreliable you might as well take the version with the strongest attack. Black & White 28/114 can do 40 points of damage for (WC) or 20 if you get tails on a coin toss. If you’re desperate enough to attack with Oshawott, at least there is a chance you’ll hit something hard enough to matter.  So Samurott is solid for stats and for its lower Stages, but they aren’t enough to justify playing it. This Samurott has two attacks: Pike and Surf. Pike requires (CC) and does 30 to the Defending Pokémon, plus another 30 to a Benched Pokémon of your choice. This is a nice, solid attack that will do until your “big” attack is ready, with some strategic use Bench sniping or setting up future big Pokémon to be finished off by that big attack, Surf! Surf… is a vanilla 80 for (WWC). The damage return for Energy investment is low by contemporary standards but solid for the new trend we see in the Black & White set. Sadly white the first attack could be powered in a single turn by a Double Colorless Energy, Surf only has the one Colorless requirement so it almost feels like a waste and you’re next two attachments have to provide the Water Energy or else you’re now behind in attachments versus using regular Water Energy. It is a nitpicky detail, since three Energy is three Energy, but realize if you weren’t rushing or your deck sets up properly so that you Bench an Oshawott, attach an Energy, and manage to safely Evolve it with Rare Candy into Samurott you wouldn’t need the Double Colorless Energy anyway.   I want to like this card, because I do like Pike. I can’t see this Samurott carrying itself, though. So here is my best use for it. Do the obvious and partner the other Samurott with Feraligatr Prime. Run full lines, but instead of four each of that Samurott and Feraligatr Prime, run one of this Samurott and one copy of Feraligatr (HeartGold/SoulSilver 20/123). Why? If your opponent has an unconventional deck, these two together should be able to spread damage or power up for solid (but not great) brute force attacks. It isn’t much but it’s the best use I can come up with for this card.  Well, besides Limited play where it is great, assuming you can pull a complete line. Good HP, the lower Stages become better in this format, and Pike is simply brilliant. You’ll be able to splash this with another Energy type or two no problem, and possibly even dare to run the whole line off color with no Water Energy to support it, just for Pike. Hitting the Bench and the Active at once really is that important in Limited.  Ratings  Modified (Current): 2/5  Modified (HGSS-On): 3/5  Limited: 4/5  Ratings  This card was pretty close to being if not good, a solid Stage 2. Surf was just not quite right as the big attack. Surf can’t use Double Colorless Energy and all the other Energy acceleration I can think of works better with the other Samurott. It still might have a place because its supporting attack can still be useful and it can tag along with the other Samurott.  Yes, seeing this means another shameless plug for my auctions on eBay. Click here to see if I have anything you’d like. Just remember that it’s between you, me and eBay: Pojo merely let’s me link to my auctions in my articles.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Samurott 31/114 (Black & White)   Greetings and salutations, Pojo readers. Today we review the third of the evolved starters, Samurott.   Samurott is a Water type Stage 2 with 140 HP, Lightning weakness, a retreat cost of 2 and two atttacks.   The HP is great but not the top of the range and Lightning weakness continues to be a problem. The retreat is acceptable, especially considering the high HP but you will probably want a Switch on hand in any case. All in all, a typical beefy Stage 2.   Now the attacks. Pike is the first offering, and the idea behind the attack is intriguing although the damage isn't. For [c][c] you deal 30 damage to the Defending Poke'mon and 30 to a benched target. While the idea of hitting both the Active threat and a soft benched target (or vice versa) appeals to me, 30 damage is nowhere near enough for trading shots with another attacker and the snipe falls just shy of being serious. 30 damage is a 3HKO for most bench sitters while 40 damage and up is a 2HKO, or a least enough to put the target in range of a KO from a different attack that would normally fail to properly bring the hurt.   To be honest I would have preffered that the cost be [w][w] for 40 damage to each target, as the colourless cost of the attack doesn't matter due to the [w] energy necessary for the second attack and the extra damage would have really improved the chances of this Samurott being played in a Rain Dance deck as a single copy at least.   Surf costs [w][w][c] and deals 80 damage, which has bot good points and bad points. On the plus side Feraligatr Prime lets you power up quickly to get in a decent hit and if you are applying weakness then you will definitely get the OHKO (no Water weak Poke'mon in the current card pool has more than 160 HP). On the negative side this attack is going to be a 2HKO at a minimum (more if your opponent has heavy healing) against any attacker that isn't Fire or Donphan Prime, so you can already hear Zekrom, Magnezone Prime and Machamp Prime laughing at you. Worse, it seems that Grass Poke'mon are now getting Water resistance as standard instead of an optional extra, so the appearance of a strong Grass tech and/or deck will really crimp your style.   In the final analysis this Samurott is worth a look if you are going to build a Rain Dance deck with Samurott 32/114 in it, but personally I would stick with a heavier line of the Shell Armour version or add some extra draw cards instead. Each to their own I guess.   Modified: 3 (a healthy set of stats with okay attacks, so Samurott rides the middle of the road)   Limited: 4 (Poke Ball and Poke'mon Communication may help get around the problem of being a Stage 2 in Limited, and Pike is awesome in this format with no need for specific energy and the ability to hit multiple Poke'mon with a decent amount of damage)   Combos with: fond visons of what could have been.