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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	You ever wanted all of your Pokemon to have Delta Evolution all at once? Or maybe even be able to evolve them all without having to use up a Wally Supporter during your turn? Do you like playing Grass Pokemon, but think that VirGen was the last good deck? Well look no further than Forest of Giant Plants to ease your fears and worries!  As you might have guessed, Forest of Giant Plants has the power to grant all of your Grass Pokemon in play the ability to evolve into the next stage up whether it's the first turn or you just put them into play! If M Rayquaza-EX is a prime example of how effective this tactic can be, you can probably imagine all the rampant growth that can take place simply from this card!  Suddenly, your Basics will become Stage 2 with just three cards (this Stadium,the Stage 1/Rare Candy and Stage 2 in hand), and that could be as early as your first turn! Or better yet, how about those Mega-Evolving Grass-types? Suddenly, BAM!! Something like M Venasaur-EX can come down Turn 1!!  ...not that anybody would be playing M Venasaur-EX or anything...  But luckily that's where this set comes in. It's got stuff like Ariados and Vileplume and M Sceptile-EX that all wildly benefit from the growth this card provides! And that's not even including stuff like M Heracross-EX from Furious Fists, Beautifly from Roaring Skies - or a devastating new archetype popping up in Expanded revolving around the Dark Shiftry from Next Destinies (something to keep in mind is this affects your Grass Pokemon in play, so a Grass-type Nuzleaf could evolve into a Shiftry regardless of Shiftry's Typing).  Pokemon, beware! You're playing the forest now, and they've got some new toys to play with!  Rating  Standard: 3.5/5 (a fabulous card for Grass decks that will make them SURGE with new life!)  Expanded: 4/5 (keep in mind though that you still need all the right resources with it to use properly)  Limited: 4/5 (if you end up with more Grass Pokemon, you could run this pretty successfully)  Arora Notealus: Now how many times has a giant forest sprouted out of nowhere in Pokemon? I feel like that's happened a few times before...oh well, maybe I can find that wild Celebi I've always wanted to find since I was a young boy back in the day when Pokeballs had to be screwed open and closed!  Next Time: Out of the forest and into a...hey, where is everybody?!
Otaku	As mentioned yesterday, 14th, 13th and 12th place were actually a tie as each card received the same amount of points from voting (that is, from how it was ranked on the individual lists submitted to form the master list).  So what is today’s candidate that was almost two slots lower?  Forest of Giant Plants (XY: Ancient Origins 74/98)!  This is a Stadium card, meaning it uses your “one Stadium per turn” use to play it and if there is already a copy of it in play, it is dead in hand.  While it is in play both players may Evolve their Grass-Type Pokémon that are in play immediately without having to wait; it doesn’t matter if it is the very first turn of the game and you can also Evolve something twice in one turn (provided both lower Stages were Grass-Types).  The Type of the Pokémon being Evolved into is irrelevant; the effect only cares about the Type of the Pokémon being Evolved.  I’m afraid I’m going to go into a lengthy rant so I’ll keep it relatively simple, though I will try to back-up what I say with reason: Forest of Giant Plants is what we often refer to as “broken”.  Why?  The Evolution mechanic is supposed to take time and when you add non-Pokémon specific Energy acceleration to the game, you’re begging for it to make something else overly powerful because it was balanced against taking a turn or two to hit the field or you’re pre-emptively nerfing cards (the latter wouldn’t be described as broken, but it is annoying).  It isn’t just paranoia on my part either; besides making a lot of the new Grass-Types, we already have at least one older Evolution abusing it in Expanded: Shiftry (BW: Next Destinies 72/99).  Though it is a Darkness-Type its lower Stages are both available as Grass-Types.  Its Ability “Giant Fan” is just a weird gimmick normally, but the Expanded card pool allows a player to spam it first turn and when you hit enough “heads” to shuffle away all of your opponent’s Pokémon into their deck, you win!  The kicker is that now that you can Evolve into Shiftry over and over again, it now has the reliability to be competitive.  Experiment with this; it is already doing amazing things with cards new and old; while nothing so nauseating as a First Turn Win deck can be, others benefit as well in Standard.  In Limited it ends up being a near staple because if you didn’t pull Paint Roller, you may need a way to discard a different Stadium already in play, even if you aren’t running anything Grass that can Evolve.  Ratings  Standard: 3.25/5  Expanded: 3.5/5  Limited: 4.75/5  Summary: Wait, how can a card I am calling “broken” score so low?  Many cards can be broken for what they enable other cards to do as opposed to what they do directly and this is a good example of that.  Forest of Giant Plants isn’t a big deal on its own; you need the right Pokémon to capitalize upon the effect.  The problem is that doing so is a natural for decks using such cards and as such, the benefit far exceeds the cost.  I actually had this as my 8th place pick due to what it does for other cards, including at least one more that made our list!
Emma Starr	Today, we’re taking a look at a Stadium that I have seen is already getting lots of play (on the PTCGO, at least. I don’t actually get to see people playing the game too often IRL, until our college’s Pokemon Club gets together to play it, but the first meeting isn’t until…tomorrow, ironically). But what I can tell you is that I’ve seen it with a lot of the decks running Sceptile EX and its Mega form. Obviously it’s useful for getting out Mega Sceptile to quickly accelerate out Energy and start healing everything, but it can also be useful to a number of other different Grass Pokemon released in this set, such as Vespiquen, Ariados, and Vileplume. Vileplume and Ariados will be reviewed in due time, I assure you, but I may as well talk a little bit about Vespiquen, since it may be about four weeks until we get to her at least.             Vespiquen (AO 10) has a neat attack that does 20 for two Colorless, but does 10 more for each Pokemon in your discard pile. Some people have been able to abuse this already, with the help of Unown (AO 30) Sycipers and Battle Compressors. Its first attack even does the first part of Syciper’s job for you! So, if you used a Syciper next turn, you’d have a lot of poor Pokemon in the discard pile, but Vespiquen can hit like a truck if you let her! But again, the risk is real too. I’m sure we’ll talk about her one day, but I just thought she was worth a mention, due to the fact that she wasn’t in our Top 15, and I’ve already seen her used in play quite a lot already. I’ll review her in more detail when that day comes.              Modified: 4/5 (As long as you’re running at least a part-Grass deck, at least.)             Limited: 4.8/5 (Same applies here.)