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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage

DING DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD, THE WITCH IS DEAD, THE WITCH IS DEAD ...sorry, I just heard about the announcement for the next rotation, which is going to cycle out Night March decks from Standard. This is actually really exciting, cause for a while now, Night March was THE deck to beat, and now it's being put into Expanded with the likes of Mewtwo-EX, Rayquaza-EX, and others! And this changes how a lot of the decks in the format are going to play - Trevenant BREAK decks lost their best Trevenant alongside Gengar-EX and Dimension Valley, some of the earlier Fighting support has been taken out except for Strong Energy, Muscle Band's on its way out too, and some of the earliest Megas and their pre-evolutions have been stripped out in favor of the new stuff!  What will the format rally around in this new day and age? I've got it! MOTHIM!!  ...orrrrrrrr not.   Truth be told, Mothim's pretty terrible. Not only because he's only got access to a 3-for-60 vanilla Gust attack - although having a completely colorless cost is quite helpful - but because of his Ability being limited. Severely. Wormadam First does exactly what it says and puts Wormadam first, letting the player move any amount of damage off of a Wormadam they control to any other Pokemon they control.  Outside of any Wormadam-based deck, Mothim is useless, and this week we're gonna be going over why you're probably not gonna be playing Wormadam either. Rating  Standard: 1/5 (he's a 2/5 in a Wormadam build, but everywhere else, he's useless)  Expanded: 1/5 (there's honestly no reason to run him outside of a deck running Wormadam)  Limited: 2/5 (and even then, there's little chance of you doing that)  Arora Notealus: Man, Mothim's just a big jerk. All he does is scour across the land stealing honey from hard working Combee. I mean, what kind of Pokemon DOES that?! Aside from Ekans eating Pidgey eggs and Zangoose beating on Seviper and what-not...  Next Time: Her highness demands a leafy cover.

Otaku

We begin our shortened week with Mothim (XY: Fates Collide 4/124).  Being a Grass Type may not add much in meaningful support; it exists for the Grass Type but what is specific to it doesn’t do a lot for Mothim.  Maybe Revitalizer since it essentially turns Battle Compressor into a double Pokémon search card.  Should you bother attacking with Mothim (hint: not recommended) some Fighting and a large chunk of Water Types are Grass Weak, with nothing being Resistant.  That is reasonably good on both counts.  Anti-Grass effects exist but aren’t particularly impressive and often are included with other Anti-Type effects; if you encounter any it will probably be Parallel City.  A card I might add used for its Bench shrinking effect and usually not its capacity to reduce the damage from Fire, Grass, and Water Types by all of 20 points.  Being a Stage 1 means extra deck space to get a single copy into play, and without Forest of Giant Plants, Wally, or some more obscure shortcut a turn’s wait to Evolve.  90 HP is as large as it can be while still taking advantage of Level Ball; we’ll have to see if that is relevant or not.  In terms of soaking damage it is big enough not to be an all but guaranteed OHKO, but is it quite, quite likely as long as a deck has even a half decent setup or isn’t focused on attack effects instead of damage.  Lightning Weakness might be handy; though more dangerous than the Fire Weakness you usually see on Grass Types due to other prominent cards sporting it, just being an atypical Type Weakness can sometimes be a benefit.  Fighting Resistance is also welcome.  Not especially likely to matter given the 90 HP, but better an opponent’s Fighting Type has to do 110 for a OHKO than 90. The free Retreat Cost is perfect and should be most useful because I’m thinking this is going to be a Bench-sitter.  Mothim has one Ability and one attack.  The former is “Wormadam First” and allows you to move damage counters off of your Wormadam cards and onto any other of your Pokémon.  Damage swap hasn’t been all that great recently, but it’s mostly found on cumbersome Stage 2 Pokémon, at least in Ability form.  “Gust” needs [CCC] to do 60 damage (no effects).  The Ability might prove useful in a dedicated deck, but the attack is high functioning filler.  Even 10 more damage would have been significant because it would have enabled a Muscle Band boosted attack to 2HKO typical Basic Pokémon-EX.  Not a vast difference, but still significant.  Not any real synergy between the Ability, though we’ve seen far worse filler and at least they don’t clash, just sort of coexist.  The other stats are similar; other than the free Retreat and perhaps being a Grass Type (for fast Evolution) nothing really works with or against each other.  We only have one choice for Burmy and its XY: Fates Collide 2/124.  It is a Basic Grass Type with 60 HP, Fire Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C] and just the attack “Hang Down” which does 10 damage for [C].  Being a Grass Type is the main contribution from Burmy as it enables Forest of Giant Plants to speed up Evolution for Mothim and all other Evolutions of Burmy.  Which brings us to those other Evolutions, three different Wormadam: XY: Fates Collide 3/124, XY: Fates Collide 44/124, and XY: Fates Collide 59/124.  These cards each have different strengths and Weaknesses yet at the same time are somewhat homogeneous.  We’ll be discussing those more the rest of this week.  If you want to know why, I’ll explain after the summary. Mothim on its own is bad for Standard or Expanded and it might only be about average despite its importance to a hypothetical Wormadam deck.  With Wormadam perhaps a deck that focuses on somehow keeping Wormadam alive through a hit and then shifts the damage to one of the three Outrage dragons for even more Type coverage?  In Limited it becomes average in just about everything and great with any Wormadam; a free Retreat and a easily splashed in attack in a set where some key cards are Grass Weak means even without Wormadam you can make use of it.  Ratings  Standard: 2.5/5  Expanded: 2/5  Limited: 3.25/5  Summary: Mothim is required for a Wormadam deck, however odds of that being a deck you’ll require are quite low.  Normally I’d look into each of the Wormadam alongside Mothim to give us a full picture,  I knew planning these last few weeks that aroramage and I would either be busy or just finished with being busy, so I wanted to take it easy.  My own business has yet to conclude so I’ll probably still be busy the rest of the week.  If you’re a fan of shorter reviews, enjoy.  If you’re not, don’t as things should pick up in about a week.