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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Po Town, the corrupted funk version of "Poor Town", is a pretty...well, decrepit desolate deserted town that really needs a remodeling. Too bad the new tenants there don't really care that much, but then again maybe that's why it's home to them. Such is the nature of Team Skull?  This version of Po Town is about as friendly to Evolution as the regular Po Town is to anyone not apart of Team Skull...which is to say, not at all. In fact, every time there's an evolution that takes place, the newly evolved Pokemon promptly has three goons rush over to your card table and punch your card until it's dented in.  ...okay, that doesn't happen, but 3 damage counters do get placed on it.  Played early enough, this card can be pretty brutal even to Pokemon-GX that evolve. Stage 1s will take 30 damage, and Stage 2s could take 60 damage, bringing their HP scores down enough to even them out with Basic EX and GX. And that's not even accounting for the smaller non-EX/GX Evolution Pokemon! That's devastating!   But there is that catch: it needs to be played early to be effective. If it's played too late in the game, your opponent will already have everything they need evolved all the way up. Even in the mid-game, it's a bit risky since Evolution cards become rarer as more get put into play. You'll need to know your opponent's deck rather well if you're going to know the timing for Po Town. Or at least, play enough to get it into your hand consistently and early.  It's a good card against a broad spectrum, which is a bit like what Faded Town was like for Mega-EX, though that one hit them each turn and remained ineffective against anything else. This will probably see some play here and there as a tech Stadium or maybe even the Stadium of choice that gets played in Basic-GX builds, maybe even with Drampa-GX to get that sweet power boost. Whatever the case, we'll see how Po Town's popularity rises and falls.  Rating  Standard: 3/5 (not too bad, and since we're heading towards Evolution decks, it could probably make for an interesting play)  Expanded: 3/5 (I don't expect it'll do much better here, with the Stadium Wars available, but it's a good tech choice at least in some builds)  Limited: 3/5 (and you never know what you'll get here, but hopefully you used it when you had that additional Evolution pack)  Arora Notealus: I hope they get to fixing up Po Town at some point. It really deserves to get livened up again. Although maybe there are some Pokemon who prefer it in its decrepit state?  Next Time: Rising up with the power of the sun!
21times	Po Town (Burning Shadows, 121/147) enters the meta from the Burning Shadows expansion set.  This stadium card places three damage counters on any Pokemon when it is evolved by a card from a player’s hand.  This means that if you evolve a Pokemon from Diancie (Burning Shadows, 94/147) or Evosoda (Generations, 62/83), you would not have to place three damage counters on the evolving Pokemon.  The majority of evolutions, however, come from cards in your hand, so this will add quite a bit of damage to Stage 2 and Break Pokemon (if you don’t use Water Duplicates to evolve Greninja Break (Breakpoint, 41/122), you would actually take ninety damage for evolving through the entire chain from Stage 1 to the Break). I had this listed as thirteeth on my list and initially thought this would only see play in Drampa GX (Guardians Rising, 115/145) decks to replace Team Magma’s Secret Base (Double Crisis, 32/34), but I’ve found it very useful in a spread deck that I’ve been playing.  I’ve posted the list here: http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?p=32343316#post32343316 This deck is SUPER FUN!  And I’ve gone 9 W 6 L with it.  Like yesterday’s Alolan Ninetales (Burning Shadows, 28/147) deck, it’s very trolly.  Unlike yesterday’s deck, it requires quite a bit of brain power.  It’s very difficult to judge when to use Tapu Koko, when to use Weavile, and when to clean up with Meowstic.  Meowstic is a Pokemon everyone has forgotten about.  I have heard quite a bit about the Promo Tapu Lele (which is not available in the U.S. yet but some Japanese players had it in their decks at worlds), but Promo Lele is a two energy attachment attacker.  That’s the beauty of this deck – every Pokemon here is a single energy attachment attacker.  When combined with Energy Loto, it’s rare that I don’t get off an attack every turn.  This puts a TON of pressure on my opponents because they either have to limit the number of Pokemon they get out or they have to accept that if they fill up their bench, Promo Koko and Weavile are going to rack up a lot of damage.  And judging when to use Meowstic is crucial.  Sometimes you just want to hit as much as possible with Koko and Weavile – it’s not unusual to get three or four hundred damage spread across the board.  Sometimes you just want to keep going and save Meowstic for last.  If you can get to 500 damage overall, you can probably take six prize cards in a single turn.  Other times though, you want to sneak a Meowstic in between and take out attackers.  If you see that a player only has two Pokemon on the board that can effectively attack, and you have enough energy spread around to KO both those Pokemon, it’s usually the best decision to use Meowstic then to take out the attackers.  It’s also a good idea as Acerola (Burning Shadows, 142/147), Max Potion (Sun & Moon, 128/145), or Tapu Lele GX’s (Guardians Rising, 60/145) Tapu Cure can undo a LOT of the damage you’ve done. Rating Standard: 3 out of 5 Conclusion I know that this review was more about my spread deck than Po Town, but with the Shining Legends mini-set being released at the beginning of October, I don’t know if we’re going to get to Weavile, and I really wanted to share this deck with you.  Po Town isn’t for every deck, but if you have a lot of Basics or maybe just a couple of Stage 1’s, it might be worth teching into your deck.  It can potentially turn a 250 HP Pokemon into a 190 HP Pokemon, which might just even bring it into OHKO territory.
Otaku	Our next runner-up is Po Town, a Trainer-Stadium whose effect states that whenever a player Evolves one of his or her Pokémon in play from hand, that player puts three damage counters on that Pokémon.  Being Trainer means cards like Skyla and Trainers’ Mail can target Po Town and very rarely having to deal with stuff like the “Poltergeist” attack - which does damage based on how many Trainers you have in hand - found on Trevenant (SM: Guardians Rising 7/145); I don’t recall seeing much of these cards in recent, competitive play.  Being a Stadium is a mixed blessing; most Stadium cards have a single effect that applies equally to both players, at least before we factor in the actual cards in a player’s deck.  Po Town is not an exception, so if you are using it, you either are not running Evolutions, have a way around the effect, actually want to place some damage counters on your Evolutions, or simply believe your deck can cope with it better than what you’re facing.  Stadium cards remain in play until another Stadium is played or a card effect discards them; I like the former as it makes Stadium cards an integral part of deck construction, but don’t like when the latter becomes too easy.  Using a valuable resource like a Supporter or attack to discard a Stadium card is usually demanding enough that Stadium cards are likely to survive a turn or two, but now we’ve got Field Blower, an Item that can discard up to two Tools in play or a Stadium plus a Tool or just a Stadium.  This really hurts Stadium cards - like Po Town - you need to persist for a bit to generate advantage.  I can’t think of any recent beneficial effects that work on Stadium cards and have proven competitive, another concern when we’ve got Delinquent and Field Blower to punish their usage.  So… is the effect of Po Town worth it?  While the metagame is relatively diverse in terms of Stages, being a Basic Pokémon is still the best due to their relative speed and reduced resource requirements, plus a few other incidentals.  Yes, the Masters Division of the 2017 World Championship was won by a Stage 2 deck, and “Haymaker” style mono-Basic Pokémon beatdown/control decks are (thankfully) not a major force, but beatdown, control, and beatdown (with control element) decks that focus on a Basic Pokémon backed by just one or two Evolutions?  Yeah, those are most definitely still a thing.  That means, even if you can get and keep Po Town in play, it may hardly be triggered by your opponent.  Just it showing up a bit late could let your opponent safely Evolve all he or she needs.  There is another factor as well; extra damage only matters for combos and decreasing the turns required for a KO.  If my opponent placing three damage counters on something he or she just Evolved means I can now OHKO it instead of 2HKO it, that’s good!  If it remains a 2HKO, then I haven’t really gained anything; it looks worse, but it really won’t matter.  There is also the question of how difficult the afflicted Pokémon will be to target.  Guzma makes it easy for nearly all decks to strike at a Bench-sitter but you’ll still have to have one handy to quickly OHKO an Evolution that Po Town brings into range; if you don’t have one available this turn or simply need to use your Supporter elsewhere, the damage on said Bench-sitter won’t really matter until you actually score the KO.  So let us look beyond being a simple means of adding damage.  I can see two kinds of decks that would enjoy Po Town.  First is the deck focused on devolving an opponent’s Pokémon.  Devolving something usually lowers its HP, so you may even score a KO by the process!  Po Town alone won’t add enough damage counters most of the time unless you can Devolve a Stage 2 - that Evolved from a Stage 1 - all the way back down to its Basic form and Po Town was in play both times the Pokémon in question Evolved.  Yes, this becomes even less likely if your opponent has even a tiny bit of healing available.  If you’re spreading damage counters about, however, then Po Town adding another three can either result in the KO or help prevent your opponent from simply re-Evolving the next turn after something like Espeon-EX uses its “Miraculous Shine” attack to bounce the highest Stage of Evolution from each of your opponent’s Evolved Pokémon.  There are some decks built around this, including - I believe - some decks that punish Evolving but then contain a lot of anti-Basic Pokémon effects as well.  The other thing is a deck that just needs to get damage on its own Benched Pokémon; if some (or all) of those are Evolutions, then Po Town helps your combo and might still punish your opponent directly as well.  Drampa-GX/Garbodor (SM: Guardians Rising 51/145)/Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122) decks seem to be a prime example.  Drampa-GX needs at least one Pokémon on its Benched to be injured so that its “Berserk” attack does 150 for [CCC] instead of just 80.  The deck has been using Team Magma’s Secret Base plus Rainbow Energy to help with this, but the former officially rotates in less than three days!  Po Town softens up some of the larger Pokémon Drampador-GX will face and can damage a Garbodor (either version).  It is not a perfect combo; each Garbodor becomes a bit easier to OHKO thanks to this damage but most hard-hitting decks can OHKO either anyway; it is just the borderline cases where 120 becoming 90 or 100 becoming 70 will matter.  As a bonus, Garbodor (SM: Guardians Rising 51/145) benefits from your opponent using Field Blower to discard Po Town, thanks to its “Trashalanche” attack.  This could leave your opponent in a bit of a bind as he or she has to quickly calculate which is going to ultimately be worse in the long term.  Of course, my two example decks are more Standard Format focused than Expanded; I think that there, things will be “the same yet different” as the net result of more counters, more combo partners, and a greater variety of decks produce the same net result as in the Standard Format.  For the Limited Format, having a “counter Stadium” is always a good thing, and players want to use more Evolved Pokémon here, but that is because it is easier to pull a 1-1 or 2-2 Evolution line than a Basic Pokémon-GX… and it isn’t always easy to pull a worthwhile 1-1 Evolution line!  Ratings  Standard: 3.15/5  Expanded: 3.15/5  Limited: 3.25/5  Conclusion & Top 10 Background  Po Town is a useful addition to our Stadium options, but unless the numbers magically align for it in the metagame, it’s is on the happy side of “average”; good, but not great.  It should have decent “general” usage, in that any deck can run it.  Yes, even Evolution heavy decks could risk including it so long as the extra damage Po Town adds to the opponent’s Evolved Pokémon ends up mattering more than one Po Town adds to that player’s own Evolved Pokémon.  There will also be specialized decks that capitalize upon Po Town much better than those in general.  What really keeps it from greatness is that your opponent will have a solid chance of discarding it before its effect kicks in or just won’t have anything to Evolve while Po Town is in play.  Po Town would have taken 12th place had our Top 10 been at least a Top 12.  It earned 7 voting points and appeared on two of our five individual Top 10 lists, plus it appeared on both of the “extended” Top 10 lists (that were actually a Top 24 and Top 25) that two of our reviewers chose to submit.  It “should’ve would’ve” been our 11th place pick, but I misread my own notes in the tiebreaker section.  While that is a blemish on my record, I’m more worried about getting the actual Top 10 right than hashing out tiebreakers for the runners-up.  Speaking of the two extended lists that were (sometimes) used for breaking ties, the Top 25 list was my own, and Po Town appeared as my 19th place pick.  I think it is a solid 12th place pick; I was surprised when I scored it lower than yesterday’s Alolan Ninetales because I keep flip-flopping over which card is ultimately better.  Expect that to be a trend with these runners-up; even most that didn’t tie are very close in overall capacity.
Vince	Hello readers! Vince here, and we're taking a look at Po Town from the SM Burning Shadows set. This is where the majority of Team Skull members reside......and it's always raining in that area while other areas had brighter skies. Must be one intentional tiny raging cloud over there!   Moving on, this is a Stadium card which states that whenever any player evolves one of their Pokemon, you must place 3 damage counters in that Pokémon that just evolved! This actually hurts Evolution decks! Pokémon will take 30 damage if it's evolved to a Stage 1, Mega Evolution, Stage 2 using a Rare Candy, or Break Evolution of a Basic; 60 total damage will be taken for Stage 2 or Break Evolution of a Stage 1; and a total whopping 90 damage for Break Evolution of a Stage 2!   Evolutions already had it rough. It takes deck space and is an investment even if the Pokémon is awesome. Not only that, but with Po Town, these Pokémon will have about 80-100 HP after the reduction (170-210 HP for Mega Evolution or GX stages), giving the opponent a much easier time to KO your Pokemon. It also allows Gengar's Creep Show to put an end to damaged Pokemon by dragging that Evolution in front and attack it! Some ways to mitigate the situation is to use healing items such as Max Potion to compensate for unnecessary lost HP or to remove that stadium card before you evolve your Pokemon.   As ridiculous as Po Town can be, it can be played around. Because it's a stadium card, it can be replaced by another stadium; Field Blower is also a common sight in PTCGO, casual, and competitive tournaments, so it'll be hard for Po Town to stick around. So, for these reasons, I don't think this card will see too much play. This is how Po Town fares in Standard and Expanded. This is a good card, and I would be experimenting with this Stadium to see how much it helps. In Limited, it depends on what you're facing against. If you face Evolution decks, then this stadium will reduce their HP; If you face +39 deck, then this Stadium is useless.   Ratings:   Standard: 3/5   Expanded: 3/5   Limited: 1.75 (aggregate)   Summary:   I had this card on my personal list because of it’s potential, but not enough to secure the spot on the Pojo site, though cards will eventually be reviewed as time passes.  If you don’t have an answer to this stadium, your evolution decks will have to cope with unnecessary lost HP.
Retro	Card: Po Town             One of my favorite stuff about Pokemon Sun and Moon has to be Team Skull. They are very funny, goofy and downright punk. And what better place there is than Po Town, their base? Its a very solemn place that gets raided by Team Skull prior to the games. Looking at the place, it apparently does describe the gangster vibe of Team Skull as a whole. With its very solid grafitti around the place, a proof that they are broke as hell, Bugnium-Z Crystals everywhere, and also a very solid looking Pokémon Center which not only heals your entire team up for some money, they also offers you a sick-looking Skull Tank. Sadly not a single Skull Tank is seen in the World Championship, but oh well. At least their base of operations is one of the most popular Stadiums in TCG: Po Town is here!             This unique stadium is a slightly modified version of the old Stadium “Team Magma’s Secret Base” (XY-P Double Crisis). But Po Town has been modified to suit the newer, more evolution heavy meta. As the old Team Magma’s Secret Base places 2 damage counters (or 20 damage) every time someone played a Basic Pokémon to their bench, Po Town places 3 damage counters (or 30 damage) to a Pokémon that evolves from each player’s hand. If it’s a Stage 1 Pokémon, they take 30 damage. If they are a Stage 2, they take 60 damage total just from evolving! That is insane. It’s a very solid Stadiums that not only allows an easier time for these full Basic decks to reach the magic numbers more easily, but it also some mind games in which each players cannot just simply and blindly use an Ultra Ball to get an Evolution Pokémon and evolve. That alone can indirectly slow down your opponent from executing certain combo strings (as in evolving Pokémon with Abilities for instance) in their deck, but it also does damage. That’s the main point of the Stadium. It deals indirect damage, take it or leave it. It’s up to each player to determine if this Stadium is really beneficial to them.             As I mentioned earlier, Stage 2 or BREAK decks really suffers from the existence of Po Town. Take a Metagross-GX (SM Guardians Rising) deck, for instance. A lot of the time Metagross-GX’s selling point, besides its complete offensive package, is the fact that you are facing a 250 HP monster which can be ready as early as Turn 2. Now 250 HP is a lot. But if they evolve a Metang into a Metagross via Rare Candy, they take 30 damage, meaning now they have 220 HP. If they follow the normal route, they take 60 damage, which means now Metagross’ effective health is now 190, which is not much higher than a Drampa-GX (SM Guardians Rising). Now 190 HP is very manageable and easier to hit, and it does open up comeback situations with this fact alone.             You also can actually use this Stadium to your advantage. Take Drampa-GX again as an example. Its main attack, Berserk, hits the magic 180 damage when you have a Pokemon in your bench with damage counters and a Choice Band. But how can we get Berserk to hit for the massive damage without having to awkwardly using your lead Pokemon to take soft hits to then retreat back, and you don’t have a Rainbow Energy in your deck? In comes Po Town; it easily gives you that 30 damage to a Pokemon that evolves from your side, mainly a Garbodor (SM Guardians Rising) which is Drampa’s most common partner, and there you have it. A 180 damage Berserk done in a single turn!             But as good as Po Town is, it still has glaring weaknesses. First off, it’s a Stadium card. This meta is ever locked into a Stadium war, where almost all the decks in the high street almost always has a Stadium to replace Po Town anytime only a draw supporter or top deck away. Gardevoir-GX can carry Fairy Garden, Turbo Darkrai carries Altar of the Moone, Volcanion-EX carries Brooklet Hill, and so on, and so forth. Second, even if they don’t use Stadiums, 100% of decks will carry Field Blower (SM Guardians Rising), which can remove Tools and Stadiums, which Po Town unfortunately is.  There also exist ways to evolve Pokemon not from your hand, which can ruin the entire point of the deck. Stuff like Wally (XY Roaring Skies, XY Generations), Evosoda (XY Generations), or even the new Diancie (SM Burning Shadows) which can evolve a Pokemon straight from their deck with its Sparkling Wish move. There are counterplays to Po Town, which does let it down a bit.             But, weaknesses aside, Po Town is a great disruption Stadium that can put mind games on your opponent when you play it down, and that alone is great. Standard: 4.1/5 (Stage 1 and 2 decks are now relevant thanks to Pokemon-GX, making Po Town a good inclusion in disruption decks) Expanded: 2.9/5 (Basic Pokemon rule the roost here, making Po Town nearly useless) Limited: 3.5/5 (There does exists splits between evolution and good Basic Pokemon in its set, making Po Town a bit of a meta call.) Next Time on SM Burning Shadows: “OBJECTION!”