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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Ahhhh the spicy lizard from the volcanoes of Alola. She sure is...very much a lizard yes.  Actually Salazzle-GX has a lot going for her right off the bat, seeing as all her attacks cost the exact same 2 Fire Energy! But does that make Salazzle-GX a major threat or just really mediocre? Well a 2-for-110 vanilla move like Heat Blast isn't really what you think when you're looking at selling a monster.  That's where Diabolical Claws would come in. This move really takes a new title to "overkill", dealing out 50 damage to the opponent for every Prize card you've taken. This is basically a "win more" kind of attack, in which ideally you're already winning by a fair clip, and this attack is just meant to keep the momentum in your favor. After all, it doesn't actually do anything until you've taken Prizes, and realistically you need to have taken at least 2 Prizes to be dealing out significant damage. At least Heat Blast is consistent!  But if you're worried about your opponent getting the edge over you, there's always Queen's Haze GX, which allows you to discard all the Energy attached to the opponent's Active Pokemon. That can get rid of some Special Energy pretty easily, which might be key to your opponent's strategy if it forces their set-up back a turn or two. But all things considered? I'm not really a fan of using your "once per game" move on something you could accomplish with Plumeria - and even at the same cost.  ...and let's face it, no one running Plumeria right at the moment.  Salazzle-GX really has her strongest suit in dishing out potential 2HKOs with Heat Blast until your Diabolical Claws are strong enough to smash through at OHKO range. It's not exactly efficient on its own, but with some other Fire-types around, I'm sure it's at least capable of competition. If anything, Salazzle-GX probably won't even be needed in most Fire decks...at least for now.  Rating  Standard: 2.5/5 (the potential damage output of Diabolical Claws is pretty tempting)  Expanded: 2.5/5 (but don't let the high numbers fool you)  Limited: 3.5/5 (you've gotta already be in some good position before you can make due with it)  Arora Notealus: I wonder why only the female Salandits can become Salazzle anyway? Is it because of the portmanteau with "Salamander" and "Dazzle" only works if it's female? Or maybe the plethora of male Salandits makes a female having the capability to evolve that much more appealing? Or maybe it's a shout-out to lizards in tropical areas that work the same way Combee and Vespiquen work around each other? Perhaps, perhaps...  Weekend Thought: Think there's a potential for some of these cards? Think they'll be better when a few other cards rotate out, or have they reached their fullest potential already? Are some cards good enough to play despite the current meta, or will the meta affect what you stick in your deck?
21times	Salazzle GX (Burning Shadows, 25/147) burns its way into the meta from the Burning Shadows expansion set released about a month ago.  A Stage 1 Fire Pokemon, it has three attacks, all of which cost two Fire energy.  Its first attack, Diabolical Claws, does fifty damage for each prize card taken.  The attack you will probably use the most, Heat Blast, does 110 damage.  Salazzle’s GX attack, Queen’s Haze, does no damage but discards all of the energy off your opponent’s active Pokemon. Queen’s Haze surprised me – I used it a number of times, most notably against Gardevoir GX (Burning Shadows, 93/147), Darkrai GX (Burning Shadows, 88/147), and Volcanion EX (Steam Siege, 26/114).  Queen’s Haze has the dual effect of one, obviously, rendering your opponent completely powerless and unable to attack you (unless they have a single energy attack) but also it functions to strand them as an Incapacitated Active Pokemon, stuck in the active.  After playing Queen’s Haze, not only can your opponent not attack you with that active Pokemon, they have to either power it back up or find a way to get it out of the active position and get another powered up Pokemon into the active.  Queen’s Haze can significantly disrupt your opponent, and I would not discount it as an option.  I used it more than I used Diabolical Claws.  Diabolical Claws can do a ton of damage – especially in a seven prize card match in which Diabolical Claws will one shot anything if you only have a single prize card left – however, if you have only one or two prize cards left and a powered up Salazzle GX in the active, chances are you’ll never get to actually use Diabolical Claws as your opponent will probably just concede. Heat Blast is the attack you’ll use the most, and it’s not bad.  It can put some pressure on opponents.  With a Choice Band (Guardians Rising, 121/145), it two shots everything in the game.  The problem is, it two shots everything in the game, and with a two attachment attack, you can potentially fall behind the many single energy attackers out in the meta today.  Another problem is that it’s Fire, which means weakness to Water, and Water Pokemon are the big winners with the banning / rotating of Forest of Giant Plants (Ancient Origins, 74/98).  Although Metal decks are still weak to Salazzle GX, I haven’t seen anybody playing Grass with the exception of a few Golisopod GX (Burning Shadows, 17/147) and Tapu Bulu GX (SM Promo 32) decks, and Bulu isn’t weak to you anyways.  Last week Fire was a great play… this week, not so much. I will definitely say that I think Salazzle GX is a good card, but I had very little success with it as a feature Pokemon.  I went 3 W 9 L in twelve matches in a deck with both Garbodors (Breakpoint, 57/122, Guardians Rising, 51/145).  My strategy was start with Salazzle GX to put some pressure on the opponent and force them to use their items to develop, then use Garbodor GRI to take some prizes in the middle, and finally close the game out again with Salazzle GX and Diabolical Claws.  It did work well in one match – I beat a Gardevoir GX deck – but overall I just couldn’t quite figure out how to win with this deck.  I then tried the Fire toolbox deck (I’d call it my Red Box deck but that name is copyrighted), and that was definitely the better way to go with 5 W and 1 L in six matches.  Salazzle GX was only a role player in that deck, however.  I would compare it to soccer where you have your best PK scorer go last, that’s Salazzle GX’s role in the Fire tool box deck. Rating Standard: 3 out of 5 Conclusion I don’t think you can just play four Salazzle GX and expect to win many matches – I don’t think it is a feature four of Pokemon that you can completely build a deck and a strategy around, but I definitely think it has a place in Fire tool box decks as a late game attacker and a potential disrupting Pokemon as well with the GX attack Queen’s Haze.
Vince	Today’s card before you enjoy your weekends is Salazzle-GX!  We’ve got the non-GX Salazzle from Guardians Rising that had a nifty status inducing ability.  So how does the GX version in Burning Shadows fare?   Well, each of her attacks costs two fire energy.   Diabolical Claws acts like a finisher, doing 50 damage times the number of prizes that you have taken.  This could range from 0 to 250 damage (zero to five prizes taken).  If you find yourself doing less damage than you hope for, then her second attack does 110 damage, a good amount to 2HKO Pokemon with a little bit of help such as Choice Band.  But by the time you take your third prize, you should no longer need to use Heat Blast and instead keep using Diabolical Claws.  Queen’s Haze does no damage, but it discards all energy attached to your opponent’s Active Pokemon.  Against low energy attackers, this move is bad and not worth the GX slot; But against Pokemon loaded with energy such as Gardevoir-GX, this could set back a few turns for the opponent.   Overall, Salazzle is a good all-around attacker that could see some play.  She’s all about putting pressure, and if you can’t react fast enough, you could lose very soon.   Standard: 3.25/5  Expanded: 3.25/5  Limited: 4/5
Retro	Possibly one of the most unique Pokemon that is viable in what it does, Salazzle-GX has finally arrived in the SM Burning Shadows expansion. And it being an evolution Fire Pokemon, this finally means that The Pokemon Company finally released a Fire Pokemon that not’s a Volcanion variant! Sometimes when I play PTCGO, I got bored when facing a Fire deck because I know it’s going to be another Volcanion variant deck. Except they have Grass and Dark alongside the Fire logo, you know you’re facing a Vespiquen or Lurantis/Zoroark with a Flareon tech, so it’s okay. So what do you have in store, you speedy corrosive blaster?             Unlike its rather fragile video game counterpart, Salazzle-GX has a solid 200 HP. For a Stage 1 Pokemon-GX, having that HP level, which the same as the Eeveelution-GXs, is very good and it means that it will tank hits well. But if it has exactly or less than 190 HP, which is the highest amount that Basic Pokemon-GXs, it’s quite embarrassing for an Evolution Pokemon-GX. Weakness to Water is rather unfortunate, but at least Salazzle-GX, since it’s a low maintenance attacker with just 2 Fire energies to use all of its attacks, can be a solid snowballer in the meta. Retreat Cost of 2 is also unfortunate, since you have to discard all of its energies to retreat. But are its attacks worth its 2 Fire energy investments? The first attack, Delirious Claws, deals 50x the number of Prize Cards you have took. This is surely a great late game attack. If you have took 2 prizes, you deal 100 damage. You take 4, you deal 200, and if you take 5 you essentially will win the game by dragging anything to be brutalled by a 250 damage attack. But it is amazingly rubbish early game, and thank God it comes with a vanilla attack with Heat Blast that deals 110 damage. Well, with a Choice Band it can deal 140 and a Kukui will boost it to 160 (just 10 shy of the lowest HP GXs, the 3 Tapus) against EXs and GXs, which maybe enough to destroy Marshadows. But realistically it will be used to defeat the 1 prize Pokémon by firing 2 or 3 Heat Blasts to then divert to use Delirious Claws. This may be good with something like Turtonator-GX for the early game nuke or Lurantis (SM25 promo) to boost its damage further. Not really bad. Its GX attack might just be the thing to rot off the opposing board of energies. Queen's Haze GX discards all energies from the opposing Active Pokémon. Since most of the Pokémon that are meta at the moment needs lots of energies, discarding them all off without needing the hammers might just be a good hail mary attack if they can't recover them. Being an Volcanion-independent Fire deck, Salazzle might have just been a meta deck with all the checklists for a meta Pokémon ticked. But it has one weakness; and it concerns bench space. You see, Volcanion decks rely on sheer brute force to punch through Pokémon and then use Volcanion's Steam Up to help punch more. They are rather supporter independent and thus can conserve bench space. Salazzle-GX, unless they use Lurantis, didn't have the option to boost damage, and using Lurantis means that you need bench space to play them. You also need to clear space for another Salazzle, a Tapu Lele, and also several other techs. Some might say that Super Scoop Up or Acerola can help, but it still take more digging to get them. Waterbox decks are also still big and they destroy Salazzle. Nevertheless, Salazzle-GX is an amazing Pokémon-GX that is the best out of the underrated GXs and will surely see play. Rating: Standard: 3.8/5 (An amazing anti meta Fire-type attacker which can realistically blow up games before it even started.) Expanded: 4.5/5 (The massive amount of Fire support this format has makes Salazzle-GX extremely strong and it outcreeps the power level here with Diabolical Claws to one shot every Pokemon in the format.) Limited: 0/5 (A Stage 1 with no pre-evolutions? Da hell no)