Pokemon Card of the Day - Pokemon Tips - Pojo.com

Back to Pojo's Pokemon Site

This is a cool Book!

Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Omastar - Sandstorm

Date Reviewed: 10.24.03

Ratings & Reviews below

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating.

Heidi Craig	Omastar Modified 2/5 Omastar has decent hit points and two colorless attacks. It makes this card able to fit into any deck. The first attack Pull Down has a very interesting effect. You can remove their highest evolution card taking your opponent by surprise and knocking out their Pokemon. It can get to those benched Pokemon that have retreated with high damage on them for a quick knockout. Hydro Cannon is most effective with water in the deck to increase the damage you can do. With 4 energy dealing 70 damage not to bad. A good combo for this deck could be a Pokemon that can deal bench damage to make the most of the first attack. I might combo this with KabutopsEX since both basic forms help get each base stage out. Unlimited1/5 It has a weakness to lightning which can make this card risky. Evolution is not popular in this format so Pull Down wouldn't help much and with energy removals you may never get to deal much damage with this Pokemon before you get knocked out. Draft 4/5 I would play this card. Omanyte would be very good to get out basics quickly. Omastars attacks would be very effective. In a draft environment Pull Down and Hydro Cannon would both have their uses.
Otaku	Name: Omastar Type: Water Stage: 2 (evolves from Omanyte) HP: 110 Weakness: Electric Resistance: None Retreat: CC Attack#1: (C) Pull Down If your opponent has any Evolved Pokémon in play, remove the highest Stage Evolution card from each of them and put those cards back into his or her hand. Attack#2: (CC) Hydrocannon [30+] Does 30 damage plus 20 more damage for each (W) Energy attached to Omastar but no used to pay for this attacks Energy Cost. You can’t add more than 40 damage this way. Name: Omanyte Type: Water Stage: 1 (evolves from Mysterious Fossil) HP: 70 Weakness: Electric Resistance: None Retreat: C Attack#1: (C) Team Assembly Search your deck for Omanyte, Kabuto, or any Basic Pokémon and put as many of them as you like onto your Bench. Shuffle your deck afterward. Treat the new Benched Pokémon like Basic Pokémon. Attack#2: (CC) Bind [20] Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed. Name: Mysterious Fossil Type: Trainer (Colorless while in play) Stage: Basic Pokémon (while in play or during set-up) HP: 10 Weakness: None Resistance: None Retreat: N/A Text: Play Mysterious Fossil as if it were a Basic Pokémon. While in play, Mysterious Fossil counts as a (C) Pokémon (instead of a Trainer card). Mysterious Fossil has no attacks of its own, can’t retreat, and can’t be affected by any Special Conditions. If Mysterious Fossil is Knocked Out, it doesn’t count as a Knocked Out Pokémon (Discard it anyway.) At any time during your turn before your attack, you may discard Mysterious Fossil from play. Name: Previous Omastar have been iffy at best. The original Fossil version was pathetic: a 70 HP Stage 2 Water Pokémon with “average” attacks (for a Basic or maybe a Stage 1), a terrible Weakness (Grass), no Resistance (why!?!), but with a good Retreat (one). The next version didn’t pop up until Neo Discovery. It was a Fighting Pokémon, and if it hadn’t been, it might have seen some play in Raindance decks due to its “big” attack, Spike Barrage. This attack does 20 plus you flip a number of coins equal to the number of (W) Energy attached to Omastar and add 20 more for each heads. So if you could have easily added it to Raindance deck, it would have been a Water Sneasel… as is, people tried it anyway, dumping a bunch of water onto a Water Omanyte, but it never really worked-it was just easier to run Neo Genesis Sneasel. Several sets later, we saw Skyridge Omastar had a Poké-Body that, had it not only affected the opposing active, might have been good-it prevented the opponent from evolving. Sadly, it did only affect their active Pokémon, and only while Omastar was active. It’s did get some nice synergy with its only attack, Spook-(WWC), does 50 and prevents retreat-it still wasn’t enough. So like many recent Pokémon, there are no older versions of the card to really compete or aid in the use of the newest version. Type: As a Water Pokémon, it faces some steep competition. We have Water Pokémon that just scream fast damage (mostly from the WotC e-card sets). Fortune actually smiles upon it in Modified though: I have noticed many Kabutops ex decks showing up on message boards, and this could make good TecH with it. Wait for them to have several Rare Candied or injured evolved Pokémon, drop a Mysterious Fossil, Rare Candy to Omastar, drop a single Energy, and de-evolve for some Prizes/disruption. Depending on what shows up in the next few sets, this could be a good monster for Water decks when the WotC e-card sets rotate out. Stage: There are many Stage 2 Pokémon to compete with in Modified. Most of them will slaughter Omastar… unless they do what most such decks do, and evolve primarily through Rare Candies, in which case you can pull them down with ease. ;) Needless to say, avoid using this in Unlimited. … Oh, you want to know which version of its lower stages to use? Well, there are a lot of options, but the best are what I listed at the top of the page. Buried Fossil is just asking to give away a prize, Fossil Egg is too flippy (since this is a Stage 2 and we’d still need to evolve it), and previous Omanyte, while less pathetic than the comparative Kabutops, have been less hardy than this latest version. Still, for Modified at least, you could also use this with the Skyridge version (which can evolve itself, but not via a deck search). You just get 10 less HP (and I normally consider 70 the minimal acceptable Stage 1 HP), but a better offensive attack. Rare Candies are also encouraged. HP: A nice beefy 110. Only thing better would be 120… unless you are a dual-weakness Pokémon ex. No, wait, that’s worse, not better. -_- So this is very nice indeed. You can last a good while with this, which is important when we get to how to use this thing… Weakness: The upside? There are no basic Electric Pokémon with low energy-high damage attacks to eat you via your Weakness, and most of the good Electric Evolutions aren’t widely played right now due to ignorance of their existence. The downside? They do exist, as do some expensive but strong attacking basic Electric Pokémon. For example, Sandstorm Electabuzz gets to select a Pokémon and do 40 damage to it for (LCC), ignoring Weakness and Resistance only for Benched Pokémon. So if you have an active Omastar, it’ll take 80. Opening with a Sandstorm Elekid can see that Electabuzz ready to go turn 2. Fortunately, there are several easy to include Fighting Pokémon to counter most Electric Pokémon. Resistance: Grrrrrrrrr… Lazy, lazy TPC. One thing I have been waiting on is Fire Resistance. Guess what Pokémon types would qualify for Fire Resistance? Rock and Water types, that’s who. Now, I can see why making Water Types in General Resistant would be bad… but a Water/Rock Pokémon that all previous versions of have been bad? Retreat: Just two, which is average overall amongst current Stage 2s, but seems a bit rarer on certain Pokémon types, like Water/Rock Pokémon with 100+ HP. In this case, I mean average both as a (rough estimate of the) mathematical mean and mode, but also as that point at which you can afford to pay if you need to retreat, but would like to use a Switch or the like if possible. Attack#1: Pull Down is a nice attack. For just C Energy, you make players “go back” a turn in terms of Evolution cards. This has two big uses: surprise KOs from Pokémon suddenly having a lower maximum HP, and punishes people who depend too much on Rare Candy (often it is both). Since Evolution based decks are still on the rare side in Unlimited, this attack really doesn’t do much there. If it were a basic Pokémon’s attack, it would be nice TecH there, but a deck staple here. :-P Since it is on a Stage 2; however, you need something else from the card to make it more useful. Note, I mean that Pull Down is a good attack; it just needs something to go with it. After all, for just (C), you could get 6 prizes… if your opponent is really, really careless. Attack#2: Hydrocannon is a solid attack. 30 for CC isn’t a bad starting point, and if you have 2 Water Energy on it (not being used for the attack’s cost); you can get up to 70. So (CC) for 30, (WCC) for 50, and (WWCC) for 70 are above average damage to energy ratios… particularly since this is one attack, and thus we are given essentially two “extra” attacks on the card for an effective 4. Remember though, that a Stage 2 Pokémon needs these kind of “price breaks” to remain competitive, so it’s not that great. Uses/Combinations: Well, as mentioned above, it can be easily TecHed into Kabuto decks that run Rare Candy. I don’t think it is really meant to be on its own, though: it has to useful; attacks, but on their own they are not game-winning. One thought would be to combine it with anything that needed a big water buddy, though I can’t think of any case where that would be a good idea if it is the sole requirement. However, when you factor in mass bench damage, you find some good decks for it: Aggron Ex and Sandstorm Steelix both can do a decent hunk of bench damage. Let them “Rambo” it (video game term from the late 80’s for ignoring taking damage and just running your character straight through a stage or boss encounter with “guns” blazing) when your opponent has some evos benched, then once Aggron ex or Steelix is KO’d or benched, bring up Omastar and Pull down for prizes! Second best tip for it is to take advantage of Boost Energy: you can power up with two Water Energy, then drop a boost next turn to Hydrocannon for 70. Nothing I can really think of for Unlimited. Ratings Unlimited: 1.5/5-Next to useless. There are a handful of evos it can pull down, and those evos are much stronger than it. Modified/2-on-2: 3.5/5-At least as good as Kabutops. Honestly, I think it shows more potential than ‘tops, but people use ‘tops more. As for me, I am going to try running it with Steelix and Aggron ex. The above combo speaks for itself. ‘Tops is better on its own, but for adding to another (especially a bench-hitter), I think Pull down will cause a lot of pain. Limited: 3.5/5-Mysterious Fossils are useful here… so that means you’ll be competing against others to pull them (if drafting in pods or the like), and when I did a limited event, the 5 SS packs I got contained 3 Omanyte, one RH Omastar, and no Mysterious Fossils. Similar results occurred to most others. Its two attacks are a lot nicer here: a flat 70 on a 110HP Pokémon is nice, and Pull Down can nail anyone who thinks it’s safe to retreat their injured. -Otaku
Pscyhup	Welcome all ye readers. Today's Pokemon card of the day is none other than my favorite sandstorm card, so I'll be sure to give it a good look. Today's card is Omastar from Sandstorm (as I mentioned above). Its quite a nice card; I'll explain why its my fav later. Omastar 110 HP [W] Evolves from Omanyte [C] Pull Down If your opponent's Pokemon have any evolutions attached, take all of the highest stage evolution and put them in your opponent's hand. [C][C] Hydrocannon 30+ This attack does 30 damage plus 20 more for each [W] energy attached to Omastar but not used to pay for this attack's cost. You can't add more than 40 damage in this way. Weakness: [E] Resistance: --- Retreat Cost: [C][C] [ Note: This spoiler isn't word for word because I am just saying what the attacks do from memory. If you really need the real wording, Otaku prolly has it in his review, and if he doens't I'm sure the pojosama has them somewhere on the site. =P ] Ok, now I need to answer the question. Why is this my favorite card? Well, most of you who went to the NY area Sandstorm area know that I won the Prerelease tournament with an Omastar deck. I only drafted one, but I did get 2 Omanytes and 2 Mysterious Fossil so I decided to give it a shot. It turned out that this Omastar card is deadly in draft. You pile the damage from Hydrocannon and they will most likeley retreat if it wasn't a KO. Then, next turn you can use Pull Down to ko the basic by removing the evolutions. Of course this is hard to do, and I only did it twice in my rounds. Most importantly, this 70 damage for [W][W][C][C] is deadly in draft, beating Wailord's Surf damage by [W]. Additionally, this thing can also do damage without [W][W][C][C]. Hydrocannon can do 30 from just [C][C] and 50 from [W][C][C]. So that's my take on this card in draft. In unlimited, colorless attacks are nice, but its lack of damage, weakness to buzz/r. zappy, and the fact that its basic form is going down in one hit by anything that does damage means that this ard is GoW prone. I won't play it in any format where there are haymakers lurking around. However, the good thing is that there arne't many haymaker decks in the new Nintendo format. Probably the only cards that aren't ex that can be haymakers are the Lunatone/Solrock, Seviper/Zangoose, and a lame attempt by Volbeat/Illumise, imo. 110 HP is a nice thing to have, forcing cargo ex to discard 4, can't be KOed by Manetric, and takes 2 hits from Slaking. The main problem with this card is the lack of consitancy. Without a first attack to back up its second attack, which can only be considered sub par on a Stage 2, Omastar's prone to disruption. This card would get swatted by even some fire decks. By no means an I saying that this card is bad. Its an interesting card to play with, there is reason to play it in modified. 70 damage is a killer for 4 energies. Omanyte's first attack is a swarming attack that is very useful that can find ANY basic Pokemon, including considering Omanyte/Kabuto basics. If I were to just use Team Assembly, I would use the Kabuto, because of the fact that Kabuto has the Exoskeleton Body, allowing it to be used as a stall tool. Unlimited: You must be crazy to play this card in unlimited. I do agree that this thing is better than fossil Omastar in any format, but just don't try it. You're really not going to win; but a fun deck is a different story. 1/5 Modified: Really there isn't much going for this card. There's nothing on that card that tells the player "Wow, I'm a good card." Its an average card with 110 HP, which is nice. 70 damage can be nice, and the first attack will come in helpful once in every 4-5 games, which isn't reason to use it. The bottom stats are standard for such a card, (well the two retreat is good, as usually a Stage 2 with 110 HP has 3 retreat). It takes up too much space, with a 10 HP basic and a Stage 1 that can only do 20. Its iffy. 3/5 Draft: I'm tempted to give it a high rating here, but in reality, you aren't going to get this card out that often. I was lucky enough to get Wally's Training the time I won with this card. I must also mention that Omayte's Team Assembly is a great attack in draft, especially in multi colored draft decks, (mostly all). Another thing is that Omastar uses all types of energy. This won't matter much in a formated 60 card deck, but in draft, that's a great attribute to have. 2/5 lol, and I still gave it a higher rating in draft. Thanks for reading. --- psychup2034
Thundachu	Omastar I'm back. Didnt get any of the cards, thats why I have been gone =o. Overview: 110HP is the highest Omastar we have seen yet. Weakness to Lightning is normal for the water pokemon. For one colorless energy, Pull Cannon is like Mew's De-Evolution beam except now you can use it on ALL evolutions your opponent has which is OHHH. For 2 colorless energy, Hydrocannon does 30 damage plus 20 more for every water energy attached to Omastar. A few draw backs here. First off, the energy cant be used to pay for the attack. Bummer. And second, you can't add more than 40 in that way. Meaning only 2 will work. Retreat of 2 is good for an 110HP pokemon. Could be worse. All in all, Omastar from SS is much better then the fossil one. Unlimited: 2/5 Modified: 3.5/5 Draft: Being a stage 2, it will be hard to draft espeacilly when the basic is Mysterious Fossil. Anyways, if you do draft it, I think you SHOULD use it for the Hydro Canon. 2 energy for 30-70 damage is pwnage. 4/5
Hedge	Omastar Ok, let’s check this out. I’ve got this little rating system thingy for Pokémon cards, where points are given or taken away depending on good or bad attributes. So let’s put this card on the scale. I got a figure; 10. That is actual game efficiency by itself. In my opinion, this card is a little better because of possible combos. You could use some kind of bench damager, like Sandstorm Steelix, and then when you have about 60 on all of their evolutions, bring in ‘Star and pull down, for a massive sweep ko on devolved weak basics. Or you could just Hydro cannon everything in site with support from Potions and Berries and Crystal Shards, for upcoming Salamence decks. Plus SS Omanyte is awesome, with Team Assembly and all, and you what you get if you do water….. The Best Stall card I’ve seen since Promo Igglybuff, SS Marill! ~_^ Anyways, back to Omastar……. Unlimited: 1/5 – I’m really sorry about this rating because this is a good card. However, I cannot forget that despite it’s power, Electabuzz is still strong, and so is promo Pikachu…… And not to mention it’s a stage 2, evolves from a fossil, and has an attack that is usually useless in this format……It gets a low rating. Besides, you need cards like ER’s, Goldberry’s, Gust of Wins (D ~_^) and Pluspowers in this format, and if you run stage two’s and such, you need good card drawing and setup support trainers, and that doesn’t leave much room for the above mentioned. Modified (EON): 4/5 – This has a lot of ~~potential~~ here (“Potential” is a word that is sooo thrown around here, I don’t think I’ll use it again ~_^) It has a lot of possibility. 2 on 2: 4/5 – Same as regular modified…. Draft: 3/5 – Just because it’s a stage two. With most stage two’s, if you manage to get one out in draft, it’s gg. Especially this one too. Well, if you can pull it off, stick it in. Besides, if you get it in draft, put it in your deck just so that you can keep it afterward ~_^ ~Hedge
Bullados	Omastar Attributes: 110 HP is extremely good. 100 seems to be the base for stage 2s, and this is more, so it has to be good. Lightning weakness is a little odd, considering that Omastar is a Rock/Water type… Retreat of 2 is decent, but not spectacular. Don't pay this unless you have to, especially with the attacks. Pull Down: This is extremely good. Devolution Beam, only now it's more powerful, costing only [C], AND removing ALL evolution cards from your opponent. The only problem here is that it lacks the necessary words, "This counts as devolving those Pokemon", which would have made this attack absolutely broken. Hydrocannon: AWESOME ATTACK!!!!!!! 70 damage for [WWCC]? That's HUGE!!!!! This is the same attack that RaNdOm made so popular with Dark Blastoise, but this guy has 20-40 more HP, making the attack that much more powerful. Combos: Swampert / Blastoise: Quicker powerups. There's really not much else to say here. Rare Candy / Pokemon Breeder: Get him out quickly. Ratings: Unlimited: Evolution decks don't do very well here. Pull Down becomes useless, and Hydrocannon doesn't do enough damage for this format. He's also ER prone. 1.25/5 Modified: Pretty good, but there are better. He has to compete with Wailord and Wailord ex for deck space, and both of these are pretty powerful Pokemon. Omastar is nothing to sneeze at, but there are better Waters out there. 3.75/5 Limited: If you can get him, he's amazing. However, he's a rare with an uncommon stage 1 and a Fossil as a basic. Both of these facts severely hinder your chances of getting him, much less using him. 3.5/5 ~Bullados
Ralphy	Ralphy- Wow, an Omastar with 110 HP. As a general rule, any card named Omastar generally sucks, at least in constructed. Can this card break the "cycle of suck" if you will? <read on for answer> Unlimited- Well to start off I'll say once again that nothing good can come out of a Stage 2 that evolves from a trainer. It is weak to Electabuzz, possibly one of the worst weakness to have in Unlimited because Electabuzz is one of the best, if not the best Unlimited Poke. The 2 retreat is too much to use paying energy which sums up the majority of the negative. Now the first attack is not going to be too great when playing competitively in Unlimited because the good decks don't play evolution, outside of the occasional Slowking. The second attack is nice, but nothing to play the card for in this format. 70 for 2 waters and 2 colorless is nice. 1.75/5 for the negative reasons stated above. Modified- Now the Modified format is a different. Lightning hasn't made a good showing in any of the Modified formats thus far, in E-on Modified is not really any different. So to a certain extent, Omastar is safe weakness wise. The first attack really shows it stuff here. Wait to use it in the late game when your opponent has a bench full of damaged Pokes due to the lack of decent healing in Modified, use Pull Down, and you could pick a good 2-3 maybe more prizes. Again, 70 straight for 2 waters and 2 colorless is just great. 3.75/5 Limited- The best format to run a Omastar is in a Draft. Lighting is almost non-existent in this format so Omastar is safe from that. Even more safe then in Modified. All of the attacks are to an extent colorless, unless you want to add more damage to Hydrocannon, then you need water energies. The first attack is awesome in draft. Your opponent will almost always retreat their damage Pokes to keep you from taking prizes so drop Omastar in the late game and you could take the rest of your prizes, winning you the game. A first pick in my view. Too bad it's rare, but at least it's not holo-rare, and the Omanyte and Mysterious Fossil are both commons. Which make the whole line draftable. Mysty Fossil are also good for drafts. No prizes for KO's = good in draft. 4.25/5 here.
Patriarch	Today, I'll be reviewing arguably the best Omastar released: Sandstorm Omastar! With flavors of Dark Blastoise and even the first Promo Mew, you're intrigued, to say the least... This card is a pretty decent dude! HP's pretty solid, Weakness is dealt by one of the weaker types currently, and retreat is average for Stage 2's. Hydrocannon is trustworthy and effective...NPI for the fire pokeys. However, its first attack is a good, yet anti-climactic way to kill heavily-damaged cards...Like, say, Wailord ex! Unlimited (2/5): Don't get me wrong: He's a fat card, and that can be good at times. However, he'll be burnt off by Elekids, or otherwise crushed by Sneasel early on. Not nearly the best war steed you can play with. Modified (3.5/5): This card makes a great tag-team with Kabutops ex! Let the Heavy Cutter shop up your opponent's pokes, watch them scurry, and then kill them ALL by Pulling down! Just imagine two Sandstorm ex's down to the breaking point of 10-30 HP, and then Pulling Down for a rather unconventional win-condition! Draft (3/5): Like many Stage 2's, it'll be heck to get out. However, the card itself will prove useful late-game. Remember: the more water-dominant the deck, the better. ~Patriarch "The Cabal is here, and everywhere."

Pojo.com is here to provide guidance to all Pokemon trainers out there. Whether it's the Gameboy Game, N64 or the Trading Card Game, PoJo.com provides all the wisdom you desire.

If you have cool game tips, a killer deck, or breaking news ... send them to us. We'll post it on the site ... and give you all the credit.