Name: Alakazam
Set: Expedition
Type: Psychic
Stage: Stage 2 (Evolves from Kadabra)
HP: 100
Weakness: Psychic
Resistance: None
Retreat: CC

Poké-POWER: Psymimic

Once during your turn, instead of Alakazam’s normal attack, you may choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon’s attack.  Alakazam copies that attack including its Energy costs and anything else required in order to use that attack, such as discarding Energy cards.  (No matter what type that Pokémon is, Alakazam’s type is still Psychic.)  This power can’t be used if Alakazam is affected by a Special Condition.

Attributes: Well, we have another Alakazam.  The good news is that you can mix and match it with the other versions, but the bad news is that it fights for space against those versions.  It’s a Stage 2, which means that it’s harder to get into play than a Basic or Stage 1, and as such had better have some serious power to it to offset that disadvantage.  It evolves from Kadabra, which in turn evolves from Abra.  In Unlimited, I recommend the Team Rocket version, as it has the more or less standard Abra stats (40 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, and a retreat of C), but has Vanish, a most useful attack that a simple Recall or Memory Berry will let you use to rob your opponent of a Prize (that move shuffles Abra back into the deck).  For Modified, I recommend the Skyridge Abra, as it has a Poke-Body that gives it a free retreat so long as there is a Psychic Energy attached to it.  As for Kadabras, it really depends on your strategy.  If you aren’t planning on recalling attacks in some manner, use just one or two actual Kadabra with Rare Candies.  I’d go with the Skyridge as they can actually hit for decent damage and ignore Weakness/Resistance.  For Modified, I would still go with that Kadabra and Rare Candies-some say to use the Expedition version since it can nab Energy from the discard, but I don’t find it worth it (and yeah, I’ve run this before in Neon Modified).

This is a Psychic Pokémon, which is not really that great for Unlimited (a lot of Resistance, not much Weakness), but useful for Modified (where there is little Resistance and much Weakness).  It has 100 HP, which was a record at the time it’s release, and still is the tops for an Alakazam.  In general, 100 HP is pretty good-you can usually take two solid blows even without any healing.  It has a Psychic Weakness, which really hurts-what few Psychic Pokémon you encounter will be able to hit you hard in Unlimited, and makes this an easy target for Wobbuffets and Gardevoir on Modified.  There is no Resistance, which annoys me, but we’ll just move on.  It has a retreat of CC, which is feasible.  It’s enough you won’t be able to retreat without a though but low enough you won’t have to build your deck around benching it.

Abilities: Psymimic is fantastic.  Almost every deck you face will give you access to cheap set-up attacks and big finisher attacks.  Rainbow Energy can provide what you need to use most attacks, especially since the newer cards have moved towards more colorless/mostly colorless attack costs.  If you encounter something with a big or specialized attack, don’t worry-Syncroblast has your back.  Most such attacks cost 3-4 Energy, making them easy to “synchronize’ with.  With boost energy, it’s even more effective (DCE for Unlimited).  Best of all, such big attacks may be “synched” once or twice before they can use said big attack.  These two attacks compliment each other very well.  As for its actual cost, it seems fair-you pay for 35 damage, and do a minimum of 20, and a max of 80.  You’ll probably get 80 probably one in 1 times, so you’ll average about 40.  Since it’s mostly colorless, you can easily splash another color with Alakazam if you want.

Uses/Combinations: If you are running another Alakazam, this can be good offensive TecH.  To realize its full potential means building the deck around it though.  Most such decks will add another line to compliment Alakazam-something Fighting or Dark for type matching, for example.  One bizarre deck uses this with “Strange Tentacles” Tentacruel to make it so your opponent will almost always have the same energy count as you.  Also note that it counts Energy cards-this means that a Boost is still just one Energy.  I would probably team it up with-you guessed it-Sandstorm Xatu for mega healing.  In Neon I ran it with Neo Revelation Aerodactyl so I could use LC Alakazam’s attacks-can’t do that in Eon, but you can use Memory Berry to give some nice, solid damage.  Since it can copy cheap attacks, it can abuse Pokémon Nurse fairly easily.

Ratings

Unlimited: 3/5-I think it would be good in a “damage-swap” deck.  Given how most strong Pokémon in Unlimited have inexpensive attacks to copy.  Base Set Alakazam will give it great longevity, and since you got Psychic any way, you might as well toss in Slowking (like people normally worry about powering it).

Modified/2-on-2: 3.5/5-There are a lot of great Psychic Pokémon in this format, but this could surprise us by matching them-after all, anything they can do, this can do.

Limited: 4/5-Most people favor “splashable” Pokémon, so take advantage of it.  Run a smorgasbord of energy, and with a little luck, you can match almost anything they draft.  People tend to draft Energy hogs here since with time they can be powered up to blitz through an opponent for the win.  You should be able to synch up while they power up and obliterate them.

TMP: 4/5-So many choices to mimic or synch!

Sorry this was rushed.

-Otaku (nintendotaku@hotmail.com)