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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

William Hung	I choose to simply review Nidoqueen, and Milotic, because they provide a 1-2 combo to win Worlds 2005. Nidoqueen I will stick to Modified. Nidoqueen is a brilliant Pokemon in the metagame. There are very few effective Grass Pokemon decks that can win consistently - and this was reflected at Worlds 2005. There was a brave attempt at a turn 2 Vileplume ex, but it wasn't good enough overall. There were simply too many things you can lose to with Vileplume ex. Back to Nidoqueen - so without a way to one-hit KO Nidoqueen, Nidoqueen can swarm and do whatever it pleases. Milotic simply wins the game by taking off all the damage accumulated. Nidoqueen itself is quite an attacker - Toxic is one Grass! That's it! For one grass, that attack is very powerful. What makes this attack good in the metagame? There isn't a lot of Switch cards and cards getting rid of status being played. You see Rock Lock and Ludi use Heal energy, but as a whole, there isn't a whole lot. 2nd attack - Power Lariat - You need to do at least 50 damage with this, so with DRE, you're talking about 3 Evolutions. But with Pidgeot's Quick Search, it isn't too hard to accomplish. I see the only drawback is you ultimately need a decent-sized bench. But it's not a big drawback at all. I can't say it is perfect, but it is pretty close. Modified - 4.5/5
Bullados	Nidoqueen FRLG Over the next couple weeks, we?ll be reviewing key cards in the deck of the World Champion, NidoTic Attributes: Excellent HP, the highest you can get in the game without being an ex. Weakness isn?t too bad, as most Grass Pokemon don?t do much damage, but focus rather on Status. You should be able to survive a couple of hits from virtually any non-ex Grass type. Decent retreat, but he should never be retreating anyway. Poke-BODY: Not game breaking, but nice to have around. Say you have to Warp Point something, but you don?t want to switch out. Bring up a Nido family except for Nidoqueen, and you can free retreat back to your first Nidoqueen for an instant KO. Attack #1: [G] Toxic I still think this is one of the best attacks of all time. Double poison is nasty, even though there are several ways to get out of special conditions. It?s still a guaranteed 20 damage for a single energy, which isn?t bad any day, and can really add up with more turns. Attack #2: [FCC] Power Lariat It starts out being under priced, and just gets better from there. It essentially has a base damage of 50, as Nidoqueen herself is counted, and can do up to 100 total damage. Particularly nasty, especially if you have Nidoking in play, who increases the attack damage of Nidoqueen by 10, making the max of this attack 140 if you have 4 Nidoking in play. Pre-evolutions: Nidoran Female is a pretty good searcher in her own right, giving you a guaranteed basic; you just don?t know what basic it will be. Either way, the Basic only needs to be evolved to be used with Nidoqueen, so that?s very nice. Her damaging attack isn?t that bad either, 20 for [CC] isn?t terrible. Nidorina is an excellent Evolution searcher, as it isn?t limited to just Nido evolutions, but can get any evolution. Her damaging attack isn?t bad either. Ratings: Unlimited: A little bit too slow, and evolutions aren?t all that great here. She's also very ER vulnerable. I don?t see this thing doing anything here. HL-on Modified: Most of the contents of the Worlds winning deck are still in Modified, so are the Monarchy parts. Even so, I still don?t know how that deck won Worlds. It seems very slow, and if you manage to speed it up, underpowered. The only thing that I can see that happened was that it OHKO?d Sparces early and used Milotic to heal the recurring damage. Still, it?s not a TERRIBLE card, just really not that great. 4/5 Limited: Evolutions aren?t so easy to find, but double Poison is killer here, especially considering that there is almost no switching in HL. Also, it can be very speedy with the combination of its basic and pre-evolution. If you manage to pull a decent line (anything more than 2-1-1), it is devastating. 4/5
X-Act	Nidoqueen In the following two weeks, we Pokemon COTD reviewers are going to focus on Jeremy Maron’s winning Worlds deck, and review some of the cards in his deck in detail. We shall first start with probably the bane of his deck, Nidoqueen. I shall actually consider the whole Nidoqueen line, as Nidoran F and Nidorina also help tremendously in the successful setup of the deck. Nidoran F has an interesting first attack. You reveal cards off your deck until you find a Basic Pokemon. When you find one, you put it in your hand, and shuffle the rest. This works great to get a Pidgey or another Nidoran F quickly at the start of the game. Nidorina’s crux is obviously its second attack. Fast Evolution is broken; it lets you search for TWO Evolution cards, all for just two colorless energy. This surely should have helped jermy101 to get his evolutions quickly to get other Pidgeots/Nidos. Now we come to Nidoqueen. Its Poke-Body renders its brethren free-retreating, but does not do so to itself. Then, for a Grass, it Toxics the opponent (poisons for two damage counters per turn instead of one), and for two colorless and a Fighting, it does 40 damage plus 10 for every Evolution card you have in play (meaning it does 50 at least for sure, as Nidoqueen itself is one). It has a very healthy 120HP, two retreat is manageable, and Grass Weakness is also not very difficult to handle. Nidoqueen works because, with Rare Candy, it can Toxic the opponent in the first turn. Indeed this was probably Jeremy’s main strategy. Against ex’s, that Toxic becomes Triple Poison with Desert Ruins in play, of which Jeremy ran quite a few. It works great especially versus T2 decks, which invariably play Jirachi DX. Stopping Jirachi’s power at such a critical point of the game is very harsh on T2 decks. Also, Nidoqueen can also go very offensive with its second attack, which can deal up to 90 if your Pokemon are all evolved. Nidorina can also help power this attack too. Another thing that works in favour of Nidoqueen is its Fighting-type, which many good cards are weak to. Unlimited: In Unlimited, it doesn’t work as well as it should. Toxic for G is okay, but Crobat HL can do better: Triple Poison for a DRE. (I remember playing Crobat HL in Unlimited once, and it did pretty well.) The second attack doesn’t do enough damage fast enough in this format, and Nidoqueen gets removal’d. I wouldn’t give it a high rating here. 2.5/5 Modified: jermy101 (and the rest of his team) proved to everyone that Nidoqueen is a force to be reckoned with even without its partner Nidoking. As the deck can be easily remade to work even in HL-on (practically all of its cards are already from HL-on anyway), expect Nidoqueen to stay in the metagame for a little bit longer. 4/5 Limited: If you drafted Nidoran F and Nidorina, go for the Queen. Nidorina searches for it for free, and Toxic in Limited is broken. (I should know, I got owned by a Shuckle in the UF pre-release.) 3.5/5
Otaku	Skip straight to the scores and summary for a concise overview.   Name: Nidoqueen Set: EX Fire Red/Leaf Green Card#: 9/112 Rarity: Holographic-Rare Type: Fighting Stage: 2 (Evolves from Nidorina) HP: 120 Weakness: Grass Resistance: None Retreat: CC Poké-Body: Family Bonds As long as Nidoqueen is in play, the Retreat Cost for Nidoran ♀, Nidorina, Nidoran ♂, Nidorino, and Nidoking. Attack#1: (G) Toxic The Defending Pokémon is now Poisoned.  Put 2 damage counters instead of 1 on the Defending Pokémon between turns. Attack#2: (FCC) Power Lariat [40+] Does 40 damage plus 10 more damage for each Evolved Pokémon your have in play. Name: Nidorina Set: EX Fire Red/Leaf Green Card#: 40/112 Rarity: Uncommon Type: Grass Stage: 1 (Evolves from Nidoran ♀) HP: 80 Weakness: Psychic Resistance: None Retreat: C Attack#1: (C) Scratch [20] Attack#2: (CC) Fast Evolution Search your deck for up to 2 Evolution cards, show them to your opponent, and put them into your hand.  Shuffle your deck afterward. Name: Nidoran ♀ Set: EX Fire Red/Leaf Green Card#: 70/112 Rarity: Uncommon Type: Grass Stage: Basic HP: 50 Weakness: Psychic Resistance: None Retreat: (C) Attack#1: (C) Look for Friends Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Basic Pokémon.  Show that card to your opponent and put it into your hand.  Shuffle the other revealed cards into your deck.  (If you don’t reveal a basic Pokémon, shuffle all the revealed cards back into your deck.) Attack#2: (CC) Bite [20]   Attributes: Nidoqueen is a Stage 2 Pokémon, allowing her many benefits.  First, let me touch upon type: Fighting.  This was a solid type given the amount of Fighting Weakness in the RS-On era of Modified, and looks to also be in Hidd-On Modified.  Resistance exists, but isn’t heavily played, and there is still Crystal Shard and/or Magnetic Storm should it become a problem.   Next we see a wonderful 120 HP; as good as it gets for a non-Pokémon-ex.  Any mass healing will really hurt the opponent, and even minor healing like a Potion would have chance at buying Nidoqueen one more turn of existence.  Moving to the bottom stats, we see Grass Weakness.  While this was wonderful under the almost-expired RS-On Modified Format, it’s not uncommon for players to experiment heavily with that under-represented type during at least the early stages of the new Format.  In other words, expect a lot of Grass decks to spring up.  Even if they aren’t all that good, the sheer amount will likely be problematic.  I myself have seen some very good ones, and I wonder if reports that such decks weren’t played at Worlds were exaggerated…   Resistance is sadly non-existent.  Personally, I hate this, and hope they will one day realize it adds a certain richness to the game for it to be “assumed” with only very powerful cards lacking it for balance.  Oh well.   The last bottom stat is Retreat Cost.  Nidoqueen requires two Energy to retreat.  This isn’t too terrible, though if you can avoid paying it (via Switch or the like), I recommend doing so.   Of course, we can’t talk about Nidoqueen without looking at what she comes from.  Nidorina is fairly solid, able to deal a little damage.  More importantly, she can get two Evolutions from the deck, greatly aiding set up.  The Nidoran ♀ is pretty solid, if you must attack with it you can do a little damage, but more importantly you can get more Basics from your deck into your hand for a single Energy.  Together, they make setting up a lot easier.   Abilities: Family Bonds means that at the very least your lower Stages can retreat for free.  It is a solid Ability but to really capitalize upon it requires running a Nidoking line as well. Toxic, on the other hand, is very easy to take advantage of without a lot of consideration.  Its low cost means that you can Rare Candy into Nidoqueen, drop either a Double Rainbow Energy, a Rainbow Energy, or an actual Grass Energy and nail the opponent’s active right off the bat.  Without any further effort, most Basics that fail to shake the “double” Poison will be KO’d by the end of your next turn.  Just about anything else will like be finished off by the double Poison if you can follow up with a reasonably strong use of the last attack, Power Lariat.  If all you have is Nidoqueen and your have a Double Rainbow Energy attached and no bench, you’d still rack up a total of 100 points of damage, as Nidoqueen counts herself (+10) and 6 total damage counters from Toxic at that time (+60), then Double Rainbow Energy (-10) and the base damage of 40.  If you have the roughly average bench size of three Pokémon and all are Evolutions, even with a Double Rainbow Energy you’d be scoring a total of 130 points of damage.  When set up for maximum damage, on its own Power Lariat can hit for a fantastic 90 damage.  If you used Toxic before that and they haven’t managed to shake it, then it would be a total of 150 points of damage at the end of your Power Lariat (6 damage counters from Toxic’s double Poison triggering three times and then 90 from the actual attack).  The only complication is that you need a Fighting Energy in order to use Power Lariat.  Fortunately, since each attack only needs one specific kind of Energy (and one attack needs three total Energy), this will almost never matter.  All an all, one solid ability and two pretty good ones, when combined with their synergy, yields a potent card.   Uses and Combinations: The seemingly obvious combination is to run this with Nidoking from EX Fire Red/Leaf Green.  This was the foundation of the Monarchy deck.  Nidoking has a Poké-Body that makes it wonderful for bench sitting behind Nidoqueen: he adds 10 damage to the attacks of all other members of the Nido-line (provided the attack does damage to begin with).  This is wonderful for Power Lariat.  His first attack is so-so, but his second is quite nice for “cleaning”: Bound Crust may not be able to be used twice in a row, but since it does 60 to the opponent’s Pokémon of your choice, that’s still pretty solid.  The main issue is that Bound Crust needs two Fighting Energy (in addition to two Colorless Energy requirements).  That’s not too demanding, but its enough.   However, the reason we are reviewing Nidoqueen is that she has shown herself useful with other common and not so common “bench sitters”.  Any Evolved Pokémon with a useful Poké-Power or Poké-Body is a strong candidate to combine with the ‘Queen.  Magcargo with Smooth Over, Pidgeot to Quick Search, etc. all make sense.  The Worlds 2005 winning deck used a 1-1 line of Feebas/Milotic.  It also ran Pidgeot and plenty of Rare Candy to make it easy to just drop it into play to act like a super Pokémon Center, healing all damage (but without the nasty “discard all attached Energy” part).  Quite a clever idea.   Ratings   Unlimited: 3/5-The standard Mind Games Slowking backed option plus Pidgeot and perhaps a Quick-Searching Pidgeot.  Won’t be a new top deck, but should be able to work as a second or third stringer.   Modified: 3.5/5-Why so low?  First, I am reviewing for Hidd-On Modified, though honestly I don’t know if I would score it that much better in RS-On.  Reading Maron’s own report on Worlds and his deck, as well as talking to many other players, it’s more like Maron won Worlds.  Hard though it is to believe, it sounds more like constant play testing under adverse circumstances took a great player to the top with a good deck.   Limited: 4/5-The lower stages are great, and Toxic is fantastic in this format.  Power Lariat will likely not be so hot.  Of course, this assumes you get at least a 2-2-1 line to use.   Summary I may end up the odd reviewer out, but we learned last year that an unexpected deck in the hands of a great player can win Worlds… only to sink into the background again afterwards.  It happened with the Magma deck.  I think its going to happen again: Nidoqueen is good, but come next year I don’t think it will be a significance presence, at least not in the same deck.  Of course, I should finish by reminding all of you I favor Liabelity, that is, Deoxys Weezing and Fire Red/Leaf Green Victreebel, and that deck looks like it might be a problem for this, due to Weakness and the ability to eliminate a Nidoqueen in one hit.
Pidgeot5	Nidoqueen FRLG. Alright. This card is one of my favorites. Both the pokémon itself and what the thing actually does. Firstly let’s look at the basics. Nidoran female A very solid basic to start the game with. As long as you have an energy in the same hand (as well as having more then 6 pokémon in your deck) you are assured of getting another basic to help get the ball rolling, if it’s something you needed all the better for you. 2 colourless for bite 20 is average, you won’t be using this attack much, but that first attack is always a nice thing to have. Nidorina Not a bad stage 1, it finds other evolutions, one of which may be Nidoqueen herself, and the other allows you to do extra damage with the Queen or allow you to find say Pidgeot, or say Nidoking if you were playing it. 1 energy for 20 is alright too, good in a pinch due to its colourless cost. Nidoqueen The head honcho and unlike previous incarnations she is actually worthy of the title ‘Queen’. 120HP is great obviously and 2 retreat is doable although more often then not you’d just use Briney’s compassion on this. A single grass energy for toxic is excellent, it forces action from the opponent otherwise the damage done just adds up, especially if it’s an ex and desert ruins is in play. Most likely they will retreat, switch, briney, warp point whatever however they cannot keep this up forever, Toxic plays quite a good mind game and they will not want to be ko’ed by toxic when it becomes your turn because then you get a free shot at the next one as well. Power Lariat potentially does a 100 damage and seeing as modified is full of evolutions it shouldn’t be hard to get this thing doing 70-90. The body is useful when playing the other Nidos, however as proved Nidoqueen does not really need her husband in order to put harm onto the opponent, Pidgeot works a lot better as it finds these evolutions and Nidoking tends to take up more deck space then a lot of people would like. Unlimited: I actually played this in unlimited. Yeah it was a joke deck, but still it wasn’t a terrible disaster. I used Clefable/Muk/Nidoqueen, because Cleffa can evolve into Clefairy which saved a bit of space when trying to do good damage and you no longer need eeeks or whatever. It didn’t do too badly so if you’re looking for something to umm… ‘surprise’ your opponent with give it a shot. 3/5 Modified hl-on: In HL-on I can see this popping up especially with her majesty’s recent success. Tyranitar ex and Steelix ex are both weak to it and it still seems very much evolution based at this stage, no cards rotating out hurt her much. It’s tough to judge at this stage, but toxic is still highly annoying, and it can still do 70-90 without too much stress, for an non ex this is exceptional. 4.5/5 Limited: The basics for this line are outstanding, I got really poor cards for my frlg draft. The deck I played was described as ‘totally random’ by a friend, which means rubbish. However that aside I got 2 Nido female and 2 nidorina, they did help me find the 1/1 and 2/1 evolutions lines I was forced into playing. I didn’t win but these two cards were a great help to get me to third with a lot of sub par cards. As for Queen, Toxic again is fantastic and even more devastating when they simply cannot remove the poison, while you either build up something else or charge up the Queen and deal 40 maybe 50 as well as the poison, a nice line to have but mainly because her basics just allow you to set up either Queen herself or something bigger if your lucky enough to have it. 4/5