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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Bullados	Kirlia Attributes: Considering that this is a stage 1 with a stage 2 evolution, it has to be good enough to stand a couple of shots without dying, but also be able to get out of there at a moment's notice. 70 HP is certaintly enough to keep it going for a while, at least a couple of attacks until your Gardy is ready. Weakness to Psychic is expected, but very unfortunate, as there is too much Psychic out there that is very powerful. A retreat of 1 is good enough for this guy, low enough that a Switch isn't warrented most of the time. Attack #1: [PC] "Psypunch" Another classic filler attack. Again, fairly standard damage for the amount of energy put into the attack, with no text to make the attack better or worse. Good enough for the purpose. Attack #2: [CCC] "Mind Shock" Powered by a Boost or Scramble, and deals a straight 40 damage that is essentially not reduced is good, but the not applying weakness part kinda sux, especialy when going up against a classic Psychic Pokemon that would easily OHKO Kirlia under most circumstances. Ratings: Unlimited: Unfortunately, the rating of this card is directly tied in with its evolution's usefulness, which is pretty much nill. Low energy costs and a plethora of Psychic Resistances in the format make Gardy a weak choice for this format. Mind Shock is nice on this card, but costs too much, even with the Boost or PDCE energies. 1.5/5 Modified: Again, this card's rating cannot be completely on its own. It has to take into account the other stage 1s that it has to compete with, as well as the usefullness of its evolution. Fortunately, Gardy is still a top deck. However, I believe that there is another Kirlia that is better suited for the deck than this one is. By far, this is the second best Kirlia for the Gardevoir deck, but the RS one with the Removal attack is the best. 3/5 Limited: There is very little resistance to Psychic in Emerald, but a whole lot of Weakness, which means that the big attack is utterly useless. However, if you manage to get a 3-2 or even a 2-1 of him in a Sealed tourney, don't hesitate to use him. Anything with those kind of numbers is always good. 3.5/5 ~Bullados ~~Bullados@comcast.net
Hinkbert	Kirlia A new set with set rotation around the corner means new versions of the favorites. So we have a new Ralts, Kirlia and Gardevoir. Outside of limited the only reason to use a Kirlia is in a Garde deck so after looking at the stats I’ll compare this one to the others to see how it stacks up. First it has 70 Hp, psychic weakness and a retreat of 1, all the standards. First attack for 2 energy, at least 1 psychic does 30 damage, second attack needs 3 of any energy and does 40 ignoring weakness and resistance. The second attack is boostable which is good, but ignores weakness which is bad, especially in an environment where psychic resistance is no where near as common as psychic weakness, plus magnetic storm can get around resistance. Although is some regards it helps to keep things balanced by forbidding a player to evolved first turn and easily KO a solitary psychic weak Pokemon for a quick win, a rather cheap tactic that’s happened to me by starting with Dratini and facing a Pidgey that evolves and gets boosted, but I digress. So let’s compare. There’s only one other Kirlia that has a 2 energy attack and it does 20 damage plus a chance of paralysis. It’s kind of difficult to judge which is better, I tend to side with the 30 damage since it causes more damage, and paralysis is usually a stall tactic relegated to weaker Pokemon, but neither one’s exceptionally better so go with what works. There are 3 Kirlia that all have a 3 energy attack, the other 2 besides this one do either 50 damage and require 1 psychic, or the other does 60 damage, also requiring a psychic, but the damage is reduced to 30 is there’s an energy discrepancy between your active and your opponent’s. The Kirlia I haven’t mentioned is entirely luck based, but has the potential to be the most powerful, for 1 energy it has an attack that can confuse, or for 1 psychic energy is has tails/fails attack that reduces your opponent’s Pokemon to having 10 Hp left. Ultimately I wouldn’t say that this is the best Kirlia, but it’s far from the worst, especially since all of them require different situations to be present to be the most potent. This new version is a good replacement since it is expected that the R/S and SS versions will be rotated out, but it isn’t so good that is should replace all the Kirlias now. It’s worth while to throw one in a deck, but I’d mix it up for now and include at least one of the other versions, if not 2 depending on how many your running for some variety and fun. Unlimited 1/5 The strength of Kirlia relies on Gardevoir, or it would have to do something special on its own (i.e. the SS one with its interesting attack) to survive in this format. Since Gardy decks rely on a high amount of energy and this is the land of ER & SER they are pretty useless here. Modified 2.5/5 Same statement of strength applies here, and Gardy seems to be getting stronger, at least where I’m at. As already mentioned this Kirlia isn’t in essence any better than the others so it’s placed squarely in the middle. Limited 2.25/5 This rating is by itself, not to sound like a broken record but if you draft Gardy then Kirlia’s a better card. By itself it’s actually kind of weak basically because the 3 energy Mind Shock attack becomes expensive and less effective. For instance the one Grumpig in this set does 40 damage for only 2 energy and that attack takes weakness into account. So there are better stage 1’s, of course you usually stuck with what you pull so it’s often not much of a choice.
PokeGuru	Kirlia EX Emerald - 33/106 - Uncommon   I can see this Pokemon being played a fair bit. We've seen the devastation of Gardy decks before and this might assist it. Its 2 Energy attack can do 30 damage whilst its 3 energy attack does 40, but isn't affected by Weakness or Resistance.   The problem I see with this card is the fact that the 3 Energy attack isn't affected by weakness or resistance. That attack would be extremely useful against Fighting and some Psychic decks, where it would OHKO most Stage 1s if affected by Weakness. Also, Resistance isn't all that big to worry about as not many Pokemon have resistance to Psychic. It has a relatively standard HP for the Stage 1s in this set, so that's ok, but against Zapdos ex, like a lot of the cards this past week...you know where this is going.   Still, with a low retreat cost and relatively good attacks, it's worth that risk.   Unlimited: 3/5 Standard, pretty good.   Modified: 2/5 There are better versions available, otherwise OK.   Draft: 3/5 Nice constant attacks for small amounts of energy are quite good here.   Later, PokeGuru pokeguru@gmail.com