Okay, the good news is I can do today’s CotD. The
bad news is that, once again, a lot of it will be
cut and pasted from the last two, due to the natural
similarities between the cards and my need to
conserve time.
Name:
Deoxys
Set:
EX Deoxys
Card#:
18/107
Stage:
Basic
Type:
Psychic
HP:
70
Weakness:
Psychic
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
(C)
Poké-Power:
Form Change
Once during your turn (before your attack), you
may search your deck for another Deoxys and switch it
with Deoxys. (Any cards attached to Deoxys, damage
counters, Special Conditions, and effects on it are now
on the new Pokémon.) If you do, put Deoxys on top of
your deck. Shuffle your deck afterward. You can’t use
more than 1 Form Change Poké-Power each turn.
Attack:
(PC) Barrier Attack [20]
During your next turn, any damage done to Deoxys by
attacks is reduced by 30 (after applying Weakness
and Resistance).
Attributes:
Deoxys is a Basic Pokémon, which is great: easy to
search out (Sandstorm Dunsparce, Great Ball,
etc.) and to get into play (just need an opening on your
bench). It is a Psychic Pokémon, which is good: Psychic
Weakness is seen in reasonable amounts (Sandstorm
Wobbuffet, Gardevoir, Gardevoir ex,
and Blaziken ex spring to mind). Resistance
isn’t as common as it used to be, but it does exist. 70
HP is solid for a Basic Pokémon that doesn’t Evolve and
has no Pre-Evolutions. It’s enough to take a few blows
from all but big Stage 1s and 2s (excluding Weakness).
It does have a Weakness: Psychic. Three out of the four
commonly played Psychic Weak Pokémon I listed are also
Psychic, so as you can tell that’s not a great Weakness
to have. Deoxys has no Resistance, which is
naturally the worst. Finally, we have a good retreat
cost of just one Energy, which is fairly easy to pay in
most circumstances.
Abilities:
Form Change is very nice. It allows all versions of
Deoxys to naturally combo, instead of them competing
for deck space. It also allows you to essentially have
a vast array of attacks on a single Pokémon. To my
knowledge, the only Deoxys currently available
are from EX Deoxys, and each has a single attack, but if
you run at least one of each (not too terribly
difficult) you’ll have three attacks to choose from via
Form Change. Very nice.
This is probably the best Deoxys, although that
may not be saying much given my estimation of the
potency of those Pokémon. Completely on is own, this
Deoxys --referred to as Deoxys (Defense) –
would still be an okay opener. Its attack and the
synergy said attack has due to its reasonable cost and
this card’s solid HP. Barrier Attack needs (PC), which
isn’t too hard to pay: even outside of a Psychic
Energy running deck one could use Multi Energy
or Rainbow Energy. The damage is a hair low
for that price: if you’ve forgotten, each (C) energy
requirement should yield about 10 damage, and (CCC) is
equal to (XX), where X is a specific Energy type
requirement of the same type such as (PP), (FF), etc.
For those bad at math, that means a single Energy type
requirement would yield 15 damage. Well, obviously we
don’t see 25 damage (P+C or 10+15) for this attack since
Pokémon uses even increments of 10 for damage, but at
the same time we need to get what we paid for. Well,
that extra Energy usually goes into an effect. On
Deoxys, we have a very nifty effect: damage done by
attacks to Deoxys next turn is reduced by 30!
Obviously, that’s a bit much to compensate 5 damage (or
half a (C) Energy requirement), but then we remember
that Deoxys is a Basic without any Pre-Evolutions
or Evolved forms, and it works out just right.
I said the attack had some Synergy with the card’s other
abilities, and here it is. First, with 70 HP, it means
an opposing Pokémon’s attack has to do 100 damage to KO
Deoxys (assuming it just used this attack) in one
hit, or 80 for two hits, 60 for three hits, etc.
Anything scoring less than 30 damage (and of course,
assuming no other effect) can’t touch Deoxys.
Second, thanks to form change, you can switch Deoxys
(Attack) on the next turn, add one more Energy, and
probably score a quick KO against many decks. Assuming
you survive (probable against some decks that will need
time to recover), you can then switch back to peck away
while they build up their new attacker and try to repeat
the process.
Uses and
Combinations:
This is the Deoxys to run, probably supported by
the “Attack” form. Combined with either extra Energy
attachments (common to most top decks), Energy
manipulation (still pretty common to most decks), and
good Pokémon manipulation (not as common, but still not
rare) you can speed this up quite a bit. For example,
maybe you TecH this and one “Attack” form into a Dark
Heart (Dark Dragonite/Electrode) deck. Shift a
Dark Metal Energy and play a Rainbow Energy
(or if it works with your theme, run actual Psychic
Energy), and you have a decent shot at opening with this
first turn (and on its own Dark Electrode can
have it ready for second turn. Do I recommend this?
Probably not, but thinking this way can lead to other
combo. You can use Swoop! Teleporter to turn a
Dunsparce into this for a solid opener as a more
realistic example. Energy Switch could be useful
as well.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.25/5-The Deoxys cards just aren’t that great
here, and damage is too high for 30 to matter in most
cases. Might work in a Wall/Stall deck if you can avoid
running into Baby Pokémon (unlikely).
Modified:
3.25/5-Start with it to peck at them safely early game,
then switch out to the “Attack” version we reviewed on
Wednesday for a surprise assault. Not enough for their
own deck, but if we can find some decent support…
Pidgeot and Bellosom maybe?
Limited:
3.5/5-If you pull more than one Deoxys, it’s
worth a 4/5. Pulling multiple copies of this “series”
of Rares was a comparatively common occurrence in this
set. Expect to see it in once in roughly every ten
decks with a second or third Deoxys (usually of a
different “form”). On its own, it can just be a good
opener for splashing a little Psychic into your deck.
You’ll have to worry about Special Conditions and the
like more in this format, but cards like this are why
you try to run those anyway. ;) If you pull this with a
copy of the “Attack” version like I did, you’ll get a
great boost to your deck.
Summary
The best of the Deoxys (excluding the Pokémon-ex
versions), its still not strong enough on its own.
However, all the Deoxys are basics that need but
a single Psychic Energy for their attacks
(though needing one or two of any Energy to finish it
off), allowing them to be added as a support line into
almost any deck.
-Otaku
