Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles

Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play

Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel

GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual

Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar

Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List

Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
- Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us

Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Jigglypuff13	3/9 Dustox Lv.42 (PL) The start of a new week brings more COTD's, and we start with the some persons favourite moth, Dustox! The card has turned a few heads, but before we get to why, it's time for the basics of the card. First off, 130 HP on a Stage 2 is about average at the moment, so should be able to survive a hit or 2. +30 Fire Weakness might be quite annoying, but due to the fact that no one knows what's going to be popular at states (will new Grass decks be big, so people anti-metagame with Fire, or will people still play Kingdra and other Water types to make Fire useless?), the Weakness might hurt or it might be non-existent in the metagame. I believe it will be the latter because I can't really remember any Fire Pokémon that might be used at the moment, other than the new Blaziken (PL), and maybe people using Infernape based decks or Magmortar (SW), I don't see many Fire types really making an impact at the moment, so I'm inclined to say that the weakness isn't too bad. No Resistance is something we can gloss over, but no Retreat Cost is just brilliant, perfect for getting hurt Dustox's back to the bench. Abilities now, and the reason it turned heads is for the Poké-Body, Camouflage Pattern. Essentially, you get a permanent agility effect against Pokémon effected by 2 or more Special Conditions. That is great, but obviously, you need to be able to get 2 Special Conditions on your opponents active to be able to make use of this effect, and only 3 out of the 5 you can do will have any effect (Poison, Burn and Confuse) since the others stop them from attacking. There are some easy ways of doing 2 of these Special Conditions, which I'll talk about later. The first attack does inflict one of these Special Conditions. Smogscreen does a meagre 20 for GC, but it also inflicts auto-Poison, so you only need one more Special Condition to bring Camouflage Pattern into play, and also gives the usual Smokescreen effect of making your opponent flip a coin if they try to attack with their current active during their turn, with tails meaning fails. I'm not a big fan of Smokescreen effects, since you can retreat out of it (and thus, also get rid of Poison), and there's still a 50% chance of being hit anyway. However, it's not too bad of a secondary attack. The second attack is better. Chemical Scale uses GCC for 60, which is average. However, the effect isn't too bad. If the defending Pokémon has a Poké-Power or Body (which, lets face it, most Pokémon do nowadays), then you Confuse and Burn them as well. This means that, in one attack, you have just activated Camouflage Pattern with one attack. Still, there are Pokémon who won't be effected by this, mainly Toxicroak G (PL), Kingdra (LA) and Pokémon with Unown G (GE) attached, so you will find Chemical Scale be useless on a large number of Pokémon in the metagame, so you still need support to get Camouflage Pattern into play. So, what are the best ways of inflicting 2 Special Conditions then? Well, there are 2 good Pokémon with Poké-Powers that are good for this as far as I can tell. First, we have Blaziken (PL), who will instantly Burn your opponents active each turn. It's a Stage 2, which is quite annoying, but since Dustox it already one as well, it's manageable. The second is Skuntank G (PL), who, if you have a Stadium in play, will Poison all non-SP active Pokémon. There are 3 weaknesses with this card as far as I can tell. First, you need a Stadium in play, and people will be playing a lot of counter Stadiums at the moment due to the popularity of G decks. Secondly, you will find Dustox Poisoned by this method, meaning you will need to heal Dustox, unless you want to lose 10 damage inbetween turns. Thirdly, it doesn't effect G Pokémon, and since they will be a big part of the metagame, you won't be able to Poison a lot of the metagame. Still, they are the best ones with Poké-Powers. If you after an attack who will inflict Special Conditions, it might be best to go with Dustox's pal, Beautifly (PL), who, with enough energies attached, will happily inflict a lot of Special Conditions. However, Beautifly deserves it's own deck, so you are best of using Dustox as a tech in Beautifly decks, rather than the other way round. There are others that will inflict a lot of Special Conditions, but none are quite as good as Beautifly. Counters, well, first off, there's the obvious one which is the fact that you can just Retreat out of all of your Special Conditions, making Camouflage Pattern worthless. However, if you want to counter this, then you could use Ariados (MT) or Dugtrio (PL), who can convince your opponent to keep their active in place. Unfortunately, neither of these effect cards like Switch, Warp Point, or Poké-Powers like Teleportation, so those will still annoy you a lot. Also, Evolving and Leveling Up get rid of Special Conditions, meaning you can only really use your Special Conditions against fully evolved Pokémon to be effective. Ratings: Modified: I like the idea of this card, with Camouflage Pattern seeming like a nice little Poké-Body that can stop everything, but it's just too easy to get rid of Special Conditions, which makes Camouflage Pattern useless. You can stop some of these ways, but most you can't. The attacks are all right but they are slightly underpowered, and while the effects are nice, they are easy to get out of again. It's a nice idea, but I don't think it will work in practice. won't stop me from try though! 2.75/5 Limited: If you have a way of inflicting a Special Condition other than Poison, which can be inflicted by Smogscreen, then this card will become invincible, since your opponent is less likely to Retreat and waste precious energies than normal, and are less likely to evolve since there are less evolutions here. However, it's just inflicting the other Special Condition, which is still quite tough. 3/5
Meganium45	Not much time today, as we are gearing for States, but here we go… Dustox…always a good card, but somehow always falls JUST short of being a top tier contender. This one is EXACTLY that. First…130 HP, Free Retreat, Weakness to Fire….all GREAT bottom stats. I could live with this. Psychic type, so all weak to psychic stuff could be in trouble…and spashable in a grass deck as an interesting twist. Pokebody…2 special conditions? Really? Talk about FAILING before you start. This body is so avoidable, that, well, a new player may fall for it, but any other player will NEVER get suckered by this Body. Attacks. Smogscreen for Grass and 1. You poison it, and then tell it if it stays active it has to flip to attack. Talk about DEMANDING a retreat or evolve! Not happy with that. For 2 energy, actually undercosted. Second attack…60 and if they have a power or body, then they are burned and confused….this could be VERY useful…I just wish it was poisoned and burned…but so be it. Once again, you are FORCING the retreat or evolve. If it was Paralyzed and burned…man, we may have a TIER 1 card…but we don’t. Not an SP, so energy gain won’t help. OK, if you face this thing, play smart and you will be OK. If you play a high retreat cost deck, this card could give you fits! Good news, after round 3, it should be 1-2, so you can go on about your business without worry any further. Ratings… Modified 3/5 A lot of good attributes, no great attribute. Limited..2/5 Getting a stage 2 line is difficult, but you may be able to pull this off, as NOONE else will think that this card has been drafted. Then you just have to get all the pieces out, and you will usually have lost by then. See you all VERY soon at a States near you!
Eevee PSC Online TCG League	-Monday- Hey everyone! ^^ Eevee here! Yikes, I haven't done a review in a while... Well, hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things starting this week! ^^ And to start the week off we're reviewing one of those pokemon you know everyone has raised at least once. That's right! It's the Hoenn bug, Dustox! Let's look at it's stats and attacks. Poke'Body: Camouflage Pattern - Prevent all effects of an attack, including damage, done to Dustox by your opponents Pokemon that has 2 or more special conditions. (G)(C) Smogscreen - 20 damage - The Defending Pokemon is now poisoned. If the Defending Pokemon tries to attack during your opponents next turn, your opponent flips a coin. If tail that attack does nothing. (G)(C)(C) Chemical Scale - 60 damage - If the Defending Pokemon has any poke'bodies, the Defending Pokemon is now Burned and Confused. Type: Psychic HP: 130HP Weakness: Fire, 30+ Resistance and Retreat: None. Ok, now for the review. First of all it's Poke'Body. Personally I don't like it at all. It can only come into effect if you've managed to get at least two special conditions on your opponents. And as far as I've seen in the games I've played, that's no easy task. Between switching, trainers (Double FUll Heal) and d-evolving it's way to easy to remove the conditions. Unless you have something in play that prevents the removing of conditions. Like Heatran Lv.X's ability. Attack wise it's a little costly of a pokemon to use. It's first attack, Smogscreen, only does 20 damage for two energy. I've seen some free attacks do more damage without the drawback of needing energy. It's secondary effect is ok tho. Poisoning and causing a 50/50 chance of landing an attack. It's second attack, Chemical Scale, isn't too bad. It is a bit high cost for the way I play but still within range for a 60 daage attack. Other then causing some pretty heavy damage (enough to KO most basic and some stage 2's) it also burns and confuses. Now this one isn't too bad if you combine it with a stat-removing block like Heatran. It could easily help you KO a opponents pokemon at least one turn sooner. Plus having to flip for an attack is nice. AT least is is when your not the one flipping. ^^' In all i think this card could possibly work in a deck if you know how to keep the stats on your opponents pokemon. Personally tho, I wouldn't use it much. I'd much rather use the Platinum Beautifly. (Which I actually pulled two of in my first Platinum pack!) Modified: 2.5/5 Limited: 2/5