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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Good Rod   Wow . . . there hasn’t been a Fishing Rod card released for ages. We have had Old Rod and Super Rod in the dim and distant past, but now the time has come for Good Rod!   So, is it . . . ummm . . . .good?   Well, it’s certainly interesting. It’s a flippy card, but at least it gives you something no matter how the flip turns out: heads and you get to put a Pokémon from your Discard on the top of your deck; tails and you can do the same with a Trainer.   Getting non-Supporter recovery is nice. Getting recovery that doesn’t just shuffle into your deck is even better. With Good Rod you can effectively ‘fix’ your top deck on your next turn, providing the card you need is in your Discard. There are downsides though: you will have to wait a turn for the card you want, and the strategy is vulnerable to disruption. If your opponent plays Judge, Looker’s Investigation, Chatot G, Giratina etc during their turn, you can kiss goodbye to your carefully arranged topdeck. In fact, using Good Rod will be an open invitation to your opponent to play those cards.   For these reasons, if it is Pokémon recovery you are after, Pokémon Rescue is an infinitely better choice. On the other hand, Good Rod does offer you something that almost no other card does: the chance to re-use Trainer cards. Really, its only competition when it comes to that is the Supporter, Marley’s Request.   And yet Marley’s Request is barely played, and I think that Good Rod is destined to suffer the same fate. It’s flippy, can be disrupted, and does not offer instant recovery. The ability it offers makes you look twice at the card, but really you are better off maxing out on the Trainers your deck needs, rather than trusting to Good Rod.   Rating   Modified: 1.75 (has something to offer, but not reliably enough) Limited: 4 (any kind of recovery will be welcome here)
virusyosh	Happy midweek, Pojo viewers! Today we end this shortened week with Good Rod from the HS Unleashed expansion. Good Rod is a Trainer card that involves a flip. If you flip heads, you may search your discard pile for a Pokemon, show it to your opponent, and put it on the top of your deck. If tails, you search your deck for a Trainer, show it to your opponent, and put it on the top of your deck. First of all, having a coin flip makes this card incredibly unreliable. There will be times where you really want to get a Pokemon or Trainer back, only to flip the opposite of what you need. Additionally, this card puts the targeted Pokemon or Trainer on the top of your deck instead of in your hand, netting you negative card advantage (it's not even a 1 for 1). Finally, for returning Pokemon from the discard pile, Pokemon Rescue is a better alternative in every possible way, and since it's not rotating out, that would generally be a better choice than this card. Returning a Trainer from your discard pile is definitely great and can't be overlooked, but most of the time you will be running multiple copies of your important Trainers anyway, so you could just use normal card drawing methods like Uxie and Claydol to get to what you need. Modified: 1.5/5 Getting a Trainer back into your deck from the discard pile is really cool, but this card is flip-reliant and makes you lose card advantage. With the increase of hand disruption in the format, you probably won't want to run Good Rod here. Limited: 2.5/5 Much better here, where you probably won't be running many copies of Pokemon or Trainers. Getting that key evolution or Rare Candy next turn will still be clutch, even though your opponent will see it coming.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Good Rod (HS Unleahsed) This card fills a much needed hole in the TCG: a trainer that can restore other Trainers from the discard pile. Still, Like Marley's Request, there is an element of luck invloved. Good rod requires a coin flip; on heads, return a Pokemon from the discard pile to the top of your deck; if tails, return a Trainer card from the discard pile to the top of your deck. IMPORTANT: DO NOT SHUFFLE. We had that problem more than once at the local league, which made most player avoid what is actually a pretty decent card. However, the flip is still s problem, as is the fact that the Tariner/Pokemon does not return to the hand. Still, Claydol/Uxie/Ninteales can fix that, as can the little used Dodrio SV and Noctowl HGSS. Modified: 3 (flippy and requires a draw afterwards, but the best option I've seen for Trainer retrieval in Modified) Limited: 2 (actually not as useful here, but still can stop you decking yourself) Combos with: Draw Power!