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

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Magnezone Prime   Ever since players learned that they would be losing Claydol GE in the September rotation, they have been frantically searching for possible replacements among the spoilers for future sets. One early suggestion was Magnezone Prime. Could it possibly fill the gap? Does it have any merit as an attacker? Let’s take a look at the card and find out.   Magnezone has nice HP, a Fighting Weakness which will only be a real problem against Donphan and Machamp Prime, and a resistance to Metal which won’t matter most of the time, but is better than nothing. The Retreat cost of three does hurt, especially now that Magnezone DP has left the format.   The reason for those Claydol comparisons lies in Magnezone’s superficially similar Magnet Draw PokePower. Once per turn, you may draw cards until you have six in hand. Notice that, unlike Claydol, you don’t get to return any cards to your deck before drawing, so if you wanted to cycle cards, or had a hand of six in the first place, Magnezone would not be much help. Could it be the next best thing though? Well, I’ll let you into a secret about Claydol . . . it was a horrible card to run: a Stage 1 that took up four deck slots, had a useless attack, and was an easy Prize for decks that could snipe or force it active. The reason players put up with all that? The consistent draw power it gave was so amazing that it was worth all the hassle.   So, bearing in mind Magnezone is slower, needs more space than Claydol, and has a Power which is nowhere near as good, its chances of replacing that card as the universal draw support Pokémon are not good. In a dedicated Magnezone deck, where you are running the pre-evolutions anyway? Sure, it may be worth a slot. After all, it does have an attack which may be usable with the right support . . .   Lost Burn is reasonably priced at [L][C] and will do 50 damage for each Energy card you discard from your Pokémon to the Lost Zone. Straight away you can see that the cost is deceptive, as you will need more than just the Energy attached to Magnezone to use it consistently. One possibility is to use it with Magnezone SF’s Super Conductivity Power to at least try and hit 100 per turn. Another option is combining it with Feraligatr Prime’s Rain Dance to put as much Energy as you need on to Feraligatr and the Lost Zone it for the attack. Either way, because the Energy you spend doing the attack is not recoverable, your deck will need to run a larger than normal amount of Energy. This, together with the fact it is dependant on Stage 2 Support, means that it will likely be too slow and inconsistent to use as a main attack, but could be a decent option for those times when you really need to one-shot something big.   So, no new Claydol for us then . . . what we have instead is a card which gives Magnezone decks a bit of a helping hand. Now all we have to do is work out which of the many, many Magnezones we should partner it with.   Rating   Modified: 3 (No use as generic draw, but a decent themed support card) Limited: 3 (draw is brilliant, but getting Stage 2s out is very difficult)   Combos with . . .   Magnezone SF Feraligatr Prime
virusyosh	Happy midweek, Pojo readers! Today we continue Triumphant Prime week by reviewing a card that was very hyped before the set's release. Today's Card of the Day is Gengar Prime. Gengar is a Stage 2 Psychic Pokemon. Gengars are very commonly played in the current metagame, with Gengar SF, Gengar AR (Curse), and Gengar Lv. X all seeing high-level play in VileGar or other similar builds. With all of these Gengars being played, can Gengar Prime fit in? As for its top and bottom stats, 130 HP is decent for a Stage 2, but could probably afford to be a bit higher, as this is a Prime. Darkness weakness isn't terrible, though look out for Tyranitar and Absol. Colorless resistance is great for all of the Garchomp Cs flooding the metagame. Finally, free retreat is amazing. Gengar Prime's Poke-Body, Catastrophe, has the possibility of being very powerful, and is one of the reasons why Gengar Prime was so hyped. If Gengar is your Active Pokemon and any of your opponent's Pokemon are KOed, they go to the Lost Zone. This can easily screw up many decks by eliminating their main attackers, and prevents recursion through things like Rescue Energy, Pokemon Rescue, or Night Maintenance/Palmer's Contribution/Flower Shop Lady. It especially screws up Gyarados decks, which are reliant on Magikarps to do damage. Finally, this body also has important implications if the Lost World stadium is ever released in the US: Catastrophe makes it that much easier to get the necessary Pokemon in the Lost Zone. To cause further disruption and put even more Pokemon into the Lost Zone, Hurl into Darkness does quite well. For [P], you look at your opponent's hand and choose a number of Pokemon equal to the amount of Psychic Energy attached to Gengar and put them into the Lost Zone. Again, quite a fantastic way to disrupt your opponent (especially if they just bounced a Lv. X to their hand from the discard, for example) and can be potentially crippling, even though it doesn't do damage. The last attack, Cursed Drop, allows you to put 4 damage counters on your opponent's Pokemon in any way you like for [PC]. This works really well with Gengar Lv. X, as this provides more targets for Compound Pain, which can do well to snipe and get crucial damage in for the KO. This attack probably isn't quite as good as Gengar SF's Shadow Room, however. Modified: 3/5 Gengar Prime is excellent. The amount of disruption it provides is powerful, and it has great synergy with previously existing Gengar decks. The biggest problem is finding a deck slot for it, but if you can fit it in, it's definitely worth a try. Limited: 4/5 It's a Stage 2 and that's difficult to get out, but the disruption Hurl into Darkness provides is great. Cursed Drop is a bit low in terms of damage output, though it should do a great job of sniping your opponent's bench. Combos With: Gengar Lv. X
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Magnezone Prime (HS Triumphant)   Here is a card we have all been waiting for: Magnezone Prime, the new Claydol!   I would like to stress right now that Magnezone is definitely not Claydol, and cannot be played the same way as Claydol, nor will it fit into decks that same way Claydol used to. Not that it is bad card (I think it is an awesome card!) but it is NOT Claydol.   Okay, now the stats. This is a Lightning Stage 2 Pokémon with 140 HP, Fighting weakness, Metal resistance and a retreat cost of 3. The massive health is a huge reason for this card being playable, and the Lightning type makes it easy to tech in Lightning energy to use the attack (since Luxray is so common as a tech) as well as making Magnezone searchable by its cousin, Magnezone SF (the one with Magnet Search and Metal typing). The other stats are bad, with the weakness making it easy for Machamp and Donphan to quickly remove Magnezone from play while the retreat cost is hefty (but fair) and makes getting dragged active a serious problem. Being a Stage 2 is also a problem, as devolution will ruin you if you use Rare Candy while Broken Time Space users will need to draw more cards in order to play Magnezone (which is a bit of conundrum, since you are playing Magnezone to get draw power in the first place!)   Now the abilities. Magnezone has a Pokepower and an attack, both of which are powerful.   Magnetic Draw is the power, and once during your turn allows you to draw cards from your deck until you have 6 cards in your hand (it stacks, yay!). Obviously the only way to demonstrate the awesomeness of this power is to compare it to the other draw power cards available.   First we have Pokémon with draw Pokepowers (I’m going to ignore Pokémon that attack to draw as they are starters, not draw techs). They are Uxie LA/Lv X, Ninetales HGSS and Dodrio SV/Noctowl HGSS. Trainer/Supporter based draw power includes Engineer’s Adjustments, Volkner’s Philosophyand a bunch of shuffle/draw cards (Cynthia’s Feelings, Professor Oak’s New Theory, Copycat, Looker’s Investigation and Judge). Other draw Trainer/Supporter cards do exist, but they are more for thinning the deck than actual draw power so I won’t mention them here.   Uxie gives a one-hit draw of up to 7 cards, with a consistent draw of 1 extra card (while thinning the deck by 2 cards) if you play the Level Up. Obviously this is a bit tricky, but the basic Uxie provides the fastest draw and has many situational uses while a decent attack on the Lv X makes the pair the most playable draw currently in the game. Other reviewers have already sung Uxie’s praises to the sky, so read the reviews for more info.   Then there is Ninetales HGSS. At the cost of discarding a Fire energy, you draw 3 cards. Obviously this only works as long as you have energy to burn (pun intended) but you don’t have to worry about regulating the size of your hand in order to get the best draw and Typhlosion Prime matches up beautifully. Currently a favourite of CharPhlosion players and anyone using an SP deck with Infernape E4, Blaziken FB and/or Charizard G.   Then there are the 2 weird birds, Dodrio and Noctowl. Both have powers stating that you can draw 1 extra card per turn, and the powers stack if you feel like filling your bench. However, most players want more for their investment and the stats mean that Luxray scores an instant kill on both birds so it is extremely rare for them to be played competitively.   As for the Supporters, Engineer’s Adjustments is the most consistent draw and is useful in decks that like to have energy in the discard pile (works well in tandem with Ninetales). Volkner’s Philosophy is basically a poor man’s Uxie and burns your Supporter use to boot, so it isn’t used much. Then you have all of the shuffle/draw options, which all have their situational uses and are good for clearing out your hand, but again they burn a Supporter use for the turn so you can’t use a Supporter you may draw until next turn. Also, sometimes you need to keep certain cards you already have which makes shuffle/draw a bad idea.   Now we enter Magnezone. As soon as you get it into play, you can draw several cards each turn at no additional cost, provided you can shed some cards from your hand each turn. No other card since Claydol has been able to do this (not that the other draw cards are bad). As a bonus, the huge HP means that snipers will have a much harder time taking Magnezone out while main attackers will have trouble taking Magnezone out, even if it is dragged Active (a major problem for Claydol).   The downside is that Magnezone, unlike other forms of draw power in the game, is difficult to stack and won’t get much benefit from multiple power uses (unless the first use gets Power Sprayed, in which case stacking the power is very useful!). Also, it has the potential to become useless if you have a large hand, since the maximum limit is five cards in your hand if you want to use Magnetic Draw and it can’t be used to return cards to the deck like Claydol could. I’m not saying the power is overhyped, but you need to be aware of potential threats and problems.   Now the attack. While the Pokepower is the main selling point (as well as the health that keeps Magnezone alive to use said power) the attack is by no means useless. For the cost of LC, Lost Burn allows you to send as many energy attached to your Pokémon as you like to the Lost Zone. The payoff is 50 damage per energy sacrificed in this way. While the cost is too steep to justify using this attack continually (even if you use energy acceleration to keep up with the loss, you only have so many energy in your deck) it is great for pulling back in an emergency, since 3 energy will give you the magic number of 150 damage (I say magic because that kills most Stage 2 Pokémon even with an Expert Belt). There is the problem of powering Magnezone in an emergency, but if you have one energy attached ready for trouble, you can attach a second and then sacrifice whatever energy you have in play.   The real question is what decks you can run Magnezone in. Basically, there are 2 questions you need to ask yourself: Do I run Rare Candy? Can I tech in Lightning energy?   If you answered yes to both of the above, then by all means you should run Magnezone Prime, along with a backup like Uxie to get you started. Generally it is easy to tech in the energy as so many people like to use Luxray GL, but if you don’t run any other Stage 2 Pokémon then you should run different draw techs.   For instance, dedicated SP decks would not do very well running Magnezone Prime (hybrids like LuxPluff and Gengar might be different but some of them won’t like Magnezone much at all) and CharPhlosion won’t run this card unless they switch to BlazePhlosion, which has proven to be a far less powerful deck. Also, you have to consider the number of slots you are dedicating to Magnezone: running a 1-0-1 line is easy but ruins the consistency while a heavier 2-1-2 or 2-2-2 line really eats into the deck space, especially since you have to run another draw tech to help you set up Magnezone in the first place (the speed of setup is another issue with Magnezone).   In the end though, Magnezone will answer the prayers of many and will make a serious entrance in the metagame, and will probably remain until it rotates out in a few years. Just don’t assume this card plays the same way as Claydol, OK?
conical	Magnezone Prime(Triumphant) When I started playing the Pokemon TCG, I was under the impression that it was intended for children. And most times, it seems like this is the case. But how can I justify thinking that when they print Magnezone Prime, who is clearly throwing gang signs in plain view? I mean really. Anyways, it's Magnezone Prime, whose main draw is its Power, which lets you add cards to your hand until you have 6 cards.(See what I did there?) Since Claydol GE was rotated, the only viable source of draw has been Uxie, its Level X, and Ninetales HGSS for Fire decks, so another potential draw engine is always nice. Magnezone is not without its problems, however. For one, if you have a large but useless hand, Magnetic Draw doesn't help you, whereas Claydol let you not only draw cards, but move useless cards out of your hand. The other major concern is that it's a Stage 2, which are considerably harder to use as a draw engine, especially in a format bent on Knocking Out everything in sight, or Trainer lock, which makes Magnezone harder to get into play. Also, its attack, Lost Burn, deals a fair amount of damage, but moving energy to the Lost Zone makes it more situational. Like Ninetales, I feel that this will be less of an all-purpose draw engine, and will be used moreso in specific decks. Thankfully, Magnezone is already a viable, if rarely-used, archetype, and should be a massive benefit for the deck. Also, in Limited, you could probably win entire games with this card on its own, provided you get it out. Modified: 3.5/5 Limited: 4.25/5 Combos With: Magnezone SF, The other Magnezone SF ----
Otaku	Once again I pestered Bondiborg for some ideas.  If you’ve got his ear, feel free to encourage him in article endeavors: he is knowledgeable in the game and can actually write!  He even has some significant wins to his credit.   Magnezone is a Stage 2, so it will take a good bit of your deck’s space to run it.  Lightning Weakness is pretty common on the cards themselves, but since we’ve had at least one prominent Lightning deck recently, many of those cards have been shunned or are being played in a manner to cover that Weakness.  140 HP is quite good, though the Fighting x2 Weakness means a card like Donphan Prime just needs another +20 points of damage for the OHKO (and of course, that is what Plus Power are for).  At least you enjoy Metal Resistance -20, which will come in handy some match-ups.  Make sure you pack some cards to get around the chunky Retreat Cost: at (CCC) you don’t want to have to discard that much Energy if you can avoid it.   Magnezone Prime has a Poké-Power and a single attack.  The Poké-Power, Magnetic Draw allows you to draw until you have six cards in hand: pretty nice but remember if your deck is focused on Magnezone it has to (of course) be in play before you can use this.  It can aid in setting up the rest of the playing field, but you’ll still need a solid draw/search engine to set up Magnezone Prime itself.  The attack, Lost Burn, is Energy intensive but potent.  It only requires (LC) to use, but the attack requires removing Energy attached to your Pokémon and sending it to the Lost Zone to do any damage; 50 points per Energy card put in the Lost Zone via this attack.  We’ve been a bit spoiled lately: it clearly states “Energy card” so a Double Colorless Energy is only good for 50 points of damage.   With at least a little Energy acceleration, you should be able to score several OHKOs in a row with this card, but the catch is that unless you’re pulling Energy from your hand or deck, you’ll need an extra step.  You can’t recycle the same Energy cards over and over again like you would if they were merely discarded.  Still, at 50 points of damage per Energy card you can rack up the Prizes pretty quick.  The attack says “from your Pokémon” so you can leave whatever is already on Magnezone intact.  If you can manage to remove two Energy cards a turn, you’ll be hitting for a respectable 100 points of damage: most cards being one or two hit KO’d.   So how does this card interact with the other Magnemite, Magneton and Magnezone cards?  It looks like we have four Magnemite, four Magneton and four other Magnezone plus a Level X form to work with.  To my delight, all have either Metal Resistance -20 or Psychic -20.  You also can choose between Fighting and Fire Weakness.  When possible, I’d go with the Metal versions as being Fire Weak and Psychic Resistant seems more favorable.  For the lower Stages, I’d say the card effects are all on even footing so use the Metal for their bottom stats.   The two Promo versions are purely attackers, but each has a decent low cost attack and a big, fat attack.  I don’t see a really good combo with today’s version, nor are they such good attackers as to make me want to run them instead of enjoying a solid attack with a great Poké-Power (again, today’s CotD).  The other Magnezone all have Poké-Powers.  The first Stormfront Magnezone has a Poké-Power (Magnetic Search) that seems redundant when enjoy Magnezone Prime’s raw draw power.  Its attacks are so-so: sniping and passable damage with a single Lightning Energy discard.  It is a Metal Type though: good if we can justify running the Special Energies, and it gives it a preferable Weakness/Resistance.  The second Magnezone from Stormfront gives you an extra Energy attachment from the discard pile once per turn, but only to the Active Pokémon and it puts a damage counter on it.  It has an attack that hits for 60 before giving you the option to shunt it to the Bench, and forces the opponent to change out as well (after damage) if you do.  I think the latter of the two might be a good combo piece for our new one, though they will need something more.   That something more is Magnezone Lv.X.  Sadly, it isn’t going to up the HP of Magnezone Prime as they have the same score.  It will give you a way to shift your Type to Metal, your Weakness to Fire x2 and your Resistance to Psychic -20.  This allows you adjust to your metagame within your deck, which is always nice, and now all the Metal versions of the “family” won’t detract from Magnezone Prime, but enhance it (e.g. this way Magnezone Prime can use Special Energy Metal Energy to soak damage).  Magnezone Lv.X has a Poké-Power that allows you to move Energy that provide Lightning and Metal around on your Pokémon, and an attack that requires discarding one Lightning and one Metal Energy but only costs (LM) to use while hitting for 80 damage and automatic Paralysis.   So it all comes together.  You’d be tight on space, but you could run two Magnezone Prime with one of the Level X and one of the Energy recycling version from Stormfront.  Two Magnezone to draw cards should make managing it all easier, including cards to recycle that Level X form.  Attack with whatever proves useful at the time, and include Supporters and Trainers with discard costs so you can use the Energy recycling Poké-Power to speed up the attacks of the Magnezone.  You can force your opponent to KO supporting Pokémon if you like, by attacking with the Stormfront version and using its attack’s optional effect.  Once your opponent is dealing with fully evolved/leveled-up Pokémon, and/or has burned through a few Switch style cards, that automatic Paralysis on the Level X form can be rather nasty.  When the time is right, start using Magnezone Prime’s Lost Burn attack for a series of OHKOs.    Given that so much is coming from one line, and that line include re-usable draw power, you can even get creative with assisting Pokémon.  It would mean running two Stage 2 lines, but I keep coming back to that Togekiss from Undaunted.  We have decent sized Metal Pokémon, capable of forcing the opponent to spread damage around, hopefully instead of OHKOs.  You might be able to justify the Togekiss line to periodically flush all that damage away.  Or maybe not: the point is you have the space and draw power to get creative!   Ratings   Modified: 4/5 – Built in draw power, even on a Stage 2, is good and so is the attack.  Fighting Weakness and requiring a set-up to make repeated, strong attacks turn after turn are the only real drawbacks, and a good build should mitigate those.   Limited: 4.5/5 – Draw Power.  This means even a 1-1-1 line, without Energy for it to attack, is tempting.  Even with a poor Weakness, it makes a great set-up card early game and a brute mid-to-late game when you can afford to remove Energy in play for its attack turn after turn.  The lower average HP score means removing two Energy cards will often be a OHKO.   Summary I’ve been wrong about running a Stage 2 line as a mere Bench sitter in decks before.  Remember when nearly every deck ran Pidgeot with Quick Search?  I don’t think this will be the same: unless your deck can play out its entire hand, the few cards drawn aren’t in the same league as getting one exact card you need each turn.  For decks that have some synergy with it, as well as its own deck, I think it will be a powerhouse.   I am still selling my former collectables on eBay.  I’ve had a lot of hobbies over the years, so at various times I’ll have comic books, manga, action figures, and video games on the auction block.  You can take a look at what’s up for bids here.  Just a reminder, Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions and was merely kind enough to let me mention the auctions here. ;)