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	Yanmega Prime   One of the best Pokémon players in the world once gave me this piece of advice: ‘never use an ugly Pokémon as your main attacker’. Ok, so he was talking me out of using Donphan at the time, and he wasn’t being completely serious, but that is what I always think of when I look at Yanmega . . . that Pokémon has had a severe beating with the ugly stick.   Yanmega is a Stage 1 Pokémon with just enough HP (110) to make it a contender. Fighting Resistance does sweeten the deal, as does free Retreat. A big minus point though is the Lighting Weakness. One Flash Bite from Luxray GL LV X, and it’s gone. Of course, being a Grass Pokémon, Yanmega can do something about this and many other potential drawbacks: Metapod HGSS will remove the Weakness, Shaymin LV X can boost its HP even further, and Cherrim SF will give it enhanced attack power.   But what are those attacks? Well, at first glance they seem disappointingly weak and expensive. Linear Attack is a reasonable snipe option that costs [G][C] and will hit anything for 40, while Sonicboom does a straight 70 damage (which cannot be altered by Weakness or Resistance) for [G][G][C]. While not terrible, there certainly isn’t anything here that seems to jump out and demand that you give this card some attention . . .   . . . Until you notice the PokeBody. Insight’s effect is that, if you have the same number of cards in hand as your opponent, each of Yanmega’s attacks cost zero Energy to use. Suddenly, they don’t seem so bad: 40 snipe for 0? 70 for 0? Yes please. Keeping your hand size the same as the opponent’s isn’t necessarily difficult to do. Typically, most players will have a hand size of around 5-7 cards, so you can play out your own hand, or not, accordingly. In addition there are the Supporters Judge and Copycat which will guarantee that your hands will be equal and that Insight will trigger.   So, will this make Yanmega a top tier deck? I have my doubts. For a start, the ever-popular Dialga G LV X shuts the Body off, turning your lightning-fast attacker into a slow Pokémon with mediocre damage output. In fact, those Yanmega builds that run low Energy/high Trainer counts to maximise consistency likely won’t be able to attack at all. For another thing, although you CAN use cards like Copycat to equalise hand sizes, what if you don’t have one available on any given turn? Or what if it is not the optimum play? (Maybe you would be better off using a Bebe’s Search that turn?).   In the end, the reward you get for fussing about with hand sizes is just not that great. 70 points of can’t-hit-for-weakness damage? You can do as well elsewhere without all the hassle. Donphan is a much sturdier Pokémon and will do 60 for a single Energy, while the even stronger Gyarados can hit for 90 without attaching an Energy. Both of these Pokémon are also far safer options to use with Expert Belt.   The PokeBody does make Yanmega superficially appealing, but when you look at it closely, you realise that it doesn’t have what it takes to keep up with the top Pokémon in the format.   Rating   Modified: 2.75 (not as good as you think, Grass support helps a bit though) Limited: 3.5 (not so easy to get the Body to work, but attacks are good here anyway)   Combos With . . .   Metapod HGSS Shaymin LV X Cherrim SF
conical	11/12/10: Yanmega Prime(Triumphant) We finish the week with the most intriguing of the Primes, in my opinion. Yanmega's gimmick is its Poke-Body, Insight, which eliminates the energy cost of both its attacks if you have the same number of cards in your hand as your opponent. With an ability like that, one would expect its attacks to be relatively weak, so as to balance out the card, and they would be right: Linear Attack and Sonicboom are both relatively modest attacks, apart from the 'Whoooooaaaa 70 damage for no energy!' factor. Attack power aside, there are a few cards that help achieve its end of equaling your opponent's hand size; Judge and Copycat should both be staples in any Yanmega deck. However, with all cards, there are some problems, the biggest of which is Dialga G, which, in its perpetual cycle of #1 Deck>>>>Top contender>>>>SP Tech>>>>Top Contender>>>>#1 Deck is somewhere between the first two options, which means that Yanmega's Body will get shut off often, and then you're left with a weird-looking bug with two overpriced attacks, albeit a bug with a respectable 110 HP, fighting resistance, and free retreat. There might be ways for Yanmega to overcome this problem, and personally, I do wonder if Yanmega might somehow revive the short-lived Shaymin/Yanmega decks from last format, but I couldn't tell you how. Would I like to see Yanmega become an archetype? Sure, it seems like it would make an interesting deck to face off against. Will it happen? Only time will tell, as the saying goes, and like all archetypes, it should be interesting to see what ultimately becomes of it. Modified: 3.5/5 Limited: 4.5/5 Combos With: Judge, Copycat
Wes1234 Crazed Eeveelutionist	Happy Friday, Pojo readers!  We'll be finishing off this hyped Primes week with another card that received a fair amount of hype.  By now, everyone's used to my whole "hyped" speech, so I'll just skip straight to the goodies...   Grass types are next to irrelevant these days.  I can't name any grass-weak pokemon that are played right off the bat, and even if there were, Yanmega's attacks don't abuse weakness that well.  110 HP is actually on the semi-high side for a stage 1 these days.  The only Stage 1 pokemon that surpasses its HP is Donphan Prime.  Electric weakness hurts BADLY, though.  Luxray GL food, anyone?  Fighting resistance is nice with all the fighting types running rampant (hint, hint, Machamp/Donphan Primes?), and a free retreat is even better.   The Poke-Body is what has given it some spotlight time.  Having an identical hand size as your opponent turns Yanmega into a wanna-be version of Gyarados.  This looks amazing at first, as it can be combo'd with Judge/Copycat to ensure that same handsize every turn, but lets look at reality here...  You're dedicating a SUPPORTER every turn to this thing... a pokemon that can be one-shotted by the second-most commonly used SP pokemon in existence (Garchomp C is the most common since it's in EVERY SP deck I know of)...  This means that once Yanmega is gone, you're sunk, as you dedicated everything towards a mediocre offense (which we'll get to soon) as oppose to a back-up attacker.  And even if you setup another Yanmega Prime (which isn't terribly hard to do), you STILL can't take out Luxray GL Lv X in one shot even with a belt.   I suppose that since I'm mentioning attack damage, I might as well present the attacks themselves.  The first attack costs [GC] (or no energy via Poke-Body) for a 40 snipe.  For no energy, it's actually not bad, but it needs something better...  Sonicboom is an improvement costing [GGC] (or again no energy via Poke-Body) for 70 damage that bypasses non-existent grass resistances and doesn't apply the weakness multiplier (not that either matters).  Expert belt maxes its damage at 90 (not counting Cherrim SF).   Yanmega Prime is good for donks, but that's it.  It's completely reliant on its Poke-Body and dedicated Supporter... support... so Dialga G Lv X will put on its villainous smile and ultimately shut it down, and Dialga G Lv X is everywhere, whether it be Dialgachomp or just a tech in Luxchomp/Blazechomp.  I believe this card to be one of those grossly overhyped cards (even I was initially guilty of that).  Gyarados is superior in virtually every aspect, and even IT has lightning weakness, and it's just as capable of donking as Yanmega Prime, and it has hardly any conditions attached, and doesn't hog resources to pull off.   Modified: 2.25/5  A fun deck at best, as Gyarados is superior in every way.   Limited: 4/5  At least it shines here.  Just watch out for Magnezone Primes attempting to ruin your party.   - Wes1234 Crazed Eeveelutionist
Otaku	Yanmega Prime ends our week.  It is a Grass Stage 1 Pokémon.  Stage 1 Pokémon have had to work very hard as of late: Pokémon SP are Basics and thus faster, Stage 2 Pokémon can do more (and are arguably faster thanks to Rare Candy).  It has 110 HP which is good for a Stage 1 Pokémon, Lightning Weakness which makes it very vulnerable to Luxray, Fighting Resistance which will irritate Donphan Prime, and a Free Retreat Cost that is simply beautiful.  Since it is a Stage 1, let me point out none of the Yanma really thrill me, so that does detract a bit from the card.   The Poké-Body, insight, makes this card.  If you have the same The Poké-Body, insight, makes this card.  If you have the same number of cards in your hand as your opponent, the attack cost of each this card’s attack is… zero!  That is right: nothing.  Not just shedding a Colorless Energy requirement like we’ve seen in the past, but absolutely no Energy is required to attack!  Now, on its own, the first attack would be alright.  Linear Attack gives you the choice to hit any of your opponent’s Pokémon for 40 points of damage.  That is pretty good for (LC), and if the Poké-Body wasn’t so great (and directly fixing this problem), I’d bemoan it being unable to use Double Colorless Energy.  Its big attack, Sonicboom, would suffer similarly: you get a good 70 points of damage for just (LLC) and get to ignore Weakness and Resistance (which is a mixed blessing), but without being able to use Double Colorless Energy, the attack would be to slow.  Thanks to its Poké-Body, this card is now the fastest Stage 1 or 2 attacker in the game!   Now, some are probably wondering how they can easily synch up their hand size with their opponent’s.  After all, one’s opponent is in total control of his or her own hand size, right?  Not this format. ;)  In terms of Pokémon we have Giratina from Platinum has its Let Loose Poké-Power: when you Bench it, each player shuffles his/her hand into the deck and draws four cards.  Then of course this is Judge, a Supporter with the same effect.  Then there is good old Copycat, allowing you to feed off an opponent’s large hand.  With all of these, you just have to make sure that Pokémon or Supporter is the last card you play for the turn.  In exchange for a free 40 points of damage to whatever you want or 70 to the Active is worth restraining yourself.   Originally I was going to list a few more cards, but Bondiborg pointed out it was getting to overkill territory.  Plus I’d forgotten that Vs Seeker was still legal, so you can recycle those three best Supporters for this deck four times easily. This gives you a hard hitting, interesting deck where you mess with your opponent’s hand and Bench (via Seeker/Giratina) while hitting something on the Bench for 40 or the Active for 70, for no Energy and many turns all at the same time!   Except even if you max everything out, you’ve only got 12 Pokémon, 12 Supporters and four Trainers.  Miasma Valley won’t hurt either of what we’ve used and naturally sets up more OHKOs for the decks.  Granted, Broken Time Space is also very tempting, since if you go second it should allow you to start swinging right away, but it also helps your opponent play out their hand.  If your opponent is playing out their hand before you use one of the shuffle and draw effects, this deck is going to suffer.  Shaymin Lv.X (126/127, Platinum) buffs Yanmega Prime up to 150 HP.  You might run Cherrim from Stormfront for extra damage.  Or you could focus on the “no Energy” angle by running other Pokémon that can waylay your opponent “for free”, and giving you all that extra deck space for the Trainers needed to push such effects to the max.  You could also just tighten up the card count, such as a 2-2 of the Yanmega and whatever supporting cards easily fit or already being used by your deck (who doesn’t have a love/hate relationship with Judge?), and use it as a fantastic opener/sweeper.   This is a good pick for Limited, even if you have to actually power it up: sniping is always handy.  As there is less draw power, your opponent should have a harder time dodging the effect.  Just make sure you don’t play down your hand until they do, and they shouldn’t have much luck building their hand up to something larger than you can match.  If they can play their hand out and you can’t, you might be trouble.  That’d be it though.   Ratings   Modified: 4/5   Limited: 4.5/5   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. ;)