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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Lairon (Undaunted)  Just like the Gloom we reviewed last week, this is Lairon’s debut in Pojo’s CotD! It only had to wait 12 printings though, so it can’t complain.  It probably hasn’t had any attention for exactly the same reason as Glom too. 99.9% of all evolving Stage 1s are just a means to an end (getting a Stage 2 in play). Most of the time they aren’t even a necessary means, as you would prefer just to evolve faster via Rare Candy.  As a Stage 1, Lairon isn’t completely horrible. It has a good 90 HP, an Energy accelerating attack (even if it is a coin flip one), a very mediocre damage attack, and it resists Psychic. Fire Weakness isn’t the worst and, although the retreat cost is nasty, it’s not often going to be relevant.   Really, it’s the Stage 2 that decides whether or not Lairon will see play, and at the moment the only legal Aggron in the format (which isn’t even in the same set!) says ‘no’, thanks to its relatively weak and overcosted attacks. That may change in future of course, if better versions of the Stage 2 are released.  In limited, not having an Aggron in the set does limit Lairon’s usefulness, but even so, the decent HP and the reasonable-for-limited attacks mean that he’s not a bad choice if you pull some other Metal types (like the Metagross line and/or Skarmory).For the time being, that’s where Lairon belongs.  Rating  Modified: 1.5 (still waiting for something good to evolve into) Limited: 3 (solid tank in a Metal deck)
virusyosh	Hello again, Pojo viewers! Today's Card of the Day is a Stage 1 Pokemon from the Undaunted expansion that doesn't have its evolution in the set. Today's Card of the Day is Lairon. Lairon, as stated before, is a Stage 1 Metal Pokemon. It evolves from Aron, and into Aggron. I can't think of a playable Aggron off of the top of my head, so that may hurt its playability somewhat. 90 HP is great for an evolving Stage 1, as it matches many final form Stage 1s and should be able to survive at least two hits, unless your opponent is fully powered or they are hitting for Weakness. Speaking of Weakness, Fire Weakness is kind of bad, getting hit by Blaziken FB, Charizard, and even Entei/Raikou LEGEND for super effective x2 damage. Psychic Resistance is nice, keeping the pixies and other random Psychic attackers at bay. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 3 is terrible, so you should be switching Lairon through something like Switch or Warp Point. Lairon has two attacks. The first, Scrap Attack, does 20 damage for [M] and allows you to attach another [M] from your discard pile to Lairon if you flip heads. It's a nice set up attack, but probably won't ever be used outside of Limited or if you're really in trouble. The second attack, Tackle, deals a very vanilla 60 damage for [MMC]. Don't use it outside of Limited. Modified: 1/5 Right now Aggron RR is the only available Aggron in Modified, and that isn't worth using. The new Aggron from Triumphant (Japanese Clash at the Summit if it doesn't get released here) isn't that great either. Lairon doesn't do enough on its own to warrant a deck slot, so you're better off using other options. Limited: 2.5/5 Lairon is pretty solid in Limited. High HP, energy searchability, steady damage, and being able to get the benefits of Special Metal Energy make Lairon a decent pick. Plus, there aren't too many Fire types in Undaunted, so you shouldn't have to worry about Weakness so much.
conical	10/19/10: Lairon(Undaunted) After Jolteon yesterday, it looks like the rest of the week will focus on evolving basics and Stage 1s, aka the unsung heroes of Pokemon. We start with Lairon, who sadly suffers from a curse known as 'Aggron generally aren't very playable'. The important attack is the first one, Scrap Attack, which for M does 20 and a coin flip for attaching a M energy from the discard pile(Note that it does not specify basic metal. Theoretically, you could attach a special metal with the attack, unless there's an errata I'm not aware of). Since the odds of Aggron not having high-energy attacks are roughly the same as TPCi printing a playable Rapidash*, which is to say, slim. Tackle is 1MM for 60; you really shouldn't be using this. *Theoretically, Rapidash AR is playable. It's a shame that the way the rotation is working, its purpose will most likely remain overshadowed by Mewtwo Lv. X. A shame, really. In terms of whether or not Lairon is best option for using Aggron, it's no question; this is the best choice. The other option is Lairon RR, which has 10 less HP, higher-costed attacks, and no energy acceleration. There may also be another Lairon in Triumphant, but it's worse than either of the other two. Which brings us to the big conundrum: Lairon is a good option for anyone using Aggron, but Aggron itself is unplayable. When rating a card used for evolving, do you have to take into consideration how good the fully evolved card is, provided the pre-evolution isn't a functioning archetype itself, such as Blaine's Charmander or perhaps Combee UD? Personally, I feel that the pre-evolution should be rated as if there is a playable card it evolves into in the format(while it's a bonus if such a card exists), if only because there might be one printed in the future. Sure, I may end up overrating cards, but ultimately, most ratings end up being incorrect anyways by virtue of the reviewers' inability to predict the future(MAGIC 8-BALL YOU LIED TO ME). Oh yeah, Limited. I used this in a prerelease. The attacks are good, but because of the retreat cost of three, I had a bit of trouble trying to retreat it when I wanted to bring something else up. You could do worse, though. Modified: 2.75/5 Limited: 2.75/5 Combos With: Sage's Training is a good way to get metal energies to the discard. You might as well, really.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Lairon (HS Undaunted)   Here we have a card we have never reviewed before: introducing Lairon!   It seems we are doing the usual tail-end of the set with HS Triumphant soon to be released, but don’t despair: there are still several cards worth looking at in this set (why are we not reviewing Sneasel UD yet?)   But I digress. Lairon is an evolving Stage 1, which means that Rare Candy is the reason this card will rarely see play. Unless you fear trainer lock and/or have another reason to favour Broken Time Space, you won’t look at any Lairon much.   However, this one isn’t all bad. The first attack is worth a look, and the HP is quite good for an evolving Stage 1 (though the retreat cost is terrible, as you would expect).   90 HP, 3 retreat cost and the expected Fire weakness (with the also expected and much more appealing Psychic resistance) round out the bottom stats of this Pokémon, and they do give some survival options seeing as Lairon is a Metal type. With all of the Charizards running around the weakness is bad but otherwise Lairon should survive long enough to evolve manually if you have to (though I haven’t seen a playable Aggron around anywhere, a shame about that).   The attacks support the survival theory. The first is the well-named Scrap Attack, dealing 20 damage for the cost of M. The bonus is that you flip and on heads you search your deck for a Metal energy (any type) to attach to Lairon. Obviously the best use (if you are lucky) is to help stack on those Special Metal energy for tanking purposes, though the damage is fair for the cost and evolution stage.   Tackle is far less useful (though it is good for the pre-release), dealing 60 for MMC. As usual I will complain that DCE cannot be used to accelerate the attack, but then this is a tank so you really want to focus on the Special Metal anyway. By now Aggron should be on the table anyway, so this attack is only for a last resort (at which point you are probably stuffed, tied and baked anyway).   In the final analysis, you can do far worse than this version of Lairon (especially since the MT version is out) but you won’t need this card until a decent Aggron comes along.   Modified: 2.25 (no Aggron means no Lairon and there is absolutely no reason to play it by itself) Limited: 3.5 (if you pull multiples and a Special Metal or 2, this card is brilliant! If you pull an Aggron, even better) Combos with: an Aggron worth playing
Otaku	Today we review a Lairon for the first time.  Well, that isn’t entirely true: I believe I covered a few past versions of Lairon while reviewing last Aggron (its end stage) but that was when I had time to type a text spoiler and basically write a short CotD for at least the lower evolutionary stages that were set-mates to the true CotD.   Lairon is a Stage 1 Pokémon that can further evolve into Aggron.  It enjoys a solid 90 HP, which is appropriate given that it is fairly beefy but isn’t the last stage of a Pokémon.  As a Metal-Type Pokémon, it can enjoy stretching that HP with Metal Energy (Special Energy version, of course).  Fire Weakness will allow Fire Pokémon to leave him a pile of slag, sadly, but at least it has Psychic Resistance -20; when combined with a few of that Special Energy version of Metal Energy Lairon will be able to soak quite a few early hits.  It is saddled with an (again) appropriate three Energy to retreat, so make sure you run some cards to change it out in the deck.   The only other Lairon legal for Modified doesn’t have the greatest of attacks anyone, so this one basically is in as long as it isn’t bad.  First attack for only (M) hits for 20 and has a 50% chance of snagging another Metal Energy from the discard and attaching it to Lairon: a solid attack.  The second attack is a straight up 60 points of damage for (MMC).  This is a bit low: it’d be nicer if it could use a Double Colorless Energy to speed itself up in case the coin toss for the first attack failed a turn ago.  Still, it’s functional.  So compared with the two attacks on the Rising Rivals version, I’d take this one: the chance to get Special Energy copies of Metal Energy back from the Graveyard has often been important to Metal decks.  The straight reliable damage is better than the uncertain damage or lower damage with minimum defensive protection provided by its Rising Rivals rival.   In Modified, this is still going to be a stopgap between Aron and Aggron.  I feel it is a bit more important to run the Stage 1 Pokémon in a Pokémon that is meant to tank than one that is just an attacker or there for a Poké-Power or Poké-Body: the risk of being devolved is extra nasty when you’ve invested so much in setting up a big Stage 2 with multiple Special Energy.  In Limited play, you should really consider running Lairon just for what it is: 90 HP is nothing to scoff at, recovering lost Energy makes sure it is useful mid-to-late game, and 60 points of damage is strong enough to be a significant threat when dealing with such restricted card pools.  There are only Fire Pokémon in this set: Slugma (Common), Flareon (Uncommon), and Magcargo (Rare).  Flareon is easy to splash into a variety of decks and Slugma/Magcargo are both worth using if you pull: this makes it hard to predict how much Fire you’ll actually see run as it would be hard to dedicate a single deck to it but quite rewarding due to abundant Fire Weakness this set.  At least there are plenty of Metal Pokémon to flesh out a Lairon using deck: 11 different Pokémon spanning all rarities, spanning six different lines and two of those lines have two versions of the same Stage 1 Pokémon.   Ratings   Modified: 3/5 (Aggron decks only)   Limited: 3.5/5   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. ;)