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	Scizor Prime (Undaunted)   I think it’s fair to say that Undaunted has had a fairly mixed reception from players (to put it mildly). Every set will have its hype cards though, and for this set, the prime candidate is this Scizor (see what I did there?)   Exactly what is attracting people to this card? It’s very unlikely to be the 100 HP, the Fire Weakness, or the two Energy Retreat cost. The Psychic Resistance is handy, but no more than that, so we are going to have to look elsewhere . . .    . . . and find the answer as soon as we check out that PokeBody. Red Armor protects Scizor from all damage done to it by Pokémon which have a Special Energy card attached. This is very nice indeed as Special Energy is extremely common in this format . . . think of all those Pokémon that use Double Colourless and all those decks that like to use Call Energy for a start. Now add in Dialga and Steelix with their Special Metal and you have a fair bit of coverage right there. Given that Scizor’s Metal typing means it can use Special Metal Energy to decrease the damage it takes, you have what looks like a useful wall.   But Scizor can do more than just block your opponent, it can knock stuff out too. For the reasonable price of [M][C], Metal Scissors does 30 damage + 20 more for each [M] energy attached to Scizor. Effectively, it starts at 50 for two Energy and goes up from there. Not bad, especially if you are making it hard for your opponent to attack you at all.   But, as with all seemingly invincible Pokémon (see last week’s review of Umbreon UD), they are never going to be quite as effective as you assume, and Scizor Prime comes with a number of vulnerabilities. Firstly, it’s a fair bet that the moment your opponent sees a Scyther hit the table they will not be attaching any Special Energy. Secondly, there are commonly played cards which deal very effectively with Scizor (Dialga G LV X, Blaziken FB). Thirdly, there are the ubiquitous snipers, Garchomp C LV X and Gengar SF, which will just bypass Scizor and hit the Bench.   The fact that Scizor forces opponents to play around it is a good thing. The fact that good players will almost always be able to accomplish this is not. When you also consider that Scizor is ineffective against popular decks like Jumpluff, Donphan, and Gyarados, it seems to be a much more marginal choice than it did at first glance.   Rating   Modified: 3 (It’s good . . . just not as good as you think it is) Limited: 4 (The Body is semi-irrelevant, but as a big-hitting Stage 1, it’s a winner)   Combos with . . .   Hmmmm . . . I suppose Manectric PL or Bench Shield would protect you from snipers while you try and wall with Scizor.
virusyosh	Happy Wednesday, Pojo viewers! Today we are returning to our HS Undaunted reviews, and today's Card of the Day is Scizor Prime. Scizor is a Stage 1 Metal Pokemon. Metal is generally a pretty good type to be, as Fire isn't terribly common (with the exception of Blaziken FB and the random Charizard), so Weakness is rarely something of concern, and this is also true of Scizor Prime. 100 HP is pretty good for a Stage 1, especially with the damage reduction that Special Metal Energy provides. Psychic Resistance is nice against Gengar and the pixies. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 2 is average: it's payable, but you'll probably want to use Switch, Warp Point, or some other method of retreat. Scizor's Poke-Body is quite impressive, and the card has received a bit of hype surrounding it. Red Armor prevents all effects and damage done to Scizor by your opponent's Pokemon with Special Energy attached. This is fairly significant, as Special Energy cards are everywhere in the metagame today: Special Metal, Special Darkness, Call, Cyclone, Rainbow, Multi, and Double Colorless Energy are all commonly played in one deck or another, and Scizor is able to wall against them all. This would theoretically mean that Scizor should be tearing into the metagame's top threats, right? Well, yes and no. While Special Energy cards are certainly a large factor in the metagame, most decks don't run them exclusively, therefore making Scizor relatively easy to play around. Additionally, most decks have some way of getting Scizor out of the Active position (Luxray GL Lv. X, Warp Point, even the new Drifblim), further hurting Scizor's viability. Scizor's attack doesn't help it that much either. Metal Scissors starts off at 30 damage for [MC], but increases by 20 for each Metal Energy attached to Scizor. That means that this attack will most likely be dealing 50 damage for 2, or 70 damage for 3. Not terrible by any stretch, but in most cases you'll want to be using something with a bit more damage output, especially if you are expecting to tank with an ability like Red Armor. Modified: 2.5/5 Scizor Prime isn't really bad at all (it's probably the best Prime in Undaunted), it's just unfortunately easy to play around/counter. Blocking attacks by Pokemon with Special Energy is really great though, and can really surprise your opponent. It's really too bad that Metal Scissors is so comparatively weak. Limited: 3.25/5 Red Armor won't be quite as useful here as it will be in Limited, although Special Metal and Darkness are still around, so Scizor can definitely wall an opponent that decides to make use of these. Also, Metal Scissors has totally acceptable damage output for Limited, especially if you can attach Special Metals to your Scizor to tank a bit (Just look out for the mirror match if you employ this strategy).
Otaku	Red Prime’s are potent.  I mean, Optimus Prime may go down as the greatest Prime of all time, and while Rodimus has his share of detractors, he really was a pretty good leader overall…   …he’s even made of metal, so today’s CotD Scizor Prime of course got an obligatory Transformers joke!   Scizor starts off poorly by being a Stage 1 Pokémon.  Even though they should be the happy middle ground between powerful but slow to set-up Stage 2 Pokémon and easy to play but limited Basic Pokémon… they rarely are.  Usually the end up being no faster than Stage 2 Pokémon (thanks to Rare Candy especially) and while they usually are weaker than Stage 2 Pokémon, Basic Pokémon (at least that don’t evolve) are often better than them once you factor in their Basic status.  On the bright side, it is a Metal Type Pokémon, and one cannot ignore the potency of being able to use the actual Metal Energy Special Energy card to soak damage.   Scizor suffers a little in the HP department: it is a Stage 1, so 100 HP is just a little above the minimum you want to see.  A double Weakness to Fire is common for Metal Pokémon, and it is here to allow flaming Pokémon to score an easy OHKO, often even through Metal Energy.  At least Scizor gets to enjoy -20 Psychic Resistance, which will come in very handy when combined with the aforementioned Metal Energy, even if only in certain match-ups.  Requiring two Energy to retreat isn't crippling, but it isn’t cheap: try to pack something to offset that.   Scizor Prime has one Poké-Body and one attack, and I’ll be honest: it did well.  Red Armor let’s you prevent all damage done to Scizor by attacks from your opponent’s Pokémon that have any Special Energy attached to them.  It won’t protect Scizor from everything, but it will slow many commonly played cards down as they can no longer use Double Colorless Energy for speed or Rainbow Energy to hit problem Energy requirements.  The attack then rewards you for dropping Energy onto Scizor: it does 30 damage plus 20 more points of damage for each Metal Energy attached to Scizor.  Nothing specifying it has to be a specific form of Metal Energy, so that should be a decent enough method of jacking up damage: two Metal Energy, just enough to attack, would let you hit for 70.  Three Metal Energy would score 90 points of damage, and four 110… after which the return for investment seems to really plummet.  Separately, both effects are interesting: together they can be downright nasty as you might be unable to attack the opponent (or for much damage) and while said opponent is hammering you with Scizor for a Prize every other turn.   For combos, the best I can come up with is Magnezone from Stormfront, plus the different Supporters that would allow you to discard Energy cards for a beneficial effect.  Together, you could bust this out as early as your first turn (if you go second) probably a reliable set up by your second.  It’d require some Rare Candy, but with a Magnezone in play you’ll be able to attach an extra Metal Energy from the discard each turn (though at the cost of placing a damage counter on Scizor).  If your opponent shuts down Magnezone’s Poké-Power, Scizor still has decent speed and attack power.   In Limited play, Scizor Prime is a beast… if you can pull it.  If you do, the multiple versions of Scyther in the set and other version of Scizor improve your odds of pulling a strong line.  Remember, this is from the perspective of already having pulled the rarest of the related cards. ;)  There is even a slight chance you could get the Special Energy version of Metal Energy.   Ratings   Modified: 3.5/5 – I think this is going to be a popular deck for a while, but between Fire Weakness and current, nasty decks in general, it won’t be able to secure a top spot at tournaments.   Limited: 4/5 – Amazing if you can pull it and get it out.  The Poké-Body won’t do you any good the attack will let you use Basic Metal Energy to annihilate your opponent quickly… and the Scyther aren’t bad here either.   Combos With: Magnezone (Stormfront 6/100 Rare Holo)   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.  I usually add new stuff on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Just a reminder, Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions and was merely kind enough to let me mention the auctions here. ;)