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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

		Top 10 Cards of 2011 Countdown #10 - Gothitelle #47 Emerging Powers Date Reviewed: Dec. 26, 2011 Ratings & Reviews Summary Modified: 3.75 Limited: 5.00 Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  5 is the highest rating. Back to the main COTD Page
Combos With:

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	# 10 Gothitelle EP Hello and welcome to our countdown of the best cards of 2011. We kick off with Gothitelle EP (the good one with Magic Room). This is a card which just failed to make my own list, but I’ve got no complaints about it deserving its place here. It’s a good card and definitely had a big impact during the Autumn Battle Roads tournaments. So what made Gothitelle into a really top tier competitive card? Obviously, a big part of it was her one-sided Trainer Lock. With Gothitelle out on the Field, you were free to play your own Trainers as much as you liked . . . but your opponent couldn’t. This gave you access to all the good stuff like Pokémon Catcher, Rare Candy, Junk Arm, and Pokémon Communication, while your opponent’s disruption and search possibilities were severely curtailed. That’s just part of the story though. Gothitelle also had the magic 130 HP which meant that only a handful of playable Pokémon could score a OHKO against her when under her Trainer Lock (RDL, Bad Boar, Magnezone Prime). Anything short of that, and the Gothitelle player was free to move the damage off with Reuniclus BW and keep Gothi out on the Field almost indefinitely. There wasn’t even anything much around that could take advantage of the Psychic Weakness to deal with Gothitelle in one hit (Mew Prime being the obvious exception). Gothitelle’s survivability (aided by Reuniclus, Blissey Prime and Max Potions) more than made up for her fairly poor and expensive attack. The relative slowness of the deck was made less of a problem because it could take advantage of Tropical Beach and Twins to get fully set up. Once that set up was achieved, there was very little that the most popular decks in the format (Reshiram/Typhlosion and Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin) could do to close the game out. They were forced to run gimmicky, risky techs like Magby and Bellsprout to prevent a relentless, invincible Gothitelle coming from behind to take all six Prizes. Gothi’s best days are almost certainly behind her. She has all but disappeared from the metagame recently, and with Mewtwo EX on the horizon, I doubt there will be a place for an Energy-intensive, Psychic-Weak Stage 2 attacker in the game anymore. But at least she did get some time to shine. Rating Modified: 3.75 (good while it lasted)
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! I once again apologize for my hiatus, I've been quite busy with both work and family stuff recently. Anyway, the end of the year is quickly approaching, and that means that we're going to be reviewing our Cards of the Year! As always, we'll review the top 10 cards (weighted based on our opinions) from sets released this year (in this case, Call of Legends, Black and White, Emerging Powers, and Noble Victories). Today we're going to kick things off with our #10 Card of the Year, Gothitelle from Emerging Powers. Gothitelle is a Stage 2 Psychic Pokemon. As of right now, Gothitelle is one of the most commonly played Psychic-types right now, along with Mew Prime. 130 HP is average for a Stage 2, although 130 HP is just a little too high to be one-hit KOed by most of the format, and when paired with Reuniclus, doing any sort of appreciable damage to Gothitelle is very difficult. Psychic Weakness makes the mirror match difficult, as well as the matchup with Mew Prime. Gothitelle sadly has no Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 2 is payable if you absolutely must. Gothitelle has an Ability and a single attack. The Ability, Magic Room, blocks all Items (that is, Trainer - Trainer and Trainer - Item) cards by your opponent if Gothitelle is your Active Pokemon, leaving you to use all of the Pokemon Catchers and Max Potions you want while leaving your opponent stranded. This can cause a lot of problems for fast setup decks like those based around Reshiram and Zekrom, and can also cause problems for slower Evolution decks relying on Rare Candy as well. The fact that Magic Room's restriction is one-sided also gives Gothitelle an excellent niche over Vileplume, but keep in mind that the Ability is only in effect when Gothitelle is Active. Madkinesis is Gothitelle's only attack, starting at 30 damage for three Colorless Energy but dealing 20 more for each Psychic Energy attached. A common Gothitelle strategy is to load many Psychic Energies onto Gothitelle, making Madkinesis deal 110 damage or more while the opponent cannot OHKO back. Unfortunately, the fact that Gothitelle must be loaded with Psychic Energies can make recovery very difficult, so if your Gothitelle gets Knocked Out unexpectedly, it can be difficult to rebound. Modified: 3.75/5 Gothitelle/Reuniclus was a very dominant deck for a while this year, making it worthy of the #10 slot in our Cards of the Year. However, with new threats on the horizon, the deck has lost some of its effectiveness. First, Mew Prime is nearly a full stop to any Gothitelle deck, as Mew can easily OHKO with a well-placed Do the Wave, Mass Attack, or sometimes Double Freeze. Second, the soon-to-be-released Mewtwo-EX will cause massive problems for Gothitelle, as Mewtwo will easily OHKO with X Ball. Not all is bad for Gothitelle, however: the one-sided Item lock that Magic Room provides is still excellent against most matchups, and Madkinesis is one of the few attacks in the format that is able to reach the magical 130 damage benchmark. Therefore, Gothitelle is still an important Pokemon to watch out for, even if it has lost some of its luster. Limited: 5/5 Gothitelle is a Stage 2 with "infinite damage" possibilities and the ability to block your opponent's Items. If you draft one, you should definitely play it, as both the Ability and attack will be quite useful in Limited. Combos With: Reuniclus BW
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Top Card #9: Kyurem (Noble Victories)   We continue our countdown with Kyurem, my favourite card from the Noble Victories expansion and possibly the hardest card to find in the Poke'mon TCG Online Beta. I must admit, I placed Kyurem at #3 on my personal list, but I'm still glad it made the cut.   Kyurem has many advantages stat-wise. 130 HP on a Basic is the uppermost limit if you exclude Regigigas Lv X and the Legend cards, and a Metal Weakness is obscure enough to make that number truly daunting. The retreat cost of 2 is definitely acceptable for that price, and if it isn't then the Water typing gives you access to both energy acceleration for manual retreating from Feraligatr Prime and a free Switch each turn from Politoed UL.   As always, the Unova Trio is blessed with a beautiful attack called Outrage, and Kyurem is possibly the best of the 3 of them due to the number of powerful Poke'mon with Water Weakness. The cost of [c][c] alone justifies the inclusion of Double Colourless Energy in your deck, and the effect is always fun. You get 20 damage (poor) plus 10 more for each damage counter on Kyurem (now they're speaking my language!). The most coomon use for Outrage is simply as a deterrent, due to so many powerful support Poke'mon evolving from weak Basics with pitiful attacks (Typhlosion, Feraligatr, Magnezone, Blastoise UL, Ninetales, Emboar, Machamp, the list goes on). The incremental damage would usually be helpful for insuring a later KO, but Outrage turns that small advantage into a major downside by guaranteeing a series of KOs against your small and vulnerable Poke'mon, which due to the release of Poke'mon Catcher have nowhere to hide. Throw in Rocky Helmet to add insult to injury, or use Eviolite to make attacking seem pointless.   Another way to use Outrage is as a suicide attack. Gothitelle EP likes to use Reuniclus BW to keep itself healthy, so having another Poke'mon that can absorb and use those damage counters is very helpful. Kyurem can fit in nicely here, providing a cheap way to deal massive damage, provided you have the damage counters stocked up and are willing to lose your Dragon of choice to the return hit.   Personally, I like using Outrage against other Unova Dragons. Facing down a Zekrom or Reshiram with Outrage is like playing a minigame of Chicken, each player trying to guage how far they should go before going for the throat with the big attack (Blue Flare/Bolt Strike). It's even more interesting if neither player has enough energy for the big finish, so you try to bait your opponen into giving you enough damage to get a return KO. Admittedly Kyurem is at a disadvantage here due to the nature of Glaciate, but then that's part of the charm.   Speaking of Glaciate, that's one of my favourite attacks in the game at the moment. Costing [w][w][c], it isn't DCE compatible But it is still easy to pay for with Feraligatr Prime providing support. Glaciate deals 30 damage to every Poke'mon on your opponent's side of the field, applying Weakness and Resistance to the Defending Poke'mon but not to the Bench. This is absolutely awesome if you can exploit it properly, and even without any sniper support it can still prove a thorn in your opponent's side.   To start with, Rain Dance decks have a lot of choices for effective attackers but none of those Poke'mon can KO the biggest threats in a single hit and instead rely on 2HKOs. With Glaciate that is no longer a problem since you can set up your entire game with only one or two hits before pounding away with Feraligatr, Blastoise, Kingdra and Beartic to finish the job. Or you could focus completely on Kyurem and try get off enough shots with Galciate to wipe out the entire opposing side!   Kyurem doesn't deal enough damage to a single target to be your main attacker in a deck, but if ever there was a time when you wanted a Poke'mon which could soften up the competition as well as give Zekrom a bloody nose (remeber, all of the best sniping Poke'mon are weak to Lightning) then look no further than Kyurem.   Modified: 5 (I may be heavily biased, but there is no denying that Kyurem has finally lifted Rain Dance decks up to the top level as well as appearing in a few unconventional builds with cards like Yanmega Prime and the new Haymaker type 'Six Corners' archetype)   Limited: 5 (Kyurem faces some stiff competition from Terrakion, Cobalion, Landorus and Virizion as well as having to face Rocky Helmet and Eviolite, but having heavy spread attacks on a tough Poke'mon in your Limited deck is never a bad idea)   Combos with: Feraligatr Prime and any Poke'mon that deals 2HKOs instead of going immediately for the throat.