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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Bouffalant #90/114 (Black and White) Hello and welcome to a slightly shorter than usual week here on Pojo’s CotD. I hope that American readers enjoyed their 4th July Holiday and are all ready for their National Championships which start this week. Good luck to everyone who attends! We kick off today with one of the two Bouffalant cards in the Black and White set. Who says that they don’t give Pokémon good names anymore? (Probably someone who has just seen Throh and Sawk). I know a lot of people refer to this Pokémon as ‘Afro Bull’, but really, ‘Bouffalant’ is just as good. This version of the unevolving Basic has 90 HP (decent, I guess), Weakness to Fighting (not brilliant, thanks to Donphan) and a Retreat cost of two which you wouldn’t really want to pay with Energy unless you were desperate. That’s a pretty mediocre start, and the attacks don’t do much to help. The first, Horn Attack is straight 20 damage for two Energy of any Colour. That’s poor value and usually insignificant, even if you can power it up in one turn by wasting a Double Colourless Energy. Double Stomp is scarcely any better: for an additional one Energy cost, you do 30 damage and get to flip two coins, doing a further 20 for each heads. Even at maximum, 70 for 3 is somewhat short of being good while the average 50 for 3 is bad and the worst case scenario of 30 points of damage for all that investment is positively shocking. A gamble that offers you that little reward is simply not one worth taking. Just stick this one in the binder and concentrate your attention on tomorrow’s card. Rating Modified: 1.25 (just a random filler Basic from a Japanese starter deck) Limited: 2 (just because it’s Colourless)
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Bouffalant 90/114 (Black & White)   Greetings and salutations, Pojo readers. I hope those of you in the US enjoyed the long weekend, and I hope the rest of you enjoyed your weekend no matter what the length was. On to the review.   We start the week with Bouffalant, which looks like Tauros with a serious case of knotted mane. Supposedly the hair acts like a massive shock absorber, but it also seems to absorb jokes, puns and sarcasm at an astounding rate. Nonetheless, Bouffalant has been attracting some attention as an easy-to-splash revenge attacker. Unfortunately for you, that is tomorrow's CotD.   Today's card is the Uncommon version, which has very little to reccomend it aside from being big and Colourless. Bouffalant is a Colourless type non-evolving Basic with 90 HP, Fighting weakness, a retreat cost of 2 and two attacks.   With Donphan remaining popular the weakness is a problem. The HP is on par but not brilliant, and the retreat cost is the same. So far it's disappointing but not yet dead.   The first attack, Horn Attack, is as lousy as every other Horn Attack I have ever seen printed. For [c][c] you deal 20 damage with no bonus effects to give you your money's worth. Sadly, Double Stomp continues in this vein by costing an extra energy to deal 30 base damage with two coin flips to add 20 damage per Heads. A maximum of 70 damage is inadequate and an average of 50 damage is terrible for 3 energy.   Both of these attacks suck the card down into the oblivion of the shoebox. Rest in Peace, Bouffalant.   Modified: 1.5 (never play this card if you wish to win)   Limited: 2 (Bouffalant is splashable but the Dragon Twins, Alomomola, Gurdurr and Cinccino wipe the floor with this card)   Combos with: the shoebox
Otaku	Just a reminder, there are two Bouffalant in this set, and without going into details I promise you that whether or not this one is good or bad, tomorrow’s is the better version! Stats Bouffalant is a Colorless Basic Pokémon. Being Colorless isn’t much of a bonus right now. In fact we do have one established deck built around a Colorless Resistant Pokémon (Gengar) that managed to keep its key components through the rotation. Of course, it is still a bit early to tell if that deck is a real contender. What I can tell you is that I haven’t heard a peep about any of the Colorless Weak Pokémon anchoring a good deck or proving useful in a supporting role. Since there just isn’t any actual support for Colorless Pokémon right now that means as a type, Colorless is actually a bit weak, though probably not enough to be noticeable. Bouffalant doesn't Evolve: it is on its own and will need stat and/or effects priced accordingly and meeting a certain threshold of usefulness. The 90 HP is good, though it can be easy to think otherwise when comparing it to heavies like Zekrom and Reshiram, also from the same set. As a reference, Basic Pokémon that do Evolve need at least 50 HP to avoid being considered deficient in that area, and even 60 is pretty common now. The Fighting Weakness is unfortunate but appropriate, though having a Basic Pokémon taken out by a OHKO isn't as bad (fewer cards invested) and it is still going to take 50 points of damage before Weakness to do it. In short it means Donphan Prime gets to save its copies of PlusPower and Machamp Prime won’t need to use its second, more expensive attack. No Resistance is a disappointment as always, but probably won't hurt the card seeing as how it is so common. The two Energy needed to Retreat is fair given the cards size. Looking ahead this is a card you're going to want to drop, attack with, then get out of your way. So while fair, it is still going to hurt. Effects So what are the attacks? The opening move is poor: (CC) can be paid with a single Energy attachment through Double Colorless Energy, but the return is just 20 points of damage. That's only good enough for a filler attack on something that Evolves or has something else that is exceptional about it. The second attack is a little better: for (CCC) you hit for base 30, but get two coin flips worth an extra 20 points of damage a pop. So you're looking at a 30/50/70 split: one in four possible results are for 30 points, one in four are for 70 points, and the remaining two possible results are worth 50 points, making it the most likely outcome as well as the average. As the "big" attack for the card, it should have easily clocked in at 60 or 70 damage flat for (CCC) without causing balance issues. So in short, neither attack is horrible but they are far from “good”. The main redeeming features are the ability to use any Energy and to use Double Colorless Energy reasonably well. Usage It all comes down to this Pokémon being unable to Evolve: it has to justify itself completely. It doesn't. Even if the other Bouffalant didn't exist, this still wouldn't be good enough to justify running it. You don't run it in Modified because there are better candidates. You don't run it in Unlimited because there are better candidates. You will however find it worth running in Limited play for the standard reasons: lower average HP, lower average damage output, the ability to use any Energy, and the simple fact that the difficulty in running Evolutions in this format makes Basic Pokémon that much more powerful by comparison. In fact, the flexibility it has and the fact that its damage returns are no longer sub-par makes it into a must run unless you are just really lucky and get a whole deck's worth of better cards to run. I've actually had this happen with similar cards, or else I'd ignore it completely. Ratings Unlimited: 1/5 Modified: 1.75/5 Limited: 4.5/5 Summary A filler card that is almost pure vanilla and lacks anything of substance to justify running it over many other candidates, except in Limited play where most other candidates are the filler transitory Evolution Stages. The smaller the card pool the more valuable it becomes, but even in this brand new format most similar cards outshine it, especially tomorrow’s Bouffalant. Of course I am still selling my former possessions on eBay here. Pojo.com is not responsible for any transactions.