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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Maractus #12/114 (Black and White) Another day, another Maractus. Why do we have two versions of this Pokémon in one set, I hear you ask? Well, it’s because (as usual) out Black and White set is basically a mash-up of most of the Japanese Black and White Collections and some cards from their structure decks. We don’t really get structure deck exclusive cards, so this is how it has to be. This Maractus is definitely the better of the two. Stats-wise it is very similar, though it does have an extra 10 HP. 90 HP on a Basic is pretty decent until you run into Weakness, so at least it has that going for it. Like Maractus #11, this one also has a multiple coin flip attack that will end up doing 0-60 damage depending on how lucky you are. That’s a bit less than the other Maractus does, but at least the cost is more acceptable at a single Grass Energy. At least with this card you have the option to do some damage on turn 1. It even has a remote possibility of getting a donk win with three heads against an evolving Basic. I don’t really recommend building a strategy around that though. The second attack, Giga Drain, comes at the huge cost of [G][G][G]. For that you get a very poor value 50 damage, but you will also heal Maractus by the same amount. In Modified, this is not going to work: that’s three Energy drops for a tanking/healing strategy on a 90 HP Pokémon which is going to be OHKO’d by several very popular Pokémon (Reshiram, Zekrom, Cinccino). OHKO’s have an unfortunate tendency to make healing abilities completely redundant. In Limited though, this card shines thanks to its ability to stall out most attackers while swinging for 50. If you can avoid running into Fire Pokémon, this card will be seriously annoying for any opponent. Even Constant Rattle is good here, as it has the potential to do some serious damage early in the game. Rating Modified (HGSS-on): 1.75 (can’t stand up to the big hitters) Limited: 3 (good starter with the ability to tank somewhat)
conical Deck Garage	5/17/11: Maractus(Black & White)   And today's card is the second of the 2 Maracti. Maracti would be the plural form of Maractus, right?   This Maractus, like yesterday's card, also has a healing attack. Unlike yesterday's Maractus, this has a little bit more HP, which always helps. On the other hand, it takes 3 Grass energy to use, so you probably won't. Constant Rattle, on the other hand, is a bit more interesting. It's another 'flip coins for damage' attack, sure, but the damage escalates more the more heads you flip, which is always cool, in my opinion. Note that cool does not mean good in this case. It's not a great or even good card, by any means, but again, it is a cool design, so I'll once again give props for that.   Modified: 2.25/5 Limited: 2.5/5
Otaku	Is the maraca-cactus-bunny still strange-but-adorable? Yes, yes it is! This Maractus just barely has better stats than what we saw with yesterday’s CotD. It is still a Basic Pokémon that can’t Evolve, meaning it is easy to run but will need to be good to compete with Pokémon that can Evolve. The rotation hasn’t happened yet, so it still has some wonderful Type support it can access, and a little of it will carry over into the next format. The “barely better part” comes in with 90 HP, as opposed to the 80 HP of yesterday’s Maractus. Fire Weakness is still so-so in the current format and probably bad in the next, while Water Resistance is still good to have. Just like yesterday, a Retreat Cost of two Energy is still high enough you aren’t going to want to pay it but low enough you’ll often be able to. The first attack is great if you like coin flips. For meeting a (G) Energy requirement, you get to toss three coins. Sadly if all three are “tails”, the attack does nothing. If a single coin comes up heads, the attack does 10 points of damage. So far, both are poor returns for what was invested. Two heads and you do 30 points of damage, which isn’t bad at all. On the unlikely (but still within reason) chance all three coins come up as “heads”, you do a great 60 points of damage! This attack is most useful as a “scare” tactic, making your opponent leery of committing too much to an early, opening Pokémon of their own lest you get lucky on those coin tosses. Still, I wouldn’t mind if the damage was better staggered so that getting less than two heads wasn’t so bad. The second attack is very expensive at (GGG), but actually pretty good in and of itself; 50 points of damage and Maractus heals as much damage from itself as it did to the Defending Pokémon. Unfortunately it seems steep to power-up, and while Maractus has good HP for a Basic, it isn’t enough to fully realize the benefits of this attack. Like yesterday, this card can’t make good use of Double Colorless Energy, except to pay for retreating, which means that like yesterday it will often lag behind more often played cards that can and do make use of Double Colorless Energy. Combos I can think of to speed up Energy attachments probably won’t work to well, or rather work a lot better on other cards. You might see this in a few Grass decks as an opening Basic Pokémon, and I’d pick it over the other Maractus, but I am not sure if either is worth including as openers or anything else. In Limited play this is a little harder to run in your deck since it needs three Grass Energy for its big attack, but its big attack also is much more potent here, where healing 50 points of damage will be amazing and OHKOs are difficult. Ratings Modified (MD-On): 2/5 – This format has a lot of decks that will shred it, but also a lot of great Grass support I can’t ignore. I believe it would fall into the “functional but inferior” category, because included in that Grass support are a lot of great Grass Basic Pokémon. Modified (HGSS-On): 2.25/5 – Rotation removes some of the best support it had and sees a rise in Fire decks, but also removes a sizable portion of the competition. Still “functional but inferior”, though the gap is smaller. Limited: 3.25/5 – A good solid card to include so long as you have something more to justify the inclusion of ­Grass Energy, or at least the room to include Grass Energy just for it. Summary Just like yesterday, we get a potential Grass opener that can dish out decent damage, and this one does it while healing. The problem is that it takes a while to power-up that attack and in the mean time you’ll be trying your luck with coin tosses. I think it is a little better than yesterday’s version, but I can’t see running either of them as being better than most other candidates, even in mono-Grass decks. My eBay auctions: give it a click and a glance and see if there is anything you’d like. Just remember Pojo is merely letting me link in my articles and is in no way responsible for any transactions.
virusyosh	Hello again, Pojo viewers! Today we are reviewing another Grass Basic Pokemon from Black and White, and in fact, this one is a different version of the same Pokemon we reviewed yesterday. Today's Card of the Day is Maractus. Maractus is a Basic Grass Pokemon. Like yesterday, Grass Pokemon are relatively uncommon aside from Jumpluff and the random Roserade GL. 90 HP is good for a Basic, but is still rather overshadowed by the dragons. Fire Weakness and Grass Resistance are to be expected for a Grass-type, and a Retreat Cost of 2 is a bit expensive, so you'll want to use something like Switch or Warp Point. Maractus's two attacks are somewhat similar to the other Maractus we reviewed yesterday. Constant Rattle allows you to flip three coins, dealing 10 damage with one heads, 30 damage with two, and 60 with three for the cost of [G]. In Modified this attack doesn't really have much promise, but in Limited this attack is decent for a flip attack, especially for the cost. Giga Drain deals 50 damage for the rather expensive [GGG], and you heal Maractus the amount of damage you did to the Defending Pokemon. The massive healing is very nice, but the triple Grass cost makes this attack very unappealing for Modified, although if you can power it up in Limited, it can be very nice (bar opposing Fire-types, especially Reshiram). Modified: 1/5 Like the other Maractus yesterday, this Maractus's attacks don't do enough in order to make much of a splash here. Limited: 2.5/5 Decent-sized Basic with pretty decent damage output, although the Energy requirements pretty much require you to run Grass as a primary type. Therefore, if you happen to be running Grass, Maractus can be a decent addition. However, Fire is an incredibly common and powerful type in Black and White, so look out for that, too.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Maractus 12/114 (Black & White)   Hello boys and girls, today we have the second Maractus card up for review. This one is the rare version, so pray it doesn't appear in your prerelease booster.   Maractus is a Grass type non-evolving Basic with 90 HP, Fire weakness, Water resistance, a retreat cost of 2 and two attacks.   Except for the bonus 10 HP which puts Maractus into the borderline playable category, the stats are the same as for yesterday's version. Reshiram is your doom, Feraligatr Prime is a pansy, yada yada yada.   The attacks, on the other hand, seem to be an inverted version of the other Maractus. For [g] you use Constant Rattle, which requires 3 coin flips. 1 heads is 10 damage, 2 heads is 30 damage and 3 heads mean a whopping 60 damage. While the maximum damage is definitely impressive for a single energy, you are unlikely to hit that hard very often and will usually have to put up with 10-30 damage with the occasional triple-Tails completely ruining your day.   Giga Drain costs [g][g][g], which you immediately know is absolutely terrible because having to attach 3 specific energy to a Basic without some sort of acceleration is a nightmare. The fact that you only deal 50 damage makes it far worse, and the healing-damage-equal-to-the-damage-dealt effect is nearly useless because 90 HP just isn't enough for a tank, even with resistance.   The Maractus is worse than yesterday's card despite the better stats, simply because the priorities are wrong (the annoying attack needs to be cheap wile the damaging attack needs to be stronger). Again, changing the second attack to a 2 energy setup attack would have made this card at playable, at least in a Grass deck, but in its current condition Maractus is doomed to rot in a binder sleeve.   Modified: 1.5 (you can have fun with Constant Rattle as a psychological weapon, but I prefer using that method with Donphan Prime)   Limited: 2.5 (if you have a large Grass selection in your cards then go for it, but otherwise steer clear because the trouble getting the energy in an off-type deck will not be worth it)