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 Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Darmanitan 21/98 (Emerging Powers) Hello and welcome to the week on Pojo’s CotD. We’re carrying on with the new Emerging Powers set, so let’s see what it brings us. We kick off the week with Darmanitan. This is the second Darmanitan to be realeased: one comes from the original Japanese Black and White sets, and one comes from a structure deck. Guess which one this is? Well, when I tell you that it has less HP, inferior attacks, and higher Retreat than its BW version, the answer is fairly obvious. This is the structure deck Darmanitan, and it’s pretty horrible. The 100 HP isn’t good, the attacks are Weak and much too expensive (Fire Punch does 70 damage and inflicts Burn . . . for [R][R][C][C]!), and the Retreat cost of three is too high. I don’t really have much to say about this card except to tell you that you should always use the other Darmanitan over this one. Actually, don’t do that. Just stick with Reshiram. Rating Modified: 1.25 (it’s a bad version of an already mediocre card) Limited: 2 (the Colourless attack helps somewhat, but it’s still not great)
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Darmanitan (Emerging Powers)   Hello everyone, I'm back after an extended absence that included food poisoning and moving house, neither of which I want to repeat any time in the next decade (though I doubt I'll be that lucky). It's a fresh week and we continue spotlighting interesting cards from the latest set while we wait for B&W3 to reach our shores.   Darmanitan intrigues me because it has a permanent evil grin plastered across it's face and also possesses the brute strength necessary to wreak havoc in any environment. Sadly, the last print wasn't very well received, because despite the very healthy 120 HP the attacks were sup-par and somewhat counterproductive. This version doesn't suffer the self-damage that ruined the previous version but it also has less HP.   Aside from being a Fire type and a non-evolving Stage 1, Darmanitan has 100 HP, Waters weakness, a retreat cost of 3 and two attacks. The HP is acceptable and should allow the big lug to survive an early hit or two. The retreat cost is not surprising but will still make you wince and the weakness will be exploited every once in a while by Feraligatr & friends.   The first attack is Rock Smash, which costs [c][c] and deals 20 damage, with 20 extra damage if you get a Heads on the mandatory coin flip. This isn't absolutely terrible but it does fall short of being effective. With such low and unreliable damage you aren't going to do much more than tickle your opponent.   Fire Punch is the heavier attack, and despite being a favourite move of mine in the video games it usually gets short shrift in the TCG. For [r][r][c][c] you deal 70 damage and an automatic Burn, which takes the damage up to 90 (110 if your opponent gets really unlucky with the flips). Sadly, at that cost on a 100 HP Poke'mon you are going to need serious energy acceleration to make the attack work, and both FanBoar and Typhlosion Prime have better things to do (Reshiram is stealing all of the glory once again!). At least both attacks can use DCE.   This Darmanitan makes a lovely addition to your binder but it can't compete with the White Dragon. But isn't it soooo pretty as a reverse holo? I keep tilting it and staring at the colours, I can't help myself. Maybe we'l get a pretty and powerful Darmaitan in the distant future.   Modified: 2 (sub-par damage and high cost attacks mean that the decent stats are ignored. As a backup attacker in a starter deck you could do worse)   Limited: 3 (you'll get decent mileage from the HP and being a Stage 1 is definitely helpful for removing Special Conditions while still being easy enough to find. Still, the attacks lack punch so try to get a bigger hitter out for dealing with the big Basics in the set. At least you don't have to deal with discarding energy to attack)   Combos with: any special torches or prisms that allow you to make really funky light effects on the holofoil, I think I have a problem!
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! We're going to continue our reviews of Emerging Powers this week, and today we're going to kick things off by reviewing one of the very few Fire-types in the expansion. Today's Card of the Day is Darmanitan. Darmanitan is a Stage 1 Fire Pokemon. Fire-types are fairly common in Modified with the prevalence of Reshiram, Typhlosion Prime, and Emboar. Additionally, in Emerging Powers Limited, Fire is an incredibly rare type, with only four Pokemon (Pansear, Simisear, Darumaka, and Darmanitan), meaning that Darmanitan definitely fills a niche in that format. 100 HP is fairly good for a Stage 1, in that Darmanitan will be able to take weak unboosted hits fairly easily. Unfortunately, many things in Modified hit for 100 damage or more, making Darmanitan a bit of a liability there. Water Weakness isn't so bad right now, as Beartic and Samurott are somewhat rare in Modified, although the type is slightly more common in Limited. No Resistance is unfortunate but is somewhat expected. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 3 is very high, and you'll want to use something like Switch to Retreat Darmanitan. This Blazing Pokemon has two attacks: Rock Smash and Fire Punch. Rock Smash starts at 20 damage for two Colorless Energy, and if you flip heads, it will deal 20 more damage. This is a fairly nice attack in Limited as it requires only Colorless Energy, but it doesn't do enough in Modified to be useful. LIkewise, Fire Punch deals 70 damage for a massive cost of two Fire and two Colorless, automatically Burning the opponent as well. 70 damage and auto-Burn is fairly nice, but the attack costs too much to be of any real value in Modified. In Limited, if you draft enough of the Fire-types to run it as a dominant type (or can easily splash Fire into your deck), this attack can be great (if not a little pricey), especially due to the massive number of Fire Weak Grass-types in Emerging Powers. Modified: 1/5 Darmanitan is much too slow to work in Modified. If you want to use a Fire-type here, stick with Reshiram, Typhlosion Prime, or Emboar. Limited: 3.5/5 Darmanitan provides a nice niche in the Limited format. 100 HP is great for a Stage 1 here, and with all of the Grass-types, Darmanitan will work well to combat them all. Rock Smash's cost is Limited-friendly, and Fire Punch is somewhat expensive, but the damage is quite consistent and Burn is very nice. Therefore, if you can fit Darmanitan into your Limited deck, it will rarely let you down due to the presence of the many Pokemon with Fire Weakness.