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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Garbodor (Dragons Exalted) Hello and welcome to a week of card reviews (what else?) here on Pojo’s CotD. We may have finished our look at the top 13 (yes, I know that was weird), but there is still plenty of good stuff to cover . . . stuff that you will definitely be seeing at the Battle Roads which start this weekend. We kick off the week with Garbodor, which must be the most disgusting-looking Pokémon ever designed. I mean seriously, Muk looks as cute as a Manaphy by comparison to this, and not even kawayoo (whose artwork is always amazing) can make him the slightest bit appealing. I’ll try to put the fact that Garbodor is so repulsive out of my head though, and give him a fair review. Actually, it’s not only the way Garbodor looks that is horrible. This card offers plenty of other reasons to steer clear. For a start it’s a Stage 1 with just 100 HP. Want more? Well how about that Psychic Weakness which makes it easy prey for Mewtwo-EX, and the high retreat cost of three. Not quite enough? Well then, consider the fact that its attack, Sludge Toss, does a vanilla 60 damage for three Energy (two of which must be Psychic). Yeah, you aren’t ever going to want to use that. So . . . what’s all the fuss about then? Well, those players who love to play lock decks need not be depressed about the rotation of Vileplume UD any longer – because Garbodor is here to help with his Garbotoxin Ability!. This states that, as long as Garbodor has a Tool attached, all Abilities (except Garbotoxin) stop working. Luckily there are a couple of very useful Tools for it in Dragons Exalted: choose from Giant Cape (which means it can’t be sniped in one attack by Raikou-EX) or Rescue Scarf (puts Garbodor back in your hand when it gets KO’d). How useful is this? Potentially very useful. Just think of all the powerful decks that are hurt by not being able to use Abilities: Eelektrik decks can’t use Dynamotor acceleration; Darkrai-EX can’t give free retreat with Dark Cloak; Empoleon won’t be able to use Diving Draw; and Garchomp is a lot slower when it doesn’t have Gabite’s Dragon Call to search out Pokémon. Mew-EX, Ho-Oh-EX, and Hydreigon are also pretty much useless when there is a Garbodor plus Tool on the Field. Partner Garbodor with some Pokémon of your own who don’t care about abilities (such as Terrakion (EX and NVI), Registeel-EX, Mewtwo-EX, or Groudon-EX), and you have a deck which denies an opponent a crucial resource without affecting your own strategy. Of course, there are ways of dealing with Garbodor. Pokémon Catcher is there to drag it out for the KO, and Tool Scrapper is an extremely effective counter: discard Garbodor’s Tool card and it becomes a useless lump of bench-hogging trash. Nevertheless, even if this happens, Garbodor is still disrupting your opponent and forcing them to spend resources on dealing with something other than your main attacker. Expect to see people giving Garbodor a go at Battle Roads, especially during the first week or two. If the deck is successful, then you will see a big rise in the use of Tool Scrapper. If you’re not running Garbodor yourself, then don’t wait to get caught out – make sure your deck can deal with threat. Rating Modified: 3.5 (for now it’s the new Vileplume, though thankfully nowhere near as annoying) Limited: 2 (Limited decks don’t tend to depend on Abilities)
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! We're continuing our reviews of more Dragons Exalted cards this week, so be sure to check back often for more updates. Today we're going to review a card that has received a fair bit of hype upon its release in DRX, but doesn't seem to quite have a niche yet. Today's Card of the Day is Garbodor.   Garbodor Is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon. Aside from Mewtwo-EX and the random Sigilyph to counter, Psychics are relatively uncommon in the Modified metagame, with players instead option for other more common types such as Dragon, Lightning, Darkness, and Fighting. 100 HP is decent for a Stage 1, as Garbodor will probably be about to take a medium-sized hit before going down, although it will still fall in a single hit to stronger attackers like Zekrom-EX, Garchomp, and Hydreigon. Psychic Weakness means that Mewtwo will easily KO given it has three Energy attached, which could be bad; however, since Mewtwo usage is dwindling somewhat, Garbodor could easily find a metagame niche. Sadly, the Trash Heap Pokemon has no Resistance and a large Retreat Cost of 3, meaning you'll want to use Switch or some other method to get Garbodor out of the Active slot.   Garbodor has an Ability and a single attack. Garbotoxin blocks all non-Garbotoxin Abilities in each player's hand, discard pile, and field if Garbodor has a Pokemon Tool attached, making it a somewhat watered-down version of Fossil Muk for Abilities. Most top tier decks rely on Abilities to work, and Garbotoxin will easily block Eelektrik's Dynamotor, Hydreigon's Dark Trance, Altaria's Fight Song, Gabite's Dragon Call, and any other Abilities that may be in play. Of course, Garbodor needs a Tool attached, so this Ability can also be negated through a well-placed Tool Scrapper or any other card that discards a Pokemon Tool. Even still, the Ability to negate Abilities is quite powerful, and shouldn't be ignored.   Sludge Toss, Garbodor's form of offense, deals a vanilla 60 damage for two Psychic Energy and a Colorless. This attack doesn't deal nearly enough damage to be effective, so chances are that Garbodor will only be used for Garbotoxin, and for good reason.   Modified: 3.75/5 Garbodor is a deck builder's dream, as it has a very powerful Ability offset by some interesting constraints (the requirement of having a Pokemon Tool). While Garbodor hasn't quite found a niche in the metagame yet, many deck builders are trying diligently to break this card, especially because of the current Modified metagame's reliance on Abilities. Overall, Garbodor's full power may not be realized yet, but with a little bit of creativity, you can definitely expect to see people experimenting with it at your Autumn Battle Roads.   Limited: 3.5/5 Garbodor isn't quite as good in Limited, simply because Pokemon with Abilities are less common. 100 HP is above average for a Stage 1 here, and Sludge Toss's damage is both decent and consistent, which is welcome in a largely luck-based format. Unfortunately, Garbodor's heavy Retreat Cost and dual Psychic requirements mean that it will largely be confined to a deck committed to the Psychic type. That being said, if you can play up to its strengths, Garbodor will be a serviceable Pokemon in Limited.
Jebulous	Garbodor   Garbodor is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon with 100 HP.  It has a weakness of Psychic and a retreat cost of 3.  Heavy Ball can get this guy.   'Garbotoxon' is an ability that negates all other abilities if a Pokemon Tool is attached to Garbodor.  This is the reason why the card will see play.  With so many Pokemon being used for their abilities, the ability to negate them is worth looking into (those decks losing their abilities cause them to lose synergy).   'Sludge Toss' costs 2 Psychic and 1 Colorless energy.  It does 60 damage and should never really be used.  Garbodor will be sitting on the bench most of the time (when it isn't catchered up).   So this would be a great card to build a deck around (in theory). Most abilities used in top tier decks are used to take advantage of bending mechanics (energy acceleration, energy shifting, removing retreat costs).  When those decks lose those abilities, they slow down considerably.   So when building a deck around Garbodor, a few things need to be taken into consideration:   1) Consistency in set up - You need to consistently set up a Garbodor.  This means you want it out and Garbotoxin being used on turn 2.  If you do that, you keep your opponent locked down as much as possible. Ultra and Heavy Ball will get Garbodor to your hand quick.  Level Ball gets you Trubbish.  I don't believe there are any trainers that search out tools, so you will most likely need to run a large tool line.   2) Keeping it alive - once you have it set up, you need to keep it alive/using Garbotoxin.  When it is up, your opponent will be aiming to take it out.  This means Tool Scrapper and Pokemon Catcher.  The former will allow them to use their abilities for at least that turn (until you attach another tool).  The latter means they will knock it out (and you will need to rebuild it).   3) Attackers - you will need something else to be the attacker for the deck.  Garbodor does its thing by sitting back and being all garbage-like.  It was not meant to attack.  There are lots of possibilities for attackers, you just need to find the right ones.   4) Tools - you need to use tools that benefit all of your Pokemon in the deck.  Giant Cape and Rescue Scarf are tools that come to mind for Garbodor (increase HP or recycling it).  Other Tools are Eviolite and Exp Share, which don't really do much for it.  So you need to figure it out.   5) Other Abilities - Don't try to work in other Pokemon with abilities.  An option is using Tool Scrapper on your own Garbodor to get a turn to use your other Pokemon's abilities (but that is a lot of resource wasting).   Those are things that I've been thinking about for my Garbodor deck (there will probably be more, but I can't think of anything else right now).  I've got my 4/4 set of the family, so I just need to get building.   Modified: 4/5 Limited: 4/5 Combo's With: ...   Questions, comments, concerns: jebulousthemighty@yahoo.com