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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Bisharp #72 (Dark Explorers) Bisharp is one of the more controversial designs from Generation V. He seems to me like a cross between Gallade and a Power Ranger. Could be worse though: if this were Yu-Gi-Oh, we would no doubt have a Pokémon for every single piece on the chessboard. Like all the Pokémon we have reviewed this week, Bisharp is a Dark Type, so he is well supported by cards like Dark Patch and Dark Claw. He’s going to need all the help he can get, really, as he is a low HP Stage 1 with Fighting Weakness. Not a good thing to be at the moment and it means that Bisharp will need some brilliant attacks to be playable at all. Slash, Bisharp’s first attack, is a long way from being brilliant. One Dark and one Colourless Energy will get you 30 points of effect-free damage. That’s certainly not worth the Energy, or the effort of evolving him. Unfortunately, Fury Cutter isn’t much better. For one Dark and two Colourless, you get the same base damage of 30, but you also get three coin flips to try and improve on that. Flipping for extra damage is not desirable in the first place, and Fury Cutter doesn’t even offer much of a boost, even for above average luck. With one heads you do 40 (which is poor), two gets you 60 (still below par), and even with a perfect run of three (unlikely, even with Victory Star Victini) you are still only getting 90 damage for three Energy, which is barely better than mediocre these days. So, what you get with Bisharp is an easily-KO’d Pokémon with underpowered, flippy attacks. I don’t think any advice is needed here. Rating Modified: 1.25 (looking for a Dark Pokémon to play? Look elsewhere) Limited: 2 (not even really good enough to play at a prerelease) This will be my last week of reviews for a little while, as I am taking some time off to go to the World Championships in Hawaii. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all my fellow competitors good luck and hope that everyone has a brilliant time! See you in a few weeks baby mario
virusyosh	Happy Friday, Pojo readers! Today we're ending our COTD Week by reviewing a Darkness-type Stage 1 from Dark Explorers. Today's Card of the Day is Bisharp.   Bisharp is a Stage 1 Darkness Pokemon. As we've been talking about all week, Darkness types have great support, and since Bisharp shares the typing, it can make use of it. 90 HP is average for a Stage 1, and is a little lower than what we'd want in Modified, though it's not terrible in Limited. Like many other Darkness-types, Bisharp has a Fighting Weakness which is bad against Terrakion, Psychic Resistance is good against Mewtwo and friends, and a Retreat Cost of 1 is fairly priced, so you can pay it if you feel the great need.   Bisharp has two attacks. Slash does a vanilla 30 damage for a Darkness and a Colorless, which is wholly unimpressive in Modified, but can be used in Limited to deal decent, consistent damage. It is worth noting, however, that this damage output is still even pretty low for Limited. Fury Cutter is a something non-orthodox flip attack, which starts off at 30 damage and does more damage for each heads you get: +10 for one head, +30 for two heads, and +60 for three heads, all for a Darkness and two Colorless. While the attack is interesting (and tries to capture how Fury Cutter works in the video games), it won't be very useful in Modified due to its unreliable nature and somewhat weak damage output (While 90 damage for three is acceptable, 60 or 40 for the same amount is not). In contrast, this attack works pretty well in Limited, given the slower nature of the format. That being said, Bisharp probably won't be a main attacker in your Limited deck (unless you pull multiples of them), but instead will work as a nice secondary attacker in a deck focused around something stronger, such as Darkrai-EX or Zoroark.   Modified: 1/5 Bisharp is terribly outclassed by Darkrai here, so you should probably just use Darkrai when given the chance. On its own, Slash doesn't do enough damage, and Fury Cutter is too unreliable to be of much good. Pass on this one for your Modified lists.   Limited: 3/5 Bisharp is playable in Limited, but not amazing. Both attacks are certainly usable for friendly Energy requirements, as Slash deals cheap damage and Fury Cutter has the possibility of dealing 90, which is fairly good for Limited. Also, given its typing, Bisharp can take advantage of all of the new Darkness support as well. While Bisharp won't be blowing anyone away, it can still be a decent threat if not checked.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Bisharp #72 (Dark Explorers)   Just a short review today, I'm all out of prose after getting excited over Zorua yesterday. Today we have a printing of the popular new Dark/Metal hybrid, Bisharp.   Sadly, I don't get to prattle on like usual because there is almost nothing to say about this guy. Average and underwhelming HP, a Weakness that Entei will love, Resistance that Mewtwo honestly won't care about and a retreat cost both too high for convenience and too low for Heavy Ball make Bisharp extremely unattractive. It can coast by on being a Dark Poke'mon either, as history has long shown us that even the best support will only be used to power the shining examples of each type who are already worth the trouble.   The attacks are pure filler as well. Paying [d][c] will get you Slash, just an unimpressive 30 damage. Fury cutter is no better, costing [d][c][c] for 30 damage and three coin flips. Add 10 damage for one heads, 30 damage for two and 60 damage if you manage to win all three flips. A mere 90 damage shouldn't have you racing off to build a deck around Bisharp and Victini, so just power this card through at the prerelease and then forget about it.   Modified: 1.5 (neither useful nor entertaining, Bisharp is doomed to obscurity)   Limited: 3 (solid filler to pad out your Dark deck, but you'll want to ignore Bisharp completely if you have stronger cards in other types to work with as it makes a lousy off-type splash)   Combos with: the certain knowledge that this card will never see play even around the kitchen table
Jebulous Maryland Player	Bisharp   Bisharp is a Stage 1 Dark Pokemon with 90 HP.  It has a Fighting weakness, Psychic resistance, and a 1 retreat cost.  It is searchable by Level Ball.  Sadly that is not that great, since it's Stage 1 with 90 HP, it has a higher chance of being OHKOed.   'Slash' does 30 damage for a cost of 1 Dark and 1 Colorless energy. It is meh... I would expect it to either do more or have some sort of effect (seeing as how I went through the effort of evolving into it).   'Fury Cutter' costs 1 Dark and 2 Colorless energy.  A DCE speeds this guy up.  And this is a coin flipping attack... however, it is one that I like.  On a side note, I hate attacks that involve only 1 flip and its all or nothing.  I like ones that involve 1 coin flip and an effect happens whether you get heads or tails.  I get more enjoyment from attacks that involve multiple flips.  Attacks that flip until you get tails... I like them if you don't have the chance of doing 0 damage on the first flip.  For example, Chansey's 'Continuous Tumble', if you flip tails first, it does nothing.  I just wasted my attack. On the other hand, Conkeldurr's 'Top Down' does an automatic 80 damage, and you flip for the discarding effect (so a first flip of tails doesn't waste your attack).  Back to this attack, 1 heads is 40 damage, 2 heads is 60 damage, and 3 heads is 90 damage.  While you can flip 3 tails and do 0 damage, I still enjoy this attack because the chances are very low of doing that (and if it does happen, then luck isn't on my side).   My opinion on coin flipping is horribly biased, but I don't care, it's how I feel about them.   So I'm not a big fan of this card.  It can easily be OHKOed and its damage output is not worth it (even though the coin flipping is suspenseful).  You are looking at flipping 1 or 2 heads most of the time, and 40-60 damage barely puts a dent in some things (it just makes Zekrom/Reshiram/Kyurem angrier).  Though in a game for fun, I’d enjoy using its second attack.   Modified: 1.5/5 Limited: 3/5 Combo's With: ...   Questions, comments, concerns: jebulousthemighty@yahoo.com