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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Victini (Boundaries Crossed)  Hello and welcome to another week on Pojo’s CotD. Y’know I never bought many packs from Boundaries Crossed, just singles of the cards I wanted. As a result, I had no idea that this card even existed until I was asked to review it.  So . . . we kick off the week with Victini, a rare holo from the latest set. As you would expect, it is a Fire Type unevolving Basic with an ok-ish 70 HP, Weakness to Water (currently terrible thanks to Keldeo, but it’s not like 70 HP Pokémon stick around for very long anyway), and an acceptable single Energy Retreat cost. So far, all very predictable and nothing to grab the attention.  Victini’s first attack is something we have seen many times before. For a single Colourless Energy, Collect will draw a card. Drawing an extra card is never bad of course, especially at the start of the game when you need resources in hand to set up, but if you really wanted to do that you would probably go for the far superior option of Verizion NVI which nets two cards and also has higher HP and better Typing. The fact that you rarely see it in tournaments will tell you that most players don’t find this kind of attack worth the deck space.  Your second option with Victini is Relentless Flames: for the reasonable cost of one Fire and one Colourless you get to flip coins until you hit tails and do 30 for each heads. Yes, that’s right . . . it’s one of those ‘infinite damage in theory’ attacks that people mention when trying to work out how you can do the most damage in a format. In actual gameplay, however, it’s horribly unreliable and therefore impractical to use. The idea of pairing it with Victory Star Fliptini for some kind of crazy gimmick deck would probably appeal to someone who really loves the Pokémon, but even they should move swiftly on if they find themselves considering it.  Rating  Modified: 1.5 (you can do better elsewhere) Limited: 3.5 (never going to say no to a splashable Basic with a draw attack)
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! We're reviewing more Boundaries Crossed cards this week, so be sure to check back for updates as you prepare for Regionals. Today we're reviewing a Legendary Pokemon, Victini!   Victini is a Basic Fire Pokemon. Fire-types aren't so common in Modified right now, as only Ho-Oh sees a little bit of play; additionally, with all of the Blastoise/Keldeo (and similar) builds running around, Fire types have an added problem of being commonly hit for Weakness. Victini's 70 HP won't stand up to much, but it should probably be usable either at the beginning of the game or possibly later in Limited. Water Weakness is once again a problem against Blastoise and Keldeo, no Resistance is what we've come to expect, and a single Retreat Cost isn't too bad, and is easily payable.   This version of the Victory Pokemon has two attacks. Collect draws you a card for a single Colorless Energy, which is only something you should be doing in Limited. This attack isn't nearly good enough in Modified, where we have plenty of Supporter-based (and even some Ability-based) draw power. Relentless Flames is Victini's form of offense, flipping a coin until you get tails and doing 30 damage times the number of heads for a Fire and a Colorless. These sorts of attacks are never very good, and most of the time you'll end up doing either 30 damage or none at all. Therefore, it's probably better to stick with more reliable Pokemon with more reliable attacks.   Modified: 1/5 Victini isn't good here at all. For starters, 70 HP won't survive most common attacks in the format, and Water Weakness means that Blastoise and Keldeo easily get the OHKO. As for the attacks, Collect isn't something you should be doing with an attack in this format, and Relentless Flames is too unreliable to be a real threat.   Limited: 2.5/5 Victini is very average in Limited, as well. Collect can be useful to help set up, but Relentless Flames is still not very good. Fortunately, the lower HP score and Water Weakness matter less here, and Victini is therefore still playable.
Jebulous Maryland Player	Victini   Victini is a Basic Fire Pokemon with 70 HP.  It is weak to Fire and has a retreat cost of 1.  It is searchable by Level Ball.   'Collect' costs 1 colorless energy and you get to draw a card. So drawing is good, the only problem is, there is better drawing out there.  Virizion and Dunsparse, for the same cost, let you draw 2 cards.  So it feels like Victini got the short end of the stick here.   'Relentless Flames' Cost 1 Fire and 1 colorless energy.  You flip until you get tails, then it's 30 time the number of heads.  Good in theory, never in practice (at least not for me).  At best you'll get 2 heads, any more is pushing your luck.  But still, there is a 50% chance of doing no damage...   So this card can be used for 2 things, drawing or attacking.  Looking at the attacking aspect, it's be more fiit for a gimmicky flip deck.  Other than that, you have an unreliable attack that does about 60 at best, while your opponent can consistently churn out 90+ a turn.   For the drawing aspect, there is better.  Verizion, though Grass, has 110 HP and a resistance to Water (which is big right now).  Dunsparse may have 60 (which make him also searchable by Level Ball), but thrown in with Aspertia City Gym, he becomes a little more resilient (and can get off attacks for the first couple of turns before he gets Knocked Out).   Modified: 1/5 Limited: 1.5/5 Combos With:  ...   Questions, comments, concerns: jebulousthemighty@yahoo.com
Otaku	If you’re reading this, then I forgot to write an actual intro.  Stats Victini is a Basic Pokémon, to its credit; minimum deck space per copy, simply drop it into play (unless your Bench is full), and it can tap a few support cards exclusive to Basic Pokémon.  It is a Fire-Type, which is a mixed blessing; I don’t see anything in the way of support for the actual Pokémon-Type, and the support the Energy Type doesn’t seem to be worth playing anymore (of what actually did see some play).  Fire Weakness isn’t abundant but it exists, and of course nothing is naturally Fire Resistant in Modified.  Victini has 70 HP which is small for a Basic Pokémon that doesn’t Evolve… as a long time player that still seems weird (for years this was “the magic” number, hard to FTKO or even OHKO), that nowadays 70 HP is a pretty easy OHKO for most decks, and possible FTKO.  At least this allows Victini to be a legal search target for Level Ball.  The Water Weakness almost doesn’t matter; only a few Water-Type attackers won’t be hitting hard enough to OHKO it regardless of Weakness.  No Resistance is disappointing but common (and perhaps even understandable with how Type conversion(s) from video game to TCG complicate things), so I won’t hold it against Victini and move on to the Retreat; a single Energy is all it takes and with Skyarrow Bridge in play, not even that is required.  Effects Victini is packing two attacks.  The first is Collect, which requires (C) and allows you to draw a card.  This is very, very poor; while better I think than a token 10 points of damage, you aren’t going to play this card to attack and draw singles.  There is a high chance of Victini being OHKOed, and so a slot in your deck, an Energy (and usually your manual Energy attachment), and a Prize are definitely not worth drawing a single card.  The second attack is Relentless Flames for (RC), which requires you flip a coin until you get “tails” for 30 points of damage per “heads”.  That means roughly half the time, it does nothing.  A quarter of the time, it should do 30 points of damage.  The remaining quarter of the time it does at least 60 points of damage.  To really be impressive, you’re going to have to hit at least three “heads”; not very likely.  Both of these attacks are underpowered, especially after factoring in the low HP.  Collect needs to draw enough to be on par with a Supporter (at least), while Relentless Flames needs to do some Base damage, or hit harder for each “heads”.  Usage Is there a use for this card?  Only in Limited play; even if you backed it up with Victini (BW: Noble Victories 14/101, 98/101, BW Promo  BW32) to allow you to re-flip for the attacks, its Victory Star Ability is an all or nothing re-flip, and limited to once-per-turn no matter how many copies are in play.  It would improve your odds, but not enough to justify two relatively easy Prizes.  Factor in that if you did need a low Energy, off-Type attacker and could afford to met the single (R) Energy requirement that is part of the (RC) for Relentless Flames (Prism Energy would do nicely), you still would be better off with Victini (BW: Noble Victories 15/101); if you have five Pokémon on your Bench, it hits for 100 points of damage, enough to OHKO anything Fire Weak outside of protective effects.  Nothing in Unlimited makes it better; as stated only in Limited will the HP and attack be decent; the Energy requirements allow you to play it with little to no Fire Energy and still do something, and draw power is so desperately in demand here.  Not a must run, but probably an “often run”.  Ratings  Unlimited: 1/5  Modified: 1.25/5  Limited: 3/5  Summary Victini isn’t actually too far off of being useful; we have a solid frame (at least for a disposable opening attacker) that just needed a better “set-up” move.  The second attack, even if it wasn’t also improved, is always a threat (just needing favorable coin flips) so ignoring it isn’t fun.  Like so many of the cards that (in Japan) were part of the National Beginning Set, they really just needed a little more effort to be functional; something to use outside of “beginner” or League decks. Actually… most don’t look all that good for beginners, either.