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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Flareon (Plasma Freeze)  Hello and welcome to a short and interrupted week here on Pojo’s CotD. Our fearless leader is taking some time off midweek to sort out some family, stuff so we have just three days of reviews to do.  We kick off the week with Flareon, one of the new Eeveelutions from Plasma Freeze. It’s a Stage 1 with some pretty unpromising features at first glance: just 100 HP, an awkward retreat cost of two, and an inconvenient Weakness to Water which Kyurem PLF and Keldeo-EX will be eager to exploit. However, this card does have something to offer, and John Kettler, one of the games most respected long-time players is pioneering a deck at the moment which seeks to capitalise on what Flareon brings to the table.  The focus of his concept is Flareon’s first attack, Vengence. For a Double Colourless Energy, this does 20 damage, plus 10 more for each Pokémon in your discard pile. Now with a lot of playable Pokémon boasting incredibly high HP in the 170-180 range, it obviously isn’t easy to get Vengeance hitting for OHKOs without some careful and dedicated deck construction. Fortunately, this format has some options for getting cards in the discard besides the usual Juniper/Ultra Ball methods. For a start there is Cofagrigus PLF with the Six Feet Under Ability which allows you to KO it and place three damage counters on your opponent’s Pokémon how you like. Then there is Audino BCR which may be discarded from the hand to remove Status Conditions (very handy against Hypnotoxic Laser and Gothitelle/Accelgor Paralyze Lock decks). Throw in some Deoxys-EX to boost the damage output still further (remember, Flareon is a Team Plasma Pokémon), and you have an interesting deck.  I would be lying if I said I was completely convinced by it though. Cofagrigus gives away Prizes (unless you use Life Dew), the main attacker is weak, and Double Colourless Energy are not always easy to draw into. It’s a very creative deck for sure, and will likely have a considerable surprise factor though. It could well be fun to try out but I’m not sure I would take a risk on it for a big, important tournament.  Rating  Modified: 3 (some creative deckbuilding has made this card a lot better than it seems) Limited: 2.5 (nothing special here without the combos)
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! Today we're reviewing a new Eeveelution from Plasma Freeze. Today's Card of the Day is Flareon.   Flareon is a Stage 1 Fire Team Plasma Pokemon. Fire-types see little play these days, because many of the biggest attackers in the Modified format are Water, namely Kyurem and Keldeo-EX. Therefore, Flareon will have to do something very exciting in order to see play. As a Team Plasma Pokemon, Flareon gets Plasma support, such as the ability to be searched out by Team Plasma Ball, as well as taken from the discard with Shadow Triad. 100 HP is decent for a Stage 1, but still probably not enough to survive more than one hit in a metagame populated with Hypnotoxic Laser. As for bottom stats, Water Weakness is expected and bad; no Resistance is equally unfortunate; and a Retreat Cost of two is payable if you have to, but you're still better off using Switch, Float Stone, or Scramble Switch.   Flareon has two attacks. Vengeance does 20 damage plus 10 more damage for each Pokemon in your discard pile. This is potentially quite powerful, and some people are building decks with Flareon and Six Feet Under Cofagrigus in order to maximize the number of Pokemon in the discard. That being said, having an additional 10 damage for each Pokemon is very weak, and therefore requires a ton of Pokemon in order to work effectively, so this attack is probably best saved for Limited rather than a serious Modified deck.   The Fire Eeveelution's other attack, Heat Tackle, does 90 damage for a Fire and two Colorless, while also dealing 10 damage to itself. 90 damage for three is the bare minimum that is acceptable for Modified these days, but the self-damage is never good, regardless of format. Once again, you're likely using Flareon in Limited and casual play, as it won't get very far in the high-powered Modified format.   Modified: 2/5 Vengeance can be quite abusable and powerful here, but the amount of work it takes for the deck to be even somewhat viable isn't generally worth it. You're better off with other options.   Limited: 3.5/5 Flareon is still quite effective in Limited. It has decent HP for the format, and both attacks are usable: Vengeance, while probably not the strongest, will deal steady damage for Colorless costs, and Heat Tackle can at least 2HKO almost everything in the format. Additionally, Flareon fits well into decks that run multiple Eeveelutions for these reasons, too!
Otaku	Flareon (BW: Plasma Freeze /116) has recently piqued my interest, after having dismissed it in an article that most of you probably haven’t seen; it went up, but there was a miscommunication and a sequel to an earlier article was mistaken as an update/correction so.. originally I wasn’t too impressed with Flareon [Plasma].  That has changed just a little bit due to some interesting ideas people have suggested to me.   My time is short, so my normal card dissection isn’t happening.  In brief, Flareon [Plasma] is a Stage 1 Fire-Type Team Plasma Pokémon with 100 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of two… which other than being a Plasma Pokémon is poor to bad.  Its second attack, Heat Tackle, would have been great in an earlier format but based on what is competitive today is underwhelming: (RCC) for 90 and 10 points of self-damage.  It is enough to 2HKO most attackers in the format, but as Flareon [Plasma] will rarely survive after using it… and three Energy isn’t easy to furnish without a somewhat hefty set-up.   Vengeance (other than Eeveelutions being popular) are why this card will see play.  For (CC), Flareon [Plasma] hits for 20 points of damage, plus an additional 10 per Pokémon in your discard pile.  With a serious effort (about 16 Pokémon), you can get this attack to OHKO range.  Besides commonly used cards like Professor Juniper and Ultra Ball, players have been looking for good options to fill the discard pile.   Ditto (BW: Boundaries Crossed 108/149)is perhaps the simplest; whether discarded as fodder or dropped into play only to Transform simply for the sake of using Transform.  If used directly with Flareon [Plasma], for example, every Flareon that goes down adds 30 points of damage instead of 20.  Cofagrigus (BW: Plasma Freeze 56/116) has also been suggested; you either take advantage of giving up Prizes to ensure you can quickly N your opponent down to a small hand while spreading three damage counters per successful use of Six Feet Under, or you use Life Dew and Recycle to try and avoid giving up any Prizes (at least from Six Feet Under).  Both are risky, but I think I would prefer the former if I could get a deck to reliably spam Six Feet Under three or even four times.   There is another option though, and oddly enough it is one that gets talked about plenty yet for a different risky deck: Weavile (BW: Plasma Freeze 66/116).  I haven’t had any chance to test any version of these decks, so this is pure speculation.  While using two Stage 1 Pokémon is daunting, both are Team Plasma Pokémon, both can make good use of Colress Machine/Plasma Energy to power up in one turn, and Weavile [Plasma] chucks Pokémon from the hand to fuel its Vilify attack.  Ideally, you could use Vilify two or three times while scoring early Prizes then fall back on Vengeance for OHKOs.   Unlike what I usually see for Weavile [Plasma] decks, you might not need Exeggcute (BW: Plasma Freeze 4/116); those are run not for discard fodder, but for re-usable discard fodder.  If you are using Vilify to fill your discard, you want to be chucking more Pokémon each time, not the same few over and over again.  Then again, maybe they are still necessary – again I am theorizing, not relaying testing results.  I think some of the other Eeveelutions might be good; mostly as discard fodder since Eevee (BW: Plasma Freeze 90/116) could search three out first turn (so long as each are different) and Leafeon (BW: Plasma Freeze 11/116) especially looks good as another potential attacker.   So for Modified, I believe Flareon [Plasma] has promise.  For Limited, it is a must run unless your deck is low on Pokémon… like if you are running a Pokémon-EX plus 39 Energy.   Ratings   Unlimited: 1/5   Modified: 3/5   Limited: 4.8/5