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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Wide Lens  There’s no denying that Wide Lens could be an extremely powerful card. After all, it breaks one of the fundamental rules of Pokémon (attacks on Benched Pokémon do not apply Weakness), and this is usually a sign that a card is worth looking at.   Whether the current card pool can exploit what Wide Lens has to offer is a different matter. Sniping and spreading damage do exist in the current format (Manectric EX, Trevenant XY, Landorus EX. for example), and it is possible to think of scenarios with commonly played decks where Wide Lens would come in handy (Landorus EX’s Hammerhead on a Benched Eevee would be one). The question is, though, will these scenarios exist often enough to justify running Wide Lens, or attaching it instead of a Muscle Band or suchlike?  The only comparable card I can recall is Drifblim FB from Supreme Victors. This did see some play, but that was because it could OHKO Benched Uxie and Azelf with some help from Crobat G (and in those days Benched Uxie and Azelf was pretty much a given). That situation doesn’t exist now, though if we get a Lightning Type that can hit Benched Shaymin EXs for 60 damage it might be worth looking at (Zapdos LTR, you were so close). Similarly, this card might be worth re-visiting if we see viable spread decks that hit a significant Weakness. For now though, there are better cards to be attaching to your Pokémon.  Rating  Modified: 2.5 Expanded: 2.75 (Raikou EX?) Limited: 3
aroramage	Hope you all had a nice Memorial Day! Glad to always remember those who helped us keep America as it is today......well, the America part of it, anyway. In any case, we're back to reviewing more cards, and this week's a little shorter so we've gone with a more "grab bag" option of sorts. Starting with today's card, Wide Lens!  ...wait, what? They took that hold item and gave it a card? Huh. Well okay then. It's an oddity since in the games, Wide Lens just boosts the accuracy of your moves by 10%, meaning you're more likely to hit with them. Shame too, since accuracy isn't really a thing in the TCG - your moves always hit, 100% of the time...unless you were hit with Sand Attack, in which case then it's more like a 50/50. Wide Lens doesn't counter this particularly niche ordeal (probably for the best, I imagine the effect would work a lot like Shred otherwise). Instead, it does something a little...different.  Wide Lens in the TCG instead tackles a different niche. You know how most attacks when they hit a Benched Pokemon don't trigger any Weaknesses or Resistances? Mostly just to make sure you can't completely decimate an opponent with a single strike - otherwise, MAN would spread damage be overpowered. In any case, Wide Lens decides that, "You know what? That overpowered thing we avoided? Yeah, let's see if we can use that!" In other words, it removes that limitation - so now your attacks hit for Weakness and Resistance on Benched Pokemon!  There's just one small problem with that: that's a particular niche. You're actively relying on your opponent having just the right deck Type to get completely wrecked by your Primal Kyogre-EX or Darkrai-EX or Landorus-EX or M Gallade-EX. And if they aren't? Well then, Wide Lens is a dead card. Thing is, you're still hitting Bench-sitters regardless if you have Wide Lens or not - you'd only be including it to be hitting down especially hard on a particular Type. And that's just too particular for competitive play.  Never mind that   Rating  Standard: 1.5/5 (a specific Tool for a relatively irrelevant part of the game)  Expanded: 1.5/5 (it doesn't fare much better here)  Limited: 2.5/5 (I'll give it some credit, there are a few cards in here that hit Benched Pokemon besides M Gallade-EX...it's still really niche though)  Arora Notealus: I guess it really would have been better off being a Tool-version of Shred. Can you imagine what kind of chaos a card like that could bring? Suddenly Sigilyph and Pyroar are no longer safe from the wrath of Seismitoad-EX! OH NOOOOO!!  Next Time: Time to ROCK!!
Emma Starr	Today’s card, Wide Lens, is pretty much as technical as a card that you can get. In fact, it’s so technical that it’s only use is to counter a few other cards with specific effects. Namely, Weakness Policy. If this card is attached to your Pokémon, you can hit the opposing Pokemon for weakness, even if your opponent’s Pokémon has a Weakness Policy attached.                 Since this card is terribly situational, let’s say your opponent’s Pokémon actually does have a Weakness Policy on it. Attach this, and hit it for weakness, that is, if your Pokémon is indeed the type it’s weak against, and most likely KO it. Of course, there could always be a Seismitoad EX around, so be wary of him, as usual, like with any other Items.  But, what if your opponent isn’t playing anything that’s weak to your type(s) you’re playing? Well, that’s one slot of deck space you’ve wasted. Especially if your opponent isn’t playing Weakness Policy, which is probably even more likely. I mean, whenever you put this in your deck, you should be banking on both of these factors happening (that your opponent will be playing a deck that you can hit for Weakness on, and that they’ll be playing a Weakness Policy). And chances are, you won’t be knowing what type your opponent will be playing beforehand, unless you’ve happened to play them before. So, although this is one of the most situational cards out there, if you can find a way to put it to use, it can probably serve you well, if the time ever comes.                 Standard: 1.5/5 (no substitutes for this card, it at least does accomplish something unique) Expanded: 1.5/5 Limited: 1/5 (Weakness Policy was part of Primal Clash, so unless there’s some sort of effect or something that I’m unaware of, I don’t think you’ll find this to be too useful here.)
Otaku	Welcome to a shortened week of reviews; in the United States of America Monday was Memorial Day, a holiday set aside for remembering those who died while serving in our armed forces, though many also take the time to remember their departed loved ones in general.  Our subject today is Wide Lens (XY: Roaring Skies 95/108).  This is a new Pokémon Tool that allows the equipped Pokémon to apply Weakness and Resistance for attacks that hit Benched Pokémon.  This is a hyper-specialized card as before its effect matters, you have to be able to attack the opponent’s Bench in the first place and the target has to be Weak versus your attacker.  If you do though, you get the abusive damage bump caused by Weakness (can you tell I’m a critic of the “x2” multiplier for Weakness?).  There isn’t really another good way to bump damage for Bench hits, but Wide Lens doesn’t provide the kind of advantage that warrants restructuring your typical deck to include such Bench hits.  Perhaps in the future we’ll get something that can shift its own Type while also hitting the Bench, but outside of helping something like Raikou-EX OHKO a Shaymin-EX (BW: Roaring Skies 77/108; 106/108) while the latter is still Benched.  Of course you could also just slap a Muscle Band on the same Raikou-EX and OHKO an opponent’s Active M Rayquaza-EX.  That probably gets to the heart of the matter; most can’t make use of this trick and even if they can, it is still so specialized you might be better off with another more useful, less specialized card instead.  It may be “tails fails” but Pokémon Reversal is also an Item and can force something on the Bench (barring exceptions like something protected by Ω Barrier) up front to hit it for Weakness… or without Weakness but with other buffs being applied.  Throw in things that have nothing to do with exploiting Weakness but with buying the time to attack again safely (Crushing Hammer, Enhanced Hammer, healing, etc.) and the competition becomes even more abundant.  As such this card isn’t going to score well in Standard or Expanded, though I will give it a small bump in the latter due to the increased card pool; more competition for space but that pales in comparison to more Bench-hitters.  In Limited play there are a few Bench-hitters in this set that can use it; if you pull them run it.  Most cards can’t hit the Bench and one Bench-hitter you’d think would love this - Dustox (XY: Roaring Skies 8/108) will find no Weakness to exploit in the set (in Standard and Expanded, again it’s just better off buffing its main attack and forcing something Active to exploit Weakness).  Ratings  Standard: 1.5/5  Expanded: 1.6/5  Limited: 2/5  Summary: The above scores are aggregated; it is near useless in most decks but there are a few where it is almost tempting.  Normally I’d be tempted to go decks specific but while this works in more than one deck, it is still so overly specific such scores would be meaningless: it is awesome at allowing you to apply Weakness for Bench hits, it just is so rarely worthwhile.  Maybe I will be proven wrong and something like Landorus-EX will be able to exploit it.  Now I know it isn’t close in appearance, but does it kind of remind anyone else of a Power Level Scouter from Dragon Ball Z?