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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	And now to wrap up this week, we're finishing off with the other copy of Entei, and from the look of things...he's not terrible. I mean, considering he's an Ancient Trait wielder.  Okay, so he's no M Tyranitar-EX, but who can be? He's still got Theta Double, which means he'll be able to sport that double-branding of Muscle Band. Or maybe a Lucky Helmet or something like that, I don't think there's too many Tools one runs outside of Spirit Links and Muscle Band.  In any case, Entei has two fairly decent attacks. Flame Screen is an okay 2-for-30 strike that reduces the damage Entei takes by 30 after Weakness/Resistance. I've always said reduction is better than healing, and 30 is a fair chunk of Entei's 130 HP, so your opponent has to hit him with at least 160 damage after a Flame Screen in order to KO him. Doesn't outright prevent damage from touching Entei entirely like Safeguard, but that's pretty sturdy stuff. Maybe even add on a Hard Charm, and suddenly Entei's a beefy customer. Of course, the 30 damage is like that for a reason. Entei also has to deal with his own Heat Tackle, with a 4-for-130 damaging blow which, while hefty, is a pretty solid bit of damage! Throw on Muscle Band onto Entei, and together with Flame Screen, he could take down any regular Pokemon-EX! If you're feeling ballsy, you could forego Flame Screen in favor of another Heat Tackle to guarantee a devastating blow against a Mega too - though you might wanna be careful, since Heat Tackle's got a coin flip to see if Entei takes 30 damage or not from the attack.  All things considered, Entei here is pretty tough with the right set-up, so it's definitely worth noting that running him isn't a bad idea. If anything, the trickiest part is making sure he's got all the right pieces to work - cause if he doesn't, he'll still be in for a rough time, and so will you.  Rating  Standard: 3/5 (another solid Theta Double user that gets better with Tools rather than have bad attacks to make them not worth using!)  Expanded: 3.5/5 (being a Basic has its own advantages, and more Tools means more mayhem!)  Limited: 3.5/5 (not too many Tools that Entei can take advantage of, save for Lucky Helmet, but his attacks are solid enough on their own)  Arora Notealus: Roaring around at the speed of sound, it's way too late for me, gotta stop staying up till 2...... Weekend Thought: All things considered, this wasn't a bad week for cards, huh? Got some interesting new ones that may or may not see play, and hey, maybe that's just what we need, right? Really, we just need more solid sets that introduce reasonably powerful cards, don't we? Ya know, excluding Forest of Broken Plants...actually, I like calling it that now! CLEVER NAMES AHOY!!
Otaku	We began the week with one Entei and now we end with the other, XY: Ancient Origins 15/98.  The Fire-Type seems pretty solid right now; as a Type it hits nearly all Grass-Types and Metal-Types for Weakness, never has to worry about Resistance, has some useful (though not the greatest) support and either doesn't have to deal with any anti-Fire cards or else I missed them, suggesting they aren't worth noticing.  It is a Basic, making it the fastest Stage to get into play and the one that needs the least cards (one card yields one Entei), which is great.  130 HP is as good as it gets for Basic Pokémon unless they are something like a Pokémon-EX; it can still be OHKOed, but taking it down rapidly, reliably and repeatedly isn't an option for at least some competitive decks.  The Water Weakness is a bit awkward because as I finally remembered, Vaporeon (XY: Ancient Origins 22/98) is can make any Stage 1 count as a Water-Type via its Ability; this could make for some surprising "bad" match-ups.  Otherwise it tends to be a problem because it allows Seismitoad-EX to do 60 for [CC] while locking down Items instead of 30 (100 and 50, respectively, if Muscle Band is included).  So this probably isn't good but I don't know how bad it actually is.  The lack of Resistance is typical so while it would have been useful, we'll make do without it.  The Retreat Cost of [CC] is pretty typical and is low enough you'll often be able to pay it and slightly less often be able to effectively recover from being down two Energy.  This Entei sports the Ancient Trait "Θ Double", allowing you to outfit it with two Pokémon Tools instead of the usual one.  This has shown up on a few other cards and most of them don't seem to have attacks that lend themselves to having double Tools.  In isolation though it looks solid to potentially strong.  The first attack (Flame Screen) requires [RC] to use and does 30 damage, plus places an effect on itself that reduces damage done to it by 30 points after applying Weakness and/or Resistance.  A bit expensive, but this card does have enough HP that this may be the difference between surviving and being KOed.  The second attack (Heat Tackle) requires [RRCC] and does 130 damage, with an effect that requires you flip a coin; if "heads" this attack works as normal but if "tails" this attack does 30 damage to Entei itself.  These attacks are priced so that a Blacksmith plus Double Colorless Energy can take you straight to Heat Tackle, but a Blacksmith on its own will still get you to Flame Screen.  They also seem to be the kind of attacks that Θ Double was meant for: you can double up on Muscle Band and/or Silver Bangle for more damage, double up on Hard Charm or Eviolite to soak more damage, or try for some less standard tricks like (but not limited to) adding in some Rocky Helmet so that whatever hits you notices it.  As already mentioned, we covered Entei (XY: Ancient Origins 14/98) on Monday.  Differences between today's Entei and itself are that it has 10 less HP, no Ancient Trait and two different attacks.  The first is "Burning Roar" for [C], which discards the top four cards of your own deck but attaches any [R] Energy cards discarded in this manner to your Pokémon as you wish.  For [RR] its "Combat Blaze" does 20 damage plus another 20 per Pokémon on your opponent's Bench.  This means as little as 20 (when your opponent has no Bench) to currently a maximum of 180 if your opponent has eight Benched Pokémon through the effect of Sky Field.  It seems to be more of a back-up attacker because you can't easily force your opponent to fill his or her Bench, though most decks are naturally prone to it.  It can be run alongside today's version, though you can't exceed for copies; if both are secondary attackers, this isn't a big deal but if XY: Ancient Origins 15/98 (today's version) is a focus, its Pokémon Tool needs may force you to run only itself or leave room for only a single copy of XY: Ancient Origins 14/98.  The opposite may be true: running a lot of extra Pokémon Tools can bog a deck down so splitting the focus may be a necessity and not an option  So for Standard, this is one of the few big, Basic Fire-Type attackers you can use that are not Pokémon-EX.  In Expanded it has more competition but is still in the running.  In Limited play, if you're rather brazen you could try to run it as your only Basic Pokémon (a "+39" deck since decks are 40 cards in this format).  It seems too risky to me, but it is possible that Flame Screen is enough to take KOs and stay alive so that you can risk a Heat Tackle finish.  If your opponent's offense is quite weak and/or your luck with coin flips is quite strong, you might even risk multiple Heat Tackles.  Remember though, you have to survive even your last Heat Tackle for a clean win.  As such it is probably best worked into a deck alongside whatever else you run; for a single copy you'd probably want at least five Energy so you draw into it in a timely manner and have a few spares in case you have to attach some elsewhere, but you don't need a monotype deck at least.  Ratings  Standard: 3.35/5  Expanded: 3.25  Limited: 4.75/5  Summary: Another solid Fire-Type attacker for the stable, I doubt this Entei or the other will revolutionize the game but I think they can support some other attackers quite well, and it was support that was needed in Standard play.
Emma Starr	If you start your week with an Entei, may as well finish your week with an Entei…? Whatever the case, you can never have too many Enteis, since they’re always really cool Pokemon!     For one Fire Energy and one Colorless, Entei can use Flame Screen, which does 30, and lowers the damage Entei receives next turn by 30 as well, meaning he cannot be OHKOed unless the damage is 160 or greater, and with a Water weakness, it would be 80 damage or higher. The effect is kind of nice, at least to buffer damage until he’s powered up to use the main attack…     Heat Tackle! For two Fire Energies and two Colorless, it does a very impressive 130 damage, with a coin flip of a possible 30 damage to itself. The recoil may counter the buffer from the first attack if you’re unlucky, but fear not, as Entei has an Ancient Trait that deals with this, as well!     Omega Double lets you hold two Tool Cards, which actually can open up a number of possibilities! You could equip the obvious Trick Coin, and maybe a Muscle Band, but wait - what if you attach two Muscle Bands to it? Then Heat Tackle is doing a devastating 170 damage; enough to OHKO some EXs! In Expanded, you could increase its HP to a more EX-level using Giant Cape, or you could even use various Ace Specs with it, such as Life Dew, to completely deny your opponent a prize for taking down poor Entei! As usual, Omega Double opens up many possibilities, and for once, Entei actually does have the raw power to be usable by some mainstream Fire decks today, all without giving up two Prizes, as well!       Standard: 3.9/5 (Fire Types already have a lot of great attackers, but don’t count Entei out, as his damage output is equal to some EXs, and his Ancient Trait may just give him the edge he needs!)     Expanded: 4/5 (Ace Specs = more options!)     Limited: 4/5 (Not only can he combo nicely with the Entei from earlier this week, but you also get EX power without the double-Prize giving! He can also make a great draw engine with dual Lucky Helmets, too!)