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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	I always have time enough to appreciate little combos like what Toxapex does. Sure, most of the time they're not competitive, but they always bring an interesting perspective on the design aspect of the game.  Toxapex has an Ability and an attack that, similar to Poliwrath from yesterday, look to go hand-in-hand. Course Toxapex doesn't need to use up two turns for his combo, unless you count the opponent's turn, but the Ability could be open enough to use it with other cards! Toxic Spikes simply says that when the opponent's Active Pokemon retreats, the new Active Pokemon becomes Poisoned - similar to how Toxic Spikes works in the games. And attaching a Status to guarantee at least 10-20 damage on a new Pokemon is always a welcome Ability! On top of that, Toxapex has Venoshock, a 3-for-50 strike that does 50 more damage if the opponent's Active Pokemon is Poisoned. So with Toxic Spikes already Poisoning them, and then Venoshock tearing them up for another 100 damage, that's a lot to deal with for any new Pokemon! Unfortunately, that's about all Toxapex can do, as it would still take at least 2 turns to KO most Pokemon with this combination.  Now the potential combos could be with cards like Lysandre and Pokemon Catcher in Expanded, but there is a catch. I don't know the ruling 100%, and this probably doesn't work given the phrasing, but these cards do allow you to Switch your opponent's Active Pokemon for one of their Benched Pokemon. If Toxic Spikes works on any new Active Pokemon, as long as the old one's "retreat" counts towards the effect, then these cards could be used to force a new Active Pokemon on your turn and inflict Poison on a Pokemon with ease. However, this isn't an actual retreat - it's more of a pseudo-retreat, since the phrasing is specifically "Switch your opponent's Active with a Benched Pokemon" instead of "Force your opponent's Active Pokemon to Retreat" or anything to that effect. It's functionally different in terms of keywords, and that would mean these cards can't be used to trigger Toxic Spikes.  Assuming that that's the likelier case, and combined with Toxapex's expensive Venoshock attack (3-for-50 is a really high amount of Energy for so little damage these days), it's probably not likely to hit the competitive scene too hard. Still, for those rare times where your opponent doesn't use an Ability or card effect to move their Active and Benched Pokemon around, as in manually retreats them, Toxapex can dish out a good bit of damage.  ...too bad that times like that are so rare.  Rating  Standard: 1.5/5 (he's got niche potential, but his Ability might be the most promising and most damaging part of him)  Expanded: 1.5/5 (all cause of that PHRASING)  Limited: 3/5 (but in arenas where such alternatives aren't available, Toxapex can dominate the manual retreat)  Arora Notealus: Now like I said, I'm pretty sure that's not the way Toxic Spikes affects Pokemon, but if card effects and Abilities do trigger it, then I'd say give him at least another .5 on Standard and 1 on Expanded for the combo with Virbank City Gym. While being a Stage 1 does give him a slight disadvantage in terms of inflicting Poison, if we end up losing staple cards like Switch or run short on cards like Solgaleo-GX or Lysandre, then we could see Toxapex come back as a potential use for inflicting quick Poison on something. Especially if there were a Pokemon that REALLY benefited from the use of such a Status. Next Time: It's a sand castle.  ..you know what it is.
21times	Toxapex (Sun & Moon, 63/149) is another brand new, Stage 1 Pokemon out of the Sun & Moon set from back at the beginning of February.  Toxapex has one attack.  Venoshock does 50 base damage and 50 more if the opponent’s active Pokemon is poisoned.  Toxapex also has an annoying and under the radar ability: Toxic Spikes.  With Toxic Spikes, whenever your opponent’s active Pokemon retreats, the new active Pokemon becomes poisoned.  I was really surprised to see that most of my opponents would retreat a Pokemon from the active and promote a new active Pokemon.  Then there would be a pause of about ten or fifteen seconds (in which I’m assuming my opponent was reading the description on Toxapex), and then there would inevitably follow the red angry face emoticon that I’m sure we’re all familiar with from PTCGO.  I was genuinely surprised that people weren’t familiar with this card, Sun & Moon has been out for more than two months now, this should be something we’re all familiar with.  I guess it speaks to how lopsided this set is, how the top tier cards get a ton of play and everything else gets virtually none.  So the synergy here between Toxapex and Toxicroak (Steam Siege, 59/114) is fairly obvious.  I had tried this deck before, maybe a month or so ago, but I pulled the deck out and dusted it off to give it another shot.  I played five matches with this deck (I should mention that I had Ariados (Ancient Origins, 6/98) as well), but unfortunately I only won one of the five matches.  While Toxicroak’s ability Poison Enzyme protects it from any poisoned Pokemon, too many people are simply carrying too many copies of Lysandre (Ancient Origins, 78/98), Escape Rope (Primal Clash, 127/160), and Hex Maniac (Ancient Origins, 75/98).  It’s far too easy for your opponent to move Toxicroak out of the active position and then take an easy KO on the new active Pokemon.  I also tried to build it as a mill deck.  I took out all of the energy, and I replaced them with hammers, Poison Barb (Sun & Moon, 124/149), and Team Rocket’s Handiwork (Fates Collide, 124/124).  I had even less success going the mill deck route, losing all four matches I played with it.  Maybe Toxapex is better in expanded where you can do more with poison, but right now it’s simply too easy to counter the strategies involved around Toxapex. Rating Standard: 1.5 out of 5 Conclusion While its ability has the potential to significantly impact the opponent’s active Pokemon, Toxapex simply doesn’t have much viability in the current meta.  Perhaps cards will come into the format in the future to augment and supplement its ability, but right now I cannot find any reason to play Toxapex.
Otaku	Toxapex (Sun & Moon 63/149) is the subject of today’s review, and for reasons that will become clear, I think I can give it my full review treatment.  As a Psychic Type, it does double damage to many other Psychic and Fighting Types due to them being Psychic Weak.  It also will have to deal with abundant Resistance, as nearly all Darkness and Metal Type Pokémon are Psychic Resistant, at least in terms of raw card releases.  What actually sees play is more evenly divided or favors Darkness Types being Lightning Weak and Fighting Resistant, because of Yveltal-EX usage.  Psychic Type support includes a few Psychic (Energy) Type based tricks that are obscure and not used in competitive play.  More pressing are some potent Psychic Types, some of which really require their own deck and some that can be worked into a variety, but still not enough to be worth detailing.  Finally there is the Psychic (Pokémon) Type support, though what works there overlaps with the others: Dimension Valley (Expanded Only) to shave [C] off their attack costs, Mystery Energy (Expanded only) to shave [CC] off of Retreat Costs, and Wobbuffet (XY: Phantom Forces 36/119; Generations RC11/RC32) to shut down Abilities via its own “Bide Barricade” Ability while Active, except for fellow Psychic Types.  Being a Psychic Type is a good deal in Expanded, and still alright in Standard, though clearly less potent.  Toxapex is a Stage 1, so it is slow and space consuming next to Basic Pokémon, but still quite plausible for competitive decks.  If really important, you could try to save your opening Supporter to have Toxapex hit the field on your first turn thanks to Wally.  Being a Stage 1 makes the 110 HP seem mediocre; even as a Basic it wouldn’t be likely to avoid a OHKO if your opponent has a decent setup, but besides being unable to use Fighting Fury Belt for a quick +40 HP and +10 damage, it tends to hurt more when you lose two cards and a turn of Evolving instead of one.  Toxapex is not one of the exceptions to Psychic Types being Psychic Weak, which means a good deal of the targets it can hit harder enjoy the same benefit back; that 110 HP will rarely survive in this instance.  Resistance would help a little (against one Type) as it would make for an effective 130 HP against OHKOs, 150 HP against 2HKOs, etc. but it is totally absent as it is on most Pokémon; more of a missed opportunity than a true flaw.  Toxapex has a Retreat Cost of [CCC].  While this allows it to use Heavy Ball and Heavy Boots, few decks make good use of those cards and it hardly compensates for needing to dedicate extra space to getting it out of the Active spot or building the deck so that it doesn’t matter if it is stuck up front (even prematurely).  Toxapex has the Ability “Toxic Spikes” that triggers whenever your opponent’s Active Retreats; the new Active is now Poisoned.  Poison is often a welcome addition; besides cards that specifically exploit Poison or Special Conditions, it means an extra damage counter between turns and that can result in a faster KO.  Sometimes it won’t make any difference, though, and you’ll note that the opponent has to retreat; if your opponent only ever uses stuff like Switch or leaves his or her Actives up front, Toxic Spikes will never matter.  I was much more impressed by this card at first glance before I noticed that wording.  Speaking of effects that care about your opponent’s Active being Poisoned, the “Venoshock” attack on Toxapex does 50 damage plus another 50 damage if the opponent’s Active is Poisoned.  It costs [PCC], so this is not especially impressive because it isn’t so much a damage “bonus” as a “restriction”.  The going rate for attacks is such that three for 100, especially on a Stage 1, and Venoshock only delivers that when the opponent’s Active is Poisoned.  Even with the two traits comboing together, even with an acceleration friendly Energy cost, this is just a decent filler attack.  Toxapex is going to be run for its Ability or skipped entirely.  What we cannot skip is its Basic form, Mareanie.  There is only one version currently available to my knowledge, Sun & Moon 62/149.  It is also a Psychic Type with Psychic Weakness and no Resistance.  60 HP means it is an almost guaranteed OHKO, even without the Weakness.  Its Retreat Cost is [C], making it easier to Retreat but incompatible with Heavy Ball and Heavy Boots.  It has one attack, “Poison Sting”, which costs [P] and Poisons the opponent’s Active.  I guess they didn’t want it to Poison for free in Expanded because it really should only cost [C] with so limited an effect.  This isn’t 100% filler because at least it combos with Venoshock on Toxapex, but it is close.  As for other cards to use with Toxapex, I am at a loss.  To force the opponent to manually retreat, and not just change out Actives via effect, means including something to block Items and, in a few cases, Abilities.  I can’t think of a way to do both that won’t interfere with each other, even by pursuing more specific forms of Ability lock (such as Bide Barricade).  You could add just one or the other, but those decks usually have better options: Trevenant BREAK decks in Expanded may use Hypnotoxic Laser, Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98) may use Ariados (XY: Ancient Origins 6/98), etc.  Toxapex only really has a place in Limited play, where manually retreating is a frequent, often repeated occurrence and Special Conditions, in general, are more devastating.  Plus, Toxapex can just sit on your Bench if you don’t run or draw into the Psychic Energy it needs to attack.  Ratings  Standard: 1.5/5  Expanded: 1.25/5  Limited: 4/5  Conclusion  Toxapex is another example of higher quality filler.  Not the highest quality, as that would nearly be competitive and this is a ways from it.  It is more than just “safe” stats and little to no effects, but not by much.  These kinds of cards give some hope because something could make them better in the future.  I may have even just missed something here, but for the most part, Toxapex exists to make the set larger.  Let’s me go into almost full detail for the review, though, since there just wasn’t much to discuss.