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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Can you believe we STILL have Lysandre in the format? After all this time?  To be fair, Ancient Origins has been his last printing, and it doesn't look like he'll be trampling over Guzma in the Sun&Moon sets, but for what he did, Lysandre was the classy OG Supporter. Ever since he debuted in Flashfire, Lysandre has been at least a 1-of staple in many decks for one simple reason: he can freely Switch your opponent's Pokemon.  This effect was heavily abused when Pokemon Catcher didn't have its coin flip effect, and despite taking up your Supporter for the turn, Lysandre proved to be just as monumental. Getting the option to switch the target of your attacks around and win the game has always been massively appealing, not to mention you could drag out problematic Bench sitters for the chance to disrupt your opponent's strategy - always very appealing.  Really it's just for that simple reasoning that he's made such a major impact on the game, sometimes even being the deciding factor in who wins. He is one of the best Supporters in the game easily, and he will continue to terrorize the Expanded format with his presence.  ...at least until Guzma shows up. Then we gotta deal with that punk.  Rating  Standard: N/A (Lysandre's legacy stretches across the past 3 years)  Expanded: 4.5/5 (and he'll no doubt continue to see play in Expanded)  Limited: 5/5 (as he is practically a staple himself)  Arora Notealus: It was actually a brief topic of debate among us on whether Lysandre ought to be considered for the list, in light of Guzma. You'll hear more about Guzma when we review him for Burning Shadows, but let's just say he does an extra thing on top of what Lysandre does that makes him arguably better. That being said, I brought up the point that Guzma's presence shouldn't impact our feelings on Lysandre, even if Lysandre ends up being inferior, since he's only now being lost to rotation and has held that impact for the past while accordingly. He actually ended up topping my list personally, but...well, I did forget about a few cards.  Weekend Thought: Do you agree with our list so far? Think some of these ought to be higher or lower? Anticipating a card to be in the Top 5? What are some of the cards you'll miss playing with that are rotating out? Or are you just taking a breather these two weeks and waiting till Burning Shadows comes out for our list then?
21times	Lysandre (Ancient Origins, 78/98) has become one of the most prominent cards in the format.  A devastating Supporter card, Lysandre allows you to reach over to your opponent’s side of the board and control what Pokemon is in the active position.  It’s a card that is found in virtually every deck in the format, and many decks play two (or more) of it.  It is a meta defining card – a card that defines the way we play, the way we design our decks, the strategies we use to increase our chances of winning. I don’t know if I like the design of this card.  If we take a second to step back and look at the big picture, I just don’t think I like the ability to reach over and control your opponent’s board state.  I don’t normally like to live in the hypothetical like this, but I don’t know if this kind of rule should be allowed in the game.  Look at it this way: what if the bases were loaded and your best hitter came to the plate.  Then the manager of the batting team announces that the pitching team has to send the pitcher into the outfield and replace him with the right fielder.  Or what if there are three seconds left in the 4th quarter of a football game and a team’s star kicker is about to come out and kick the winning field goal … until the other team’s coach demands that the defensive tackle needs to make the kick. I just don’t know that this card makes the game better – and believe me, I use Lysandre as much as anyone, I’m always looking to strand an incapacitated active Pokemon or bring up a Shaymin EX (Roaring Skies, 77/108) for two easy prize cards – why do you think I hate playing Shaymin EX and Tapu Lele GX (Guardians Rising, 60/145)?  But if this card left the game, I think the game would be better for it.  I think the quality of the game would be improved without having this tactic available to us. However, it is not leaving; in fact, it’s getting better.  Guzma (Burning Shadows, 115/147) enters the meta today in the expansion set Burning Shadows.  Guzma does everything Lysandre does … and more.  It also gives you the advantage of being able to switch your active Pokemon with one on the bench.  I’m not going to go on about Guzma here – I have a feeling that we’ll be doing that review three weeks from today – but there’s little doubt in my mind that the number of situations in which Guzma is superior to Lysandre is greater than the number of times that Lysandre would be preferential. Rating Standard: 1.5 out of 5 Conclusion Lysandre did not make my list of top ten cards lost to rotation since we’re getting a card that will actually improve upon it.  As I’ve mentioned before, if you take in more than just the future impact – if you add a card’s historical influence on the meta – then sixth place is probably too low for Lysandre.  However, IMO even if Lysandre weren’t rotating out, it would have been made obsolete by Guzma.
Otaku	Topping the bottom half is Lysandre (XY: Flashfire 90/106, 104/106; XY: Ancient Origins 78/98), which we reviewed twice before; first as our number one pick from XY: Flashfire and then again as the fourth best card of 2014.  Since this set hit during a hiatus, I didn’t make a list, but I was back in time for the end of year countdown (Lysandre was actually my third place pick).  The cards that beat it?  Muscle Band and Yveltal-EX (plus Seismitoad-EX for our overall list).  Yeah, it took those to beat it out!  What makes a Trainer-Supporter that allows you to force an opponent’s Benched Pokémon into the Active position so strong?  It took me some time to understand why this effect was worth your Supporter because I began all the way back with the Base Set in 1999 when we had Gust of Wind, a “normal Trainer”.  If you don’t know how things were in the beginning, Trainers had no subdivisions and all followed the rules we now associate with Item cards.  The only restriction on the first turn was “no manual Evolving”, which still exists and still applies to both players.  This similar state was temporarily restored with the onset of the BW-series of releases, and its second expansion brought us Pokémon Catcher originally Gust of Wind by a new name (the errata making it require a coin flip happened shortly before Lysandre released).  Just like I expected Switch to only be an Item, I expected my Gust of Wind style cards to also be an Item.  Eventually, I realized the importance of the game’s pacing, especially with respect to its damage output.  Gust of Wind and Pokémon Catcher were problems because it was a cardpool possibly because the effect is just too good to be on an Item, but for sure because of the pacing of the game (worse then than now); Evolving Basics were too easy to OHKO, as were smaller, supporting Bench-sitters (Basic or Evolution).  Without a reliable way to force up a Bench-sitter, it stands the risk of becoming too strong, but with something like Gust of Wind, they become too fragile.  Losing your Supporter for the turn has proven to be a solid compromise, as there are enough other great Supporters that you really are making a tradeoff by using your usage on Lysandre.  VS Seeker and (already) benching a Tapu Lele-GX for that clutch Lysandre to win the game are expected final plays unless unneeded.  Speaking of which, Lysandre might be run in heavier counts without these two, but (for now) is more or less a two-per-deck staple.  I want to emphasize another way in which Lysandre could have proven to be a dud; with straightforward deck strategies, the biggest threat is usually your opponent’s Active Pokémon, which would mean you wouldn’t want (let alone need) Lysandre to force something else into your opponent’s Active slot.  It is the current blend of particular attackers and their select support (besides exploiting Weakness), that keeps this tactic from proving counterproductive or meaningless.  So, what will we do without Lysandre?  Use Guzma (SM: Burning Shadows 115/147; 143/147).  An indignant end to the reign Lysandre; his second card (Lysandre’s Trump Card) is too powerful so it gets banned while his original “just right” card is getting ever-so-slightly outclassed by a new Supporter with the same effect, plus a mandatory Switch for your own Active.  Sure, the secondary effect might sometimes backfire, but a good pivot Pokémon (usually) solves that problem.  This means even in Expanded, many (most?) decks will go Guzma.  Still, being outclassed right before leaving Standard play beats his actual video game ending, right?  Enjoy Lysandre in the Limited Format, assuming you’ve got a less expensive way to pull it off than buying old boosters that become less and less common (and thus more and more expensive).  Ratings  Standard: 4.5/5 (soon to be N/A)  Expanded: 4.5/5 (Soon to be 4/5)  Limited: 5/5  Conclusion  Yes, I raised this card’s score versus what I gave it nearly three years ago.  Why?  At this exact moment, Lysandre is at his zenith; a staple in nearly all competitive decks, with that wonderful combination of Tapu Lele-GX and VS Seeker for stupendous support and the right mix of decks where forcing something up from the Bench matters most games.  I may have teased that Lysandre was getting a raw deal, but if you’re going to be replaced, at least it will be at the end of an awesome three year-run.  If he’s lucky, maybe I’m lowballing how many decks won’t like that forced Switch effect, either.  Breakdown  First, something left out of yesterday’s breakdown was how Vileplume made only two of our five lists, possibly because the three who didn’t have it in their top 10 associated it so much with Forest of Giant Plants (which was part of my reasoning).  A bit awkward to stick in here, but I dislike leaving out a factoid I’ve been including, which brings us to how Lysandre snagged sixth place with 16 voting points.  It also only appeared on two out of the five but placed well enough to beat our tie between 7th place Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98) and 8th place Teammates, though only by two votes.  It was a slightly more substantial four votes short of tying with Monday’s fifth place finisher.  Lysandre did not make my own top 10, and while it did make my extended list, I stuck it all the way in 30th place, the lowest down I bothered ordering.  Remember, I’m obsessive so I went through almost every card lost to rotation, and gave a least a cursory score to each of them before making my personal top 10 (and eventually increased that to a top 30).  Under normal circumstances, Lysandre wouldn’t have even made that because it is about to be replaced.  It really has been a great three years, and I almost wish I’d put it higher because it is only being edged out in Expanded (and thus in Standard, if reprinted suddenly).  I included the main focus or key cards of some decks that lost almost everything to rotation; cards that would mean little being reintroduced.  Please, pardon my rambling; I almost feel like I’m trying to apologize to an old friend as I struggled to remember the past while looking to the future.  At first, I was fighting to avoid sounding salty a card I expected to ignore made it smack dab in the middle of the countdown, but now?  I’m almost… grateful.
Vince	Our 6th place pick is Lysandre from XY Flashfire and was printed again in XY Ancient Origins.  It was ranked 1st place in the top 10 cards of XY Flashfire and 4th place for top ten cards of 2014.  Reviews may be out of date, but that doesn’t change the way Lysandre was played.  This is a Supporter that has an identical effect of some of the old and new cards in the Pokemon TCG: Base Set Gust of Wind, Luxray SP GL LV.X, pre-errata Pokemon Catcher, and Lycanroc GX.  If you still don’t get it, then it allows you to pick one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon and force it active.  This is useful to pick off weakened Pokemon for the KO or to put a Pokemon on an unfavorable spot.   Lysandre came months after Pokemon Catcher was nerfed via errata to require a successful coin flip in order to the same thing (like Pokemon Reversal).  So, the developers reintroduced this effect on a different card that has its own drawbacks.  Lysandre was a supporter, and since you can only use one Supporter during your turn, players had to think whether or not on that particular turn it was worth to change board position or to draw more cards, but not both.  Lysandre can be used even when items are being shut down, unlike Pokemon Catcher.  This could give Vileplume a very hard time!   Those still mourning about the loss of Lysandre should not be sad for too long, since there’s another villainous boss named Guzma (SM Burning Shadows) doing the same task but with a twist.  So in a way, the effect didn’t leave rotation, just the character in a card.  Guzma still have the Gust of Wind effect, and also forces you to switch your Pokemon.  This twist can go either way: It’s good to switch your Pokemon so that you can shake off Special Conditions and other effects affecting the Pokemon before being switched.  This could get Vileplume out of a tight spot and also enables a third Greninja BREAK to use a third Giant Water Shuriken (ability>retreat>ability>Guzma>ability).  If you have some Pokemon with free retreat, then that effect is inconsequential.  In Expanded, choosing between Lysandre or Guzma is your personal preference.   Ratings:   Standard: 4.6/5   Expanded: 4.4/5   Limited: 5/5   Notes:  Lysandre is as reliable as it gets in Expanded. Had this as my 5th place pick.   Coming Up: Your inbox is full…………………of Trainer cards!