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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Alolan Golem just wants to WRECK YOUR FACE!!  And he's got two majorly expensive attacks to do it with. What a weighty contender. Electromagnetic Rock Wrecker (a mouthful in and of itself) costs 3 Energy and makes you flip a coin for every Electric Energy attached to him, dealing 80 damage for every heads. So generally speaking, let's run some probabilities (based on 3 Energy):  0/3 Heads - 1/8 = 12.5% 1/3 Head - 3/8 = 37.5% 2/3 Heads - 3/8 = 37.5% 3/3 Heads -  1/8 = 12.5%  So assuming you have about 3 Electric Energy on Alolan Golem, you're more likely gonna be hitting somewhere between 1 and 2 Heads most of the time, based on the outcomes and the general probability of landing on these outcomes. Remember that every additional coin after the first will double the number of potential results, so having 4 Electric Energy doubles the 8 possible outcomes to 16, giving you even bigger numbers but giving you a higher chance of landing 2 Heads. And given the output of this move, 2 Heads = 160 damage, which is enough to OHKO most non-EX/GX Pokemon, and even then it's not more than a Choice Band that lets you OHKO the basic-EX/GX. That said, this move is unreliable, since it does involve coin flips, so keep that in mind.  His other move is much more consistent, Heavy Slam. In fact, it's a powerful move in its own right, hitting 4-for-200. However, there is a slight catch - it loses 30 damage for every point in the Retreat Cost of an opposing Pokemon. For instance, if you were to run Alolan Golem into a copy of itself, the output of Heavy Slam gets reduced to only 80 damage due to the 4-Energy Retreat Cost he has. So while Heavy Slam is reliable for actually putting out damage, it's not always the best option in terms of dealing it. At the very least, Choice Band can make up for the loss of one Energy, but beyond that, it's a hope and a prayer to get it to do more than maybe 2HKO.  Alolan Golem may not end up anywhere near the competitive scene, but he is definitely a powerhouse in and of himself. Be wary of his presence in casual play! Rating  Standard: 2/5 (he's a bit slow and heavy, but he sure is powerful)  Expanded: 2/5 (it's just a shame that his moves are dictated by chance and circumstance)  Limited: 3.5/5 (but I wouldn't count him out just for that alone)  Arora Notealus: Alolan Golem is probably one of the more unusual Alolan forms. I mean, I know I'm talking about a generation that gave us Dugtrio with hair, but Golem got a mustache and a massive magnet on his back as compared to...being a boulder with limbs. It's pretty crazy, no?  Next Time: Electrifying, isn't it? Prepare for all these lightning-fast puns!
21times	Alolan Golem (Guardians Rising, 42/145) comes into the meta in the Guardians Rising expansion set.  A 160 HP, Stage 2 Electric Pokemon, it has two attacks.  Electromagnetic Rock Wrecker – maybe the longest name ever for an attack – for a Lightning and two Colorless energy does variable damage based on the number of heads flipped.  You flip for each Lightning energy attached to Golem, and for each heads flipped, you do eighty damage.  Paired with Victini (Guardians Rising, 10/145), you’ll usually do at least 160 damage.  Heavy Slam, for a Lightning and three Colorless energy, does two hundred base damage less thirty for each energy the opposing Pokemon has in its retreat cost. Unfortunately, I did not have any success at all with Alolan Golem.  I had trouble getting it set up and getting enough energy attached.  I used Electrode (Evolutions, 40/108) to help accelerate energy attachment.  I had never used Electrode before, I really disdained the idea of giving my opponent a free prize card.  I know that if you imagine that Golem were really an EX Pokemon, using Electrode is basically the same thing, but then Golem becomes a 160 HP two prize Pokemon, and there are a LOT of Pokemon running around in today’s game that can hit 160 with a single attack.  Plus, it seemed like I would get one Golem set up, get off a good attack, and then it would get KO’d and I just couldn’t get another one powered up quickly enough. And it has good attacks – I did 240 with Electromagnetic Rock Wrecker and Heavy Slam will one shot a Greninja Break (Breakpoint, 41/122) or a Tapu Lele GX (Guardians Rising, 60/145).  I just had trouble getting one out and powered up, and then after that one got KO’d I had nothing to follow. Rating Standard: 1.5 out of 5 Conclusion I had thought Golem might at least be semi-competitive, but I lost all eight matches I played with it.  It’s just too hard to get it powered up and takes too long to get multiple Golems evolved.
Otaku	Alolan Golem (SM: Guardians Rising 42/145) is our subject today, but since it has to Evolve from Aolan Geodude (SM: Guardians Rising 10/145) and Alolan Graveler (SM: Guardians Rising 11/145) - unless you use Rare Candy - I’ll start by covering what is common to all of them: all are Lightning-Type Pokémon with Fighting Weakness, Metal Resistance, and a total lack of Abilities.  Being a Lightning-Type doesn’t strike me as a major benefit right now, but it isn’t a problem, either; solid-to-large amounts of Weakness of Weakness depending upon the metagame, Resistance only on some BW-era Fighting-Types, and only some so-so anti-Type based effects.  Type support sees a few good attackers, Bench-sitters (including some Energy shenanigans) but nothing standout that is just for them, especially in Standard.  Fighting Weakness should be one of the worst, as they tend to specialize in hitting hard, hitting fast, and stacking damage bonuses as the icing on the cake, but they don’t seem to be showing up in the top cuts.  Metal Resistance is appreciated; it won’t often come in handy, but at least it is better than nothing.  After that, these start to diversify.  Alolan Geodude is a 70 HP Basic Pokémon with a Retreat Cost of [CC], as well as the attacks “Rock Polish” and “Rollout”.  The former costs [0] and wipes out the Retreat Cost of “this Pokémon” during your next turn, while the latter costs [LCC] and does 40 damage.  Being a basic is the best.  70 HP is fairly likely to be OHKO’d, but we’ve seen worse still work.  That Retreat Cost is higher like we’d expect, but still plausible to pay once or twice before it really starts hurting.  Rock Polish might help except you’re using an attack so you’ve got to wait a turn to try and actually follow through and your opponent has a turn to KO Alolan Geodude or use Pokémon Ranger to cancel out the effect.  Rollout should do a little over twice the damage it does for the asking price, and attacking for damage is usually a waste for a twice-Evolving-Basic, but it is (sadly) better than many such Pokémon.  Alolan Graveler is a Stage 1 that jumps up to 110 HP with a Retreat Cost of [CCCC].  Its first attack is “Thunder Punch” for [LCC], doing 50 damage plus a coin flip: “heads” means a +20 damage bonus when hitting the opponent’s Active, “tails” means 20 damage to itself.  [LLLC] pays for “Electrobullet”, which does 80 damage to the opponent’s Active plus 20 damage to the opposing Benched Pokémon of your choice.  The HP is a step in the right direction, as I keep saying Evolving Stage 1 Pokémon need more HP, though we’ll soon see why this isn’t that impressive (besides still being a somewhat likely OHKO).  The massive Retreat Cost is not something you want to pay.  Unfortunately, the attacks are also not something you want to waste time using, so only pack this in case Item lock or bad draws prevent you from utilizing Rare Candy.  Alolan Golem is a Stage 2 Pokémon with 160 HP, also with a Retreat Cost of [CCCC].  For [LCC] it can use the attack “Electromagnetic Rock Wrecker” to flip a coin for each [L] Energy attached to it, doing 80 damage per “heads” (nothing for each “tails”).  [LCCC] pays for “Heavy Slam”, which does 200 damage less for each [C] in the Retreat Cost of the opponent’s Active Pokémon.  Being a Stage 2 can be quite the drag; extra time and resource requirements mean only a few Stages are less effective right now.  160 HP is beefy, even for a Stage 2, but remember even larger amounts aren’t safe and more Pokémon are capable of hitting that number (or more) with a single attack.  It also shows why the sort-of-high HP on the Basic and Stage 1 aren’t that impressive; the short version of my lecture is that they need to start looking at the HP the final Stage has, then subtract just 20 or 30 HP to get the next lower Stage.  The Retreat Cost is still bad, so let’s move onto the attacks.  The [C] Energy requirements in the first attack are mostly a waste; you’ll want most or all [L] Energy attached to use the attack, though if you can stomach the coin flips the damage return seems adequate.  Heavy Slam takes advantage of the popularity of low Retreat Cost and/or Float Stone equipped Pokémon, as 200-for-four (and it’s even mostly [C] requirements) is good.  In fact, the damage return (for the Energy) only gets bad against Pokémon with Retreat Costs of [CCCC] or more.  So is this enough to build a deck around this card?  Only for fun in Standard or Expanded, probably the latter where something like Eelektrik (BW: Noble Victories 40/101) is available.  I say “for fun” because there are better options for Lightning-Type attackers in either Format, even if they aren’t currently seeing a lot of play.  Provided you can pull the entire line and enough Pokémon that can make use of Lightning Energy and are fortunate enough to get Alolan Golem out in a timely manner, this can be rather fierce. Ratings  Standard: 1.5/5  Expanded: 1.75/5  Limited: 3.5/5  Conclusion  Alolan Golem is less of a wreck than I expected, but unless we get a way to force a free Retreat on the opponent’s Active and some better Energy acceleration to use with it, I don’t think it will prove competitive.  Correction, a better Energy acceleration that also doesn’t work better elsewhere.  At a glance, though, I thought it looked even worse than this, so I’m actually feeling a tad optimistic.
Vince	Today, we’re looking at Alolan Golem from the Guardians Rising set.  The typing is interesting to me; I think Alolan Golem (the evolutionary line) is the only Pokemon with the Rock/Electric typing in the games.  For the TCG, however, Alolan Golem is a Lightning type.  So let’s see what Golem has to offer.   Wow, these attacks are expensive and unreliable!  Electromagnetic Rock Wrecker (what a long name) requires you to flip a number of coins based on how many Lightning energies attached to this Pokemon and it does 80 damage for each heads.  At a minimum of three Lightning energy and successful coin flips, you could do 240 damage, almost enough to OHKO anything in the game! Victory Star Victini can help you improve coin flips, but you could still fail.  Heavy Slam does 200 damage, which would be good, except that it does 30 less damage for each colorless energy in the opponent’s active retreat cost.  Because the retreat cost varies between zero to four, it could turn from being great (200 damage) to being terrible (80 damage).   These attacks seem tempting, but I don’t think I’ll be able to consistently pull these attacks off in an actual tournament.   Ratings:   Standard: 1.5/5 (nope)   Expanded: 1.5/5 (nope)   Limited: 2/5 (probably safer to try these attacks there in a limited format)   Coming Up: Electric lizard is here!