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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	The last of the Tapus to get a GX, Tapu Fini-GX is no less powerful than the others!...is what I want to say overall, but it's hard when you've got Tapu Bulu-GX who's got a deck built around being a consistent OHKO engine and Tapu Lele-GX who's a staple Supporter-grabber in just about any deck. So does Tapu Fini-GX live up to its cousins?  Aqua Ring isn't the best start. It's a 1-for-20 move that swaps Tapu Fini-GX with one of your Benched Pokemon. The damage output's real low, and I'm not exactly sure who to partner with Tapu Fini-GX to get the most mileage out of this move. Normally with Switching effects, I'd say Golisopod-GX, but this comes at such a bad time because it's an attack rather than an Ability, which would let Golisopod-GX's First Impression actually do more damage. Drampa-GX would be nice if Tapu Fini-GX has damage on herself, but it's hard to say how effective it is to swap Pokemon around while only dealing 20 damage.  Hydro Shot seems like a step in the right direction, being a 3-Energy move that deals 120 damage to wherever you want it to go, but it forces you to discard 2 Water Energy. You see what they were looking at though - you use Hydro Shot on one turn to deal out a lot of damage, then use Aqua Ring to swap Tapu Fini-GX around to allow her some time to recuperate before sending out another Hydro Shot again. The problem is that this is at LEAST a 2-turn attack set built on 2-3 turns of set-up in and of itself, and while that kind of pacing may be okay in a slower format, even with Evolutions becoming more prominent, I really doubt that anyone would want to rely on something like this.  At this point, all hope seems lost for Tapu Fini-GX to have any resemblance of being good, but then there's its GX Attack - Tapu Storm GX. At only 1 Water Energy, this move sweeps your opponent's Active Pokemon away and forces it back into the deck, along with all the cards attached to it. It's basically an Acerola that you force on your opponent that pushes all their set-up back where it began. Imagine being able to sweep away a fully-powered evolved Pokemon and all of the Energy attached to it - at minimum, the most effective use of this attack is sweeping back 2-3 cards (assuming it's a Basic Pokemon with 1 Energy for its attack and possibly a Tool like Choice Band), and there's potential to sweep up to 8 cards at once!! (Assuming a Stage 2 with a Tool and 4 Energy, although it could be 9 with a BREAK Evolution)  The only catch is that your opponent needs to have a Benched Pokemon in play to use Tapu Storm GX, which is fair since otherwise the move would be absolutely broken, even at only once per game, since by the ruling of having no Benched Pokemon your opponent would automatically lose once you sweep away their Active. But that puts Tapu Fini-GX less in the headliner role that Tapu Bulu-GX or Tapu Koko-GX might have and more of a supportive role similar to Tapu Lele-GX without being a major staple. Sweeping up an opponent's Pokemon can be effective at the right time, especially if they have a lot of resources devoted to a particular Pokemon, but outside of those niche moments, Tapu Fini-GX might be a bit of a stick in the mud.  Perhaps she'll get more love later on down the line, maybe even with something like a Basic non-GX that's really good like Tapu Koko did! But for now, Tapu Fini-GX is probably the worst of the Tapu-GX currently available to us.  Rating  Standard: 2/5 (a rather niche use with its GX attack is probably its main saving grace)  Expanded: 1.5/5 (otherwise, I don't see it seeing much play)  Limited: 4/5 (at least she's pretty strong in limited play)  Arora Notealus: Ya know, legendary Pokemon have always been kinda weird for being genderless. Especially when you get to the Tapus, it seems like they're designed with more masculine or feminine traits that would define them as either "guy-ish" or "girl-ish", but then they still end up being genderless. I guess really though it's all a matter of how you see the designs for Pokemon that don't have an assigned gender and what-not - who knows, maybe Tapu Koko's really a punk-rock girl or Tapu Fini's a guy into mermaids!   Don't judge.  Next Time: The one saving grace to venturing through Mt. Moon...
21times	Tapu Fini GX (Burning Shadows, 39/147) floats into the meta from the Burning Shadows expansion set.  A 170 HP Basic Pokemon, it has three attacks.  Aqua Ring, for a single Colorless energy, does twenty damage and then gives you the option of switching Tapu Fini GX with a Pokemon on your bench.  Its main attack, Hydro Shot, for two Water and a Colorless energy, does 120 damage to any of your opponent’s Pokemon but has the downside of forcing you to discard two Water energy attached to the attacking Tapu Fini.  The GX attack, Tapu Storm GX, has your opponent pick up his active Pokemon and shuffle all cards attached to it back into his or her deck.  However, you won’t be able to use this attack to get an easy win – if your opponent does not have any Pokemon on their bench, you cannot activate this attack. So the Hydro Shot attack is good – I’ve seen it easily score two prize cards by sniping a Manaphy EX (Breakpoint, 32/122) on the bench.  Your opponent can’t hide any significantly damaged Pokemon on the bench either.  Unfortunately, it’s a three attachment attack, which I know isn’t insurmountable with Aqua Patch (Guardians Rising, 119/145), but that’s just not going to get it done in today’s meta.  120 and discarding two energy just isn’t particularly good when compared to today’s top Pokemon.  Golisopod GX (Burning Shadows, 17/147), for example, does 120 without dropping any energy and for only a single attachment (I know it’s not that simple, but it really isn’t difficult to use First Impression almost every turn).  The sniping aspect is what makes Tapu Fini GX valuable – where I’m seeing it in water box decks is as a one of tech in to poke at stuff on the bench. Rating Standard: 2 out of 5 Conclusion I don’t think you can make Tapu Fini GX a four of feature Pokemon in a deck and have a lot of success.  It’s clearly not as good as Lapras GX (Sun & Moon, 139/149) or Alolan Ninetales GX (Guardians Rising, 22/145).  It can find a niche in water box decks, and I can definitely see it sitting on the bench getting powered up by Aqua Patch and swooping in to steal a couple prize cards late in the game.
Otaku	Time for Tapu Fini-GX (SM: Burning Shadows 39/147, 131/147, 152/147)!  A Basic, Water-Type Pokémon-GX with 170 HP, No Weakness, No Resistance, Retreat Cost [C] and three attacks.   First up, for [C] Tapu Fini-GX can use “Aqua Ring” to do 20 damage and (optionally) Bench itself.  Second is “Hydro Shot” for [WWC]; it requires you also discard two [W] Energy, but then you can hit any of your opponent’s Pokémon for 120 damage (remember, no Weakness or Resistance for Benched targets).  The GX-attack is our final effect, and “Tapu Storm-GX”; for [W] you can shuffle your opponent’s Active and all cards attached to it back into your opponent’s deck, however, the attack also specifies that you cannot use it if the Active is your opponent’s only Pokémon in play.  So… what does all of that mean?  Being a Basic means no waiting to Evolve or other Stages of Evolution you need to run, plus it can serve as your opening Active, enjoys synergy with certain game effects, and there are even some bits of specific Basic Pokémon support.  The only downside of being a Basic is that there are a few anti-Basic cards, but it’s definitely a net positive.  Being a Water-Type is also another net positive; there are anti-Water-Type counters but nothing devastating, a decent amount of Weakness to exploit, and a great pool of support.  Being a Pokémon-GX follows the trend; never forget the drawbacks but I cannot deny that even the duds at least pack a punch.  170 HP is very good but we’re well past the days when it was especially safe; you’ll often survive a hit, but being worth two Prizes creates a serious incentive for decks to push for the OHKO even at the risk of overextending themselves.  The lack of Weakness is perfect and makes that 170 HP safer than on various Basic Pokémon-EX and fellow Pokémon-GX beatsticks.  The lack of Resistance is the extreme opposite in two ways; it is the worst possible Resistance but it also doesn’t matter too much, as -20 damage to a single Type was only going to help in borderline cases, anyway.  Retreat Cost of [C] is nice and affordable; you’ll be hurting if you have to pay it turn after turn or when Energy is already tight but the only possible Retreat Cost that is better is being totally free.  As for the attacks on Tapu Fini-GX, they don’t pack raw power, but they’ve got some potentially useful effects.  Aqua Ring can get Tapu Fini-GX out of the Active spot while doing a little damage; if we get the right dance partners it could become the focus of a deck, but I don’t think we have those yet.  Hydro Shot hits hard enough to OHKO smaller targets and significantly damage larger ones… but that doesn’t mean the attack is not pricey.  You need to be setting up or scoring a key OHKO for it to be worth the risk: OHKOing a Benched Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) or Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122) if it is blocking vital Abilities, etc. could prove invaluable, but I’m drawing a blank on where it would be worth the Energy investment otherwise.  Tapu Storm-GX is great if your opponent has something that requires serious effort field; otherwise, you’re giving up a once-per-game attack and turn’s worth of damage to inconvenience your opponent (and maybe, not even that).  Fortunately, I don’t have to guess about Tapu Fini-GX.  Well, I do have to guess a little in Standard Format play, since we don’t have any major tournament results for the current Standard Format.  We can look back to the World Championships, but none of the decks I’m seeing in the Top 8 of any age group can really afford the Energy cost of Hydro Shot, and I don’t see Tapu Fini-GX being worth it for just the other two attacks.  The best fit for Tapu Fini-GX would be Blue Box decks… or what most of you insist on calling Water Box because you don’t value alliteration like I do.  These decks might start showing up again in the Standard Format, and if they do… they might consider Tapu Fini-GX.  There just aren’t any vulnerable Bench-sitters worth the effort, at least when you could just use Guzma to force them Active and clobber them with another attacker.  Where it does seem to be worth it is in the Expanded Format, where the old Archie’s Blastoise decks seem to have merged with Water Box decks… or at least learned from them.  Garbodor and its Garbotoxin locking down your Abilities?  Your opponent might still use Aqua Patch to ready a Water-Type beatstick to bring the hurt.  Which brings us to Tapu Fini-GX; save yourself needing a Guzma or Lysandre to take out that Garbodor… or finish off an opponent by taking out a Benched Shaymin-EX.  Just remember that there are multiple means of protecting your opponent’s Benched Pokémon from attack damage.  It might go without saying, but this is a nice pull for Limited Format play; you might even run it solo!  Ratings  Standard: 2.5/5  Expanded: 3.25/5  Limited: 4/5  Conclusion & Top 10 Background  Tapu Fini-GX is our new Water-Type sniper, but without juicy targets, most decks (even Water-focused ones) are better off using Guzma to bring Benched targets into range.  At least, that is how it seems in Standard; in the Expanded Format, Shaymin-EX is not only legal but so is Jirachi-EX and yes, people still use both!  Tapu Lele-GX has reduced their usage a lot, but there are still some major decks using one or both.  Water Box decks might want to include it for Standard, but their Expanded counterparts, Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed 31/149; BW: Plasma Storm 137/135; BW: Plasma Blast 16/101) variants, etc.  If the various Energy transferring decks return to form, they would also want to include this.  Tapu Fini-GX just barely made one reviewer’s Top 10 list to earn one voting point.  This same amount was earned by Friday’s subject as well; the tie was broken in favor of Tapu Fini-GX by Tapu Fini-GX appearing on one of the Top 11-24 bonus lists as well, while Friday’s card did not.  I was not the one who had it in my Top 10, but I did have Tapu Fini-GX as my 21st place pick for my Top 25 list.  An unofficial 17th place finish only bothers me because I ranked the unofficial 18th place pick higher… plus several others that didn’t make any of the actual Top 10 lists.
Vince	So, we’ve reviewed three of the four Alola Guardians and now we’re about to cover Tapu Fini GX.  Like the other three GXs, it has no Weakness, in which the opponent has to go through the hard way to achieve the KO.  Course that’s half of the card and if it’s going to see play, it has to have good effects backing it.   Aqua Ring does hit and run, even though it doesn’t do much damage unless you run other damage modifier cards such as Fighting Fury Belt, Choice Band, and/or Empoleon (XY Breakthrough).  Hydro Shot does 120 damage to one of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon with the hefty two water discard.  And finally, Tapu Storm GX blows your opponent’s Active Pokemon and all cards attached to it on their deck, which may make it hard for the opponent to search their blown Pokemon and all other cards previously attached to it.  This does not count as a KO, unfortunately.   Standard: 2.5/5  Expanded: 2.5/5  Limited: 4/5
Retro	Good old Fini. One of the best bulky offensive Pokémon in the format. Be it Smogon OU or VGC, it seems that its dominance isn’t slipping away. With a massive 130 SpDef, combined with its Misty Surge ability that prevents statuses, making it a great team supporter, and also access to Calm Mind to pull off amazing special sweeping techinques makes it one of the best Tapus around. Or pretty much because it is the only specially bulky Tapu? Whatever the reason, it just came from winning the 2017 VGC Masters World Championship, so it does have some street cred. And now, Tapu Fini has now descended to world of cards, but weirdly it didn’t got the same amount of hype. And I think I know why.             The reason why initially it didn’t get much hype is because people didn’t understand how to use Tapu Fini at the first place. Unlike its other Tapu brethren, Fini doesn’t deal massive damage on the spot like Koko and especially Bulu does, and it’s not fully leaned towards support like Lele does, but it tries to bring a line towards both styles of Pokemon. Tapu Fini is more a softener, a sniper so that its friends can come in and deal the big numbers. Hydro Shot is the main attack that does exactly what Fini is all about; it discards 2 Water energies from itself to deal 120 damage to 1 Pokemon on the opposing board. When you attack the Active Pokemon, it does have damage boosting options; the Banded Kukui combo can make it deal 170 damage, enough to destroy any Marshadow-GX, Tapu Koko-GX, Tapu Lele-GX’s or even its mirror’s day. Then after it deals the damage, it runs with Aqua Ring and deals 20 damage to the opposing Active Pokemon. This is a great backup attacker for Waterbox decks, as now you have a lead Pokemon that can be energy accelerated with Max Elixir (XY BREAKpoint), deals massive damage to any potential threat, runs back to the bench to be replaced by your main attacker after it finished its business, which thanks to the existence of Aqua Patch (SM Guardians Rising) makes energy conservation very easy, then potentially come back to disrupt the opponent with its GX attack, Tapu Storm GX. It’s basically a guaranteed heads on Shiftry NXD’s Giant Fan ability with a catch; if your opponent has no Benched Pokemon this attack fails. Tapu Fini also has no Weakness, and thanks to Aqua Ring it can actually act as pivot. The accessibility of Tapu Fini thanks to it being a Basic Water Pokemon so it can be searched via Brooklet Hill (SM Guardians Rising) is also why it’s good.             But here we can see the glaring weakness of Tapu Fini-GX. Aside from being susceptible to being killed in its own mirror match, it needs 3 energies to attack with Hydro Shot. Unless you get really lucky with your Patch City techniques, you really need to rely on Tapu Fini’s natural bulk to tank hits early game. Apart from Hydro Shot, Tapu Fini is very passive; Tapu Storm GX might almost never be used thanks to GX attacks like Alolan Ninetales-GX’s Ice Path GX or Lapras-GX’s Ice Beam GX, which is more useful in more scenarios. Aqua Ring only deals 20 damage; it’s barely a flick on something like Joltik (XY Phantom Forces) although if you are onto that sort of thing Muscle Band (XY Base Set) is always a thing. Acerola (SM Burning Shadows) is also a thing; this means it can’t fully fulfill its purpose of setting up kills in the late game with Hydro Shot, as scooping up Pokemon will always be a thing.             But overall, this didn’t put me off from putting Tapu Fini in any sort of Waterbox deck, both Standard to help Lapras-GX and Alolan Ninetales-GX, and Expanded to help Seismitoad-EX finish off opponents, with its no Weakness property and decent HP to help setup kills in the late game, even with checks. Rating: Standard: 3.9/5 (A godsend to any Waterbox deck; this is an amazing card even with its checks around.) Expanded: 4.4/5 (It can one shot a Shaymin-EX, which seem to make a comeback. Shaymins beware Waterbox decks.) Limited: 2.8/5 (There are little methods to help accelerate energy and make the most of Hydro Shot; so it’s a niche pick in this meta.) Next on SM Burning Shadows: A handy tool to escape Mt. Coronet.