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A Look into Expedition
by Soslowpoke Well it's been nearly 6 months since the last "new" TCG Expansion, Neo: Destiny. The next set slated to be released by WOTC starts a new era of the Pokemon TCG- Card-e. The main purpose of card-e is to be compatible with the new E-Reader being released by Nintendo next month. These "E-cards" use a dot-code technology allowing the reader to display many different games and features through the GameBoy Advance. Now these cards aren't just novelty cards. Players will find many new game mechanics in Pokemon-E along with new card versions of Pokemon which will make players to start to think, "Hmm, should I use this version of _____ instead of the Legendary Collection one?" In this article I'll tell you some of the great things Pokemon: Expedition has to offer. For Fighting Pokemon, the new Machamp line gives some Power to Fighting. Machop's Double Chop attack is capable of doing 40 damage for just (C)(C)- that's twice as much as the Legendary Collection Machop can do! Machoke also has Punch that does 20 for (C)(C) just like the Legendary Collection Machop so there is no need for Fighting Energy which makes both of those cards very splashable! Hitmonlee and Graveler both have attacks that can hurt your opponent's bench! And to top that off, we have the big bad Fighting Pokemon himself, Machamp, with its new "Poke-Power", Terraforming, which has the same effect as Hypno's Prophecy and Pokedex, but doesn't require an attack for! Great for planning ahead! Machamp also has and attack called Iron Fist which does more damage when your benched Pokemon have damage on them. Great against bench attacks. This also combos well with "Earthquake", "Blizzard" and other attack! Fire just gets hotter with the release of not just one, but 2 new Charizards! That's a total of 6 Charizards in the set! (1 Regular Foil, 2 Nonfoil, and then reverse foils of those 3) The 100HP Charizard (only available as a non holofoil) Is a very fast hitter. This guy can do 40 damage with Tail Smash for 1 Colorless energy if you just flip heads! He also has a 60 damage Flamethrower for only two fire and a Colorless Energy! You can't beat that. However, the other Charizard (120 HP) Is just as good! This one's Burning Energy Power turns ALL Energy attached to your Pokemon into Fire Energy for the rest of the turn. I can see some combos coming with this card. And to top that off, there is a brand new Typhlosion that will let you search your deck for a Fire Energy_without flipping a coin!_ if your opponent has an advantage on Energy. Other versatile Stage 1s such as Ninetales and Rapidash make a comeback in this set. Grass keeps on growing with the release of what is said to be the most broken grass card- Venusaur. Venusaur's Earth Bounty Poke-Power lets you attach an additional Energy to your Active Pokemon if you play one on that Pokemon that turn. Think of the possibilities! Also joining the crew is the first ever holofoil Butterfree (was to be in Neo: Discovery, but was taken out for some reason) This Butterfly is all about Healing. Not only does its Power remove Special Conditions from your Active Pokemon, but its attack can remove 2 damage counters from itself too! Another card players have been talking about is Vileplume whose Poke-Power lets you flip a coin each turn. If heads, your opponent's Active Pokemon is now Poisoned- DEVASTATING! Not only that, but it also has a new and improved Petal Dance for only 1 Grass and 1 Colourless Energy with same effect as the Team Rocket version. (Did I also mention that Vileplume has 90 HP?) You can find Vileplume in the Electric Garden Theme Deck. Psychic will scare you with the new Gengar whose Calling Home Poke-Power is just like the good old Fossil Gengar's Curse Pokemon Power. But this Gengar lets you move a damage counter from one of your own Pokemon to one of your opponents. Yikes! I'm scared already. Both Mew and Mewtwo make appearences in this set with new forms of the classic Psychic and Psywave attacks. Definately playable. You'll also see Alakazam in the Echo Theme Deck... Water you doing? Water knows what its doing in Expedition (and Aquapolis too!) 2 new Feraligatrs and 2 new Blastoises come in this set, and they are all packing a huge punch. And if that weren't enough, Poliwrath is back as a Water Pokemon withand even better Water Punch attack than Misty's Poliwhirl. Also, Poliwrath's PressurizePoke-Power can attach even more Energy to it and save your Active from paying a retreatCost! Other new additions include a Kingler (with a 70 damaging attack), Cloyster, and another Jynx. Colorless is definitely looking bright here. Many classics like Dragonite, Fearow, and Pidgeot make a comeback with even stronger attacks! Don't miss out! And in addition to that, Echo is the first ever theme deck to contain colorless as one of the main types. Expect some of these big hitters to be in there! And on the Darker side of things, Expedition Introduces a new Tyranitar with Poke-Body: Dark Aura that counts all Energy attached to Tyranitar as Darkness Energy! And if you do have real Darkness Energy attached to Tyranitar, it will just make his Stamp attack (like Blaine's Rapidash) do more damage! Definitely Playable. Darkness and Metal Energy also return in this set so you should have no problem getting them! And to finish things up, there are over a dozen new Trainers in this set. Including Energy Removal2 and Pokemon Reverse which are just like the original Energy Removal and Gust of Wind except with an added coin flip. These cards are still great for the Modified format though! And also there is a new Pokemon Tool called Power Shard that's just like Plus Power except you don't need to discard it until you attack! I'll be running 4 of these in my decks ;) So that's all for now. Hope you're hyped up, and just wait until Expedition's September 16th release date and you'll be able to get your hands on these cards! ~soslowpoke
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