With Destiny coming out within the month, I see it fitting to do
a card review. After all, I wouldn't want anybody to overlook any
Archetypes. 
The Good
Dark Feraligatr: Dear god they've done it again. Another BROKEN Gatr. His power shuts off all baby rules and stops them from attacking or using powers. His attack deals 50 for WWW with a chance of energy removal. 80 HP is iffy, but there's always Rocket's Hideout, Dark Energy, and Boss's Way to make up for that in dark pokémon. His power combos great with Slowking. Slowking keeps D Gatr from being SER'ed. D Gatr stops Slowking from being Iggly'ed. Maybe Throw in some Krow or Sneasel and u got urself a deck. Also works well in a Dark Dragonair/Dark Blastoise/Dark Dragonite dark evo deck. Sounds crappy but try it in standard.
Dark Gengar: OW! A synergy card that combos nice with
almost everything. His power makes it twice as hard to wake
up. His attack drags up any Benched pokémon, deals it 30, and puts it to sleep
for a mere PPP. 70 HP can make many players reconsider, but the trio of Dark
enhancers make anything with dark in its name powerful. Works well
with: Promo Iggly, Neo3 Misdreavus, Base Haunter, and Sleep for
obvious reasons. Also works nice with Murkrow: Blast all their Slowkings for 20,
then switch off for D Gengar and kill them all. Works Well Against: Babies,
King, All Fighting Pokés, and most Psychic Pokés. Light Dragonite: Power Shuts down all effects of Non-Basic
Energy. Can you say Anti-Sneasel? It only works when he's active though.
His attack for CCC deals 40 (!!!) and prevents other effects of attacks
just like Suicune's Power (!!!!!). Works nice with other Colorless pokémon
like Chansey, Neo 3 Lugia, Erika's Jiggly, etc. Light Machamp: Another Decent Light Card. His power is a
One-shot thing like Softboiled. When you play him down, you switch him with your
active and remove 30 from the old active. His attack deals 50 for FFF, but vs
dark you can make a coin flip for double damage. This will wipe out 99% of all
Dark pokés even with Hideout. The only possible survivor is Dark Tyranitar
who towers with 110 if you have the Hideout. Dark Machoke has a Pulled Punch
type move. Use with Erika's Jiggly, Chansey, Blissey, and lotsa gust and Hyper
Devos. Dark Tyranitar: The largest of all Dark Pokémon towers with a
massive 90 hp. He may be F type, but he can still use Dark energy without the
other bad things people can do to darks. His first attack lets you flip a coin
for each F energy on him. For each heads, I deals 20 and discards the top
card of their deck. His second attack is pricy and only moderate. For FFFC it
deals 50, or if they have bench, 30 to the active and 30 to one bench. Stick to
a Multi-Energy Mountain Crash (First Attack). Works well with other deckers like
Moltres and Shining Tyranitar. Shining Tyranitar: Ironicly, it has less health than Dark
Tyranitar with only 80. Weird... His first attack, for DFF, deals 30, and you
flip until you get tails. For each heads, they lose the top card. Bring out that
two-headed coin.... Heh... His second attack is pricy and rediculous. For
FrFrFrD it deals 50, and then comes coin flipping for each
Fr energy. For each heads, you discard 1 fire energy and then 1 energy
from your opponent. Or was it take 1 energy from the discard pile? I'm not sure.
Every translation I've seen is different. Dark Crobat: This Evolutionof Dark Golbat basically expands on
the card. 70 Hp= Dark Scizor: This is somewhat cool. 70 Hp and a Slash attack for
CCC-30 make it little better than Scyther at first glance. Especially with that
CC retreat and moderate first attack. But the real glory in this card lies
within the card name. Dark= Useable with Dark Energy, Hideout, Boss's Way.
Scisor= Useable with Metal. This means you can use a combo of Dark and Metal
Energy to power his attack, suffering the penalties of neither. Play with
Sneasel/Murkrow/Rocket's Zappy or something else that uses Metal and
Dark. The Bad Dark Typhlosion: RaNd0m likes this guy more than Dark Charizard.
In my opinion, it was designed by someone looking at Dark Charizard and deciding
how to make it worse. 80 hp and a water weakness are the same as D Char, but he
loses the F resist for 1 less retreat. His first attack is marginally better,
dealing 20 for C, which can b 30 w/ a dark. His second is crap and reminds me of
Surge's Buzz. It costs Fr instead of FrFr, but deals 10 less per head than D
Char, and you start by discarding all Fr energy. Yuck! Yuck! YUCK! If you play
this, you deserve to be smacked. Most other Dark and Light Pokémon: Most Light pokémon have
attacks that help your opponent as much as you, and wimpy attacks. Most other
Dark pokémon remind me of rocket, with low health and moderate
attacks. Most Shinning Pokémon: The Shinning are only good to look at.
With pricy, multi-energy type attacks they are little more than expensive
bookmarks. Maybe they will be good in draft where you play 2-3 types
anyways. The Ugly Most Basics: Japanese Card Designers got lazy with this set.
Most basics that evolve follow this format: 50 Hp, 1 retreat, CC-20 damage. Most
other evolving basics steal from older basics. Unevolving basics are weaker
forms of older cards. With all this said, I would like to say that this will
be the best set ever. Stage 2's will triumph more in both Modified and Standard.
Maybe Gatr will hand down the throne to someone else. And then again, pigs might
fly out of George W. Bush's butt. I hope to do some Comparison CotD's
later upon the full release of the set. I:
Dark Ampharos: All
Ampharos are good, and this is no exception. Its power penalizes your opponent
for playing energy at the price of 10 damage per energy. With darkness energy,
their active would take more damage per energy (I think). His attack for LCC
deals 50 at the price of all L energy attached. Good with power L cards like
Electabuzz and Surge's Jol
, but there's always the trio of Dark enhancers. When you evolve into
him, you deal 20 to an opponent. His attack for GG lets you flip a coin for each
of your opponent's pokés. Each head nets that poké 10 damage and heals Dark Bat
by 10. With Hyper Devos and Murkrows, no bench is safe.
Shadow Assassin -The Dark,
Mysterious Destroyer