Hoopa – Unified Minds Pokemon Review

Otaku

Hoopa (SM – Unified Minds 140/236) is our second card this week. Hoopa (Hoopas?) give me a Trick-or-Treat vibe due to its two forms and teleportation portal gimmick, though maybe that is just me. We’re reviewing it anyway, and this version is a [D] Type which isn’t overly useful for striking Weakness and can even get a bit hung up on Resistance but does have some decent Type-support if you’re running Hoopa on-Type. The best Stage to be is still “Basic”, so Hoopa is doing well there; it should be easy to fit into most decks, fast to hit the field, etc.

130 HP is just a little more likely to be OHKO’d than not, but especially after factoring in its status as a Basic, that is still a solid score. [F] Weakness could become a pain but isn’t too bad right now. Any Resistance is welcome and between the HP and current metagame, it might even come in handy. A Retreat Cost of [CC] is normally neither good nor bad, but with how I’ve seen Hoopa run it might be a slight (but not major) concern.

Hoopa has two attacks. For [C] it can use “Evil Admonition” to do 10 damage plus another 20 per Ability on your opponent has in play. This means a range of 10 to 130 most of the time, with effects that restrict Bench-size shrinking the maximum and Sky Field allowing for up to 170 damage before other effects. With how many competitive decks are all about Abilities paired with the low Energy cost, Evil Admonition should often hit hard for the asking price. Not enough to major OHKO’s, but for cost-effective 2HKOs or 3HKOs. [CCC] pays for “Mind Shock”, which does 80 damage while ignoring Weakness and Resistance; not brilliant, but decent if your deck can easily meet the Energy requirements.

If Hoopa hasn’t impressed yet it helps to remember that it is an easily splashed and TecHed in Pokémon for many decks. Mind Shock is optional; we’re here for Evil Admonition and so are several winning decks. Not as a deck’s focus, but as a nice little single Energy, single-Prize attacker you can use to set up or follow through on 2HKO’s… and if it survives the next turn that’s great but if not, that’s okay as well. I’m still out of touch with Expanded but it seems like it could serve a similar function there. It is a splashable, reasonably big Basic so its a great pull for Limited.

Ratings

Standard: 3.3/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 4/5

Hoopa is a treat; I was worried it might be a little underpowered, but it’s doing just fine. You should make sure you have a copy or two, though a full playset is probably overkill.

Vince

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