MonsterOfTheLake's Lake

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10-27-2008

Buyer's Tome -- Diamond & Pearl

Hello, adoring fanboys and fangirls! All three of you! I'll respond to feedback at the end of articles now. Starting with this article. Yeah. So; you might ask, "What on earth is this Buyer's Tome, MOTL?!" And I'd answer you, because that was a pseudo rhetorical question written by me. That's deep. Anywho, the Buyer's Tome is a new series that I'm starting. As you might have noticed, this Buyer's Tome will be about the Diamond & Pearl set. I'll be discussing the theme decks of Diamond & Pearl, and anything else that tickles my fancy. In case you're still not clear, Buyer's Tome will basically be a series of articles where I make fun of review the Theme Decks. Because people buy those. And thus, they deserve to be ridiculed reviewed. The book with the elegant blue magicks coming out of it on the right? That's the tome. The Buyer's Tome. It's more along the lines of an exercise in the display of fantasy art, which I like. I'm not a nerd, honest. If you're a starving artist and want to make your own Tome image for the Buyer's Tome, feel free to e-mail me with your roxor Tome drawings or photoshops. Let's do this!

Art by st3to

Terra Firma

Should you buy it: No 4x Turtwig 2x Grotle 1x Torterra 4x Wurmple 2x Silcoon 1x Beautifly 4x Combee 1x Heracross 4x Sneasel 2x Stunky 2x Super Scoop Up 2x Poké Ball 1x Night Pokémon Center 2x Rival 2x Energy Search 2x Potion 18x Grass Energy 6x Darkness Energy Offering a horrible selection of Pokémon, an even worse offering of Trainers, and 6 basic Dark Energy; this theme deck is pretty bad, even by Theme Deck standards. If you're building a Torterra deck, you only need the 4-2-1 Torterra and 2 SSUs from this deck, which you could get for half the cost of the Theme Deck. Terra Firma? Mo' like, Terrible Firma. Did you cringe? I got plenty more where that came from. Isn't that Torterrible? OK, I'll stop now.

Do you really want to spend ~$13 for this card and 6 basic Dark Energy?

Inferno Zone

Should you buy it: No 4x Chimchar 2x Monferno 1x Infernape 4x Ponyta 2x Rapidash 4x Meditite 1x Medicham 4x Hippopotas 1x Hippowdon 2x Starly 2x PlusPower 2x Poké Ball 2x Pokédex HANDY910is 1x Professor Rowan 2x Energy Search 2x Potion 16x Fire Energy 8x Fighting Energy Infernape is good. 2x PlusPower is nice. And Professor Rowan is an OK Supporter. But there is simply nothing else in this deck that you could use in a competitive deck. Infernape is quite ubiquitous, and you should have no problems acquiring it by itself anyway. The Chimchar and Monferno are way better than their MD counterparts. But they're just (un)commons, and none of the "supporter" Pokémon in this Theme Deck justify spending your parents' hard earned cash on it.

Doesn't Infernape look like a Digimon in that card?

INTERMISSION!

:D

Royal Frost

Should you buy it: No 4x Piplup 2x Prinplup 1x Empoleon 4x Buizel 1x Floatzel 2x Goldeen 4x Magnemite 2x Magneton 4x Hoothoot 1x Noctowl 2x PlusPower 2x Energy Switch 1x Double Full Heal 2x Rival 2x Energy Search 2x Potion 18x Water Energy 6x Metal Energy The worst of the three, as the holo-rare of the deck is, well, crap. 2x Rival is silly, Double Full Heal is the worst card ever, and while 2x Goldeen is amazing, it's not enough to salvage this Theme Deck. Yes, that was a joke. You should never, ever buy this Theme Deck. Ever. Even if you have a penguin fetish.

Perennially overshadowed by Empoleon MD. I like penguins. .. those two statements are not related.

Booster packs/boxes

Should you buy packs: No Should you buy boxes: No This might be slightly misleading, and newer players might be wondering whether the entire set is filled with unusable cards. The thing is, this set is 2 seasons old. Formats change, and new cards become old cards. If this article was written around June 2007, I would no doubt be telling you to buy as many boxes of DP possible to build an Infernape deck. And fail at Nationals. It seemed like a such good idea at the time! Personally, I blame Fulop. And Infernape. And Eeveelutions. And Foisy. The point is (here we go again), this set is going to be rotated out in ~10 months. Other than Dusknoir and solitary copies of Torterra and Torterra Lv.X, you honestly shouldn't need a single rare/holo-rare from this set. At a stretch, Mismagius, but that's a HUUUGE stretch. Bonus points if you figure out why I used the picture of a Flareon in this section.

Yes, there used to be Light Pokémon. I miss those. Where's my Light Marowak, Nintendo? >:O

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And now, what everyone's been waiting for -- feedback!

MonsteroftheLake,

Excellent beginner advice. I just started Pokemon a few months back with my son. Have joined a league and have had no luck at winning a single match yet. Have made mad changes to my deck in the last four weeks and will be trying it again this weekend with the league. I have been reading alot of the the info off POJO and digest it all. Not sure if I have overload or not yet. I think if it does not go well this weekend, I will have to submit my deck to the garage and see if I can get it right. It really looks bad when a 40yr old is skull drug by an 8yr old, time and again. Pease continue your articles. I may learn something someday. Thank you.

Charles

Just keep playing, Charles, and one day, you'll beat that 8 year old like a red-headed stepchild!

Nice article :P
I laughed lots, and learnt a lo.... well.. not that much, at all, really XD. But it was great!
:D

James

You didn't learn anything?? Pay attention >:O!

I enjoyed your "Saga of sets" article, but I think that it may have been a little too sarcastic at times. A lot of the cards had the exact same analysis, including "worst card ever." Which really only makes sense for one specific card.
Prinplup was samdwiched in between a lot of crappy cards, but with an article being read, it is hard to interpret tone of voice sometimes. I know for a fact that the DP Prinplup is the one to use, but others (like other kids in Senior) may not understand that you were being serious in that card analysis.
I appreciate your articles though. Keep up the good work!

Derek

Too sarcastic? When have I ever been too sarcastic? :D

Also, just to set the record straight: the worst card in Pokémon is Double Full Heal. Seriously.

Dear MOTL,

I think the Saga of the Sets is a good idea, but here are some things that can inprove.....
You could add in pictures of the star cards in the set like Dusknoir, Lucario, Infernape,
and maybe a few of your favorite pokemon. I also think people who have no idea about this game and may want to get into it may have no idea what you're talking about.

Like the Medicham comment.... it would make completely no sense whatsoever.
It would be better to know the overrated cards at the time. And Medicham was one of those cards. Machamp was better, but if you wanted to run a stage 1 at the time it was hard to run a decent stage 1 deck until Mysterious Treasures came out.

Sincerely,

Alazor

The Medicham in question:



We at Pojo.com had the decency to censor that Medicham's clearly exposed buttocks. =P

your articles always seem to be crying for feedback, so I thought I'd throw some out! I started playing the TCG wayyy back from base set till Neo stuff started appearing, dissappeared and crawled into a cave, and made an incredible comeback around the Great Encounters era. Now I'm pokecrazy and always hungry for metagame articles and the like. I found your articles to be really helpful for a player who wants to start winning tournaments again. . . plus they're hillarious. I even understand all the base set humor! Anyways, I hope my feedback will inspire you to keep writing more crazy articles in Pojo, they're over 9000.

you can call me Josh. or J-Wittz. your choice.

I'm going to compromise and call you Josh-Wittz :D

Thanks for the feedback, glad people are getting all that obscure Base Set humor. Those were great times!

C'mon guy just a tease for the saga of the sets, I need these I get a good chuckle out of um, in fact you jinxed me with the budew line I bought a holo trainer box from target opened a pack and got not only a budew but a reverse in the same pack so I'm halfway there to having 4 in my deck. hope you find the time to continue this series I enjoy it immensely

Marc

Just a teaser, eh? There you go brah:

1/124 – Aggron – Following Diamond & Pearl's lead, Mysterious Treasures also chose to print something awful as the first card of the set. Must be a DP-era thing. It's really, REALLY bad.

Sorry about the Budew. It sucks, doesn't it? :D

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And that's all for today. Thanks to everyone who sent in feedback, I appreciated every single one! I even printed them and put them on the fridge!

Have a fantabulous Monday!


PoJoMOTL@gmail.com

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