COTD - 20th June 2011 - Smeargle UD/CoL

My choice for today features a Pokemon that served a lot of decks well in the previous format, Smeargle from Undaunted or Call of Legends.
Smeargle comes with a single Poke Power and a lone attack. The attack 'Tail Rap' is really not that good at all as it can only do a maximum of 40 damage if you flip double heads. For a Double Colourless cost, this really isn't efficient enough to warrant the energy, but this card is all about the Poke Power.
'Portrait' was the reason that people played the card back in the days of MD-CoL since it allows you to look at your opponent's hand, choose a Supporter there and use it as the effect of the power, as long as Smeargle is active of course.
This allowed you to effectively use 2 Supporters per turn with the ability to use Unown Q to give it free retreat. Back then, decks ran high amounts of Pokemon Collector and Bebe's Search so copying your opponent's hand really wasn't a bad idea. However, in this format, the risk is too big to take.
With decks now running high counts of cards such as Judge and more importantly Professor Juniper, using Smeargle's Power is just too risky. Not only this, but Smeargle's one retreat cost can serve as a bit of a pain since we don't have Unown Q anymore. This means using your attachment for the turn which isn't ideal.
The sheer probability of hitting a card like Juniper and having to use it will put you at a severe disadvantage for the rest of the game by discarding your entire opening hand. This will really hurt Smeargle's playability in this format.
Overall, Smeargle still has a good Poke Power, but the fact that both players can now use Supporters on the first turn, along with a higher risk of hitting devastating card effects means that it won't see much play at all. That being said, I'm going to have to give Smeargle a pretty low 4/10.
If you decide to run this, you are being very brave and will probably change your mind when you find how often you hit those Junipers. The score is low, but try it out at your own risk!

Hope you enjoyed today's choice, make sure you subscribe to the mailing list and see you tomorrow!

Dan