COTD - 28th June 2011 - Engineer's Adjustments UL

Today's pick is Engineer's Adjustments from HS: Unleashed.
This card has always been one that people want to try, but it just hasn't lived up to its potential. Engineer's Adjustments allows you to discard an energy card from your hand and then draw 4 cards. Now this sound like a great deal, but in some decks it just wouldn't be worth the supporter use.
However, with this new format, I wouldn't be surprised if we see this in some upcoming decks. Since most decks without Magnezone Prime don't have much draw power, this card could be included just to get the ball rolling with their deck. The only reason of being put off is because Engineer's has to take up your supporter for the turn, meaning no Sage's, Collector or Juniper at the same time.

COTD - 27th June 2011 - Rainbow Energy

Today's Card of the Day is Rainbow Energy, recently reprinted in HGSS: Base Set.
This card has been around for a while and was event printed in a Double Rainbow Energy version in EX: Crystal Guardians. However, today it is just in the single version and acts as any type of energy when attached to one of your Pokemon. The cost for this is that you have to put 1 damage counter on the Pokemon you decide to attach this energy to.
Sounds like a fair deal, but when would we really need to use this card? Well, if you have multiple attackers in one deck, you could include Rainbow Energy so that you have the option to attack with both, without having to run multiple energy types.

COTD - 26th June 2011 - Dunsparce UL

My pick for today is the rather unusual Dunspace from HS: Unleashed. This card features an average 60HP for a Basic, is of Colourless typing and has just one attack.
Its attack is called 'Return' and costs just a single Colourless Energy. This attack does 10 damage and simple allows you to draw cards up until you have 6 cards in hand. This for me puts Dunsparce into the 'Starter' category and is actually a pretty decent one. At the moment, Baby Pokemon are the choice for starting off the game with the most popular ones being Tyrogue and Cleffa since they have attacks the refresh the hand and do pretty nice damage.

COTD - 25th June 2011 - Energy Search BW

First off, let me just apologise for no COTD yesterday. Things have been pretty busy at the moment with my videos and, on that subject, the next episode of PokeClass will be out on Sunday (tomorrow) rather than today for the same reason. So enough of that and onto our card for today which is Energy Search from Black and White.
This card is as simple as its title. This trainer card allows you to search your deck for a basic energy card and the place it into your hand, very simple yet sometimes very effective.
I personally haven't found big enough reason to slip this into my builds yet, but I have seen a few people doing so if their deck runs multiple kinds of energy.

COTD - 23rd June 2011 - Relicanth CL

Today's choice is Relicanth from Call of Legends. Apart from being a pretty old looking fish, this card has some okay stats.
Relicanth is a Water type Pokemon with 80HP, two attacks and comes in Basic form. It also features a Grass weakness instead of the expected Lightning which is a nice touch, so let's talk about attacks.
I'm going to talk about the second attack first since its the worst out of the two. 'Granite Head' costs a Water energy and a Double Colourless and does 30 base damage. The small print also tells us that any damage from attacks towards Relicanth is reduced by 30 which isn't too bad. Unfortunately, this attack is just a bit too costly for what it does so it will probably end up being one of those attacks you just pretend isn't there.

COTD - 21st June 2011 - Musharna BW

Today's Card of the Day is Musharna from our latest set, Black and White.
Musharna is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon with 90HP, two attacks and gives us a fairly nice idea for a rogue deck this format.
The first attack 'Hypnotic Ray' does 20 damage for one Psychic energy and also sends the defending Pokemon to sleep. This is a fairly efficient attack seeing as rendering the defending Pokemon useless for your opponent's next turn can give you a good heads up on the game. However, with Switch being ran in decks featuring heavy retreat cost Pokemon, this may be easier to get around than you think. Pair this with the fact that this will be pretty useless against Baby Pokemon seeing as they love to sleep anyways.

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.

COTD - 19th June 2011 - Wailord TM

Today's choice is a very large whale. On a more serious note, Wailord from Triumphant is my Card of the Day today and actually has some very nice stats.
First off we have its HP. This Pokemon is a Stage 1 and it has an absolutely huge 180HP. This is the largest HP on any Stage 1 Pokemon, apart from its EX counterpart from Sandstorm with 200! So this massive HP is a great start to make sure it can stand up to many Pokemon in the metagame so far, at least being able to take a hit or two before getting KO'd.
Wailord comes with 2 attacks, called 'Underwater Dive' and 'Swallow Up'. The first attack, Underwater Dive allows you to heal 30 damage from Wailord for each heads you get on two coin flips.

COTD - 17th June 2011 - Bouffalant BW

My Card of the Day today is Bouffalant from the latest Black and White set. This card received a fair bit of hype when it was first announced/released since it was Colourless typing and has an attack that can do a high amount of damage for just a Double Colourless Energy.
Bouffalant is all about its first attack 'Revenge'. This appropriately named attack does 20 base damage, but if one of your Pokemon was knocked out last turn, it does 70 more which makes 90 in total. As mentioned in the above part, this card was incredibly hyped through the Colourless typing seeing as it could one hit KO a Garchomp C Lv.X after taking a KO for just a Double Colourless.

COTD - 16th June 2011 - Tyrogue HS/CoL

My pick for today is Tyrogue which originally featued in the HGSS Base Set, but was reprinted with different artwork in Call of Legends.
Tyrogue is one of the newly popular 'Baby' Pokemon, putting it into the starter category for this format. This particular Baby sports the traditional 30HP along with a single Poke Body and a lone attack.
The Poke Body 'Sweet Sleeping Face' is standard with any of the Baby Pokemon and states that this Pokemon can't be damaged by attacks if it's asleep. Now this actually acts as a very nice form of defence if things aren't going your way or if you need to slow your opponent down for a crucial turn so that you can get ahead in the game. The only thing about this Poke Body is that it's unpredictable.

COTD - 15th June 2011 - Revive BW

Card of the Day today is Revive from the Black and White set. This card is an interesting one since it allows you to choose one of your Basic Pokemon from the discard pile and place them onto your bench.

As mentioned in the Junk Arm COTD, the HGSS-On format really doesn't have a lot of cards that provide us with recovery, but this is one of them. This card is obviously very close to the card which everyone will miss, Pokemon Rescue from Platinum, but this one just doesn't cut it for me. You do get to recover one of your Basic Pokemon, but that means the rest of the line must be in the deck somewhere to use it.

COTD - 14th June 2011 - Junk Arm TM

Today's Card of the Day is Junk Arm from the Triumphant expansion. Upon this card's release, it helped to bring Gyarados back into the competitive scene since its loss of Felicity's Drawing from rotation. But we're talking about HGSS-On now so let's look at the card from that perspective.
Junk Arm allows you to discard two cards from your hand to grab a Trainer from the discard pile and put it into your hand, as long as that Trainer isn't Junk Arm. Now in the HGSS-On format, this card is going to be in a numerous amount of decks simply because it is a very nice form of recovery, what we have very little of upon rotation.

COTD - 13th June 2011 - Mandibuzz BW

Today, I've chosen Mandibuzz as my card of the day from the newest Black and White expansion. Mandibuzz is a Stage 1 Pokemon with a fairly average 90HP and two attacks. The first, Blindside is probably the most useable of the two with the ability to do 50 damage to any of your opponent's Pokemon with damage counters already on them. Now, since Crobat G is gone this card isn't as powerful, but there are still many ways to get this guy sniping for some fairly high damage. Absol Prime, Tyranitar Prime and Kingdra Prime have all been suggested as partners for this card and all of them are pretty good, but with their own flaws.

COTD - 11th June 2011 - Lanturn Prime UL

Today, my chosen card of the day is Lanturn Prime from HS: Unleashed. This card is a Stage 1 of Lightning typing, has double Weakness to Fighting and 2 Retreat Cost. It also boasts a single Poke-Power and one attack.

The Poke Power 'Underwater Dive' is an interesting one which allows you to
change Lanturn into a Water type for the duration of the turn. This helps immensely against one of its biggest weaknesses, Donphan by being able to hit for weakness.