The Pokemon Card Garage Episode 2: Dialga (Call of Legends, 3/95)

Episode 2: Dialga (Call of Legends, 3/95)

What on Earth were they thinking when they created this card!? Was my first response the very first time I saw Dialga from Call of Legends while I was reading Pokegym’s card scans. I thought to myself: did they forget to add some other effect for Time Rewind, or did they run out of ink on their printers just before the card hit store shelves? I really thought Dialga was one big mistake. Then, I sadly learned that this card was no typo—it just sucks, plain and simple! After attaching four Metal Energy cards, you are rewarded with the worst effect in Pokemon trading card game (TCG) history by shuffling your hand into your deck! If I were a betting man, it is safe to say that this card will never win Worlds in our lifetime.

Folks, let’s DRASTICALLY fix this guy up: let’s make Dialga a contender in our format!

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the fact that Call of Legends is more of a collector set rather than a deck building and meta-game changing card collection. Yes, there are several reliable cards in Call of Legends, and the improved artwork on some reprints of cards look fantastic. However, Call of Legends will; in fact, be a set aimed more towards people looking to trade rare and obscure cards for other valuable cards, or have an entire deck filled with holographic Energy cards. Nonetheless, and myself being more in favor of cards that are actually playable, I disapprove of the Pokemon Company ever using this idea ever again: I believe that every new Pokemon TCG set should and always be created towards introducing new strategies, and meta-game changing cards to prevent a static format from ever happening again.

To begin with, I am going to boost Dialga’s HP to (130). I want to make Dialga into the big, bag legendary Pokemon that he actually is because his original wimpy HP of (100) does not do anything for him. More importantly, I want to make Dialga into the One Pokemon Army who can survive on his own with very little help from other cards. Dialga will be a very efficient Pokemon by himself; however, the added benefit to protecting Dialga with various Item cards or Special Energy encourages players to use more than needed Items or Energy for their Dialga just to prevent knock out. Furthermore, most legendary Pokemon have (130) HP, and rightful so. Dialga should not be an excluded.

Next, I am going to do justice for Dialga’s terrible attack, Time Rewind. Time Rewind will now do (80) damage, cost only (2) Metal Energy, and require a coin flip to shuffle your hand into your deck. By doing this, Dialga is a top tier Metal Pokemon card who can be played in conjunction with other Metal Pokemon, other draw Pokemon and/or Supporter cards, or as stand alone deck centered on a turn-two (80) hitter. The decision to still include the horrible effect of losing your entire hand helps balance Dialga because he can now hit for (80) damage very early in the game. As a result of these changes, I believe the top play style for Dialga would be Dialga as a turn-two hitter, therefore, the incentive to stack Special Metal Energy to protect the active Diagla would be increased and the chances of attacking quickly with a second benched Dialga would be decreased because of the decision to allocate more Energy to the active Dialga, thus using up the Energy attachment for the turn.

Dialga’s weakness and resistance will remain the same; though, Dialga’s retreat will be decrease to (2). Dialga’s weakness and resistance are fairly applied to a Pokemon who has the disadvantage against Fire decks and the advantage over Psychic types, so naturally I could not find any faults with this because it relates to the world of Pokemon accordingly. On the other hand, I felt that Dialga’s original retreat cost of (3) would make him awfully clunky, for that reason, I reduced the retreat cost to (2) allowing Dialga easy access to retreat when necessary.

Looking toward the future, and keeping the idea in mind that Dialga has the ability to warp time by either speeding it up, slowing it down, or stopping it altogether, I believe Dialgia will work extremely well with Victini, the (60) HP basic Fire Pokemon from the upcoming set, Noble Victories. Victini has a helpful Ability referred to as: Victory Star. Victory Star states, “You can use this when your Pokemon flip coins as part of an attack. Ignore all results of those coin flips and reflip from the beginning. You can’t use Victory Star more than 1 time during your turn even if you have multiple Victini in play”. This little guy would truly bring victory to you, the Pokemon trainer, because you now have the potential to avoid losing your entire hand using Dialga’s attack, Time Rewind, granted your coin flip is not in your favor.

Adjusting Dialga’s HP to (130) makes Dialga a much more versatile Pokemon card. Increasing Dialga’s damage output to (80), decreasing his Energy requirements to (2) Metal Energy, and adding a coin flip for Time Rewind will make more Pokemon players think likely of building a deck with Dialga. And the future possibilities Victini offers from the forthcoming set, Noble Victories, benefits our legendary friend later this tournament year. If these changes were applied, surely Dialga would see some more play in the 2011-2012 Pokemon tournament season.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more episodes of The Pokemon Card Garage!

--Frankie Durso--

The Pokemon Card Garage : Episode 1

Hello Poke Friends,

Whenever the Pokemon Company prints a new set, there are always cards that will never have the chance of seeing the top-cut. They are either too weak, or just take too long to power-up, therefore their dreams of ever being a contender in the meta-game are shattered, and remain in most player’s closets or binders just begging to be traded away. However, the major problem with each new set is that over the years there hasn’t just been one or two bad cards—there have been hundreds of terrible cars that are completely worthless.

But I am here to help put and end to that: I am here to make those useless cards playable!

The purpose of my series, The Pokemon Card Garage, is to examine, and improve past and present Pokemon cards that are considered unplayable to better our card game by giving us, the Pokemon TCG community, a much more good selection of Pokemon cards to choose from, and a incentive to play with these particular cards that I will fix-up. Additionally, I truly hope that my series is read by someone in the Pokemon Company, and helps them with their research and development process when creating future Pokemon cards, thus putting an end to the mistakes that the Pokemon Company has been making for years.

Before I start, I wanted to give you a bit of information about my Pokemon tournament experiences. I did not want to come off as another babbling person here on the forms ranting and not making any sense. Instead, a veteran player who knows what he is talking about through his years of experience.

I have been competing in the Pokemon TCG since the base set. I am a (7) seven-time City Champion, (3)three-time State Champion, (3)three-time Regional Champion, (3)three-time Gym Challenge Champion, (6)six-time Battle Road Champion, (11)eleven-time New York City Pokemon league tournament Champion, I placed 4^th at the 2005 National Championships, I participated in worlds in 2004,2005,2006, earned over $7000 in scholarships, and earned over $3000 in booster boxes and gaming consoles from winning Pokemon TCG tournaments.

Without further ado, episode 1!

Excadrill (Emerging Powers, 56/98)

When you first take a look at the newly released Excadriill from Emerging Powers, the first thing that your eyes look at is this beasts whopping (3) Energy attack cost for Drill Run. Sure, Excadriill has an awesome effect of discarding your opponent’s energy, and combined with Crush Hammer will have your opponents losing valuable Energy cards every turn, but for (3) energy and only 110 HP, let’s be honest with ourselves: by the time you are done powering-up Excadriill, your big bad stage-1 is probably ready to see that discard pile in the sky (or the lower left corner of your play-mat). Sadly, this Excadriill won’t be winning any tournaments soon—and most players will look for others cards to play with.

So let’s fix this guy up: let’s make Excadriill a contender in our format!

First things first, I am going to start with Excadriill’s second attack, Drill Run. In order to make him a playable card--and a fair one--I am going to reduce his Energy requirements to only (2) Fighting Energy, Drill Run will now only do (60) damage, and Drill Run will still have the great effect of discarding an energy card. By making these changes, Excadriill has been drastically improved: from a slow, bulky Pokemon, to a fast Stage-one Pokemon who now is centered on a deck concept of discarding Energy. Also, his low damage output makes him balanced by not being able to “one-shot” most Pokemon on his own, but instead, centered on disruption as his defining characteristic. Excadriill, like many stage-one Pokemon will make use of winning the coin toss and hitting quickly, but his effect of discarding Energy cards still puts the game in reach by slowing down your opponent; granted your first coin flip is not in your favor.

Now onto Excadriill’s first attack. Metal Claw was added for when our stage-one mole had a (3) Energy cost for Drill Run. The purpose of this was to be able to do some damage while you power Excadriill up for Drill Run. Clearly the most important aspect of Excadrill is his second attack. I am going to leave the Energy cost for Metal Claw untouched; however, I am going to increase the damage output to (40). This way if the Excadrill player loses the coin flip, his or her active Drillbur has hopes of evolving into a damaged Excadrill on turn two of his or her turn that can still do some damage and possibly avoid knock out on turn three of your opponents turn—but that’s just wishful thinking.

The HP of Excadriill really should not exceed (120), so his maximum HP will be (120). I believe by giving Excadriill (130) HP, most players would put him on the level of most stage-two or legendary Pokemon, plus there has to be some flaw in every card for the sake of a balanced meta-game. Nevertheless, (10) more HP gives him some more of a chance with a possible Defender against Reshiram in our format. Again, the whole idea is to pair Excadriill with Trainers to make him a bit better.

Excadriill’s retreat cost, weakness and resistance will remain the same. I could not find any issues with this. On the other hand, if I were to lower Excadriill’s retreat cost to just (1), then I would have kept his HP at (110) making him a possible hit-and-run Pokemon and being very prize efficient avoiding knock out in that sense. Also, keeping the weakness to Water types makes the deck incredibly weak to all Water decks. Since I believe Excadriill would ideally be paired with Donphan Prime as a fast Stage-one deck with an option of manipulation, the shared weakness to Water can give an incentive to players to create Water based decks granted this style of Excadriill and Donphan became very popular.

From a sluggish, unwieldy Pokemon with a (3) energy attack cost to a now fast and furious stage one Pokemon, I made Excadriill into a competitor in our format. Excadriill’s (2) Energy attack cost for Drill Run makes him quicker to attack offering players a speedy choice for Energy exploitation with a good damaged output, and increase in damage from metal claw gives the players more otion to deal damage early in the game, a (10) HP boost gives Excadriill some more hope against Reshiram, and the decision to not change Excadriill’s retreat cost, weakness and resistance still makes Excadriill a balanced card. If these changes were applied to our good friend, Excadriill, surley he would see some more play in the 2011-2012 Pokemon tournament season.

Thank you for reading!

--Frankie Durso--

Episode 5 The 2011 Pokemon World Championships Report

The 2011 Pokemon World Championships are now over and Frankie has returned with a full tournament report for you guys to learn from his experiences and to become better trainers. We discuss everything to do with the World Championships from the Decks that were played to the prerelease of our upcoming TCG expansion set Emerging Powers.

Download Episode 5 The 2011 Pokemon World Championships Report


Worlds Outline
Worlds Experiences
Worlds Having Internal Issues
Confidence in your deck
Tournament Report from Fankie
tope Decks
Winners of TCG
Magnabore
Reshiphlosion (No ninetails more supporters)
Runner Up
Rogue Deck (Donphan, Zoroark, Suicune Entai LG, Vileplume, Reuniclus

Videos From Worlds 2011

Episode 4 Top Decks of Nationals

In this show Frankie and I discuss the points of why certain decks in the top cut of the Mexico, Canada, and U.S. Nationals did in there ranking in terms of winning in the upcoming 2011 Pokemon World Championships. We also discuss certain websites that helps you the trainer go to, to learn new strategies and ways to learn more about our competitive format. The topic of Online play comes up as well as we give you certain services to use to play test online in the Pokemon TCG. Frankie gives a deck inside how Magnazone/Kingdra/Yanmega works and I talk about card values and websites to buy them online.
TOPICS:
Card Values
Online Pokemon Play
Analysis of Top Decks of Nationals
How to play test more effectivly

Download Episode 4 Top Decks of Nationals