TOP 10 Pokémon Cards Strategies

Feb 25 2008 2:20PM

TOP 10 Pokémon Cards Strategies

Find Winning Strategies with the Best Pokémon in the Game!

By Drew Guritzky

In this article, I will examine my Top 10 Pokémon for the Modified Format Holon Phantoms.

10. Electivire (Diamond & Pearl) - Electivire from Diamond & Pearl is a great card. It has one attack and a Poké-Power. It's Poké-Power, Voltage, lets you move your Lightning energy from any other Pokémon to Electivire as long as Elekid is underneath Electivire. This means you need to make sure to play Elekid first and then evolve it into Electabuzz. Electivire's only attack is called Giga Impact. For three Lightning and one Colorless you can do 60, or you can choose all Lightning attached and discard them to do 120 to you opponent's Pokémon. In the new set Secret Wonders, there is another Electivire that lets you get energy cards from the discard pile. This is a great card as you can combo it with this Electivire to get energy back from the discard pile faster.

9. Flygon (Holon Phantoms) – Flygon has an awesome Poké-Power, Delta Supply, which lets you attach an addition basic or Delta Rainbow to any of your Pokémon that are Delta. While a number of Delta Pokémon were rotated with Delta Species going out, there are still a lot of them left. Flygon is good by itself as it has an EX counterpart from Dragon Frontiers. It also has the ability to combo with a few other cards in the format. While its swift attack isn't the main reason you would play Flygon, it's decent for what you will be using this card for.

8. Infernape (Diamond & Pearl) – Infernape from Diamond & Pearl is a great card due to its quickness. It has free retreat and two great attacks. Its first attack is Meteor Punch, which for one Colorless lets you flip a coin until you get tails. For each heads, you do 30 damage to the defending Pokémon. However, the second attack is where its power is. For two Fire energy, you can deal 90 damage with Flare Blitz, but you have to discard all Fire energy attached to Infernape. The reason that it's so good is because Double Rainbow energy can power the attack in one turn, making Flare Blitz a dangerous attack.

7. Delcatty (Power Keepers) – Delcatty from Power Keepers is a great card not for its attack, but also for its Poké-Power. Energy Draw lets you discard one energy card from you hand to draw up to three cards. This is good, but the fact that you can use more that one Energy Draw if you have more that one Delcatty is amazing. Being able to fit this in some decks can be worthwhile due to the fact that you speed up your deck by getting the cards that you need faster.

6. Holon's Castform (Holon Phantoms) – Holon's Castform from Holon Phantoms lost a lot of its uses with the format change. The loss of Delta Species and the addition of Lucario in D/P has hurt the uses of this card. Holon's Castform's only attack is Delta Draw. It allows you to draw one card for every Delta Pokémon you have in play. This is a problem as there is really only one good deck with Delta Pokémon in them. However, the biggest reason that this card is on this list is because of its special ability. It can be used as a Special Energy card by returning an energy card on one of your Pokémon. While attached it provides two of every type of energy, but only counts as two energy. It has no attachment restriction as to what type of Pokémon it is attached to, which makes it very helpful in decks that need energy acceleration.

5. Empoleon (Diamond & Pearl) – Empoleon from D/P is a very good card by itself. It doesn't hurt that its previous stage has a very good attack that compliments Empoleon. For one Water and one Colorless you can use Ice Blade, which lets you choose any of your opponent's Pokémon and do 40 damage. This can be very helpful if you have already done a lot of damage to your opponent's Pokémon. The second attack, Aqua Jet, is great. For two Water and one Colorless, you can do 70 damage and then you get to flip a coin. If you manage to flip a heads you can do 20 to one of your opponent's benched Pokémon. That lets you set up your opponent's Pokémon for the KO with Ice Blade.

4. Kricketune (Mysterious Treasures) – Kricketune from MT is a card that can stand alone. Its basic, Kricketot, can call for family, which lets you get more Kricketot out. Kricketune's best attack is its second attack, Concerto, which does 40 plus 10 damage for each Kricketot or Kricketune you have in play. It only costs two Grass energy and has a max of 80 damage, which in turn two can be really hard to overcome. While this is what makes Kricketune good, it has a decent first attack that can help stall a turn to get set up. Kricketune's first attack does 20 and puts your opponent's Pokémon to sleep.

3. Lucario (Diamond & Pearl) – Lucario from D/P has the uncanny ability to be able to combo with so many cards, but even by itself it is a very solid card. There are a lot of Pokémon in the current format that are weak to Fighting. While Lucario's pre-evolution (Riolu D/P) is good, Lucario has the ability to do 40 damage for two Fighting, which is very hard to overcome early in the game depending on what your opponent is playing. The other fact that the attack also does 20 to one of your opponent's Pokémon can be very devastating. Lucario's first attack is also very good since it has the ability to go through Fighting resistance for Fighting energy. It is very helpful if you're going against a Pokémon with Fighting resistance.

2. Lucario Lv. X (Mysterious Treasures) – While Lucario is a great card, Lucario Lv. X from MT is amazing. Lucario Lv. X has the Poké-Power "Stance," which when used prevents your opponent from doing anything to it for one full turn. This can only be used during the turn Lucario Lv. X is played down. However, not being able to attack Lucario Lv. X for one full turn can sometimes turn the game around. It's only attack does 80, but your opponent's attack does 30 more to Lucario Lv. X next turn. However, your Poké-Power prevents your opponent from taking advantage of this the first turn Lucario Lv. X is in play. And if that wasn't enough, Lucario Lv. X can still use Lucario's attacks as if it were its own.

1. Blissey (Mysterious Treasures) – Blissey from MT is amazing. It is a Stage 1 that has a great attack and high HP. Its attack does 20 plus 10 for each energy card on it. It also has an ability that lets you attach a basic energy from your discard pile before you do damage. This means that if you have a lot of energy in the discard pile, it only gets stronger every turn. It is very quick and is by far the best of the Stage 1 cards. It also has the uncanny ability to be able to combo with almost all of the other Pokémon cards on this list.