Ho-oh · Neo Revelation (N3) #18

3 comments

1. 

   ivan

   (7 years ago)

   i remember playing this card with a rainbow energy and saying that the rainbow energy counted as every color of energy so 30+70 lol

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2. 

   Ambassador

   (2 years ago)

   This card’s art combines with N3 Lugia and N3 Skarmory.

   This card also got a spiritual reprint in the Japanese edition of the TCG’s SM6b Champion Road, which made it in English as CES–– wait, no, this is one of the cards that didn’t make it into Celestial Storm. Unlike most of the rest of the set, it was instead pulled into Lost Thunder. It’s, actually, the only one pulled into Lost Thunder? Kind of stupid, but whatever, we move on. The inclusion in SM6b implies it’s one of the “best of the best” so, uh, how good was Neo Revelation Ho-Oh Actually?

   90 HP was solid for a basic, the weakness was a pretty bad one, any resistance was always nice to have, and the retreat was fair enough for the HP bracket it’s in. The question is the attack, which on the surface looks like an overly expensive attack that would’ve required you to run multiple different Basic Energy in your deck to make Rainbow Burn worth your while – it could’ve been an OK addition to a Haymaker deck, but for the most part I think it’s fair to say this thing isn’t very splashable and didn’t complement existing deck archtypes so much as require you to build a deck around it.

   ポケモン is fairly optimistic about it, outlining the idea that a Basic being able to do 70 for 4 Energy was nice for the era. And that’s a fairer point than it sounds. The attack doesn’t have any flipping required, Energy discards, or ask you for anything else particularly complex. The closest thing I can find from a quick perusal of Basics in the Base–Neo era is… nothing? It’s worth pointing out here that as a Colorless card, Ho-Oh isn’t hitting anything for weakness, but hitting for a guaranteed 30+40 if you bothered to attach 4 different Energy (and up to 30+60 if you decided you were really gonna go all out) without any discards, any recoil damage, etc… it sounds like it was a very clean card. Just a question of whether people could get it to run, and if they could do it reliably.

   Actually, it’s not a question at all, as this is the Neo era we’re talking about. Babies existed, and could provide ample time for you to charge up one or more Ho-Oh on your bench with 6 different Energy and just go at it. ポケカwiki has the following decklist;

   x4 Ho-Oh
   x4 N1 Elekid
   x4 N1 Magby
   x4 N3 Sneasel*
   –
   x4 Professor Elm
   x4 Professor Oak’s Research**
   x4 Bill’s Maintenance**
   x4 Copycat**
   x3 Energy Ark
   x4 Energy Switch
   x3 Nightly Garbage Run
   x4 Potion
   x4 Moo Moo Milk
   –
   x3 of each different Basic Energy

   Unfortunately, Neo-era documentation on competitive deck placements seems lacking even for the Japanese side of things, so it’s tough to comment on tournament placements. I see a perfectly workable deck there, personally, but I have to leave it to the reader to determine if this Ho-Oh card from 2000/2001 deserved its 2018 revisit.

   ポケカwiki: https://archive.ph/9SEig
   ポケモンwiki: https://archive.ph/nJYvD

   *N3 Sneasel’s presence in this deck appears to be owing to its lack of weakness. It obviously cannot use its Swipe attack for lack of Darkness or Rainbow Energy, rather it is another stall option alongside Elekid and Magby while you power up several Ho-Oh on the Bench.
   ** This particular decklist is clearly running some e-Card era Trainers, so it’s not perfectly representative of an e-Card era Ho-Oh deck, but you can see the overall outline of what such a deck would look like when you take these cards out.

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   • 

     Warnock 2022Ambassador

     (2 years ago)

     For reference to how this art fits alongside Lugia 20/64 and Skarmory 23/64, check out this image on the French “Pokepedia”: https://archive.ph/S3aZU

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