Pokemon Shikishi Art Boards Series #2 Released

The new Pokemon Shikishi Art Boards Series #2 were just released in Japan.  These art boards are made by Bandai Corporation and were only sold in Japan for a very limited time. For those of you who are not familiar with them, a “Shikishi” is a picture printed or painted on a Japanese type cardboard. Shikishi’s are usually used for signing autographs. These are a mini version with a gold foil edge. There were 16 different versions (8 Sumi-E Ink Prints, 6 Water Color Prints & 2 Gold Foil Prints)

Meganium, Bayleef & Chikorita (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Typhlosion, Quagsire & Cyndaquil (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Feraligatr, Croconaw & Totodile (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Togepi, Cleffa, Igglybuff & Pichu (Water Color Print)

Umbreon & Espeon (Water Color Print)

Pikachu & Wobbuffet (Male & Female) (Water Color Print)

Porygon & Porygon2 (Water Color Print)

Unown (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Crobat (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Skarmony (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Ampharos (Water Color Print)

Tyranitar (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Raikou, Entei & Suicune (Sumi-E Ink Print)

Celebi (Water Color Print)

Ho-oh (Gold Foil Print)

Lugia (Gold Foil Print)

They came in a sealed package with 1 print and 1 piece of gum. The fun was that you didnt know which print you would get until you opened it. These shikishi prints wont last long, but you can still get them on Pokevault while supplies lasts.

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Pokemon HGSS Prime Card Reviews Part 2

By Jack Snell

HGSS on Pokemon Prime Reviews continued:

Donphan Prime: A veritable behemoth of a Pokemon. Donphan hits like an absolute truck and has sturdy defenses to match. 120 HP is impressive for a stage 1, even more so when you read its PokeBody Exoskeleton. It reduces all damage done to Donphan by 20. Thats like a permanently inbuilt Defender and gives you effectively 140 HP if they can one shot you and effectively more if they cant. On that subject the only things that are realistically one shotting a Donphan in our format are Samurott, Magnezone, Badboar, Rayquaza Deoxys Legend and Swanna, excluding damage modifiers: Pluspower, Black Belt etc.

Donphan has great typing of fighting, allowing it to strike Zekrom, Magnezone Prime, Cincinno, Zoroark and many other common competitive pokemon for weakness. Weakness to water only hurts against Samurott and Beartic of note, and the -20 resistance to lightning makes it the ultimate Zekrom and Magnezone counter.

The 4 retreat cost is admittedly massive, but you can run Switch to remedy this, and under trainer lock you can just fight to the death with Donphan

Donphans first attack Earthquake for a single Fighting energy, deals 60 damage and 10 to each of your own benched Pokemon. This is both efficient and powerful. The disadvantage is quite large too but as you might expect from competitive Pokemon TCG players, they have found ways to convert it into an advantage. Thes include damaging Reshirams and Zekroms to power up their Outrage attack, manipulating the damage around with Reuniclus and running a swarm of DOnphan so the self damage from Earthquake is negated by Exoskeleton.

Heavy Impact for FFF is significantly less broken dealing a straight 90 damage. At first sight this looks mediocre but with Donphans bulk its easier to charge than it first looks.

Combos with: Pokemon Catcher, Yanmega Prime Overall I give Donphan a 9/10 for competitive play

Ampharos Prime: This card actually saw some hype when the HGSS on format was announced and everyone and their brother thought Magneboar was the BDIF, including myself. Ampharos’ primary function is as hate for energy acceleration. Its Poke-Body Conductivity places 1 damage counter on your opponents Pokemon for each energy they attach to it. This counters Emboars Inferno Fandango, Rain Dance, and to a lesser extent Pachirisu. Crucially its stackable meaning if you have 3 Ampharos Prime in play they take 3 damage counters for every energy they attach. However there are two issues with this, Mareep is an easily donkable 40 HP basic, and you need to get the Ampharos’ out before they have a board established with energy otherwise the effect is worthless

Ampharos weighs in at a slightly above average 140 HP so its not a liability. The weakness to fighting definitely hurts with the popularity of Donphan Prime, and the resistance to steel is irrelevant now with Reshiram, Typhlosion and Emboar keeping steel types off the competitive scene. The retreat cost of two is expensive. Finally the attack for LCC deals 40 damage with 80 on the flip of heads and 40 with paralysis on the flip of tails.Its not terrible in that it hits Yanmega, Kingdra, Blastoise etc. for weakness but its sub par. After the release of the next set you can combine it with fliptini to manipulate the result to what you want.

Ive seen a few concept lists combining it with Pidgeot TM, but for now sadly it combos with the binder

Combos with: The binder Overall rating: 4/10
Continue reading “Pokemon HGSS Prime Card Reviews Part 2”

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A Teenager’s View On Ampharos

By Matt

Which Pokemon should I talk about today? I’ll discuss Ampharos, the friendly-looking Pokemon sure to bring a smile to anyone’s face. Of course, it wasn’t likely for me to meet an Ampharos; usually, it would be Flaaffy, or Mareep, its sheep pre-evolutions. In Pokemon Coliseum, where I get many of my favorites, there was a Shadow Flaaffy that I had to catch and then purify by battling with it. When I went to a certain place in the game to purify it, it regained its EXP (for EXP was not gained when it was in its Shadow form) and turned into an Ampharos.

You can always rely on Ampharos for its powerful Electric-type special attacks, but you would need to wait, since Ampharos is a very slow-moving Pokemon, with a base stat of 55 in Speed. Therefore, picking the right moves is crucial, because Ampharos is almost guaranteed to move last in battle. Unfortunately, there are no moves it will or can learn that is guaranteed to go last; one could take advantage by teaching it a powerful move such as Revenge, or a strategic  one, like Trick Room.
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Johto Region Pokemon Part 5

By Amanda

Ampharos is an electric type Pokemon, known as the light Pokemon, and known as Denryu in Japan. It can learn strong moves like thunder punch, signal beam, and thunder. It’s the final evolution stage of Mareep, which Mareep evolves into Flaaffy at level 15, and then into Ampharos at level 30.

Cleffa is a normal type and is known as the star shaped Pokemon, and known as Pii in Japan. It can learn attacks like magical leaf, sing, and copycat, but it can only learn five moves through level up. Cleffa is the pre evolved form of Clefairy.

Igglybuff is a normal type, known as the balloon Pokemon, and known as Pupurin in Japan. It can learn attacks like pound, and sweet kiss, but it can only learn four moves through level up. Igglybuff is the pre evolved form of Jigglypuff.

Continue reading “Johto Region Pokemon Part 5”

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