Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

2011-1-16 Azelf LA 019

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MrMeches

MrMeches

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[gal=35737]
2011-1-16 Azelf LA 019
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One of the best cards in the format, getting out prized things pulls back the luck factor the tiniest bit.
 
IMO, one of the greatest cards ever printed. A shame we gotta see it go eventually =/ We have cards sporting similar effects like Alph Lithograph 4, but Azelf is easily searched for and not only lets you look at your prizes but ALSO get a Pokemon there. Currently, its utility is unmatched.

On paper I would give this card a 10/10, but if you've played with it you can see a couple flaws. For starters, its Power can be Sprayed. Obviously everything with a Power falls under this category, but its something to work against nonetheless. Also, it's a pretty terrible start since there's no way to get it back into the deck like Uxie's Psychic Restore.

That's not to say Lock Up is a bad attack, it actually has great utility. I would have preferred seeing it being colorless, but it's a small gripe. In a format with so many Trainer locks (on both sides of the field), Lock Up can probably buy you a turn or even set up a KO. Your opponent basically needs to rip into a Warp Energy under Trainer lock, and even then you make them dedicate an attachment to get out of Lock Up.

More on the plus side, 70 HP is solid making it a safe start and putting it just out of range of Shadow Room (without the aid of Crobats). 1 retreat is great. Azelf even has a Level Up with decent utility, a decent card in Psychic based decks to get rid of weaknesses and it also has a decent attack. I'd have to say Azelf brought a lot to the game, allowing more decks to run single or 1-1 techs without fear of being prized. It introduced a new level of consistency that prize issues had a hold of.

9.5/10
 
Today's CotD is Azelf from LA, pretty much a defining staple tech ever since it came out. Statwise 70 HP is nice for a Basic, +20 Weakness to :psychic: is meh, no Resistance is common, and :colorless: to Retreat is cheap. In a way, it's almost funny how crucial Time Walk (its Poke-Power) has become; granted, being able to look at your prizes, opting to grab a Pokemon and change it with a card in your hand is a powerful effect, but similar ones in the past have never been use. Yet with the rise of techs and low Energy decks these days, it's all but a necessity. Lock Up deals a solid 20 for :psychic: and prevents Retreating in case you have to attack with him.

Modified - 10/10 (A crucial tech for just about every deck played today...almost makes you wonder how people will live without it after 2 years later this year)
Limited - 10/10 (Never know, might find a crucial card you need buried here)
Unlimited - 1/10 (Again, similar effects have existed here, but not used)
 
I love, hate, and quite like this card.

Love it because it can save you from bad Prizes, tells you what those Prizes are, and makes running tech lines of 1 Pokemon more viable. +10

Hate it because it's a horrible start and a free Prize off your bench for a lot of decks out there. -2

Quite like it for the underrated attack. +1

9/10 - You WISH you didn't need to run this card, but most of the time, you do.
 
Great card needed in a good majority of decks played today. Allows you to look at your prizes and get that Dialga G X or Lux X you need (my opponent had this promblem at cities) 9/10
 
HP and attacks aren't too great, but the PokePower is awesome! You can decide which prizes to take and that can really help you. Running Azelf Lv. X can also help you if you play a Psychic-weak deck. Azelf is pretty much required in any deck that runs a crucial tech or one of a main attacker. 9/10
 
This card is god awful! It has 70 HP and a +20 weakness to Psychic so if it is your lone starter you have about a 50/50 chance of being donked. It's power only works once and it lets you look at your prizes and get a Pokemon out, that is all fine and well but it's just going to get sprayed and clog up your bench for the rest of the game, or become a Dragon Rush victim. On the chance that you do pull of that nifty little gem Time Walk it won't effect the game that much anyway since you are going going to be seeing your prizes as you draw them and if you aren't drawing them then you are losing and it's probably because you started with Azelf. Don't even get me started on Lock Up either, I actually have to put Psychic energy in my deck just to do 20 damage and an effect that my opponent will just Poketurn out of anyway!? I can't even Poketurn my own Azelf to get that energy back I actually have to manually retreat it! Even if it only has a retreat cost of 1, that is still one more than I want to pay when I could be attaching that energy to a Garchomp C.

2/10 It is almost as bad as that piece of crap Mesprit card.
 
Card costs me so many games when i play it.
And so many when i don't.

But what can i say, that's Azelf for you. He has his place in this format and Rotom UD and Alph Litho aren't enough bump it out. Really will be missed.
9.5/10
 
Uh-Oh. We are looking at one of those cards I just don't have much experience with. Since I have been stubbornly "old school" in my approach to the game, I just don't use Azelf, because I am not sure if my decks really need it. Still, humor me and I'll explain why this is a great card, but also why it puzzles me that it is considered by so many to be a staple.

To begin, this is a Psychic Pokémon, giving it some decent support. It is also a Basic Pokémon, making it easy to fit into a deck, easy to search from your deck, and easy to drop into play. 70 HP for a Basic Pokémon that can't Evolve but can Level-Up is on the happy side of "average": via Weakness or just being hit by a decks intended attacker, it will be a OHKO, but despite being a major factor in the game it isn't the entire game. Psychic Weakness is a real concern since its cousin, Uxie/Uxie Lv.X are so heavily played as supporting Pokémon. Unlike, say, a Weakness to Fighting-Types which I'd right off because such decks usually pack PlusPower, here it allows a OHKO by a supporting Pokémon not intended to really attack as long as you can spare a Double Colorless Energy. The lack of Resistance is annoying as usual but so common I won't hold it against Azelf and the single Energy Retreat Cost is nice and easy to pay (or eliminate with Unown Q).

Azelf gets played for its Poké-Power. Said Poké-Power, when you play Azelf from your hand to your Bench, lets you see all your face down Prize cards, and if you have a Pokémon among them you can trade one card from your hand for said Pokémon. This is fairly useful, since it can keep vital cards from getting locked into your Prizes, either by letting you trade for them (if it is a Pokémon) or simply knowing which cards to choose when you do earn a Prize. If your deck rely relies on a specific Pokémon that you have to have all copies of (be it the only copy you run or just you needing all four at once), this is a must!

The attack, Lock Up, looks periodically useful. 20 points of damage for :)psychic:) is nothing special, but since you're using Azelf for its Poké-Power anyway, having an attack that blocks retreating is a nice option.

So here is the thing... what if my deck is not particularly scared of cards being "Prized"? Yes, there is always a risk with all but bizarre joke decks that something "good" will be locked away in your Prizes, yet few people bothered to play the past options we had for looking at Prize cards. Part of that is that this is the first I know of to both look and allow you to alter the contents of those Prize cards. The main reason, though, is that before this card came out, most built decks weren't especially vulnerable to important cards being "Prized". Either your deck could cope with any assortment of six cards missing, it was so powerful that it justified the potential death sentence of important cards being Prized, or the odds of all your Prize cards being so important to the deck were so low you wouldn't have bothered to run this anyway.

I can see some concerns with running Azelf. Yes, most decks will either only need it once, or have a good way of "recycling" it. This means you don't have to dedicate three or four slots to it, in fact you'll probably only need one. Ironically, it might end up in your Prizes instead of something else. Likewise, it might be shut down by Power Spray. Both scenarios are annoying, since the entire reason it is being run gets voided, but then again maybe this is okay: if Azelf is in your Prizes, something else isn't and if it gets negated by Power Spray, something else isn't. The problem that just can't be eliminated is opening with Azelf. If you do, you don't get the effect and your opponent has a shot at a relatively easy Prize, or you can't use any attacks to set up, or you have to burn something to get Azelf out of the way. For a classically constructed deck, you'd lose more games to that than you would due to a Pokémon being stuck in your Prizes.

In Limited play, Azelf is a must run, just for the Poké-Power and the fact that Limited play exacerbates a decks vulnerability to an important Pokémon being Prized. If you can run Psychic Energy so it can attack, then said attack will occasionally be useful due to the increased importance of being able to retreat.

Ratings

Modified: 8/10

Limited: 10/10

Summary

This card strikes me as a "loose staple": when you start building your deck, you have it as part of your list, but eventually it gets bumped to make room for even more important cards. It might just be how I build decks, and most of the time I'd rather run another copy of the Pokémon in question and/or extra search/draw power to achieve the same end result of having what I need, when I need it. Then again, maybe that is why I've struggled so much.
 
Alex(charm)ander said:
This card is god awful! It has 70 HP and a +20 weakness to Psychic so if it is your lone starter you have about a 50/50 chance of being donked. It's power only works once and it lets you look at your prizes and get a Pokemon out, that is all fine and well but it's just going to get sprayed and clog up your bench for the rest of the game, or become a Dragon Rush victim. On the chance that you do pull of that nifty little gem Time Walk it won't effect the game that much anyway since you are going going to be seeing your prizes as you draw them and if you aren't drawing them then you are losing and it's probably because you started with Azelf. Don't even get me started on Lock Up either, I actually have to put Psychic energy in my deck just to do 20 damage and an effect that my opponent will just Poketurn out of anyway!? I can't even Poketurn my own Azelf to get that energy back I actually have to manually retreat it! Even if it only has a retreat cost of 1, that is still one more than I want to pay when I could be attaching that energy to a Garchomp C.

2/10 It is almost as bad as that piece of crap Mesprit card.
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dude no offense but when's the last time youv'e benn to a tournament? MESPRIT AND AZELF ARE AMAZING LEARN WHAT CARDS ARE GOOD AND WHAT ARENT.
moving on, this card gets 9.355934654/8 cuz of the new ruling and just cuz its a beast.
 
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