doduo pokemon card Mint / near mint condition trading card Pokemon Trading Card Game 084/165

Great in pods where you know people tend to not politic a lot or want to storm off or build stack-wars early on

The deck ends up close to the green Rock Control (Grixis) dot on the archetype spectrum, practically undergoing a 180 transformation to turn an unfavorable matchup into a good one (green-line decks generally have the edge against blue-line ones)

Illustrated by Jung Park Standard Not Legal Alchemy Not Legal Pioneer Not Legal Historic Not Legal Modern Not Legal Brawl Not Legal Legacy Not Legal Comp

Kiki-Jiki clones every turn and hastily too

Powerbalance checks off all the relevant boxes for me: its a callback to an awesome card from years past, it forces interaction (in other words, makes me have to pay attention to the game), it gives you free stuff, and it allows for fun top-deck manipulation

But that power comes with a cost, and with these cards its in how dependent they are on being in your opening hand