Pokemon Card of the Day: Banette (Platinum)

Today's Pokemon Card of the Day is Banette from the Platinum set. This is a stage 1, psychic type Pokemon card with an hp of 90. It has a +20 weakness to darkness type Pokemon, a -20 resistance to normal type Pokemon, and a one colorless energy card retreat cost. Banette's Poke-Power is called Temper Tantrum and says that once per turn you may discard a number of cards from your hand and put that much damage on Banette. So you could discard 8 cards that way without knocking out Banette. Banette has two moves besides its Poke-Power, its first move is called Darkness Switch and for one psychic energy card you need to discard an energy card attached to Banette and then you can transfer all the damage counters on Banette to the opposing Pokemon. Banette's second move is called Loneliness and for two energy cards, one each of psychic and colorless, you can do 30 damage to the defending Pokemon unless you don't have any Pokemon in your hand then the move does 60 damage instead of 30. As far as strategy goes this is a great card for a spread damage type deck, first off you'll need away to get all of your discarded cards from your discard pile to your deck so you don't lose the game that way, but I would always try to discard Pokemon from your hand when using Banette's Poke-Power so you could do 60 damage with loneliness and at least once I would discard as many cards as I could from my hand and then spread that damage to my opponent's Pokemon using Darkness Switch, I would more than likely retreat Banette after that. I would give this card a 4 out of 5 because it can be very powerful if you have ways of not running out of cards so fast and this card coupled with other spread damage cards can knock out many Pokemon at once. I really wish though this card would have a free retreat cost then it would be unstoppable. So thanks for reading today's review of Banette from the Platinum set, stay tuned for tomorrow's review of Bastiodon from the same set.