Skip straight to the scores and summary for a
concise overview.
Name:
Swampert
Set:
EX Emerald
Card#:
11/106
Type:
Water
Stage:
2 (Evolves from Marshtomp
HP:
110
Weakness:
Grass
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CC
Poké-Power:
Water Cyclone
As often as you like during your turn (before your
attack), you may move a (W) Energy attached to 1 of
your Active Pokémon to 1 of your Benched Pokémon.
This power can’t be used if Swampert is affected by
a Special Condition.
Attack#1:
(C) Spinning Tail
Does 10 damage to each of your opponent’s Pokémon.
(Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched
Pokémon).
Attack#2:
(WWC) Aqua Sonic [60]
This attack’s damage isn’t affected by
Resistance.
Name:
Marshtomp
Set:
EX Emerald
Card#:
36/106
Type:
Water
Stage:
1 (Evolves from Mudkip)
HP:
70
Weakness:
Grass
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
C
Attack#1:
(C) Super Hypno Wave [10]
The Defending Pokémon is now Asleep.
Attack#2:
(WWC) Surf [50]
Name:
Mudkip
Set:
EX Emerald
Card#:
56/106
Type:
Water
Stage:
Basic
HP:
50
Weakness:
Grass
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
(C)
Attack:
(W) Tail Strike [10+]
Flip a coin. If heads, this attack does 10
damage plus 10 more damage.
Attributes:
Swampert is a Stage 2 Pokémon, so it is
allowed to have attributes and abilities beyond mere
Basics… well, Basics that have the option to
Evolve. It is a Water Pokémon, which is solid:
Weakness exists, but even after so many sets, isn’t
too common, and nearly every Fire Pokémon ever made
is Weak to Water, plus some Fighting Pokémon. 110
HP is very nice. It could be a little better,
clocking in at the maximum 120, but 110 is nothing
to Sneasel at. ;) Only the strongest, most
aggressive decks have a shot at OHKOing you outside
of Weakness. Speaking of Weakness, Grass isn’t too
bad. It is nasty when it shows up: Grass Pokémon
attacks usually have good effects coupled with
decent damage, and the Weakness basically means good
effects with good damage. However, it is less
commonly played than other Weakness a past
Swampert has sported: Lightning (Electric). As
Swampert is half Ground-Type in the video
games and thus totally immune to damage from
Electric attacks there, it doesn’t make any sense to
give that Weakness to a Swampert. Moving on, we see
that they sadly didn’t give it a logical Resistance
to Lightning (Electric) Pokémon. Again, I feel this
is somewhat lazy. Finally, we have a solid retreat
cost of two. This is low enough you can afford to
pay it if you need to, but high enough you’ll want
to avoid it and use assistance when you can.
High Pressure System can help this immensely.
Before moving on, let me address the two lower
stages of Swampert in this set. The
Marshtomp has the same attributes except one
less retreat and 40 less HP. Its first attack is an
okay stalling move: you pay for 10 damage and get
that plus automatic Sleep. The second attack does
10 more damage than it should. The attacks don’t
have any special synergy, but neither do they
conflict. The Mudkip has the same attributes
as the Marshtomp, only with 20 less HP. For
(W) it will hit for 10 points of damage with a 50%
chance at 20, which is fair for a Basic like this.
Either version are fine for a deck, though given the
threat of Ancient Technical Machine [Rock] I
would be more inclined for the 80 HP version of
Marshtomp available in another set, and given
the fact that you have to be pretty desperate to be
attacking with a Mudkip, I would lean towards
the version from another set that can do 10 with a
chance of Paralysis, even though that one has a less
desirable Weakness to Lightning (Electric) Pokémon.
Abilities:
Let’s go in order of least important to most. The
second attack on the card, Aqua Sonic is
there mainly so you can deal a finishing blow and
also to abuse Scramble Energy (a single one
would completely power Swampert). It is a
good attack though: you pay for 40 points of damage,
so another 20 and ignoring Resistance is a suitable
bonus for the third ability of a Stage 2. The first
attack is Spinning Tail. This attack has been seen
on both Sandstorm Steelix and the pure
Darkness-Type Dark Tyranitar. It cost more
Energy on those two, but did more damage as well.
So for (C), 10 points of damage to all opposing
Pokémon is quite nice. The first ability on the
card is the most important: the Poké-Power Water
Cyclone. At first glance, it doesn’t seem very
good. In fact, it has been seen before, on
Aquapolis Kingdra, and only saw a limited
amount of play. The main reason is that here, it is
supported by overall better attributes and
abilities, as well as a very important Trainer I’ll
touch upon later. For now though, the obvious trick
is to use it to rip away Energy from a doomed
Pokémon and move it to something more useful, as
well as to make it easier to retreat and still
attack: if something has a retreat of one or two and
four Energy, move the extra Energy to what will be
your new attacker, retreat, then power up said new
attacker with your Energy attachment for the turn.
Notice that the Poké-Power doesn’t reference Basic
Energy cards, just Water Energy, so anything acting
as a Water Energy can also be moved.
All in all, these abilities work well together: an
Active Swampert can soften an opponent up
with repeated, early Spinning Tail attacks, and risk
powering up for some Aqua Sonics, since if it looks
bad, you can send the Energy to something on the
bench, including another Swampert.
Uses and
Combinations:
I use this in a deck I refer to as “Water Cycle”.
My version uses the EX Team Rocket Returns
Quagsire, but anything that is a Stage 1 or a
Basic with at least 80 HP and is not a
Pokémon-ex should work. The reason you don’t want a
Pokémon-ex is that that Water Cyclone combos most
wonderfully with Mr. Briney’s Compassion.
Simply attack, and so long as you survive the next
turn, send the Energy back to a waiting back-up
attacker and Briney your active. If you find
you set up quickly enough, something with 70 HP
might also work, but I find even 80 HP is often
pushing it. I use the aforementioned Quagsire
because it can heal itself by Water Energy
attachments (remove up to 2 damage counters and all
Special Conditions) and it does 20 damage for each
Water Energy attached, up to 80 total. With that
much damage, even though 80 HP isn’t a lot, my
opponent has to have a fairly good set-up to be able
to OHKO me back. Even then, Quagsire set up
pretty quickly.
Although I have not yet done significant testing
with it, I am strongly inclined to use Water Call
Swampert with the new Water Cyclone version, at
least until the next set rotation. If you get a
Water Call version out with a Water Cyclone version,
you should be able to power up rather quickly,
further enhancing the deck, as well as recover from
unfortunate OHKOs better.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2.5/5-Most of this score comes from Spinning Tail
wreaking havoc on a bench full of small, 30-60 HP
Basics. As usual, this assumes the “Slowking and
friends” approach to supporting a Stage 2 line
here. The rest comes from Scoop Up: this
less friendly, non-Supporter version of Mr.
Briney’s Compassion (actually its
predecessor) leads to a sweet, sweet combo with big
Water Basics like Fossil Articuno. Keep in
mind; it is clearly inferior to Base Set
Blastoise, who basically does the same thing but
better, via Rain Dance.
Modified:
3.5/5-On its own, it is solid. With the right
support, the actual deck could become quite, quite
potent.
Limited:
4.25/5-If you can actually pull a decent line, this
is rather nasty. It hits the bench and doesn’t have
to worry about Resistance for its big attack. The
lower stages are also solid. Its Poké-Power becomes
much more useful in this format, where those saved
Energy are more critical. Just watch out for all
the good Grass Pokémon in this set.
Summary
The new Swampert is not as good as the old
one, but given how much of a headache all the “extra
Energy attachment” cards have given us this go-round
of Modified, we don’t really need it to be as
potent. Interestingly enough, like the Emerald
Blaziken and Gardevoir, this card appears
to have been meant to combo with its Ruby/Sapphire
counterpart.
