Please keep in mind that I am currently unaware of how
the first few Battle Roads turned out
Name/Level:
Nidoqueen LV.50
Set:
Mysterious Treasures
Rarity:
Rare
Card#:
31/123
Type:
Psychic
Stage:
2 (Evolves from)
Hit Points:
120
Weakness:
Psychic +30
Resistance:
Lightning -20
Retreat:
CC
Poké-Body:
Mother Pheromone
The
attack cost of your Nidoran ♂, Nidorina, Nidoran ♀, Nidorino,
and Nidoking’s attacks is (C) less.
Attack:
(PPC) Give Aid [90]
If you have the same number of or less Benched Pokémon
than your opponent, this attack’s base damage is 50
instead of 90.
Name/Level:
Nidorina LV.25
Set:
Mysterious Treasures
Rarity:
Uncommon
Card#:
56/123
Type:
Psychic
Stage:
1 (Evolves from)
Hit Points:
80
Weakness:
Psychic +20
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
(C)
Attack#1:
(C) Rescue
Search your discard pile for up to 2 Pokémon, show them to
your opponent, and put them into your hand.
Attack#2:
(PC) Scratch [30]
Name/Level:
Nidoran ♀ LV.12
Set:
Mysterious Treasures
Rarity:
Common
Card#:
91/123
Type:
Psychic
Stage:
Basic
Hit Points:
50
Weakness:
Psychic +10
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
C
Attack#1:
Call for Family
Search your deck for Nidoran ♂ or Nidoran ♀ and put it onto
your Bench. Shuffle your deck afterward.
Attack#2:
(PC) Poison Sting [20]
Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now
Poisoned.
Attributes:
Nidoqueen LV.50 is a Stage 2 Psychic Type. I think
being Psychic will come in handy for the foreseeable future:
this format could be nicknamed “I Love Lucario” right now.
If you haven’t been able to follow Pokémon lately,
Poison-Types from the video game are now Psychic instead of
Grass. Yeah, let that sink in and then continue reading.
Nidoqueen
has 120 HP, which is the old maximum and still quite good.
Psychic Weakness is a concern, and +30 damage hurts. Still,
at least it isn’t the worst (we’ve seen new cards with +40
and some LV.X still have the classic x2 Weakness).
Lightning Resistance is most welcome. Even if it is only
-20, with Nidoqueen’s HP she should be a hard kill
for Lightning Types. Given the amount of Fire we’ve seen, I
suspect Water will flood the Battle Roads, which means the
Lightning decks will also see a surge in play.
…
Yes, I probably deserve to be punished for that many puns in
a row.
The
Retreat Cost is only two, which is low enough you can pay it
if you must, but high enough you’ll probably want to include
some cards to change out your Active. If one is really
concerned, they could run Phoebe’s Stadium to drop
the cost to zero, but unless we get a Psychic Nidoking
soon, that would be ill advised.
Nidoqueen
can choose to Evolve from either the most recent versions of
Nidoran ♀ and Nidorina, the δ Delta Species
versions from EX Dragon Frontiers, or a combination of the
two. Honestly, I cannot recommend one over the other: both
have advantages and disadvantages, the main thing being the
newer copies have better attacks but the older can still
combo with the remaining δ Delta Species Pokémon support.
Holon Lake,
for example, would aid in set up of all but Nidoqueen
LV.50 herself and that’s just a Celio’s Network
away. Otherwise, the Attributes and Abilities of the newest
Nidoran ♀ and Nidorina are fairly priced and
reasonably helpful.
Abilities:
What will get Nidoqueen played is her Mother
Pheromone – nice name for a Poké-Body, huh? This potent
Poké-Body drops the attack costs of all other Nido-Pokémon
by (C), and best of all it stacks! Two copies of her in
play would drop the cost of Nidoran ♂, Nidorino,
Nidoking, Nidoran ♀, and Nidorina (but
not Nidoqueen) by (CC), three by (CCC) and four by (CCCC).
This acts as a very interesting form of Energy
acceleration. We all know how nice Energy acceleration is:
rarely does it fail to yield a top deck for a format.
Give Aid will always give a solid 50 damage. Not too
impressive for (PPC), since this is a Stage 2 Pokémon, but
at least its 10 damage over what you’ve paid for. Remember,
Mother Pheromone does not affect cards named
Nidoqueen, so it’s still going to have its full Energy
cost. It does have an effect though: if you have less
Pokémon on your Bench than your opponent, you hit for a big
90. Not enough to OHKO most Stage 2 Pokémon, but with a few
copies of Plus Power it remains a potential threat.
Given how the deck seems meant to be played (two
Nidoqueen flanking a Nidoking δ as a minimum set
up), this is clearly a fall back attack. Your opponent must
choose whether to KO Nidoqueen first (and risk you
powering up Nidoking δ properly) or KO Nidoking δ
first (risking another coming up).
Uses and
Combinations:
Two copies of Nidoqueen LV.50 allow Nidoking δ
to hit anything in play for 30 points of damage at no
Energy cost. For just a single Darkness Energy
requirement, you can it the Defending Pokémon for 60 and if
you discard a Pokémon from your hand a Benched Pokémon for
20. The speed this combo gives makes the attack strong
enough to do some good (well, for you, not the opponent).
If you go second, an incredibly lucky opening could have you
set up then. Realistically, whether you go first or second,
by your second or third turn you should be totally set up
and that’s what matters.
One
can and probably should run one or two Nidoqueen δ in
the deck: Invitation still speeds up your set up and
Vengeance is a great clean-up attack (and if the rest of
your deck works, it’s not like you’re going to need your
Energy attachments for much else). For that matter, if you
find you have the space you can likely make good use of the
Special Energy cards with Trainer like effects.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2/5 – Unfortunately, Nidoking δ doesn’t OHKO Baby
Pokémon. If it did, then this deck (running Chaos Gym)
might actually be viable: since you don’t need much Energy
for powering up, you could devote it to “replacing”
Trainers, that is running more Cyclone Energy,
Warp Energy, Heal Energy, etc.
Modified:
4/5 – Stellar basis for a deck, though I hope we get a new
Nidoking soon to go with it: even with cost breaks,
Nidoking δ is still kind of iffy.
Limited:
4.5/5 – The lower Stages all have excellent attacks for this
format. If you can pull even a 1-1-1 line, it should fair
quite well. Remember, for Pre-Releases, the “four-per-deck”
limit doesn’t apply, so if you pull more than four copies of
Nidoran ♀ and/or Nidorina, you can and
probably should run them.
-Otaku |
