Baby Mario
Top 4 UK Nats |
Raichu (HGSS)
Yesterday’s card Quagsire was let down by attacks that
did not very much damage while costing a lot of Energy.
Today’s card definitely doesn’t have either of those
problems, but does that mean you are going to see it at
tournaments? Let’s take a look . . .
With 90 HP and a x2 Weakness to Fighting, Raichu seems
somewhat frail. You certainly wouldn’t want to see it go
up against a Donphan Prime. It does at least have a
Resistance to Metal: not the most helpful, but better
than nothing. Having Free Retreat is great as always,
giving you the potential to switch it out without losing
any of the Energy you have on the Field.
Raichu’s Iron Tail attack is cheap and fun, if not
exactly reliable. For one Colourless Energy, you get to
flip a coin until you get tails and do 30 damage for
each heads. In theory, you could do zero damage, or you
could OHKO a Regigigas LV X with an Expert Belt
attached. More realistically, if your first flip isn’t
tails, you will likely do a respectable (for the cost)
30-60 damage. Because of the huge element of chance,
this is not an attack you want to count on, but if you
have nothing else, you could get lucky.
Thunderbolt, on the other hand, offers you the certainty
of doing huge base damage (100!) for the low, low cost
of [L][L]. Of course, there will be a drawback with an
attack like that and in this case it means having to
discard all Energy attached to Raichu. In other words,
without some kind of Energy acceleration (which would
slow the deck down), you can only use Thunderbolt every
other turn. This shouldn’t bother you too much, though,
as Raichu is not the sort of Pokémon that can tank and
dish out big hits turn after turn.
That’s because Raichu is really a glass cannon: it can
do huge damage, but it is incredibly fragile and very
weak to a number of commonly used main attackers and
techs (Donphan, Machamp, Toxicroak G Promo). Even an
apparently good match up like Gyarados has little
trouble scoring a OHKO on Raichu. Unfortunately, this
means that a lot of the time you will end up trading
KOs, and that isn’t going to work against decks which
swarm or which have good recovery.
You could try a semi-decent speed deck using Raichu and
Luxray GL LV X and/or Pokémon Reversal to try and rush
the opponent by destroying their set up. In the end,
though, Jumpluff is a better deck of this type: it’s
just as fragile, but faster, easier on the Energy, and
it has the potential to do more damage too.
Rating
Modified: 2.75 (Just short of being tournament viable,
but could be a fun surprise deck)
Limited: 3.5 (the 100 damage is massive here, but watch
out for Donphans)
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Welcome back, Pojo readers!
I hope you all have been having a good time at States. Today's COTD is
Raichu from HGSS.
Raichu is a Stage 1 Lightning Pokemon. Lightning is a
pretty good type to be right now, as there are many
Kingdra and Gyarados decks around (at least in my
metagame). 90 HP for a Stage 1 is decent, but could be a
little higher. Double Weakness to Fighting hurts,
especially if Machamp and Donphan Prime are popular in
your area. Metal Resistance is nice, giving Raichu a bit
more survivability against Dialga G. Finally, Raichu has
no Retreat Cost, which is excellent.
Like many of the other HGSS Pokemon that we've reviewed, Raichu has two
attacks. The first attack, Iron Tail, lets you flip a
coin until you get tails and deals 30 damage for each
heads for [C]. While flip attacks aren't generally good
by any means, this attack can potentially deal a lot of
damage while you're waiting to power up. The second
attack, Thunderbolt, deals a whopping 100 damage for
just [LL], but you have to discard all of the Energy
cards attached to Raichu when you use it. Although
discarding all of the Energy will usually set you back a
few turns and make you slow, there is enough possible
support for Raichu to get around this drawback. When
combined with Magnezone SF, Super Connectivity allows
you to attach an Energy from your discard pile to Raichu
at the cost of 10 damage, effectively doubling your
Energy attachment for the turn and allowing you to
Thunderbolt every turn. Magnezone Lv. X also helps,
moving Energy to Raichu. Finally, cards like Fisherman
and Conductive Quarry can get more Energy cards out of
the discard pile.
Modified: 3/5 I think that Raichu has a lot of potential
as a rogue deck, especially when paired up with
Magnezone. The deck may be a little slow to set up and
may have issues with Donphan and Flygon, but the damage
output is up there with Gyarados, Beedrill, and
Charizard if set up correctly.
Limited: 3.5/5 100 damage will take out almost anything
in a slow format, and it should be pretty easy to set up
here if you run a lot of Lightning Energy. Iron Tail may
even be able to be slightly useful here. Just stay far,
far away from Donphan Prime.
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