Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Gothitelle
#47/98 (Emerging Powers)
. . . And now it’s time for this week’s token playable
card! Yes, it’s time to review the
good
Gothitelle.
Y’know,
the one that has been attracting the moderate amounts of
hype recently. It’s time to see if any of that
hype is justified . . .
Gothitelle
is a Psychic Pokémon which is . . . ok at the moment. It
won’t get hit for Weakness much as
very few Psychic Pokémon are playable right now
(just very rare Xatu techs
and maybe a fun Scolipede
deck). On the other hand, you won’t be hitting much for
Weakness either: despite having its own share of hype,
Machamp Prime has so far
been a huge flop in HGSS-on, and players have long since
moved on to partnering other things with
Donphan.
Gothitelle’s 130 HP is only
average for a Stage 2 these days, but luckily it’s just
enough to save it from getting
OHKO’d by the likes of
Reshiram and Zekrom.
What’s that you say? They can always use a
PlusPower? Well, actually
they can’t . . .
. . . and that’s because of
Magic Room, Gothitelle’s
Ability. This only works when the Pokémon is active, but
it does create a one-sided Trainer Lock. This means that
you are free to play Catcher, Rare Candy, and
Communication while your opponent can only sit there
with up to a third of their deck suddenly useless. It’s
a fantastic Ability that will create serious problems
for almost any deck in the format and, unlike
Vileplume
UD, it’s not a double-edged
sword that requires your deck to function without those
cards.
The downside of Gothitelle
is that it must be active to trigger the Ability. One
way of doing this would be to partner it with something
with a switching attack (like the
Gengar with Curse from AR, if you remember that),
so you could swap out to an active
Gothitelle for your opponent’s turn, and then
retreat it for a better attacker on yours. Alternatively
you could have Gothitelle as
your main attacker . . . in which case you are stuck
with using her brilliantly-named
Madkinesis attack if you want to maintain the
lock. Madkinesis costs three
Energy of any Colour and has an utterly pathetic base
damage output of 30. BUT . . . if you choose to play the
cost with Psychic Energy, you will do 20 more damage for
each one attached, giving you a possible 90 for
[P][P][P], which is still not brilliant value, but at
least it will get you a Prize every 1-2 turns.
Worse than not being good value, it’s slow – and if you
use Double Colourless to try and speed things up a
little you will end up only doing 50 damage per turn.
There are a couple of ways you could try and fix this:
Electrode Prime (very risky) and the
Jirachi/Mismagius
UL combo (clunky) come to mind, but whether either is a
practical solution is questionable.
Because her Ability is just
so good
Gothitelle will always be a
card that has potential, and players are always going to
strive to make it work. Will they be able to overcome
the card’s drawbacks (serious lack of speed and damage
output)? Only time will tell. For now, I’m sceptical.
Rating
Modified: 3.5 (one of the greatest
Abilities/Powers/Bodies ever printed on a card. Has the
attempt to balance it with a poor attack gone too far?)
Limited: 2.5 (Your opponent likely won’t have many
Trainers to Lock, but it’s still a solid enough Stage 2)
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virusyosh |
Hello once again, Pojo readers! Today we're going to
review one of the most hyped cards in the new Emerging
Powers expansion, the evolution to our two previous
COTDs. Today's Card of the Day is Gothitelle (#47) from
Emerging Powers.
Gothitelle is a Stage 2 Psychic Pokemon. Psychic isn't
that common of a type nowadays, but this may be the card
that changes that. 130 HP is just about average for a
Stage 2, although many new Stage 2s have 140-150 as the
norm. Psychic Weakness should only trouble you in the
mirror match, no Resistance is exactly that, and a
Retreat Cost of 2 is decent, but you still probably
wouldn't want to pay it unless absolutely necessary.
This is the Gothitelle with the very hyped Magic Room
Ability, but it also has an attack called Madkinesis as
well. Magic Room Item-locks your opponent while
Gothitelle is Active, acting as a one-sided Vileplume
that allows you to play all of your Items uninterrupted.
Since Item cards are the motor that keeps many common
decks running (Pokemon Catcher, Junk Arm, Switch, Super
Scoop Up, Rare Candy, Dual Ball, many more), being able
to lock your opponent while keeping a strong pace
yourself. Unfortunately, Gothitelle has to be Active in
order to make this happen, so you have to get a
Gothitelle up as fast as you can before your opponent
sets up, or it may not even matter, since your opponent
will probably 2HKO it at worst if they are fully set up.
Madkinesis, Gothitelle's attack, starts out at a very
expensive 30 damage for three Colorless Energy, dealing
20 more damage for each Psychic Energy attached. This
makes 50 damage for a Psychic and a Double Colorless,
and 90 if you manage to get three Psychics onto it. 30
damage for three Energy is terrible on a Stage 2 that
must be Active, 50 is rather lackluster, and 70 (PPC),
90 (PPP), and 110 (PPPP) are acceptable, although this
requires a lot of Psychic Energy, meaning Gothitelle
must have a deck built around it. Energy acceleration is
possible with the likes of Mismagius UL and Jirachi
UL/CL, although to be fair, this requires a lot of set
up and both Mismagius and Jirachi are likely Pokemon
Catcher bait before you can get a Gothitelle out.
However, if you can get Gothitelle to deal 90-110 damage
per turn while having the lock set up, you should be in
decent shape, as your opponent will be relying on
Supporters and topdecks.
Modified: 3.25/5 I think that Gothitelle has a lot of
promise in Modified, but at the same time I feel like
it's missing something. Magic Room is an amazing,
potentially format-defining Ability, but Madkinesis
takes a lot of work in order to be effective. Compared
to accelerators like Emboar, Feraligatr Prime, and
Pachirisu, Gothitelle is far too slow, but perhaps
something like Mismagius UL and Jirachi UL/CL will be
good enough to propel it to a high-tier archetype,
especially since Magic Room allows you to use your own
Items as well.
Limited: 4.5/5 Magic Room is strictly a bonus in
Limited, where Items aren't very common but the Ability
to block them is nice, preventing your opponent from
getting a cheap KO. Madkinesis also has very flexible
Colorless Energy requirements, but at the same time you
really need Psychic Energy to be effective. That being
said, Gothitelle can be splashed into Psychic-light
decks, or is probably worth building around altogether.
130 HP is great for Limited, and like most other Stage
2s, if you can get it out, you'll probably win.
Combos With: Mismagius UL, Jirachi UL/CL
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