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Kingdra Prime (HS Unleashed)
Greetings and salutations, today we have a Prime that
was useful before the rotation and has become a lot more
interesting since most of the competition has been
removed,
Kingdra is a Water type Stage 2 with 130 HP,
Lightning weakness, a retreat cost of 1, a Poke-power
and an attack.
The HP is respectable but with the recent increase in
average health means that Kingdra is sitting pretty low
on the food chain at the moment. On the plus side the
retreat cost is tiny for a Stage 2, so as far as speed
is concerned Kingdra is right at the forefront, needing
only a single energy for optimum effectiveness. The
weakness is bad as both Magnezone Prime and Zekorm will
eat this seahorse for breakfast, so you definitely need
to find dance partners that can handle a matchup against
anything yellow.
Although Kingdra is built to be a 'fast' Stage 2
(similar to Poke'mon like Gengar, Crobat and Jumpluff)
in a format that has had the brakes applied, we still
have to see if the abilities can be made to work with
the current card pool. The first and most flexible is
the Poke-powe, Spray Splash. The effect is that once per
turn you can place a damage counter on one of your
opponent's Poke'mon, which can be anything from mildly
helpful to game changing. There are many times where an
extra damage counter would have been mighty helpful in
taking a KO, and several of those situations put me
behind in prizes or gave my opponent an extra turn which
cost me the game.
Since you are placing a damage counter with a
Poke-power rather than adding damage to an attack, there
are several ways that Spray Splash can be abused which
are not possible with Black Belt and Pluspower. For
starters, you can use Spray Splash to harrass your
opponent's Active when you can't attack due to lack of
energy or a Special Condition. If you can play Kindra
early enough, it can begin harrassing the opponent while
you are still using your starter Poke'mon's setup
attack, which is especially effective if your opponent
is using a Baby Poke'mon like Cleffa or Tyrogue (the low
HP is music to Kingdra's ears, and Sweet Sleeping Face
won't stop damage counters).
However, considering the resources required to play a
Stage 2, it is more likely you will get Kingdra into
play during the midgame after you have set up your first
attacker. At this point, Spray Splash is great for
softening up targets both benched and Active which your
heavy hitter will then remove from play. This is
especially effective when combined with snipers like
Yanmega Prime, Blastoise UL, Metagross UL and Mandibuzz
BW (especially Mandibuzz as you can place that first
counter necessary to attack with Blindside), because
snipe/spread attackers can't apply the bonus damage from
cards like Pluspower, which only work against an
opponent's Active Poke'mon.
Aside from attack-free harrassment and sniper support
(which unitl the release of Crobat G was practically
nonexistent), Kingdra also works wonder as an attack
booster aginst tank Poke'mon like Zekrom BW, Steelix
Prime, Armourott and Donphan Prime. Because placing
damage counters completely ignores damage reducing
effects like Defender, Metal Energy, Shell Armour and
Exoskeleton, you can chip away at an opponent's health
quite effectively, usually brining a 3HKO down to a
2HKO. Since most tanks have relatively weak attack power
and find it difficult to OHKO other attackers, reducing
the necessary number fo turns to take a KO will
definitely help you and will probably win you the game.
I've raved about the positive aspects of Spray Splash
(my second-favourite Poke-power after Fainting Spell)
but there are some downsides. You do have to consider
the deck space you are dedicating to Kingdra, as well as
the resources you have to use to successfully put it
into play. Also, you don't get any bonus for hitting
weakness (although you do get around resistance and
other effects as well) which is one of the best aspects
of using Pluspower (aside from the ease of play).
Still, I am defnitely in favour of Spray Splash as it
is effectively an attack from the bench that is
currently unblockable (unless you apply a Special
Condition or just take Kingdra out of play) and if you
really want to bring the hurt you can even play multiple
Kingdra Primes to stack the Poke-power. Just beware of
healing (such as Serperior BW) and don't focus on
Kingdra to the exclusion of your main attacker or you
won't be able to match your opponent in the race for
prizes.
I almost forgot about the attack, which is the aptly
named Dragon Steam. For the low cost of [w] you deal 60
damage which is absolutely awesome, but the rather
inventive drawback is that if your opponent has a Fire
Poke'mon in play then you only deal 20 base damage.
Effectively this gives Kingdra a second weakness to Fire
Poke'mon which will almost always comprehensively outgun
Kingdra even after applying weakness. Although you can't
go ballistic against popular Fire support like Ninetales
HGSS, Typhlosion Prime and FanBoar, you can bring the
hurt against other non-Fire Water weak Poke'mon you
meet. Donphan Prime and Krookodile BW spring to mind
although you will still need an extra Spray Splash to
bring them down due to the high HP.
An interesting point is that Kingdra Prime has to be
the only Water Poke'mon in the current card pool which
does not benefit from being paired with Feraligatr
Prime, due to the cheap attack and retreat cost.
In the end, if you are fond of Rare Candy and can
tech in a [w] energy then Kingdra will serve you well as
both an attack booster and backup attacker which can
alternate between being a bench sitter and a finisher
easily due to the cheap retreat cost. While I can't pick
a popular archetype where Kingdra would fit from the top
of my head I expect to see it trialed in new decks as
they emerge simply because it is so adaptable. I've
heard whispers about a revival of multitype decks using
various cheap attackers (commonly reffered to as 'Four
Corners') that might like using Kingdra but only time
will tell.
Modified: 4.25 (I loved Kingdra before the rotation
and I love it now but I can't help feeling that it is a
luxury card with no definite home for the moment)
Limited: 3.5 (HS Unleashed was one of the best
supported sets for Stage 2 Poke'mon in Limited, but the
weakness to 2 different types is a bit of a problem. The
lower stages don't help the case either)
Combos with: any deck that runs snipers/spread or
really fears Donphan
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