Starmie
(Next Destinies)
Hello and welcome to another week of card reviews
here on Pojo. We’ve
still got plenty of Next Destinies stuff to get
through while we wait for the next set, so let’s get
down to business.
We kick off the week with
Starmie, a Pokémon which has a pretty high
speed stat in the videogame, which the card
designers usually translate into low attack costs
and free Retreat – both of which this
Starmie has. Very
welcome they are too, because as a Lighting-Weak, 90
HP Stage 1, Starmie is
going to need all the help it can get.
Starmie’s
first attack, Confuse Ray, costs just a single
Energy of any Colour and does exactly what you would
expect: Confuses the Defending Pokémon. The days
where Confusion was a great Status Condition (you
had to flip to Retreat) are long gone now: cards
like Switch and Skyarrow
Bridge make Retreating out of Confusion an easy
option for most decks and at best this attack is
likely to cause your opponent no more than mild
annoyance. Still, it’s better than nothing, and
could buy Starmie a turn
if your opponent isn’t able to easily Retreat their
Pokémon.
Not entirely sure why you would want to be stalling
with this card though, as the second attack, Swift,
also costs just a single Energy (Water this time)
and actually does damage. In fact it does 50 points
of damage, which is terrific value on a Stage 1. The
effect text on the card does give it some upsides
and downsides though. On the upside, it is not
affected by Resistance or any effects on the
Defending Pokémon, so it has a way around things
like Donphan Prime’s
Exoskeleton, Unfezant
BW’s Fly attack, Special Metal Energy, and
Eviolite. On the
downside, it is also unaffected by Weakness, so
can’t exploit that particular mechanic against
Water-Weak Pokémon like
Typhlosion, Reshiram,
Emboar, and that
Donphan I just
mentioned.
So . . . all that Starmie
offers in the end is a cheap, but low-damage attack
which isn’t really going to trouble those massive HP
Basics that are dominating the format right now.
This, combined with
Starmie’s lack of
durability means it really doesn’t have much of a
use in Modified, not even as an anti-Fire or
Donphan tech (what’s the
point of a tech that can’t target Weakness?) This is
a card that seems pretty much designed for Limited
play, where its low-cost attack can actually do
sufficient damage in a slow format. Play
Starmie there, or not at
all.
Rating
Modified: 1.75 (the attack may be cheap but like
most things in life, you get what you pay for)
Limited: 4 (fast and efficient, this is where
Starmie shines)
