Today as we continue looking at Baby
Mario’s post “Top” picks, we come to
Roserade (BW: Dragons Exalted
14/124).
Will this be an aromatic
archetypal or technical card, or does it
just stink?
Take a deep breath, and we’ll find out!
Stats
Roserade
is a Grass-Type Pokémon.
Grass-Type decks are mostly
limited to
Accelgor (BW: Dark Explorers
11/108) variants in BW-On.
While there are a few other
noteworthy Grass-Type Pokémon, they all
work just as well or better in off-type
decks.
Nothing Resistant Grass-Type
decks; in the past Metal-Types did, but
I believe that ended when the VG (video
game) “Poison-Type” shifted from the TCG
Grass-Type to the TCG Psychic-Type.
As a Stage 1 Pokémon,
Roserade can’t hit the field until
its lower Stage (Roselia)
has been in play for a turn.
Still this is better than Stage 2
Pokémon that would need another card for
the same level of speed (Rare
Candy), or another turn
and another card (if the appropriate
Stage 1 form is used).
There are more and more Stage 1
Pokémon seeing play now, so hopefully
this trend continues, as it bodes well
for
Roserade.
Roserade
has 90 HP; this is small and will often
be a OHKO with little to no extra effort
when a deck is in full swing, and we
already established this is a Stage 1 so
by the time it hits the field, decks
intent on attacking earlier will at most
be one turn away from delivering such
blows.
There is a decent trade-off, I
think; being so small makes it a legal
target for
Level Ball.
Given the current level of damage
output, anymore I get leery if a Stage 1
doesn’t have at least 110 HP: that means
with a
Giant Cape it can take one, 120
damage shot (sort of the threshold for
adequate durability).
At least in this case, the
relatively low HP seems appropriate:
checking its video game base stats,
Roserade in general are noticeably below
average for Hit Point and Defense
scores. They do possess good a Special
Defense, and without building that into
the effect of an attack or Ability,
which basically translates to this kind
of TCG HP score.
The Fire Weakness is unlikely to hurt
it, at least for now. I advise some
caution, however. Fire may be the new
Water, seemingly with all the components
to make a great deck but one; an
unidentified piece to make it run
smoothly.
Given
Roserade is a hybrid VG
Grass/Poison-Type, it was the most
appropriate, however (the VG and TCG
Fire-Types are the same, unlike the
other three possibilities).
Water Resistance is a nice bonus but
likely won’t matter.
The most prominent Water-Type
decks right now seem to be built around
Empoleon (BW: Dark Explorers
29/108).
Its only attack does 10 points of
damage times the number of Pokémon in
play, so the Resistance is great when
there aren’t a lot of Pokémon in play…
but
Empoleon decks are built to swarm so
luck is luck.
It also tends to run off-Type
Pokémon so bypassing Resistance is a
relatively easy tactic.
The other Water-Type attackers
that are splashed into various decks
(pardon the pun) usually are meant to
hit the Bench… where Resistance won’t
apply.
Looking at the video game version of
Roserade, I notice it would actually
take double damage from the video game
“Ice-Type” attacks.
Quick lesson for those who never
really bothered with the video games:
attacks
also have Type in the video games
and that is what Weakness and Resistance
affects, while the Type of the attacking
Pokémon can merely give a damage bonus
if it matches the Type of the attack.
Water-Type attacks are indeed
subject to Resistance, and as the two
Types are bother represented by the TCG
Water-Type, I would think they would let
this cancel out.
Long time readers will know this is a
“learning” moment for me; I do always
want Resistance when appropriate, but I
am reminded by this card that while I
often have stated Water Resistance
shouldn’t matter, there is a logical
basis for it being used so sparingly.
The designers aren’t off the hook
entirely; the hybrid video game version
of Roserade also sports Resistance to
the video game Fighting-, Grass-, and
Electric-Type attacks.
The last one not only converts to
Lightning-Type Pokémon, but would have
been a little more useful.
Lastly we come to the Retreat of just
one.
It seems odd leaving out the word
“cost”, but I am finally trying to break
that habit since the change went into
effect on the cards themselves with the
beginning of this set block, Black &
White.
A single energy is relatively
painless to pay most of the time, plus
most decks would be running
Switch or
Darkrai EX (BW: Dark Explorers
63/108, 107/108) to respectively bypass
or zero out the “Retreat” mechanic
anyway.
Yet in the end, I think this card
could have used a free retreat.
It does have good (but not great)
speed, and isn’t exactly a heavy
Pokémon, and as we will see, it really
needed it.
Effects
Roserade
has one Ability and one attack.
The Ability is what has people
excited.
Le Parfum is French for “The
Perfume”, and from a cursory bit of
research the English word was derived
from the French word.
I find that to be a bit
interesting, and simply fun to
pronounce, but I don’t know how many
other players feel that way.
As for the actual effect, when you play
Roserade from your hand to Evolve
one of your Pokémon, you’ll get to
search your deck for any one card.
Searching your deck for any one
card is powerful, but if the cost is too
great, it may simply not be worth it.
In this case, the cost is running
a fragile Stage 1 Pokémon that itself
will require some deck searching
resources.
Does the attack give
Roserade another use?
Nope; for (GC), Squeeze hits for 30
points of damage and gives you a coin
flip.
If you get “heads”, you score an
extra 20 points of damage (so a total of
50) and Paralysis.
Not bad, but as the card’s only
attack, certainly not worth running a
Stage 1 Pokémon for in and of itself.
Looking at the two together, I find it
wanting; it is a two card, two turn
combo to get a card from my deck, and
that is not counting any other resources
I would spend on it.
Both before and after it Evolves,
it is within OHKO range of a functional
opposing deck.
Unless there are some combos or
similar tricks to make it worthwhile,
this is not looking good for
Roserade.
Usage
As usual, I’ll begin this section
looking at the options for
Roselia we can Evolve
Roserade from.
There are two options: BW:
Dragons Exalted 12/124 and BW:
Dragons Exalted 13/124.
Both are Basic, Grass-Type
Pokémon with 70 HP, Fire Weakness, Water
Resistance, need one Energy to retreat,
and posses’ two attacks.
For (C), BW: Dragons Exalted
12/124 lets you flip two coins and does
10 points of damage per “heads”.
For (G) it heals 30 points of
damage and removes all Special
Conditions from itself.
BW: Dragons Exalted 13/124
does 20 for (GC), with an extra 20
damage if you get “heads” on a mandatory
coin toss.
Both
Roselia have adequate, identical
stats, so the attacks decide it, and
BW: Dragons Exalted 13/124 has a
single, overpriced attack; too slow to
be a good opening move and it fails to
help it Evolve safely (whether by
stalling the opponent, protecting
itself, or actually speeding up
Evolution).
This makes BW: Dragons Exalted
12/124 the default winner; its attacks
are also a bit weak, though the first at
least works with any Energy-Type and the
latter could maybe keep it alive an
extra turn against.
The concern is that we are looking for
reasons to work
Roserade into a deck; if
Roselia doesn’t provide a good
reason,
Roserade still feels like too much
work for a desirable reward.
Roselia isn’t an easy first turn KO,
and that is its strongest feature; if
you can get one down first turn, odds
are you can Evolve it next turn…
provided you run
Roserade heavily and don’t suffer
bad luck of failing to draw into it or
burn a card like
Level Ball to search it out.
After which, without further
support your opponent will likely ignore
it unless he or she needs to take a
Prize immediately.
Why would your opponent ignore a
Roserade?
Well, it is eating up Bench
space.
Leaving it alone allows tricks
like saving it for a winning OHKO, or
letting damage spread accumulate at a
reasonable pace for a multi-KO shot
later; either is an easy and obvious
option for
Darkrai EX.
So for the average deck, that
doesn’t seem worth the search at all.
For Pokémon, I would rather us
Ultra Ball to grab any Pokémon, or
the more specialized
Level Ball or
Heavy Ball when appropriate.
For Special Energy cards, there is no
other option but most are being maxed
out or not run at all, so draw power
over the
two turns (I need to emphasize that)
it take to utilize Le Parfum, I might as
well have relied on two turns of raw
draw power.
For Basic Energy cards, we
already have
Energy Search and
Cilan.
You might almost justify this for
snagging an important Trainer, but again
raw draw power or the specific search we
do have available (
Random Receiver or even
Xtransceiver for Supporters) are
likely to snag it and if not, are
generally useful for a deck anyway.
Odds are we will have another
option as well in our next set.
When I first saw this, I did think of a
specific class of decks to try to
thoroughly utilize Le Parfum.
Devolution Spray was re-released
with the effect of
Hyper Devolution Spray, and that
means you can play an Item to “Devolve”
a Pokémon by one Stage, returning said
highest Stage card back to hand.
The Pokémon in question cannot
Evolve again that turn.
With this, each
Devolution Spray becomes a
Computer Search without the discard;
surely that is worth it in at least one
deck?
Probably, but I haven’t found it yet.
Decks that are trying to use
Devolution Spray to spam
other similarly triggered Abilities;
each use of Le Parfum would, for
example, be one less use of Sporprise on
Amoongus (BW: Next Destinies
09/99) or Bright Look on
Ninetales (BW: Dragons Exalted
19/124).
Before factoring in the struggle
the players I know are having with
making those to work to begin with, can
such a deck afford the extra space and
the lost attacks sending up a
Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers
62/108) to use Junk Hunt?
This also creates the issue of space;
since you can’t re-Evolve the same
Basic, that means the combo requires a
minimum of a 2-1 Pokémon line, two slots
on your Bench, and however many
Devolution Spray you need.
In a deck built around
Devolution Spray, that space on the
Bench is even more in demand.
Then we factor in the problems
common to all uses, and we see that this
only becomes an option if we can get
some more support, like a Stage 1 that
mass recycles Items (or any cards) from
your discard pile.
If you’re playing HS-On until the very
end (or even beyond), technically BW:
Dragons Exalted cards are now legal
for it.
This means a
Vileplume (HS: Undaunted
24/90) focused decks could use it
alongside
Seeker, and indeed adding in
Roserade (HS: Unleashed
23/95) and the aforementioned
Ninetales.
Rainbow Energy and
Blend Energy GRPD would not only
keep the attacks coming, but would
trigger both results of Energy Signal; a
Poké-Power that inflicts Confusion when
a (G) Energy card is attached to this
older
Roserade or Poison when a (P) Energy
card is attached.
All together this could create a
potent Item locking deck where Bright
Look provides a
Pokémon Catcher substitute and Hexed
Flame and
Ninetales deals a solid 120 points
of damage.
For Unlimited, we just have better
options, though
Broken Time Space combined with some
of those options is still pretty
impressive.
With the dominance of first turn
win or lock decks,
Roserade might seem
counterproductive, and in a sustained
game I would rather run the re-usable
Pidgeot (FireRed/LeafGreen
10/112) instead.
If the reprinting of
Computer Search as an “Ace Spec”
card (a one-per-deck class of cards,
possibly only Items) is accurate,
Roserade might have a use after all.
At last we come to Limited play.
Here
Roserade is wonderful.
Decks will usually be able to
spare room (both in the build itself and
on the Bench) for something that gives
even a one-time-only search for a
desired card. The lower average HP
scores and damage output of Limited
coupled with this search means you could
even use
Roserade as an attacker (Le Parfum
can snag a needed
Grass Energy or
Blend Energy GRPD from the deck).
Fire Pokémon aren’t that common this set
with only six cards (two of them the
same Pokémon EX at different rarities).
Weakness is bad if you run into
them but… you’ve got to run into them.
The Water Pokémon are much more
numerous and about a third of the
Fighting-Type Pokémon have Grass-Type
Weakness, so it is even solid in the
Type-Matching department.
With two
Roselia (which are also a little
better here) you even have better odds
of getting a decent line going.
The only reason to skip even a
1-1 line completely is… you just didn’t
pull anything else that was worth
searching for.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2/5
Modified:
2/5
Limited:
4.8/5
Summary
Quite a lengthy review for a card I gave
low marks too, but like many when I
first saw it, I had high hopes.
After a little bit of thought and
research,
Roserade didn’t seem to be panning
out.
Perhaps since it still has the
eye of more experienced players, there
is some potential I’ve missed, but right
now the smell of victory it brings will
ultimately be for your opponent; it just
isn’t efficient enough to improve your
deck.
Please check out my eBay sales by
clicking
here.
It’s me whittling away at about
two decades worth of attempted
collecting, spanning action figures,
comic books, TCGs, and video games.
Exactly what is up is a bit
random.
Pojo.com is in no way responsible
for any transactions; Pojo is merely
doing me a favor by letting me link at
the end of my reviews.
