Ness' Feature of the Day ;-)

Brock's Sandslash

"My name is Sandslash!  Yeah!!

I'm not to tall!  Yeah!

I take out Buzz! Yeah!

      I use Needle Ball!" - Swoll

"If it weren't for the weakness, it'd be good." - Spike

"With Pewter City Gym and Brock's Protection, this card is all lightning deck's worst enemy." - Colin Peterik

"An overlooked card." - Josh

12.23.00 Sure haven't had a chance to do a CotD for a while, and they'll probably start coming about once a week now. I will be doing Neo cards though, now, since Neo is out and impressed a lot of people. Swoll is one of our new quote givers who gives us "roll calls," a little rap for our CotD. Josh is also one of our new quote givers.

Just so everyone knows, there is one word that suits this card best: Metagame.

Metagame: Resistance to Lightning and all that Fighting Weakness

We all know that lightning is probably the most popular types. Sandslash has resistance to it. Electabuzz is really weak against Sandslash, as it's weak to fighting, too. A Needble Ball to a damaged(with 10, which isn't uncommon because of Thunderpunch) knocks it out, otherwise, a coin flip can do it, or a PlusPower. Rocket's Zapdos hurts it, and Scyther hurts it worse, but Sandslash can fight back using:

Pewter City Gym

The mostly stalemated situation of Rocket's Zapdos VS Sandslash is ended with Pewter City Gym, which can also help your other Brock's Pokémon.

Grass Weakness: Ouch

Being weak to grass means Scyther can take it out with a PlusPower. This is the worst part of Sandslash. Scyther is very popular, it probably always will be. Getting around it is hard, but hopefully this Sandslash can stop some other things. 

Brock Advantages

Additionally, being a Brock's Pokémon not only gives it the Pewter City Gym advantage, but Brock's Protection and Brock's Training Method. Brock's Protection is an unremoveable barrier, keeping Sandslash safe from Removal permanently. Brock's Training Method helps you get Sandslash out as quickly as possible.

Swift, HP, Retreat etc.

Swift does have limited uses. If you run into the resistance, I think Pewter is the better choice so you can Needle Ball. The one retreat isn't that bad, it's retreatable, and the 70 HP is the magical number of 70 that makes a big difference, compared to 60.

Brock's Sandshrews

Brock has two Sandshrews. One can do twenty for two fighting, and with heads prevent retreating next turn. It has 50 HP. The 40 HP oen can prevent damage on a flip for a colorless, or for a fighting and a colorless do twenty. Both have retreats of one. I'm not exactly sure which I like more, but I think I may have to be slightly in favor of the 50 HP, since all the attacks are pretty bad, and you just want to get it evolved.

My Rating (1- Terrible, useless.  3- Pretty bad.  5- Average.  7- Tournament level.  9- Broken. Just too good.  10- Wrong.)

Sandslash is an underrated card. It has the Pewter City Gym combo, it really hurts Wigglytuff and especially Electabuzz. It can have unremoveable energy on it. But it's a stage 1 and weak to grass! Still, it's pretty good. 6.5.

A deck with Brock's Sandslash swept the 11-14 division at the STS. Pewter City Gym is harder to take out in 15 trainers. Many people don't even play the gym. Many people don't play Scyther. It's better. 8.0. Brock's Sandslash was one of the best choices to play at the STS, but the most overlooked.

Pointless Comments

Brock's 60 HP from Heroes is terrible. Brock's like "Oh, they don't pay me enough to do this." Wait, that didn't make sense.

~Jason Klaczynski

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