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Nidoking - Aquapolis

Ratings & Reviews below

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating.

TwInSeN21	Nidoking (Aqua.) It's been quite some time since we have a playable Nidoking... Base version was pretty good (not in Unlimited though). 110HP is the 2nd highest, which is really good. Earth Rage is an awesome Power. It's a bench destruction that's NOT an attack. So, you get to use the power and attack at the same turn. There IS a way to abuse the Power like mad but it probably won't happen too often. If you read carefully, Nidoking has to be active in order to use the Power. If you can somehow get a couple of Nidokings out and 3 Jungle/LC Dodrios out, you can simply retreat them for free and use the power for each Nidokings you have out. Again, it's an unlikely situation... Giant Horn is really solid. FFCC for an average of 65 damage a turn is pretty darn good. Of course, it's even better with DCE. In Unlimited, it's simply too weak to ER. Being a Fighting Type is good against Chansey and Wigglytuff, but it's bad against Jungle Scyther. Resistance to Lightning is good against Electabuzz and Rocket's Zapdos. But the fact that it's extremely weak to ER makes it quite unplayable... Rating: 2/5 In Modified, the power and attack are good. However, it goes off on the 4th turn, which is kinda slow as your opponent can go off on 2nd-3rd turn. If the metagame is HEAVY Lightning though, expect this card to be played more. I doubt that's going to happen though unless we get a really good Lightning Pokemon other than Base Electabuzz... Rating: 3/5 In Draft, not that good. If you can get it out, you want it two ways. Either you want it out as your active to act as a Wall and deal damage to your opponent's bench OR you would want to build this guy up on your bench and unleash it once it's ready. It's just a lot harder to do in Draft. I wouldn't really pick it here... Rating: 2.3/5
The Poke`mon Master 1110	Nidoking: Yes. Yes yes yes! This guy really is the king. And you thought the base one was bad? Holy moly, this guy rules! The power is broken, flat-out too good. Have multiples of him, and you can use switches to flip several times. A few of these can destroy benched babys with ease. And the attack? Wow. Fity is nothing to scof at, and the possibillity for 80? Too good. 110 hp. Evolutions don't get much better than this, folks. Play him, buy him, trade for him, love him! Unlimited: Worth playing. DCE makes him a force. He can easly take down this format's strongest cards with a single attack, and 110 hp keeps him around. I like. 3.25/5 MMF: Man, it he doesn't revive fighting, what will? Sheesh man. A strength charm, and Kingdra is gone. One hit Entie/Cargo pokes, and the power is unheard of. Play him with confidence. 4.25/5 Limited: Get him out, and you win. Period. End of discusion. 5/5 The Bottom Line: 4/5
dontknow09	Aquapolis Nidoking My favorite poke gets a color change. Instead of grass, its now fighting(well, its supposed to be poison to ground). It has a incredible 110 HP, high hit points to live a long time. Bottom stats got swapped. Its now weak to what it used to be =/ . But on the other hand, it has lightning resistance. And the same bad 3 retreat is still there. Overall, stats got much better. Now on to its poke stuff. Earth rage is such a co0l power. There have been powers that do damage, but not to all the bench. This makes nidoking able to still have offensive cabalities even with no energies. Its attack is mucho strong. Nidoking is like a stonger steelix. Instead of 30+20, it does 50+30. The down side, it needs 4 energies... Unlimited- With all the colorless out there, king will be literally king. But with scyther, itll be down in the dumps. Energy removal is still very bad for nidoking, but not as bad because of the power. And if my memory serves me correctly(i love this line from iron chef), theres a fighting cube in this set, so nidoking can defend. With that in mind nidoking should do somewhat average, but not quite average. 2.5/5 Modified- As with most cards, its stronger here. ALOT more babies, making the power+another bench killer a good combo to take them out. 80 damage is very high, although its slow to build up. There shouldnt be much grass problems because of fear of entei/cargo, but who isnt scared of it? King has less to fear of though, with less pokemon having fighting resistance. 3.25/5 Draft- As much as i hate to do this, nidoking is not as good in draft. Stage 2's are most of the time hard to pull off. If you do, rage that earth as much as you can. And if you reluctantly survive, then go with the 80 damage attack. Still, 4 energies is hard to pull off too. 2/5 Team- Im going to start doing team now since i saw something with this nidoking that made it unique. Well, the way its worded, i think it should do 10 damage to both opponents bench. So if your opponents each have 3 babies on the bench, you could possibly win in 3 turns, more or less. More turns if you get tails or KO, and less if your teamate also has bench damager. 4/5 -dontknow09
X- Act	Aquapolis Nidoking This card is not bad. I like the Poke-Power of this Pokemon. Putting a damage counter on each of your opponent's Benched Pokemon (note: it doesn't say "do 10 damage" so that damage counter will be placed no matter what) is very nice. But it's a flip. And Nidoking has to be Active. So on average it will take you 6 turns to place 3 damage counters on each of your opponent's Benched Pokemon (enough to KO the Benched babies). That's too slow. Unlimited: Well this is a Stage 2 Pokemon with an expensive attack (which is just a better version of Giovanni's Nidoking's second attack). Maybe you can Breeder turn 2 and start Earth Raging, but remember that Nidoking must be Active. That means that it will start to pile up damage counters (especially from Scyther -_-). Of course you can attack turn 3 via a DCE, but SER will remove those energies sooner rather than later. Not a pretty sight. 1.5/5 Modified: In Modified it can fare better, but it still won't be too good. It takes 4 turns to power up the attack; that's again too slow. Weakness to grass isn't too bad in this format, although you still see Expedition NonHolo Meganium or Crobat occasionally. And Promo Scyther Slashing Striking for 80 damage -_-. I think 'slow' is the correct word to describe this card. It's not bad, but it's too slow. 2.5/5 Draft: Well you need the Nidorans and Nidorinos. I don't think their Energy requirements are fighting energies, although I might be wrong. Besides (I've been repeating this over and over again) this is a Rare from a set containing countless rares. I think you wouldn't be surprised if I don't pick this one up. 1/5

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