Name: Blastoise ex

Set: EX: Fire Red and Leaf Green

Card#: 104/112

Type: Water

Stage: 2 (Evolves from Wartortle)

HP: 150

Weakness: Electric

Resistance: None

Retreat: CCC

ex rule: When Pokémon-ex has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Poké-Power: Energy Rain

As often as you like during your turn (before your attack), you may attach a (W) Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokémon.  Put 1 damage counter on that Pokémon.  This power can’t be used if Blastoise is affected by a Special Condition.

 

Not feeling so hot, so I won’t bother with the Squirtle/Wartorle.  Sorry.

 

Attributes: Blastoise ex is a Stage 2 Pokémon ex.  Being a Stage 2 is an inconvenience.  You either have to “Evolve” the normal way or risk an Ancient Technical Machine [Rock].  It might be worth the risk in this case, as you’ll see later.  It is a Pokémon-ex, which means there are a lot of cards that either affect only it (usually negatively, like Desert Ruins), or are not affected by it (Wobbuffet).  And of course, there is the fact that it is worth two whole prizes!  By now, most of you have probably come to realize what that means-this Pokémon has to be roughly twice as good as a non-Pokémon ex. 

 

It is a Water Pokémon, which is good.  We have seen a lot of good Water Pokémon lately, and a lot of Water-Weak Fire decks are still played.

 

It has 150 HP, which is not too bad for a Pokémon ex.  Normally I would want a Stage 2 Pokémon to have more, but as long as they compensated, it’s okay.  It only has a single Weakness to Electric Pokémon, in spite of the elevated HP.  Now we come to a total lack of Resistance.  I suppose since we got to skip a second Weakness, that’s okay.  Last bottom stat is a retreat of three.  Avoid paying for it if at all possible.

 

Abilities: One sick Poké-Power and one strong attack.  Sounds good to me.  The Poké-Power is a variation of the old Raindance Pokémon Power.  This one trades off a restriction to Water Pokémon in exchange for placing a damage counter on the recipients for each of said Water Energy.  Like I said, this isn’t weaker than Raindance, just a good alternative that is harder to abuse, but opens more possibilities.

 

Hyper Whirlpool, given the Energy that goes into it, is an attack worthy of a Pokémon ex.  Now some won’t like it cause it’s only *gasp* 80 damage.  Well, it’s true, that isn’t too much.  However, it has a nasty effect.  Flip a coin until tails means you have a 50% chance of discarding one Energy or more.  Of the more dominant decks right now, that’s not going to help all the time, but it will help enough.

 

Uses/Combinations: As you can tell by my seemingly flip-flop on the attack, this should be a bench sitter anyway. This works wonders with Team Aqua’s Walrein… if you can keep guys healed.  How to do that?  Some people have been planning on using Milotic, but since it’s Poké-Power won’t trigger though Rare Candy, that sounds dangerous.  If you use the Team Aqua Walrein to attack, you can remove benched Pokémon’s energies, and that is what I suggest you do.  Spread the shower out amongst the bench and have some assorted healing cards to use.  It works even better with Articuno ex, but you won’t hit the same damage high.  Still, you can play a big meat sack like Chansey.  Shower it with a few Water, then play Articuno ex from your hand and use it’s Legendary Ascent Poké-Power to make it the active for free and transfer all the Water Energy to it you want.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 3.5/5-Not without merit, and there are some bizarre decks you can use it with (Base ‘Zard for one).

 

Modified: 4/5-Might be calling this one low, but I think people are going to have more trouble dealing with that damage then they thought.  In a chat with someone I consider a competent if not good player sort of glossed over the bench damage that exists in this format still.

 

Limited: 4.5/5-If you can also pull it’s line, it will likely win you the game.

 

Summary

Seems almost too powerful for Modified.