Name:
Gyarados*
Set:
EX Holon Phantoms
Card#:
102/110
Rarity:
Pokémon*
Type:
Fire
Stage:
Basic
HP:
80
Weakness:
Lightning
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CC
Pokémon* Rule:
You can’t have more than 1 Pokémon* in your deck.
Attack#1:
(RC) Spiral Growth [20]
Flip a coin until you get tails. For each heads, search
your discard pile for a basic Energy card and attach it
to Gyarados*.
Attack#2:
(RRRR) All-out Blast [50+]
Discard cards from the top of your deck until you
have 1 card left. This attack does 50 damage plus
20 more damage for each Energy card you discarded in
this way.
Attributes:
This is a Pokémon*. Even though Gyarados are
normally Stage 1, Pokémon* are always Basics. What is
most striking, though, is that it is also a Pokémon δ,
and is a Fire Pokémon instead of a Water-Type (or
Metal/Lightning Pokémon like Gyarados δ). As far
as I know, this is the first Pokémon* that is also a
Pokémon δ. Its also may be the only fully Evolved
Pokémon δ that isn’t also part Metal (though there are
others that lack any of their core Types). For those
who aren’t familiar with the video games, Gyarados are
Water/Flying types with some Dragon traits… which
translates to just a Water Pokémon (since Colorless
hybrids just ignore the Colorless aspect). As a whole,
this is a fine change: historically, Fire Pokémon have
been quite popular and potent for Modified Formats,
Resistance is rare and Weakness fairly common.
80 HP is solid, since this is a Basic. The Lightning
Weakness will be a bit of a problem in a ZRE heavy area,
but due to being a Fire Pokémon, it is actually somewhat
nice: normally, Fire Pokémon are Water Weak so that in
and of itself is useful. No Resistance is annoying:
Fighting Resistance would be appropriate and hardly
break the card. There are so many ways for any Fighting
Pokémon to bypass the Resistance, and many even have it
built in, after all. The Retreat Cost is two, which is
high enough you won’t want to but low enough you
shouldn’t have too much trouble actually doing it.
Abilities:
Spiral Growth is a familiar, effective attack, and for a
Basic is fairly priced: pay for 25 points of damage, but
do 20 with a 50% chance of retrieving and attaching a
Basic Energy from the discard pile. The second attack,
All-Out Blast is quite interesting: in terms of cost,
it’s pretty steep: four Fire Energy, which even on a
Basic should easily yield 60 damage. Instead we have
50, with a condition for doing more damage. What makes
the attack somewhat unique is the condition. Discarding
cards from the top of your deck for 20 points of extra
damage per has been seen before, but this one won’t stop
until you have just a single card left in your deck!
This allows for obscene damage potentially (unrealistic
max of over 900 through complex, bizarre combos and an
opponent playing into it), and realistically it should
easily KO anything that doesn’t block the damage early
or mid game.
As a whole, the attacks are somewhat problematic.
Spiral Growth can help power up for All-Out Blast
faster, but the nature of the attack means you will
almost certainly lose unless it’s scoring your
last prize (or other win condition).
There is some synergy with Spiral Growth since it helps
power up the main attack, but as a whole they really
don’t go together. Additionally, the abilities aren’t
especially potent for your only Pokémon* you’d be
allowed to use.
Uses and
Combinations:
Fire Deck TecH, unless it’s a low Energy model. It
might take time to power up, but it does look like an
almost guaranteed OHKO against so many Pokémon. I can’t
see building a deck around it, since it’d have to go off
ASAP and score a FTKO for game (meaning no bench) or
something in order to work: using cards to “reload” your
deck seems too risky since once you attack, most of it
will be in the discard pile.
If you have a way of providing enough Fire Energy, I can
also see it with Electrode ex: blow up, lock and
load, and get that final KO for some decks.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5 – There are easier ways to score mass damage.
Modified:
2/5 – Okay TecH for certain decks.
Limited:
3.5/5 – Pretty solid here, if you run Fire. You can
open with it and do okay, since it is a big basic
Pokémon. 20 damage isn’t horrid early game, and if all
goes well, you might be able to use Spiral Growth to
power it up enough to retreat then go for broke late
game.
Summary
A “so-so” card with some use. It might be
representative of a concept that will either be broken
or weak.
