Notice:
Throughout today’s CotD and the rest of this week’s, if I use
the term “Fossil” Pokémon, it means Pokémon that Evolve
from a card with Fossil in its name. If I say “Fossils”,
it refers to any Trainer with “Fossil” in its name that
can be played as a Basic Pokémon but doesn’t give up a Prize
when it is KO’d. If I use Fossil without italics, it’s the third
set’s name.
Skip straight to the scores and summary for a concise overview.
Please note that while I denote δ Delta Species Pokémon
by adding a δ to the end of their name, but that said symbol is
not actually part of their name for gaming purposes to my
understanding. For example, a “Pokémon δ” can Evolve from or
into a non-Pokémon δ, so long as no other rules are being
broken. That is, I can Evolve Dratini δ into a Dark
Dragonair, plain Dragonair, of the “Dragonair δ”.
I cannot, however, Evolve a Dark Dragonair into a
Dragonite δ or a Dragonair δ into a Dark
Dragonite. Also, a card can have δ Delta Species
Pokémon and not be from EX Delta Species: it’s on the
ones from EX Holon Phantoms and thus likely on all Pokémon δ
from here on out.
Name:
Aerodactyl δ
Set:
EX Holon Phantoms
Card#:
35/110
Type:
Fire
Stage:
1 (Evolves from Mysterious Fossil)
HP:
70
Weakness:
Lightning
Resistance:
Fighting
Retreat:
None
Poké-Power:
Primal Light
Once
during your turn (before your attack), you may search your deck
for a basic Energy card, show it to your opponent, and put it
into your hand. Shuffle your deck afterward. This power can’t
be used if Aerodactyl is affected by a Special Condition.
Attack:
(RC) Granite Head [30]
During your opponent’s next turn, any damage done to
Aerodactyl by attacks is reduced by 10 (after applying
Weakness and Resistance).
Name:
Mysterious Fossil
Set:
EX Holon Phantoms
Rarity:
Common
Card#:
72/110
Type:
Trainer
HP:
50
Text:
Play Mysterious Fossil as if it were a Basic Pokémon. While
in play, Mysterious Fossil counts as a (C) Pokémon (as well
as a Trainer card). Mysterious Fossil has no attacks of its
own, can’t retreat, and can’t be affected by Special
Conditions. If Mysterious Fossil is Knocked Out, it doesn’t
count as a Knocked out Pokémon. (Discard it anyway.) At any
time during your turn before your attack, you may discard
Mysterious Fossil from play.
Attributes:
This Aerodactyl is Fire-Type Pokémon making it a Pokémon
δ, and I’ll be referring to it as Aerodactyl δ if when it
comes up in later CotDs. For the rest of this CotD I’ll just
call it Aerodactyl because I am on a time crunch and the
δ takes longer to type than this little explanation. Being a
Fire-Type has some advantages over being a Fighting- or
Colorless-Type Pokémon. Fighting has long been the most common
form of Resistance, though also the most common form of
Weakness. Given the numerous ways to bypass Resistance most
Fighting Pokémon possesses, you’d think that this would be a
step back. Colorless Weakness is somewhat rare and can be taken
advantage of by most Pokémon though the use of Crystal Shard
and Resistance is almost non-existent. Fire Weakness is the
fourth most common, while Resistance is the fourth least
common. Being a Pokémon δ is quite beneficial due to the extra
support that I’ll mention in Uses and Combinations, as
well.
Aerodactyl
is a Stage 1, as it always has been in the English TCG. Unlike
most other Stage 1 Pokémon, this one has multiple shortcuts
available to get it into play as a Basic (again, more details in
the Uses and Combinations section). Suffice to say this
means it can get by with somewhat worse stats than you’d expect
for an end Stage 1.
Aerodactyl
has 70 HP which is acceptable for a Stage 1 but pretty good when
it’s a Basic. The Lightning Weakness isn’t too great, but it
could be worse: there aren’t many Lightning-Type Pokémon who
can’t do big (but costly) damage anyway. The Fighting
Resistance is welcome, for the most part, since it’s better than
none with one commonly seen exception: this against Medicham
ex, who gets to OHKO it thanks to its Sky Kick attack: 60
base damage plus an additional 40 points more if the Defending
Pokémon is Resistant, netting 70 points of damage. I wouldn’t
even mention it except that Medicham ex decks are still
quite popular. The free retreat on this card is what is really
worth noticing anyway, and it compliments one of the
Abilities by allowing this to sit on the Bench and come up
when something is KO’d to give you time to plan and set things
up before retreating to what you really want. A Fossil
can do the same and would be expected in a deck with this, but
they aren’t re-usable. Also, if the opponent manages to force
this into the Active slot but doesn’t OHKO it, it can easily
retreat to the Bench.
If you
do choose to Evolve into Aerodactyl, you have a choice in
Unlimited but must use Mysterious Fossil in Modified.
Mysterious Fossil is a good card so a copy or two is still
handy, but the other methods are faster and thus it should be
included as a fall back, much like the average Stage 1 is
included in a deck for the few situations where Rare Candy
is undesirable (or just not showing up). In Unlimited
you can also use Buried Fossil, but Buried Fossil
is a Basic Pokémon with only 30 HP. As such, you should just do
the same as Modified and try to use the shortcuts with a
Mysterious Fossil or two as back-up.
Abilities:
Primal Light is what might get this card played. Pulling
anything from the deck is handy, even if it’s just Basic
Energy. After all, you need Basic Energy for all but a few
decks, you tend to need large quantities of it in most decks,
and this makes it easy to obtain for discard fodder as well as
thin your deck so you can draw harder to get cards, like
Trainers and Pokémon.
Granite
Head is the kind of attack you need on what should be a Bench
sitting Pokémon: inexpensive and designed to stall for time. It
reduces incoming damage by 10 after Weakness and Resistance and
hits for a decent 30 itself. You don’t want to need to attack
with Aerodactyl, but this lets it if it must.
Uses
and
Combinations:
Even though it can only get a Basic Energy from the deck it is
handy for most Pokémon and actually quite good for a few. Right
now Pidgeot and Magcargo, with their universal
searching ability, are probably a better choice for any deck
that needed to get extra basic Energy cards. We also have
Mr. Stone’s Project and Energy Search, Trainers that
can be used to get Basic Energy cards. So this format, the
prospects are few. Still, Pidgeot and Magcargo
will almost certainly be gone by next format, so as long as TPC
doesn’t give us anymore universal searchers, then this card
could finally find a place in appropriate decks (Energy
Search is a single card and who wants to burn a Supporter on
it?
For
now, I can’t think of any serious decks that would need it, with
the possible exception of the new Kabutops δ which
we will look at later in the week, and has a serious need for
Lightning Energy.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5 – Not even Raindance needs this. Even factoring in the
fight against Trainer denial in Unlimited, you still have cards
like Cleffa to help you draw into Energy with ease.
Modified:
2/5 – Somewhat helpful in general but not much use to most
established decks… yet.
Limited:
5/5 – With the blatant lack of Trainers and search power
inherent to Limited decks, such cards are precious. This one
has a solid Stage 1 with it that can exploit several tricks in
this set should you get them. Limited decks often are forced to
run multiple Energy types and this can alleviate some of the
difficulties from that while at the same time thinning your deck
so you can draw into Pokémon and the odd Trainer easier.
Summary
Like
many cards from these last few sets, Aerodactyl will
probably not see much play in this format, but has some promise
for the next. It’s an Uncommon so it shouldn’t be too hard to
get now, and it may be worth keeping two or three in case it
does become good next format.
-Otaku
