I
am not certain why, but I love this card. Oh, not
for actual use: I believe it is the first to posses
a certain ability, which I will get to later.
Name/LV:
Cloyster LV.40
Set:
Mysterious Treasures
Card#:
47/132
Rarity:
Uncommon
Type:
Water
Stage:
1 (Evolves from Shellder)
HP:
80
Weakness:
(L)+20
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CC
Attack#1:
(C) Withdraw
Flip a coin. If heads, prevent all damage done to
Cloyster by attacks during your opponent’s next
turn.
Attack#2:
(WC) Spine Missile
Flip 4 coins. For each heads, choose an
opponent’s Pokémon in play and this attack does
20 damage to those Pokémon. (You may choose the
same Pokémon more than once.) (Don’t apply
Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)
Name/LV:
Shellder LV.10
Set:
Secret Wonders
Card#:
105/132
Rarity:
Common
Type:
Water
Stage:
Basic
HP:
50
Weakness:
(L)+10
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
C
Attack#1:
(C) Shell Rest
Remove 2 damage counters from Shellder.
Attack#2:
(WC) Tongue Slap [20]
Attributes:
Cloyster is a Stage 1 Water-Type Pokémon.
Water is a good Type still: while there is a bit of
Resistance about there is also a bit of Weakness to
Water floating around as well. Being a Stage 1
Pokémon, Cloyster must Evolve from
Shellder. For Modified play, definitely go with
the newest version: the only other legal version is
a Pokémon δ variant which is a Fighting-Type, needs
a Fighting Energy to attack, has 10 less HP, and the
classic “(L)x2” Weakness. The Secret Wonders
Shellder isn’t great, but it has “average”
Evolving Basic stats and attacks. It just should
have been a bit better since, unless I missed it
(still possible since the latest batch of Pokémon is
still new to me) there isn’t a Stage 2 form for the
line, just Basic and Stage 1.
Cloyster
has a mere 80 HP. This would be low if it was still
“Pre-Diamond/Pearl”, before we started seeing a
10/20 HP bump for Stage 2 Pokémon and Stage 1
Pokémon. It would still be passable if Cloyster
had a Stage 2 form, but as is, it hurts the card.
At least Cloyster has merely a +20 Weakness
to Lightning attacks. This is fairly “middle” of
the road, as it still makes it easier for them to KO
Cloyster, but no where near as easy as
classic “x2” or the more recent end Stage “+30”
would have made it. Unfortunately, there is no
Resistance to compliment it. At least the Retreat
Cost is only two energy: this is low enough you can
pay, but high enough you’ll want to include at least
a few cards to avoid it.
Abilities:
This is what could have saved Cloyster, but I
am afraid it just qualifies it for a foot note in
the annals of Pokémon history. The first attack,
Withdraw, is well known to us: 50% chance they
can’t damage you next turn. Given the low HP of
Cloyster and its high video game Defense score,
they really should have made this some sort of
Poké-Body/Power or at least a free attack.
What is really interesting is the attack: Spine
Missile is the first attack, I believe, to offer you
this kind of damage and spread. We’ve had attacks
that allow you to distribute damage counters as you
see fit, but I don’t think we have had one where you
generate damage via coin flips (a robust four in
this case), and then can choose to distribute them
amongst the opponent’s Pokémon as you see fit (at
least, within the increments of the coin flip). It
was ruled on December 6th that first you
flip the four coins, see how many increments of 20
you scored, then you choose how you distribute them
between opposing Pokémon and finally apply any
effects that would alter the damage done (like
Double Rainbow Energy or Weakness/Resistance if
you were hitting the Defending Pokémon and not the
Bench).
Still a bit muddy? Here are some examples:
Example 1: Bob and George are playing. Bob is using
a Fire deck while George is Cloyster Active
and powered up in whatever deck he is running. Bob
has a Fire Pokémon with 90 HP and +30 to Water
Weakness Active with two more Benched. George has
Cloyster use Spine Missile, and all four
coins come up as “heads”. So George has three
“heads” hit the active for 60 damage (20+20+20) base
and another 30 damage from Weakness for the KO,
while the last head whacks one of Bob’s Benched
Pokémon for base 20 damage (Weakness and Resistance
aren’t applied for Benched Pokémon).
Example 2: Bob and George are playing again (they
play a lot as they are brothers, okay?) and
everything is the same as before (Bob has three 90
HP max, Water Weak Fire Pokémon with one Active and
two Benched, and George has a Cloyster in
play) except Bob’s Pokémon each have only 20 HP left
and George just had to run a mostly Electric
deck, so Cloyster is being powered with a
Double Rainbow Energy card. This time George
flips three heads, so he has one hit the Defending
Pokémon for 20 base damage, less 10 damage for
Double Rainbow Energy, and plus 30 for Weakness,
or 40 damage overall. He then uses the other two
“heads” results to hit one of the Benched Pokémon,
and it does base 40 (20+20), less 10 for Double
Rainbow Energy (it is applied to each grouping
of damage separately), for 30 damage (as Weakness
would not be applied for a Benched Pokémon).
Hopefully that makes things clearer.
Uses and
Combinations:
This is an interesting Bench hunting Pokémon: if
your luck is great you can either spread the damage
or take out one Pokémon. If your luck is mostly
average, it can still spread some damage around the
opponent’s Bench. Just remember that Double
Rainbow Energy is not recommended, since it will
reduce it “cluster” of damage by 10. If you get
four heads and use them all on the same opponent,
yeah it would still be 70 damage, but if you wanted
to spread the damage out among four Pokémon, it
would only be 10 to each!
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5 – Probably not a surprise, though if it did just
10 more damage per heads, it just might have been an
interesting idea for Raindance decks. After all,
four heads could then KO an Active Sneasel
from Neo Genesis plus a Neo Discovery Tyrogue
and Neo Genesis Cleffa on the bench. It
still could KO a single, healthy, Slowking,
but only on four heads so nope, shouldn’t use it.
Modified:
2/5 – Not worthless, yet not worth enough to use: if
it had something to protect it while spreading
damage or had a way to reliably do damage (discard a
Water for 20, or even flipping a coin for each Water
Energy attached, etc.), it might have be a great
opener/closer for Water decks.
Limited:
4/5 – Here its attacks are far more effective, and a
single Water Energy in the cost of Spine Missile
makes it easy to fit into most decks.
Summary
Something of a novelty due to how its attack
functions, it lacks the power to be a brute and the
defenses to be more a technical fighter.
-Otaku
