Body that states after 30 damage is done to this beast,
the base damage for the attack goes to 60 and its
healing power RISES.
A 3 energy attack that does 30,and then heals a damage
counter for each damage done to the defending Pokemon.
WOW.
Weakness to fire x 2 is the killer here.
Resistance to water makes Kingdra a joke against it.
People were contemplating using this as a Kingdra
protector…but what a costly one.
In limited, if you couldn’t take this down in one shot,
it really became a problem.
Once you had patience, allowed it to swing for 30
damage, and took it out in a shot, it became much easier
to play against.
Ratings…Modified 2/5
Limited 4/5
There you go!
Vince
Steel_Winger
Welcome back to the Pokemon COTD!
Today's card is Turtwig GL, who is very unique because
it is the only SP Pokemon that is suppossed to have an
evolved form, but it doesn't evolve like regular
Turtwigs. Let's look at the basics... 90 HP on a basic
SP is a tad bit above average. A x2 Weakness really
hurts it against Infernape 4 (RR), Ninetales (MT) and
the various Blazikens. A -20 Resistance to Water is
pretty good right now; it can really hinder Kingdra and
even give Palkia G a little trouble. A Retreat Cost of 3
is ridiculous. Turtwig GL's not THAT heavy... Use
Switch/Warp Point/Poke Turn. It's an SP, so it can
utilize all of that support.
Turtwig GL's Poke-Body, Overgrow, lets it do 30 more
damage to the opponent's Active when it has 60 HP or
less remaining. This is a major part of what makes the
card good. Turtwig GL only needs to take 30 damage total
for a power up! Awesome!
Turtwig GL's single attack, Giga Drain, does 30 damage
for 3 energies (2 with Energy Gain), one of which must
be Grass. That seems very overpriced. However, you get
to heal Turtwig GL by the amount of damage done to the
opponent. If Overgrow is activated, that means the
damage done by this attack is doubled. Healing 60 damage
while doing 60 damage is a real pain to opponents and
makes for a good stall.
Combos? Do you really have to ask? What goes great with
Grass-type Pokemon? Sceptile (GE) and Shaymin (Land
Forme) LV. X. Sceptile doubles your Grass energy output,
so with it out and an Energy Gain, you only need to
attach just 1 Grass energy for Turtwig GL to attack.
Shaymin LV. X can be good and surprisingly bad for this
guy at the same time. Nobody can really complain about
+40 HP, but Turtwig GL needs to be able to have 60 HP
left for Overgrow to activate. Otherwise, it won't be
doing that much damage. There's also talk of combining
it with Rampardos GL. In this case, Turtwig GL wouldn't
mind getting hit by its Trample attack, which puts it at
enough HP for Overgrow to help it deal extra damage.
I've never seen anybody try it out though...
Ratings:
Modified: 3.5/5 This card is excellent for stall. It
also gives Kingdra players a really hard time. Just
watch out for Machamp (SF).
Limited: 3.5 It'll take a bit of a while to power up
Turtwig GL here. Watch out for Fire-type Pokemon.
Infernape 4 can OHKO it with High Jump Kick but it'll do
a decent job against everything else.
This is Steel_Winger, wishing everyone luck at Worlds (I
wish I could go) and/or the Supreme Victors Prereleases
(I'll definitely be at one) in 2 days!
drtomoe123 Professor
League Leader
Turtwig GL
Rising Rivals
Common
Most of the time, when people complain about SP Pokemon,
they usually question the concept of cards that portray
normal Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokemon as Basic Pokemon.
Earlier this week at my league session, we had a player
come by who had just restarted after ending in the
e-Reader era, and he was amazed that I was playing a
Basic Crobat and Gallade, "...but, don't they evolve
from Golbat and Kirlia!?!" Anyways, the reason for that
little diversion is because we have an oddity today:
Turtwig GL! It's one of the few "true basics" from the
SP set (I mean, even though Dialga and Palkia are
basics...you can't compare them to a lowly
Turtwig, right?), and it manages to be one of the more
widely liked SP Pokemon.
So onto the card itself. Turtwig GL's HP comes in at 90,
which is still average, but on the higher side (higher
than Aerodactyl GL and Rapidash 4 from recent CotDs), so
Turtwig GL can be pretty sturdy against anything other
than its major weakness, a 2x Weakness to Fire (yeah,
I'm looking at you Infernape 4, Ninetales, and Blaziken
FB). Its -20 Resistance to Water is nice, so it might
save you against a Floatzel GL and a Palkia G, and if
you run into it, it'll help weaken the damage from the
stray Kingdra that's still running around. Now, its
retreat cost is where things get really bad...this poor
thing has a Retreat Cost of Three! This thing isn't
Grotle or Torterra, and it still manages to have a
Retreat of 3!?! Honestly, that just sucks, and aside
from Sceptile, there's no real way to work around it
(except for the obvious Switch, Warp Point, etc...). At
LEAST it can use PokeTurn, so that softens the blow a
little bit.
So now we've got this thing's attacks. It has a
Poke-Body, Overgrow, which makes this card interesting.
Overgrow boosts Turtwig GL's attack by 30 whenever
Turtwig GL's got 60 HP or less remaining. And then, for
One Grass and Two Colorless (or a Grass, Colorless, and
Energy Gain), that can be paired with Giga Drain, which
has a base of 30 and it has the added effect of removing
damage counters from Turtwig GL equal to the amount of
damage it did with the attack. Obviously, these attacks
are meant to complement each other. So the way it works
is that Turtwig has, lets say, 40 HP left, and it
attacks with Giga Drain. The attack does 60 Damage
(before Weakness and Resistance), and then Turtwig would
go back to full HP. So as long as you can use it's
Poke-Body, and you pull off a 60 Giga Drain, Turtwig
will be healed to at least 70 HP, so this card is
relatively hard to take down. Of course, then you have
to take Weakness and Resistance into account, and you
realize that you can do up to 90 on a stray Rampardos
and around 120 to any SP Pokemon weak to Grass (which,
unfortunately, don't get played too much).
Unfortunately, this also works in the opposite
direction, with Grass resistance, but to the best of my
knowledge, there's not a single Pokemon in DP-On that
has a resistance to grass, amazingly. Overall, its
attacks are solid and it's sole attack and Poke-Body
work great together...but what can you do with it?
Twiggyzam is usually where you see Turtwig GL. It's a
combination of Alakazam 4 Lv. X (RR) and Turtwig GL.
Alakazam 4 Lv. X has the ability to move Damage Counters
from one of your Pokemon to another as many times as you
like during a turn (so no being Power Sprayed!), which
is cool, because it's like an upgrade to Base Set
Alakazam, but with a SP update. So you get some damage
on something like Crobat G (which has free retreat!) and
build up Turtwig, switch out the damage to Turtwig with
Alakazam, and then you're good to go. Of course, the
only problem is that you have to rely on your opponent
in order to give you the attack boost that you need.
Once you've moved around all the damage counters you
can, if it's not enough to trigger Overgrow, you're left
with dealing a puny 30 damage while healing yourself,
but keeping you away from using Overgrow. While you
continue your measly 30 output, they can get some really
heavy hitter to come out and KO you in one or two turns.
That's the only problem I see with this deck, is that if
you don't have Overgrow activated, Turtwig GL is really
a light hitter, and you're just waiting for a fire type
or a heavy hitter to come in and clean up (and you do
NOT want to attack with Alakazam). As long as you can
keep damage on Turtwig, you should be golden. You could
even combo it with Unown P from Majestic Dawn, which
places a damage counter on one of your Pokemon every
turn, but just be careful, because strategies like this
could always backfire with a few PokeTurns and Crobat
Gs, putting you in complete KO range.
Of course, there are the normal combos for a grass
Pokemon, which turns Turtwig GL into more of a staller.
If put in a usual Sceptile/Shaymin deck, you could end
up with a Turtwig GL with anywhere from 130HP to 150HP
(with Snowpoint Temple in play). Of course, this may
keep you far away from Overgrow range, but if you do
pull it off, you could heal a LOT while stalling a
little bit. A 130HP basic that heals is NEVER easy to
get rid of. Of course, unless you're Machamp. ;D
Ratings:
Modified: 3.5/5 Part of me feels like I'm rating this
about .5 too low, but that retreat cost kills me...but I
really, really like this card and the various combos it
can be a part of. As long as you play it right, Turtwig
GL could be an annoyer, staller, and medium-output
attacker all at the same time. It has all the advantages
of SP Pokemon which ALMOST makes up for that horrid
retreat cost. Go try out a Turtwig GL/Alakazam 4 deck
and see how it is...find other combos, because this card
deserves it! Its a shame, though, because Fire is
becoming a VERY popular type, and it MURDERS Turtwig.
Limited: 4/5 Healing and boosting attack when your HP is
low in a format where heavy hitters aren't as common?
This card is gold. Give it a while to build up on the
bench and attack/heal over and over. You're great until
something big shows up.
Now could we get a super awesome Chikorita GL, Cyndaquil
GL, or Totodile GL in the HeartGold/SoulSilver
expansion? I'd be happy!
