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Tangrowth LV X
Welcome to a week of cards from the new set. I hope you
managed to get to some prereleases and pulled or traded
for the cards you need.
We kick off with Tangrowth LV X, a card that has seen a
reasonable amount of hype as a possible new archetype.
It basically has two things going for it: a healing
PokePower and an Energy accelerating attack.
The Power, Healing Growth, gives you a once-per-turn
coin flip to remove four damage counters from one of
your Pokémon. That’s a nice bonus and could work well
with the kind of Grass decks that like to tank (Torterra,
and Tangrowth itself). If you plan on using this as a
bench-sitter for its Power, though, bear in mind that a
Stage 1 LV X with a retreat cost of three is not the
easiest card to bench. You will need to run Level Max,
or Warp Point/Switch to make it work. You will also need
to protect it while on the bench, where it will be an
easy target for Flygon LV X or Gengar. That means using
Bench Shield or Unown G, depending on which scares you
most!
Tangrowth LV X’s only attack, Big Growth, does no damage
and is all about Energy acceleration. For [G] you search
your discard for as many Grass energy as you like and
attach them to your Pokémon. Discarding Energy with card
like Felicity’s Drawing (or Blissey PL to keep up the
healing theme) is easy enough, and this can provide a
workable way of dealing with the high Energy costs of
Grass Pokémon like Torterra and Tangrowth. Again,
though, there are downsides. Tangrowth LV X is slow to
get out and Grass decks already have a much faster and
more efficient Energy accelerator in Sceptile GE (which,
unlike Tangrowth LV X, can be evolved on the bench with
Rare Candy).
With Tangrowth LV X and the new Tangrowth that goes with
it, there is definitely the chance to build a new
archetype deck that takes advantage of existing Grass
support like Sceptile and Shaymin LV X. Whether it will
be successful or not is going to depend on how much Fire
will be played. Existing top decks like Luxray/Infernape
and Blaziken/Luxray will tear Tangrowth apart with their
disruption, ability to hit for weakness and sheer speed
advantage. With people sure to be trying the new
Charizard as well, this is going to be a difficult
environment for a Grass deck to try and compete in.
Rating
Modified: 2.5 (Big HP and energy acceleration . . . but
Grass decks already have that and still are not played
much)
Limited: 1.5 (very hard to get out, and you won’t have
an all-Grass deck) |
