Baby Mario
Top 4 UK Nats |
Roserade Unleashed
Today’s preview Pokémon is Roserade, and it’s a Stage 1,
so all my reservations about Stage 1s apply: it’s going
to have to be an extremely solid attacker or be a great
tech to make the grade.
There’s nothing especially solid about Roserade, really.
90 HP is decent on a Stage 1, but won’t make it
particularly hard to KO (most top decks hit those
numbers early and easily). Fire Weakness is ok at the
moment, and the Retreat cost of one is nothing to
celebrate or be unhappy about.
Roserade does have an interesting PokePower, Energy
Signal, which is extremely similar to the one you find
on Vileplume LA. If you activate it, when you attach a
Grass Energy to Roserade, the Defending Pokémon is
Confused, and when you attach a Psychic Energy it
becomes Poisoned. The good thing is that you can do this
from the Bench, so you aren’t wasting an attack. The bad
things are that you are using up your Energy attachment
to do it, and Status Conditions are not terribly
effective anyway, thanks to the many and easy ways that
Pokémon have to escape them (Retreat, Evolve, Poke Turn,
Level Up etc). I suppose you could drag out a high
Retreat Pokémon like Claydol (maybe with Zangoose PL,
Luxray GL LV X or a Pokémon Reversal) and then snipe the
Bench while Poisoning them to death, but your main
problem will be keeping up with the required Energy
attachments. This could be solved by something like
Leafeon LV X but . . . yeah . . . here we enter the
realm of the clunky uber-combo that will most likely be
ripped to shreds by Luxchomp or Jumpluff long before it
gets set up.
Of course, if you did manage to get such a combo set up,
you would also end up with a Roserade with a lot of
Energy on it. Luckily, Roserade has an attack which can
make use of it. Energy Blow costs [G][C] and does 20
damage times the amount of Energy attached, so it could
hit for reasonable damage after a few uses of Energy
Signal.
Unfortunately, I am probably making Roserade sound a lot
better then it actually is. The idea of locking your
opponent’s Pokémon active while you pile enough Energy
on Roserade to sweep their entire Field sounds great in
theory, but the combo would be incredibly fragile in
real game play, and an Energy-stacked Roserade would be
a big fat target for snipers like Garchomp C LV X and
Genger SF, and also an obvious candidate for Luxray’s
Bright Look. Roserade is cute, and probably quite fun to
play, but I don’t see it or its tricks being strong
enough to triumph in a premier tournament.
Rating
Modified: 2.25 (I can see a fun League deck, but not
much else)
Limited: 3 (could be fairly effective here)
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virusyosh |
Hello again, Pojo readers! Today's Card of the Day is
another new preview from HS Unleashed: Roserade.
Roserade is a Stage 1 Grass Pokemon. Being a Grass-type
right now isn't so bad, as there is plenty of support
and Fire is not played very often anymore, making the
Double Weakness bad, but not a breaking point. 90 HP is
standard for a final evolution Stage 1, but it's by no
means good and is a weak point of the card. No
Resistance is unfortunate (it couldn't have resisted
Water?) and a Retreat Cost of 1 seems fair for something
like Roserade.
Much like yesterday's COTD, Roserade has a Poke-Power
and a single attack. The power, Energy Signal, allows
you to inflict a Special Condition on the Defending
Pokemon whenever you attach an Energy: Confusion for
Grass and Poison for Psychic. Special Conditions
generally aren't the best of things to use in games, as
most people will just switch out their Pokemon on their
next turn or use Power Spray if your opponent is running
an SP deck. However, if you have some way of keeping
your opponent Active, the power may not be so bad. The
second problem with this is that Energy Signal's effects
require both Grass and Psychic Energy. While adding a
Rainbow Energy will give both effects, most players
don't run many Basic Energy cards anymore, and most of
those that do will not want to run Grass and Psychic
Energies to get the most out of the Power.
Roserade's attack, Power Blow, does 20 damage times the number of Energy
attached to Roserade for [GC]. The attack starts at a
decent 40 damage for 2 Energy, and goes up from there.
One immediate combo that comes to mind is with Meganium
Prime, who can use Leaf Trans to move a bunch of Energy
onto Roserade and swing for potentially a lot of damage.
However, Roserade is somewhat frail, and there is a
chance of losing a ton of Energy this way if Roserade
gets Knocked Out.
Modified: 2/5 Energy Signal pretty much requires a deck
to be built around it for it to be used at its maximum
potential, but even then, Special Conditions aren't all
that great. The attack is respectable and can work if
set up properly (Meganium Prime + Shaymin Lv. X +
Roserade?), but if you want an attacking Grass-type,
you're probably better off using Jumpluff.
Limited: 3/5 Special Conditions can actually be a lot
more useful here, and there is a much greater chance of
running Grass and Psychic Energy here. Additionally, the
attack is fairly inexpensive at first and can manage to
swing for a lot more damage as the game goes on. Just
watch out for Fire- types. |
