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Ursaring (Prime) Unleashed
Today we review another neglected Johto Pokémon that has
been given the Prime treatment. Let’s hope it’s a good
one, as who wouldn’t want to play Ursaring’s awesomely
cute Basic form, Teddiursa?
Like the Lanturn we looked at yesterday, Ursaring Prime
has 110 HP and a double Fighting weakness, so it’s solid
enough against most Pokémon, but very vulnerable to
Donphan Prime, Machamp, and Promo Toxicroak G. Ursaring
has no Resistance, which is unfortunate, but not
shocking, and a Retreat cost of three, which puts it
into ‘no way am I paying that, where’s my Warp Point?’
territory.
Ursaring is a Colourless Pokémon, which is a pretty good
thing to be. It means that it can hit popular Pokémon
like Garchomp C and Flygon for Weakness. It can also
make use of any Energy type, and gets a fantastic boost
from the return of Double Colourless Energy to the
format.
And those Double Colourless Energies are certainly going
to be needed, thanks to Ursaring’s high attack costs.
For [C][C][C] Hammer Arm has a base damage of just 30
(but does have the nifty bonus of discarding the top
card of your opponent’s deck), while Megaton Lariat
costs FOUR Colourless Energy to do 60 points of vanilla
damage.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: 60 for four? That’s
terrible! What is this? Base Set?. You are right to be
thinking that too . . . these days, that’s a pathetic
return on your Energy investment. Luckily, Ursaring has
another trick up its sleeve . . .
That trick comes in the shape of its PokeBody, Berserk.
This means that if Ursaring has any damage counters on
it, the attacks do an extra 60 damage. Now that’s a huge
boost which gives Ursaring two big-hitting and
reasonably priced attacks. Activating it isn’t hard
either. You COULD wait for your opponent to attack
Ursaring, but that would be slow and silly when you can
get the ball rolling yourself using Unown P’s Power to
put a damage counter on Ursaring, or by attaching a
Rainbow Energy to it.
That’s a pretty simple and easily achieved combo right
there. It won’t make Ursaring the speediest Pokémon in
the metagame, and it does make it more somewhat less
durable, but at least it will hit hard before it gets
KO’d. Is that enough to make it playable? Well,
unfortunately, Ursaring has a number of potent enemies
in the format. Dialga G LV X will block the PokeBody and
render Uraring’s attacks useless once more. Meanwhile,
Donphan Prime can absorb even a boosted hit from
Ursaring and then OHKO it for only one Energy.
Ursaring isn’t a terrible Pokémon by any means, but
being slow and easily countered by a number of existing
metagame decks won’t do much for its playability.
Rating
Modified: 2.5 (probably just short of playable in the
current speedy format)
Limited: 4 (perfect for a slow format like limited, even
without DCE)
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