Want a quick, concise review?
Jump down to the Ratings and
Summary!
We end the week with
Dragonite from HS – Triumphant.
As expected of a Flying/Dragon
hybrid, it is a Colorless Pokémon.
This will allow it to hit other
“Dragon-Type” Pokémon for their
Colorless Weakness.
It is a Stage 2 Pokémon, so it
will eat up several slots in your deck
and require aid to get into play
quickly.
I’ll come back to which
Dratini and
Dragonair you should run with it,
after we’ve finished with
Dragonite itself.
140 HP is good: not the largest, but up
there.
The Colorless Weakness is clearly
bad: the main Type matching benefit it
enjoys gets turned around against
itself, so it must fear
a OHKO from
Garchomp, for example.
Fighting Resistance is greatly
appreciated: with the HP it will take
four hits for a
Donphan Prime to KO it using
Earthquake alone, forcing such a player
to bring in a back-up hitter or power up
Heavy Impact (which still requires two
shots).
Even a
Machamp Prime with a full, damaged
Bench will only be able to swing for 130
points of damage after Resistance, just
shy of scoring the OHKO.
We finish off the stats by noting
the three Energy needed to retreat.
This is a lot and should only be
paid in times of desperation: your deck
should pack plenty of retreat
aids/alternatives.
Dragonite
has two large attacks, Calming Wind for
(CCC) and Dragon Stamp for (CCCC); it’s
almost like the designers still thinks
it has
Boost Energy to abuse, eh?
At least it has
Double Colorless Energy, like
everything else, and that can power up
both attacks in two turns.
You’ll
rarely want to use calming wind: on a
Stage 2 Pokémon, 50 damage for three
Energy is rather weak, even if they can
all be any Type of Energy.
The additional effect of removing
all Special Conditions from
Dragonite is good to have, but
doesn’t justify the relative cost.
At this point both time and
Energy really begin to matter.
It is good that it has an attack
that can be used with just two Energy
attachments, even if one has to be a
Double Colorless Energy, but it
isn’t keeping up with other competitive
decks, that either hit harder or enjoy
more useful effects.
Special Conditions, after all,
are usually fringe benefits in the
current format, or when they are
important are important because they
happen in a manner that Calming Wind
can’t solve.
If you are Asleep or Paralyzed,
you can’t attack, so it can’t cure you.
If you are Poisoned, you’ll take
a damage counter before you have a
chance to remove it.
If you’re Confused, you only have
a 50% chance of attacking successfully,
and if you flip “Tails” not only are you
still confused, but you’ve wasted the
attack and put 3 damage counters on
yourself.
Burned comes out best, if you’re
lucky you don’t take damage between
turns then can finally heal yourself
when you attack.
On top of being poor timing for
the effect, most decks will have other
ways of getting rid of Special
Conditions that are more effective!
Dragon Stamp is the second attack and
for all that goes into it, the best case
scenario is that roughly one in four
tries (double “heads” on the coin toss)
results in 80 damage with Paralysis.
Your bonus for braving the other
part of the effect, having roughly one
in four tries fail (double “tails” on
the coin toss) is a Special Condition
most decks can easily deal with.
The “base” damage is actually
pretty good: 20 points of damage per (C)
is in line with a lot of modern main
attackers.
The catch is that most of the top
decks are either just a little better,
or manage a “drawback” quite well so
that they enjoy even better
damage/effects.
Plus, there is a diminishing
return on Energy invested: the longer it
takes to power an attack, the more
opportunities to have attacked will pass
before it is ready, and the more likely
the Pokémon (in this case
Dragonite) will be KO’d or you’ll
simply already have lost!
If you still want to run this, I guess a
single copy might be worth it in a build
focused on the Dragonite from Legends
Awakened.
It has some fun looking attacks
that, with a little bit of help, could
lead to a very interesting but flippy
deck.
It cannot, however, deal solid
damage directly to the Defending
Pokémon: only 40 with an Energy removing
effect or a flip for 50 as part of a
massive “hits every opposing Pokémon”
attack.
Since I don’t see a Level X form
available, that might make it a useful
“surprise I am actually running this!”
card.
That
Dragonite also enjoys just as good
of stats except for a better Colorless
+30 Weakness.
As for what to Evolve from, I’d go with
the HS – Triumphant
Dratini.
Neither card is brilliant, but
the extra 10 HP it has over its cousin
from Legends Awakened will matter in all
match-ups where you aren’t facing a
Colorless attacker.
Against a Colorless attacker, +10
damage will with 10 less HP is on par
with 50 HP and damage doubling Weakness.
Likewise the attacks are
affordable on both, but also
underwhelming, so HP is the deciding
factor.
The choices for
Dragonair actually fair better.
They are set-mates to the
versions of
Dratini and
Dragonite already discussed and
follow a similar pattern.
The older version has 10 less HP
than the new version, but came about
during the time when Weakness could be a
straight damaging adding effect: in this
case Colorless +20 instead of x2.
There
are only a few situations, mostly early
game where that is going to matter, as
the bigger version just has 80 HP to
begin with: simple for most decks to
OHKO.
Both have attacks for (CC) and
(CCC) respectively.
For the lower cost, the older
version can try to Paralyze while doing
20 (coin toss based, as always) and for
three Energy, hit for 30/50 split
(again, coin toss based).
With the same respective Energy
costs, the newer version can search out
any two Pokémon and add the to hand or
flip two coins and get 40 damage for
each “heads”, resulting in doing roughly
no damage a quarter of the time, 40 half
the time, and 80 points of damage the
remaining quarter of the time.
This is interesting when you
realize that thanks to the double coin
toss clause on Dragon Stamp, it does no
damage the same amount of the time.
One less Energy merely loses the
negligible ability to Paralysis and
“drops” the damage to 40 half the time.
It really puts things into
perspective.
I would go with the new version,
since I’ve already stated that Paralysis
isn’t a reliable enough option to
promote survival.
I’d
rather get a replacement for the
Dragonair I may be about to lose.
Likewise, if you have to swing
for damage, you’re already taking a
risk, so you may as well swing for more
damage even if you might whiff and do
none at all.
Limited play is where this card actually
gets to shine.
First,
Dragonair is brilliant here, making
it so that you can finish evolving
quickly and easily or set up another
Pokémon.
You can even do both if your
opponent is slow or you pulled multiple
Dragonair.
In a format where the average HP
is lower, 140 is stellar.
Being able to use any Energy
allows it to fit into any deck.
Special Conditions are actually
more potent here, and combined with the
lower average HP scores I just mentioned
double bumps the attacks up from poor to
good.
All this together makes it a
desirable pull.
Ratings
Modified:
2/5 – Despite my pessimistic outlook, it
isn’t useless, just not the best option.
There is a better
Dragonite, better Stage 2 Colorless
Pokémon, and even a well known better
Stage 2 “Dragon-Type” Pokémon!
Limited:
4/5 – Quite a high score, and realize
most of that comes from the
Dragonair it has to evolve from.
It’d be a whole point lower if
Dragonair was merely an “average”
card and if
Dragonair was poor, then so to would
Dragonite be because it really is
only a little above average on its own.
Combos with:
Dragonite (Legends Awakened)
Summary
By now you should realize that I have
done my best to make this otherwise
disappointing card an interesting end to
the week.
If you want a short review, know
that it’s a poor card that doesn’t hit
hard enough, fast enough, and stop
reading.
Remember my complaints about
Bronzong?
I’d have cited the
Dragonair if it hadn’t slipped my
notice.
Unless there is a wording issue I
am unaware of, you should be able to use
it to fetch Pokémon
LEGEND, just as quickly if you went
first or if you burn a
Double Colorless Energy.
Plus then you can consider
running a
Dragonite or two to force the
opponent to burn resources against it
instead of the real focus (the
LEGEND).
Dragonite itself just feels like
it’s jumbled, with effects that are
better used as a Pokémon Power or that
aren’t worth the risk.
Now for those looking for last minute
Christmas gifts, if Transformers are you
thing click
here for a listing of my current
auctions.
The big piece in my collection
sold the same night it was listed and
Christmas is nearly here, so I wouldn’t
delay!
Okay, I would, because I am broke
and feel I’ve become too materialistic.
If you’re not in that situation
though, take a look at some of my
favorite things!
