Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Spiritomb
(Triumphant)
Last time we got a Spiritomb
(in the Arceus set),
it made a pretty big impact on the metagame, so this one
has a lot to live up to.
Starting with the basics, Spiritomb
is . . . well . . . a Basic with 60 HP, no Weakness (an
advantage it shares with Sableye,
Arceus LV X, and . . .
Flying Pikachu!), a great Colourless Resistance, and an
acceptable Retreat cost of one. It’s a Psychic type, but
that is actually completely irrelevant seeing as it
places counters rather than doing damage.
Spiritomb
boasts an interesting coming-into-play
PokePower. When you put it
from your hand to the Bench, you may have your opponent
shuffle their hand into their deck and draw six cards.
Now that actually sounds a pretty good deal . . .
for your
opponent! In fact, many decks run Professor Oak’s
New Theory so they can get that effect for themselves.
The Power is optional, however (you don’t HAVE to use
it), and there are circumstances where it could be a
good play. Maybe your opponent used
Sableye SF’s Impersonate with Pokémon Collector,
so their hand could be full of the Basics they need to
set up, or maybe they just have a huge hand which you
want to disrupt. It’s not a fantastic Power in itself,
but it could be situationally
useful.
Spiritomb’s
only attack is Colour Tag. It’s very cheap at a cost of
a single Psychic Energy, and it lets you nominate any
Pokemon type (Fire, Water,
Dark etc) and place one damage counter on all of your
opponent’s Pokémon that share that type. Much like the
PokePower, the attack isn’t
brilliant in a standalone way, but can be very useful in
the right circumstances or combinations. For example, it
works very well with those attacks that spread damage to
already damaged Pokémon (such as
Gengar LV X’s Compound Pain or
Gallade 4’s Chop Up).
This is one of those cards that you have a nasty feeling
someone is going to be able to exploit in the right
deck. For now, it offers possibilities. In the future,
who knows?
Rating
Modified: 2.25 (Hard to rate . . . has tech potential)
Limited: 2 (not convinced here, most limited decks run
multiple types. Could get you a KO on something
near-death though)
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virusyosh |
Happy midweek, Pojo viewers! Today we continue our
Card of the Day reviews by looking at Spiritomb from the
new HS Triumphant set.
Spiritomb is a Basic Psychic Pokemon. Psychics are
pretty common nowadays, with Gengar seeing a lot of play
as well as the Pixie trio. However, an important thing
to note is that Spiritomb AR is very common in many
high-level Evolution decks right now, so this particular
Spiritomb may be fighting for a deck slot against it. 60
HP is fairly mediocre for a non-evolving Basic,
especially one with a Poke-Power, as this means that
Spiritomb is taken out in one hit from an opposing
Gengar SF's Shadow Room. No Weakness is great, Colorless
Resistance is also fantastic, and a Retreat Cost of 1 is
easily taken care of with Switch, Warp Point, Unown Q,
or even Warp Energy.
Spiritomb has a Poke-Power and a single attack. The
Power, Spooky Whirlpool, allows you to force your
opponent to shuffle their hand into their deck and draw
6 new cards when you drop Spiritomb into play. A
comparison that this Power draws is to Giratina PL with
Let Loose, where both players shuffle their hands back
into their decks and draw 4. The main difference here is
that you don't have to refresh your hand, but your
opponent gets 2 more cards. Of course, this Power is
best used when you know the contents of your opponent's
hand, so you may want to use something to look at your
opponent's hand first to maximize the total amount of
disruption. Use it with Seeker for even more fun.
Color Tag, Spiritomb's attack, allows you to choose a
Pokemon type and put a damage counter of each of your
opponent's Pokemon with that type. This could be useful
in a deck utilizing lots of spread damage like Gengar,
although Gengar generally already has better options for
doing this and will also be using Spiritomb AR for
set-up. Outside of that situation, the attack has
limited usefulness.
Modified: 2/5 Spiritomb has an interesting Power and
good bottom stats, but its HP and attack are rather
lackluster. It may be usable for hand disruption as a
Spooky Whirlpool at the right time can really mess up
your opponent's plans, although things like Judge and
Looker's Investigation are other common ways to do this
that give your opponent fewer cards. Also, Spiritomb
falls prey to the potential problems of any supporting
bench sitter, and its low HP allow it to be easily
called up and KO'd or sniped.
Limited: 2.25/5 Spooky Whirlpool doesn't quite have the
same effect here as it does in Modified, as chances are
your opponent won't be quite as bad off getting a new
hand of 6. Color Tag is decent here as well, although
the damage output is still a bit disappointing. 60 HP is
not so great even in Limited, so watch out for your
opponent's heavier hitters.
Combos With: Seeker
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