Today we look at
Cherrim from HS – Unleashed.
We have a small (80 HP) Grass
Pokémon: so any serious attacker and
with help, even speedy attackers can
OHKO it.
Unless they are Fire, in which
case double Weakness means anything that
can hit for 40 damage can OHKO it, or
Water Pokémon, in which case they have
to hit for 100 damage because of
Resistance -20.
Finishing off the bottom stats is
an easy to pay single energy retreat
cost.
With stats like that, this had better be
a Bench Warmer designed to support
something else.
Well what do you know, it is!
It has a single attack (Seed
Bomb) that does a straightforward 30
damage for a single Grass Energy.
This is just enough that if it
has to attack, it can be handy.
If you are fortunate enough to
type-match, you might even score a
surprise KO early/late game.
The real point to the card is its Poké-Power,
Sunny Heal.
It is a simple Poké-Power: once
per turn you can remove a damage counter
from your Active Pokémon.
Of course you have to use it
before you attack, and just slightly
less obvious you can’t use it while
Cherrim is affected by a Special
Condition.
Sadly, we’ve seen this kind of
Poké-Power before and it only comes
close to working under very key
circumstances:
1)
Average damage from attacks by the main
attacking Pokémon needs to average 70
points of damage.
Anymore and most Pokémon are
still 2HKO’d even when you have a full
bench of healers.
This condition hasn’t existed in
the game for some time.
2)
You need to be able to get the healers
out en masse within the first few turns
of the game.
Usually your second or third turn
at the latest.
3)
A method of recycling the healers if
they are KO’d.
4)
A format where Poké-Powers aren’t easy
to shut off.
5)
A format where there isn’t a popular
Pokémon that does extra damage against
Pokémon with Poké-Power and/or can snipe
them.
6)
Not a lot of snipers in general.
7)
A super tank to back up.
Theoretically this could
supercede other requirements – that is
if you have a good enough tank you don’t
have to worry about the others.
Pretty extensive list, as you can see.
I’ve created a whole deck around
this kind of mechanic, and locally it
was a huge success… way back when I was
in an extremely simple metagame.
Against
serious decks it got shredded because
of reason number one.
There was one brief, shining
moment when my Gojira (my name for the
decks) decks worked, and that was due to
a misprinted card that was later
errata’d, nerfing the deck.
That occurred when Team Rocket’s
Revenge was still a new set.
The card was that set’s
Mantine.
Its Ripple Poké-Power gave us a
Basic (easy to fill your bench) and we
got a few decent tanks in Team Rocket’s
Revenge that had a Trainer pool to back
them up.
So as you can tell,
Cherrim isn’t going to make it in
constructed.
If Sunny Heal worked together or
Cherrim was a Basic Pokémon, maybe
it would work.
As is, its too much work to set
up a bench full of them, they are too
vulnerable, and there are even better
healing options currently legal.
In Limited, though, it is a top
pick: relatively easy to splash and
extends the life of better beatsticks.
Ratings
Modified:
1.5/5
Limited:
4/5
I’d also like to add I’ll be selling
quite a bit of my soon-to-be-former
possessions on eBay. You can take
a look
here at my second auction if you’re
interested in a Nintendo GameCube with
some accessories and 17 games!
Just a reminder, Pojo is in no way
responsible for this and was merely kind
enough to let me mention the auction
here. ;)
