Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Tangrowth
(Call of Legends)
Tangrowth
is one of those cards that sometimes seems promising but
never quite delivers. It always seems to have great HP
for a Stage 1 (110 in this case), an actually useful
Resistance to Water, and a ton of support (from its LV
X, and because it is a Grass type). For various reasons
though, it always falls short of being truly
competitive. This one is no exception.
Tangrowth
doesn’t have any Powers or Bodies, unfortunately, so
it’s on to the attacks. The first is Grind, an attack
that you may remember from
Tyranitar SF. It costs a single Colourless Energy
and does 20 damage for each Energy
attached to Tangrowth.
Unlike Tyranitar, it can’t
take advantage of Special Dark damage boosts, but at
least it does have some potential for Energy
acceleration via its LV X card’s Big Growth attack.
If you can discard Grass Energy
(with Junk Arm, Regice, or
Engineer’s Adjustments), you can use Big Growth to
recover it and attach to Tangrowth.
Yes, it is somewhat clunky and slow, and yes
Tangrowth isn’t as solid a
tank as Pokémon with similar abilities (such as
Steelix Prime), but it’s
something at least, and the LV X’s Healing Growth Power
can help Tangrowth stick
around for a while, if you are lucky with coin flips.
Plow
Over is Tangrowth’s second
(and slightly more interesting) attack. For [G][C][C],
it has a puny base damage of 30, but a nice effect. You
get to flip a coin and, if heads
Paralyse the Defending Pokémon, while if Tails,
you send an energy attached to them to the Lost Zone.
Either of these can be effective, though having to rely
on a flip for them is quite a drawback. It’s inevitable
that you will flip heads vs
an immune Steeix Prime, for
example, and get Tails to remove energy from an
energy-free Gyarados . . .
that’s just how Pokémon works out sometimes. More
seriously, it’s the damage cap of 30 that really hurts
this attack, making it extremely difficult to take a KO.
It’s a shame, really. If Plow
Over did a bit more damage (even if it was more
expensive) then Tangrowth
might be borderline playable. As it is there are so many
decks that are not fazed by Energy removal (Luxchomp,
Gyarados, any cheap
attacker), and can find ways around paralysis (Poke
Turn, Warp Point, Warp Energy), that I’m afraid poor old
Tangrowth just misses out
once again.
Rating
Modified: 2.25 (interesting card, but not quite powerful
enough)
Limited: 4 (just attach and Grind to take your Prizes)
Combos with . . .
Tangrowth
LV X AR
The usual Grass support stuff
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conical |
2/10/11: Tangrowth(Call of Legends)
Well, here's another semi-interesting non-reprint CoL
card! A lot of the non-reprints are pretty interesting,
really. Apart from the legends.
Plow Over is weak; neither paralysis nor the energy
discard is a damaging enough effect to justify 3 energy
for 30 damage. Grind, however, is more interesting when
combo'd with Tangrowth Lv. X's Big Growth, building
enough energy to cause serious damage. On top of that,
the 110 HP is very nice for a Stage 1.
Unfortunately, this card doesn't have enough juice to
cut it in this format and if America adopts the Japanese
HGSS-on format next year, it doesn't get to use
Tangrowth Lv. X. Still, it's a pretty interesting card
regardless.
Modified: 2.5/5
Limited: 2.75
Combos With: Tangrowth Lv. X
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