Well readers, I’ve had a busy,
complicated week but I won’t bog you
down with the details.
I will say that my CotD for today
was originally quite huge (as is so
common to me) but I realized I basically
was reviewing the wrong card: I
basically had a review for
Ursaring Prime.
So what does this
Teddiursa actually bring to the
game?
It is a Colorless, Basic Pokémon
as one would expect; none of the Types
(“Colors”) of Pokémon really have true
support.
Most of what I have seen or can
even dig for references Energy Type
instead of Pokémon Type, so being
Colorless doesn’t matter and being Basic
makes it the easiest Pokémon category to
search and get into play, plus it
requires the least deck space to run.
As mentioned in my trip down
memory lane, it can Evolve into
Ursaring, and we’ll discuss those
Evolutions later: for now merely note
this fact down as I evaluate the rest of
the card: Basics that can Evolve even
just once don’t need to be as sturdy or
useful as those that do.
In fact if their Evolution is
good enough, they just need to not be so
bad as to render said Evolution
unplayable in order for they themselves
to see play.
50 HP is a tad low.
Right now, the “average” range
seems to be 50 HP to 70 HP for
“Evolvable” Basic Pokémon.
Even some Basic Pokémon that
Evolve twice now hit 70 HP, so for a
Basic that can only Evolve once to clock
in at 50 means something else about this
card had better be pretty good. Not only
is it low enough for the most aggressive
decks to FTKO and possibly donk you, but
with the new standards cemented by
Black & White and
Teddiursa not being especially small
in the video games, another 10 points
would have been reasonable.
The Fighting Weakness is expected be
grateful that
Tyrogue (HeartGold/SoulSilver
33/123, Call of Legends 36/95)
doesn’t apply Weakness or Resistance to
the damage it does.
Still take care in case your
opponent is running an unusual build as
a decent hunk of Fighting-Type Pokémon
can do base damage of 20 first turn,
meaning some luck and a
PlusPower will result in a FTKO.
Otherwise most serious attacks
can OHKO this little one with or without
Weakness, barring other effects.
It’d be nice if some Resistance balanced
out this Weakness, but it doesn’t.
This is such a common fact it
doesn’t ultimately hurt the card’s
playability, but it still feels like an
overly cautious design at best and lazy
at worst. The single Energy Retreat Cost
is common on Basic Pokémon of this size,
but still quite useful.
So does the card have a great attack to
justify its merely “okay” stats?
Maybe; Fake Tears is a “tails
fails” attack, but it only requires a
single Energy card and when it works its
fairly potent.
If you do get “heads”, your
opponent can’t play Trainer cards
and
Teddiursa gets to deduct 30 points
of damage done to it by attacks next
turn.
Of course, this card was printed
when Trainers
did not include Supporters or Stadium
cards and as such still won’t affect
them now, and
damage is reduced after
Weakness and Resistance.
Based on the wording the effect
resides upon
Teddiursa (which is good) and since
you’re blocking non-Supporters/Stadiums
your opponent can’t just use a
Pokémon Reversal to Bench
Teddiursa and end the effect of Fake
Tears.
All in all this is a great attack
even if it isn’t reliable, just because
it will make your opponent sweat a
little.
Unfortunately it is also the only
attack on the card, and as such the
total package still feels a little weak.
The other Modified Legal
Teddiursa (HS: Unleashed
65/95) obviously is also a Basic,
Colorless Pokémon.
It has the same bottom stats and
besides having clearly different
artwork, it differentiates itself by
possessing 60 HP.
It too only has a single attack,
and it’s Take Down. It isn’t an
especially good Take Down as it does 20
to the Defending Pokémon, 10 to
Teddiursa itself, and needs (C) to
use.
10 extra HP will often come in
handy and you don’t need a successful
coin toss to enjoy it.
If you open against something
protected by Sweet Sleeping Face that
made its Sleep Check and woke up,
you’re a
PlusPower away from scoring a OHKO.
Plus that self damage actually
combos with
Ursaring Prime, so I can really see
using either version.
If you wanted to do something off
the wall (and that I’ve never seen or
heard of before) like trying to use
Ursaring Prime to give
Vileplume (HS: Undaunted
24/90) some muscle then today’s version
would be the superior choice.
For Unlimited play, I almost like
this card since so many decks won’t know
what to do if you get “heads”.
The problem is that if you don’t
get heads for Fake Tears, you probably
just gave your opponent the game.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2/5
Modified:
2/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary
Those are
general scores: shutting off
Trainers and reducing damage is actually
quite effective.
The problem facing this card is
that it has no fall back: if Fake Tears
falls, it probably won’t survive to
Evolve.
With another 10 HP and another
decent effect (be it Poké-Body, Poké-Power,
or attack) this might have been a good
opening Pokémon for many decks with
Ursaring Prime functioning as a
hyper
Expert Belt and Technical Machine
all in one.
Of course I am still selling my
soon-to-be-former possessions on eBay
here. Pojo.com is not responsible
for any transactions.
