Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Duosion
#56/114 (Black and White)
Hello and welcome to another week of
ploughing through Black and White here
on Pojo’s
Cotd.
We kick off the week with
Duosion.
It’s an evolving Stage 1 and, yes that
means you won’t want to have it active:
it’s basically just how you get to
Reuniclus
without using Rare Candy. In fact, you
wouldn’t ever want to have
Reuniclus is
the active slot: it’s used for its
Ability only (assuming you can find a
worthwhile use for it) – the attack and
HP are just embarrassingly bad.
And it’s pretty much the same deal with
this Stage 1. Horrible low 60 HP is
combined with an attack, Recover, that
heals all damage at the cost of
discarding an Energy.
I’m sorry, but pretty much every deck in
the format isn’t going to give it a
chance to use that attack. As for
Rollout . . . 30 points of
effectless
damage for [P][C]
on a 60 HP Stage 1? Not today, thank
you.
All of which means that
Duosion is
actually
worse than most evolving Stage 1s.
If you’re lucky, it won’t ever matter .
. . you’ll either use Rare Candy or have
this sitting on the Bench for a turn
while you wait for
Reuniclus. Is
Reuinclus
worth waiting for? In my opinion, its
Damage Swap Ability is one of those
things that looks interesting in a
combolicious
way, but ends up being not worth the
effort due to the speed and
heavy-hitting in the format. It’s a bit
of a shame really, as the whole
evolution line is kind of cute . . . in
a very odd way.
Rating
Modified (HGSS-on): 1.25 (the only
reason it doesn’t score 1 is that it can
evolve)
Limited: 1.25 (even in Limited, its HP
will be laughed at by the other Pokémon)
|
Otaku |
Duosion
is a Stage 1 Psychic-Type Pokémon, capable of Evolving
into Reuniclus.
Let’s take a closer look to see if it has any
merit in and of itself.
As a Stage 1 Pokémon, it is faster than a Stage 2
Pokémon, but one would it to intentionally not be as
powerful as a Stage 1 that couldn’t Evolve since that
make the latter completely irrelevant to the game.
It might get skipped in favor of Rare Candy,
especially when Broken Time Space rotates out.
In the MD-On version of Modified, support for
Psychic-Type Pokémon is limited to Azelf Lv.X (Legends
Awakened, 140/146) to neutralize Weakness on your
Psychic-Type Pokémon and Miasma Valley, which
places two damage counters on Basic Pokémon that are
not Psychic-Types when you Bench them from your
hand, though the latter also applies to Grass-Type Basic
Pokémon as well.
There is actually more support for Psychic Energy than
Psychic Pokémon themselves: Gardevoir (Platinum,
8/127) can move Psychic-Type Energy from your Benched
Pokémon to your Active, Jirachi (Unleashed,
1/95) gets to flip three coins when Benched from hand
and attach a Psychic Energy to itself for each “heads”,
Metagross Unleashed, 4/95) zeroes out the
Retreat Cost of an Active Pokémon with a Psychic-Type
Energy attached, Mismagius (Unleashed
5/95) which lets you move a Psychic-Type Energy attached
to one of your Pokémon to another of your Pokémon once
per turn, Roserade (Unleashed, 23/95)
Poisons the your opponent’s Defending Pokémon when a
Psychic-Type Energy is attached to it from your hand,
and Vileplume (Legends Awakened, 45/146)
similarly Poisons your opponent’s Defending Pokémon when
you attach a Psychic-Type Energy card to it from your
hand. In either case, things drop off once the card pool
shifts to HeartGold SoulSilver and later sets: no
direct Psychic-Type Pokémon support and
Psychic-Type Energy support loses Gardevoir
and Vileplume.
Duosion
has a mere 60 HP, making it easy to OHKO for pretty much
any main attacker not using a back-up attack… and
sometimes still being KO’d by such attacks or even
supporting Pokémon normally not used for attacking.
I generally prefer Stage 1 Pokémon clock in at
about 100 HP, though as a transitory Stage it could get
by with 90; either way this falls far short.
At least this makes the Weakness almost
meaningless: Psychic Pokémon often attack with alternate
strategies (Special Conditions, damage counter
placement, etc.) and most that do use brute force
attacks will OHKO it regardless of the Weakness.
It will matter, but very, very rarely.
The lack of Resistance is disappointing since it
might have provided a single match-up where Duosion
wasn’t begging to be OHKO’d so easily.
The single Energy Retreat Cost is easy to pay but
given how terrible the rest of the stats are, you’d
think it could have gotten a free Retreat Cost instead.
So what can it do?
Duosion
has two attacks, Recover for (C) and Rollout for (PC).
With Recover, it can flush away all damage on
itself by discarding an Energy.
Too bad it has to survive to use this, and as it
is your attack not only is your opponent free to whack
you again, but with another turn of building he or she
is probably within OHKO range by that point! Rollout can
only hit for 30 damage; base don the raw Energy invested
that’s five extra but… it’s the only offensive attack on
the card and this is a Stage 1: even when they can
Evolve into a Stage 2 they deserve a bit of a bonus
over, say a Basic that Evolves twice.
I guess Solosis is worse: a Basic Pokémon
that clocks in at the minimal HP score of 30 (no plain
Pokémon has had less) and in order for its attacks to be
fairly priced all Psychic Energy requirements need to be
Colorless. Of course, even if that were true it’d need
even more to compensate its horrible HP. With all this
taken into consideration, clearly the assumption is that
Reuniclus is
incredibly powerful and needs such weak lower Stages to
balance it out.
If you remember my
Reuniclus
review, I wasn’t so sure that it was all that great.
I’ve seen some mean looking decks using it, but
ultimately they were still stall decks and thus will
naturally have a hard time with Organized Play and the
time limits imposed on matches.
Even in Limited play I’d avoid it:
Solosis is
begging to give up a Prize and even if you get this out,
you’d have to constantly use Recover to avoid being
KO’d… which means you’re just wasting Energy and giving
your opponent time to build something that can OHKO
Duosion.
Only run this if you also got
Reuniclus
(who is amazing in this format like most potent cards).
Ratings
Modified (Current): 1.25/5
Modified (HGSS-On): 1.5/5
Limited: 1/5 – Bump to 4/5 if you got
Reuniclus.
Summary
Reuniclus has a great power, but this is one of
the few times I think you need to just take your chances
with Rare Candy.
Devolution effects are that common and your odds
of surviving that are probably better than your odds of
keeping a Duosion
alive to Evolve a turn later.
Just a reminder, please check
out my
ebay auctions, but
remember that Pojo is in no way responsible for any
transactions.
|
Mad Mattezhion
Professor Bathurst League Australia |
Duosion (Black & White)
Just a quick review today, Duosion has so few redeeming
characteristics that you may as well ignore it.
The stats: Duosion is a Psychic type evolving Stage 1
with 60 HP, Psychic weakness, a retreat cost of 1 and
two attacks.
I look at that HP and think to myself that the designers
must really hate this Poke'mon. Then I look at the next
stage up (Reuniclus) and know that the designers
reeeeeally don't like the cutesy split-brained ball of
goop. Poor Duosion.
With that HP the rest of the stats are pretty much
irrelevant since any turn Duosion spends in the Active
slot will usually be its last. With no support for
Psychic Poke'mon in the current card pool Duosion is up
the creek without a paddle (the support for Psychic
energy doesn't really help because no sane player will
attach any energy to Duosion).
The first attack is one of the greatest jokes in
Poke'mon. At a cost of [p] with a [p] discard, Recover
will heal Duosion to back to its maximum HP. Which is
hilarious because Duosion will amost always suffer an
OHKO with no chance to heal.
Forget the second attack, attaching 2 energy to this
travesty is just plain crazy.
End result? A goofy looking face for the greatest clown
in the game. Sorry Mr Mime, your reign is over, steal
back the crown with the next version they release.
Modified: 1 (a better justifcation for Rare Candy has
never been printed)
Limited: 1 (don't even consider it, Reuniclus isn't
worth the effort)
Combos with: a complete lack of respect |
