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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Krokorok #64/114 (Black and White) Hello and welcome to the week of reviews here on Pojo’s CotD. We kick things off with Krokorok, the Stage 1 of the Krookodile line. Krookodile has been getting a fair amount of love from some players recently and, although I don’t think it’s a top tier competitive card, I do understand the attraction. One of the things Krookodile has going for it is a very solid evolutionary line. We looked at the Basic, Sandile, last week and now it’s time to check out the Stage 1 . . . usually the weak link in any evolution chain. This time though . . . what we have is not bad for what it is. A reasonable 90 HP and Resistance to Lightning mean that an active Krokorock has a decent chance of taking a hit. The Water Weakness could be an issue if Water decks and techs rise up to counter the likes of Reshiram and Donphan but right now that’s just speculation. Who knows? Maybe the threat of Zekrom will keep Water decks out of the meta? Luckily, Krokorock has another survival trick up its sleeve. Torment is a less powerful version of Krookodile’s attack of the same name. For one Energy of any Colour you do 10 damage and get to prevent one of the Defending Pokémon’s attacks next turn. Of course there are ways of playing around the effect (simply bring up a different attacker), but if the opponent can’t retreat to another Pokémon for whatever reason (no switching card, no Energy to pay the cost), then it could give Krokorok a turn of immunity against cards with a single attack (Magnezone Prime, Ability Samurott, Donphan to all intents and purposes), or at least restrict the opponent to using a lesser attack. That 10 damage, though weak, could also work in your favour when you evolve into Krookodile as its Krookoroll attack does 40 more damage against Pokémon that already have damage counters on them. We will move on from Kookorok’s very mediocre second attack (it’s called ‘Bite’, and it’s every bit as generic and vanilla as it sounds), gloss over the retreat cost of two (eh, you’ll be playing Switch), and come to the conclusion that, as evolving Stage 1s go, Krookorock is pretty good. Not in its own right (you would still rather Rare Candy into Krookodile), but good in the sense that it can survive if it has to, while at the same time paving the way for the evolution to hit hard. Rating Modified (HGSS-on): 2.25 (one of the better evolving Stage 1s out there) Limited: 2.25 (good typing, and Torment can annoy your opponent a lot)
virusyosh	Welcome back, Pojo readers! I hope that all of you had good weekends. This week we are continuing our reviews of Black and White by reviewing a few more of the cards from the set. We'll start things off with Krokorok. Krokorok is a Stage 1 Fighting-type Pokemon. Aside from Donphan and Machamp, Fighting-types aren't all that common, although that could change with the perceived dominance of Magnezone Prime in HGSS-on Modified. Additionally, Krokorok's evolution, Krookodile, is thought to have a nice niche against many prominent threats in the metagame, therefore Krokorok may see some play. 90 HP is pretty good for an evolving Stage 1, meaning that it should be able to survive early-game as well as possibly take a hit later on. Water Weakness isn't that bad - yet. Lightning Resistance is excellent, due to the fact that it forces Magnezone to remove three Energy with Lost Burn to OHKO, or use the relatively rare (for that deck, anyway) PlusPower. A Retreat Cost of 2 isn't great, but is somewhat expected. Be sure to use Switch. This Desert Croc Pokemon has two attacks, Torment and Bite. Krokorok's Torment costs a single Energy of any type and deals a rather weak 10 damage, but also disables one of your opponent's Pokemon's attacks, forcing them to either choose another attack or retreat if they don't have one. Torment definitely has some merit in a metagame full of very common Pokemon with only one attack (Magnezone, Feraligatr, Emboar, Typhlosion, Kingdra) or Pokemon that rely primarily on one attack (Donphan, Jumpluff, Cinccino). Even better is that Krookodile has this too, meaning that you can start the lock early with Krokorok and continue once you evolve. Bite, the second attack, does a vanilla 50 damage for [FCC]. While unimpressive, it can be used to finish off a Tormented opponent. However, by the time Krokorok has three Energy attached to it (or a Fighting and a Double Colorless), chances are it will already be a Krookodile. Modified: 2.5/5 I actually quite enjoy the Krookodile line for Modified, especially because Water decks are relatively uncommon right now and they match up pretty well against Magnezone as well as other common threats. That being said, I obviously wouldn't use Krokorok on its own. It's obviously meant to be used here in a deck with Krookodile. Limited: 3.5/5 Krokorok is quite good in Limited, even if you only get it by itself. Torment will undoubtedly make your opponent's life difficult, and Bite is great here even as a standard attack. Just look out for Water-types, and you should be fine.
Otaku	Oh I love this song! “…while all the other kids were rockin’ round the clock, we were hoppin’ and boppin’ to the Krokorock!” Krokorok is a Stage 1 Fighting-Type Pokémon that Evolves from Sandile and into Krookodile, both cards the CotD staff has already reviewed separately. Fighting is a bid odd right now: people expect Donphan Prime and/or Machamp Prime decks, but not much else seems to be able to anchor a deck. There isn’t a lot of Fighting support, but as always Fighting is one of the most common Weaknesses in the game, a huge boon to Fighting-Types and it is especially important to note that many Lightning-Type Pokémon are Fighting Weak. There are many potent and promising Lightning-Type decks, be they current or up-and-coming. Resistance can be a bit of a pain as Fighting Resistance is also common there, but that is only relative to other types of Resistance: a lack of Resistance is still so common that it will only occasionally matter for type matching purposes. Being a Stage 1 that can further Evolve means Krokorok should be about on par with a non-Evolving Basic in terms of overall usefulness: any stronger and the ability to then further Evolve would render non-Evolving Basic/Stage 1 cards obsolete. In terms of HP, this makes its 90 feel a little short: I generally prefer 100 HP, especially since this has a beefier Basic Pokémon in Sandile: Evolving just adds 20 HP! Krookodile has a 140 HP, meaning becoming a Stage 2 adds 70 HP; it should have been easy to balance that out a little more. Water Weakness could prove problematic for Krokorok, as Fire looks to be quite popular for early HGSS-On Modified, and if Fire is popular Water becomes the natural counter. Lightning Resistance is quite welcome, even though most Lightning-Type Pokémon that are expected to see play will still be able to OHKO Krokorok, at least it keeps weaker supporting members of that Type from having an easy time. The two Energy required to retreat is severe enough you’ll probably want to run Switch to conserve Energy, but if you absolutely have to, you’ll likely be able to manually Retreat more often than not. Krokorok has two attacks. The first is Torment, and for an “opening” attack it looks solid. One of any Energy can fuel it, making it fast and easy to use. It only does 10 points of damage, but allows you to select one of the Defending Pokémon’s attacks and prohibit the opponent from using it next turn. The effect is easy enough to bypass as your opponent needs merely to Evolve or change out their Active Pokémon, and if your opponent has access to two great attacks it doesn’t help much. Fortunately for Krokorok many Pokémon have a single attack or single affordable attack and many times this will force your opponent to burn resources, attack in an ineffectual manner, or score a “soft-lock” where your opponent can’t afford to attack at all! It might be weak, but it is more than mere filler and I feel quite well designed. The second attack, Bite, is much less impressive, but serves its purpose. It does 50 points of damage (and nothing else) for (FCC). This is a bit weak, but fortunately the Energy requirements allow you to fully use Double Colorless Energy, and that makes a world of difference when you view Bite alongside the benefits of type-matching and/or Torment use. Torment shuts down a Magnezone Prime from attacking unless your opponent specifically makes a play to counter the effect, and likewise forces a Zekrom player to rely on Outrage. Outrage is a good attack, but not so much when your opponent is only doing 20 points of damage each turn and is resistant to your Type. In either case once the Defending Pokémon has 100 or less HP, you drop a Double Colorless Energy and Bite for the KO, or Evolve and go for the KO, depending upon the circumstances. Sandile has a beefy 70 HP (for a Basic), same bottom stats, and has an attack requiring just (F) to do 10 and block retreating, and if you’re desperate you can meet the (FCC) requirement for its version of Bite to do 30 points of damage just as easily as you can for the stronger Bite of Krokorok. Krookodile itself has the same stats but with 140 HP, a three Energy Retreat Cost, and of course being a Stage 2, and continues the theme of interrelated attacks. It has Torment for (CC) with the same effect but doing 30 points of damage, and for (FFCC) does 60 damage with the added effect of doing another 40 points of damage if the Defending Pokémon already had any damage counters on it. This constant synergy makes the slightly low HP of Krokorok its only real shortcoming. I think there is some sort of “control” deck for the Krookodile line, just waiting for the proper dance partners. The current, almost expired format was just too fast for such a strategy, and thanks to valuable type matching the fastest decks of the next format should run a touch slower against this Pokémon line. That could be just the kind of break it needs. I am sorely tempted to try this for Unlimited, because there are some fantastic control options here, and the fact that Krokorok is a Stage 1 and can fill in until its Evolve form shows up might actually allow it to be fast enough. Then I remember that “Baby” Pokémon will horribly undermine this strategy. Otherwise it is a format with less Evolution so as long as you use Trainer-denial (like Neo Genesis Slowking), your opponent will often find him- or herself “Krok-locked” by Torment as so many attackers are relying on just one brilliant attack in this format. It does help that Krookodile does 30 points of damage with its version of Torment, enough to KO a Baby Pokémon. Then the effect helps if Focus Band were to keep them alive. You just might want something like Broken Ground Gym to nix the free Retreat Cost of many Baby and Basic Pokémon… after you’ve used Broken Time Space to fill your field with Slowking and Krokorok/Krookodile. In Limited play I’d consider this a good pick. You do need to be running at least some Fighting Energy to make it work, but both Sandile and Krokorok only need one, so even a 1-1 line of it could get by in a deck with five Fighting Energy. If you are running a deck with a significant Fighting-Type presence, then it becomes practically a must run: using Fighting Energy lightly so that it can be available for the more demanding Energy requirements of some other Pokémon. The Retreat Cost will be a bigger problem, but the nature of this format significantly ups the potency of this entire line’s other stats as well as the effects and damage yield of its attacks. If you do get a Krookodile it becomes even better! Ratings Unlimited: 2/5 Modified (MD-On): 1.75/5 Modified (HGSS-On): 2.25/5 Limited: 3.25/5 Summary This was actually a good card to review: I confess at first I mistook it for filler, but when you really look at it you find a fairly well designed Stage1 Pokémon. With a little more HP, the common theme in the attacks and desirable type matching might have made this an obvious choice for the next format, and if the proper partner Pokémon can be found it still might become said obvious choice. If those scores don’t seem to indicate that, remember that this is an intermediary Stage 1 Pokémon, something players normally would skip! Please don’t skip over my eBay offerings here. Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions, and merely is kind enough to let me link to my auctions.
Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia	Krokorok (Black and White)   Here we have the middle section of the Krookoroll line, which is giving rogue deckbuilders a headache while they try to make a tournament viable deck with it. Good luck!   I consider myself a rogue builder, but my approach is to use something tried and true as the core of my deck and go absolutely crazy with the tech cards, so I'm going to steer clear of Krookoroll and simply pack enough Switch cards to get around Torment, while praying that noone successfully matches Vileplume UD to Krookoroll.   On with the review. Krokorok is a Fighting type evolving Stage 1 with 90 HP, Water weakness, Lightning resistance, a retreat cost of 2 and two attacks.   Krokorok seems to follow the same patter as Whirlipede, having the same HP (we hoped for more but it's good enough) and the same retreat cost as well as evolving from a similar basic. The main diference is the resistance, which is enough to force a Magnezone Prime to burn 3 energy for an OHKO (unless they use Pluspower), and the first attack.   Unlike Whirlipede, Krookorok's Torment is quite useful. In the event you don't use a Rare candy to evolve straight to Krookoroll, Krokorok can still start the Torment lock with its attack. While the damage is lower (only 10 points), you also pay less energy (just a single colourless energy is needed).   The second attack is Bite, and aside from dealing 50 damage instead of 30, it is a carbon copy of Sandile's Bite attack. Part of what makes this line workable is the ability to abuse DCE on all of the stages of evolution, so this attack is better than I expected.   While the damage for Bite is less than you want for a main attack, Krokorok is still a standout amoung evolving Stage 1 Poke'mon because it can contribute something more than simply being a stepping stone.   Modified: 3.5 (a lot of Poke'mon wish their Stage 1 was this useful)   Limited: 3 (Torment is great here, but the low damage gives your opponent plenty of time to build a replacement attacker for when you take a KO and the Torment Lock is broken. Hopefully you'll evolve to Krookoroll before that happens)   Combos with: Krookoroll BW