Boldore
51/98 (Emerging Powers)
Hello and welcome to what seems to be
Fighting Pokémon week here on
Pojo’s
CotD.
We kick off with one of those difficult
evolving Stage 1 reviews. You know the
drill by now . . . only a select few
have ever been good for anything except
evolving into the Stage 2 when Rare
Candy isn’t an option. Let’s see if
Boldore is
going to be one of those exceptions.
The 90 HP is pretty standard for a
Pokémon of this type: enough to survive
a weak attack early game, but well in
the range of being
OHKO’d by virtually all decks.
The Grass Weakness is pretty good as
Weakness goes: the only Grass Pokémon
that see much play are either
non-attacking Bench support like
Vileplume
and Sunflora,
or Yanmega
whose Sonicboom
attack isn’t affected by Weakness or
Resistance. Slightly more of a problem
is the very heavy Retreat cost. If this
gets dragged active and you need to move
it fast, you had better be holding a
Switch
Boldore’s
first attack, Smack Down, is an
interesting one. For [F][C]
you only get 20 damage (which is
rubbish)
unless the Defending Pokémon is
Fighting Resistant, in which case it
does an extra 60 (giving a total of 60
once you factor in the -20 Resistance).
There are a few Pokémon being played
which Resist Fighting (notably
Yanmega
Prime and Tornadus),
but are they likely to be troubled by
Boldore?
Not really . . . the damage output is
still a long way short of
a OHKO, and a
deck that has no other way of putting
60+ damage on a
Yanmega . . . well, it isn’t a
very good deck in this format. No deck
would benefit from the ability to use
Boldore’s
Power Gem attack either. For a Stage 1,
it hits decently hard (80 effect-free
damage points), but the cost? An
atrocious [F][F][C][C].
Not the kind of investment you want to
put into a 90 HP evolving Stage 1.
So, no.
Boldore
comes closer than most Pokémon in its
category to having a use outside of
evolving, but it doesn’t quite make it.
One underpowered, very situational
attack won’t cut it.
Rating
Modified: 1.75 (not horrible compared to
most Stage 1s, but still unlikely anyone
would want to use its attacks)
Limited: 2.5 (eh . . . solid, but
expensive for what it is)
