Whimsicott
11/98 (Emerging Powers)
It might be a weird sheep/cotton hybrid
thing, but
Whimsicott is still pretty
adorable. In the video games (especially
when it comes to double battles), it is
an incredibly annoying support Pokémon
with an armoury of disruptive move like
Taunt and Encore at its disposal. This
kind of thing doesn’t usually translate
very well to the TCG, but let’s see what
they’ve managed to come up with anyway.
At first glance, things don’t look good.
Grass is just about the worst Type right
now, thanks to the popularity of fire
and its failure to hit anything of
significance for Weakness. 80 HP isn’t
going to help the survivability of this
card either, and is very poor for a
final Stage Pokémon these days.
Water Resistance?
Ok, I suppose, but Water Pokémon
aren’t seeing
much play. Free Retreat? Brilliant –
though probably wasted on this card.
Whimsicott’s
first attack, Helping Hand, costs a
single Energy and lets you search your
deck for an Energy
and attach it to a Benched Pokémon. Yes,
Energy acceleration is nice, but worth
evolving a Stage 1 and using an attack
to do it? Not so much, especially when
you consider that you would need to use
Helping Hand twice to get a net gain
(bearing in mind the attack’s cost).
Whimsicott’s
chances of surviving long enough to pull
that off?
Negligible.
That second attack probably looks
familiar . . . that’s
right, it’s
Cotton Guard, as seen on
Jumpluff
HGSS. The attack itself is excellent
value, doing 30
damage for only a single Grass
Energy
and reducing any damage
Whimsicott
takes next turn by 30. Cotton Guard is
undeniably a good attack, and
Jumpluff
would use it on anything within range of
a KO to give it some measure of
protection next turn. On
Whimsicott
however, when not backed up with
anything more damaging, it’s nothing to
write home about.
It’s kind of ironic that
Whimsicott
has two decent attacks, and yet is still
pretty useless due to its low HP and the
fact that it is a Stage 1. Oh well,
tomorrow is another day . . .
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (too vulnerable to see any
competitive play)
Limited: 3 (I quite like
Whimsicott
here. Helping Hand is more
practical,
and Cotton Guard more effective in a
relatively slow/low damage format)
