Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles

Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play

Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel

GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual

Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar

Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List

Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
- Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us

Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

		Swoobat #37 Emerging Powers Date Reviewed: Sept. 30, 2011 Ratings & Reviews Summary Modified: 2.50 Limited: 3.75 Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 being the worst.  3 ... average.   5 is the highest rating. Back to the main COTD Page
Combos With:

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion

Swoobat 37/98 (Emerging Powers) Yesterday’s card might evolve from a cute Pokémon, but the Pokémon Swoobat evolves from is based on one of the cutest real life animals in existence. Go and google ‘Hounduran White Bat’ and be prepared to say ‘awwww’ a lot. The Swoobat we got in the BW set was simply horrible . . . nearing Arcanine SV levels of badness. This one . . . is a slight improvement. But let’s not get carried away. This is still a 90 HP Stage 1 with a terrible Lightning Weakness. It does have a reasonable single Retreat cost and handy Fighting Resistance though, so the news isn’t all bad. The attacks though are . . . very mediocre. Psyshot might be good value, doing 30 damage for a single Psychic Energy, but 30 damage barely scratches the monstrously high HP Pokémon that are seeing play these days. Swoobat’s second attack is more interesting . . . and has the hilariously inspired name of Phat Sound (since when did Pokémon get so street?). For the low-ish cost of [P][C], you get to flip three coins and do 10 damage to each of your opponent’s Pokémon for each heads. Like a lot of flippy attacks, it’s good if you get some silly luck on your side: 30 spread to everything could give you as much as 180 damage on the field for just two Energy (and KO any Baby Pokémon your opponent might have), but the chances of this happening are pretty slim, and you are every bit as likely to do nothing whatsoever. If spread attacks are your thing, you should really wait until the next set, Noble Victories, and play the Kyurem that does a guaranteed 30 spread and has the survivability that 130 HP and a great Weakness (Metal) brings. Sadly, the only good thing about taking this card to a tournament would be the opportunity to announce ‘Phat Sound’ as your attack. And that isn’t really a good enough reason, is it? Rating Modified: 1.75 (giving .25 for a cool attack name if I’m honest) Limited: 3.5 (good cheap attack, and the risky spread is worth a go)

Mad Mattezhion  Professor Bathurst League Australia

Swoobat (Emerging Powers)   It's the end of the week, and we are finishing with the critter that replaced Zubat in all of the caves in Black & White. I have to say, ever since I got my hands on an old Dark Crobat I've liked the Big Bad Bat so I am one of the few people who doesn't appreciate the change of pace. Then again, I have never played through any of the games except Diamond so I haven't been overexposed either and Swoobat is probably more useful in the early parts of the game due to being Psychic dual-type anyway.   That's enough babbling so it's on to the review. Depsite having the ugliest nose in Poke'mon (and yes, that includes Probopass) this little night flier does have it's good points. Being a Stage 1 means you can run and play this card without too much trouble and the Psychic type has some decent energy support (free retreat is becoming quite scarce so Metagross UL is especially useful). Unfortunately the 90 HP is only borderline playable for a Stage 1 that doesn't evolve further and the Lightning weakness is a major problem with Magnezone, Zekrom and Thunderus all making apperances in a variety of deck builds. At least the Fighting resistance adds a little survivability and the retreat cost is cheap if Swoobat lives that long.   The first attack is Psyshot which is [p] for 30 damage, which is a decnt hit for the cost provided you aren't facing resistance. While Metal types have been all but wiped out a few Dark Poke'mon are making themselves heard (Zoroark BW and Weavile UD are most prominent) so it is a drawback you will face at least once in any given tournament. To make matters worse, Psychic weakness has all but disappeared since Mew Prime, Machamp Prime and Rayquaza & Deoxys Legend are the only relatively common Poke'mon that have it. In the end, Psyshot is just a placeholder for those occasions where you can't use the second attack.   Phat Sound is weird for an attack name but it has some possibilities as an attack. For [p][c] you flip 3 coins and deal 10 damage to each of your opponent's Poke'mon for each Heads (don't apply weakness and resistance to the Bench, yadda yadda yadda). While being a flippy attack makes it unreliable and thus almost certainly terrible, the cost of the attack is incredibly cheap when you consider how many Poke'mon you are hitting. In the best case scenario you are dealing 180 damage for 2 energy, but even if you have lousy luck you're opponent will most likely have a full Bench so you will be doing decent damage for a single Heads result. And when Victini is released as part of Noble Victories in November you will have a single shot at reflipping your coins for better odds of getting the full effect.   Still, Swoobat is not tough enough to make good use of heavy spread, because even against Donphan Prime (which not only hits the resistance but adds to the spread damge with Earthquake) you won't last more than 3 turns. Against a nightmare like Zekrom you may not even get to attack and the other Tao Dragons will also use Outrage to great effect after being hit with Phat Sound. In fact, Outrage is one of 3 reasons why noone tries to use spread as a strategy right now (the other 2 reasons being the loss of Crobat G and the higher average HP values).   However, I do think that Swoobat has a small place in Mewbox builds. With a Psychic energy and a Rescue energy you can use Phat Sound to spread the damage followed by a Skill Dive to finish of a weakened Poke'mon and it would be easy to fit in a Victini or two, especially if you are also using Liligant EP and other flippy but truly annoying attacks that you normally wouldn't risk using (I can't think of any right now, why don't you write in with suggestions?). If you include a single Woobat you can even play Swoobat normally to absorb hits from Donphan Prime (Eartquake really ruins Mew's day).   I don't know if Swoobat will beat the odds often enough to be worth of inclusion in Mewbox but I reccomend that you at least playtest it. Spread may be temporarily absent but sniping is still popular so if nothing else, it will teach you how use and counter snipe attacks more effectively.   Modified: 3.25 (I'm probably being overly optimistic, but Swoobat has just enough worth to justify a second look by most players as well as the enormous luck to arrive in a format that has the right combination of support cards and exploitable opponents to make this workable... at least in theory)   Limited: 4 (it's cheap sread with a resistance to the promo card that most players will run, so unless you can't fit in Psychic energy or everyone has a Thunderus you should run it)   Combos with: Mew Prime, Vicitini when it is released