Time look took at the other Yoda
Swadloon!
Stats
Swadloon
is a Stage 1 Grass-Type Pokémon, just
like the other one.
So again, currently you don’t
really encounter Grass Weakness or
Resistance in the top decks, save
perhaps people still trying to make
Feraligatr Prime work.
The few cards of direct support
for Grass-Types aren’t worth playing
most of the time due to the current
metagame, and even the secondary support
focused on Grass Energy hasn’t “wowed”
me either. Swadloon is still a
transitional Stage 1, bridging the gap
between
Sewaddle and
Leavanny.
This means its main rival is
Rare Candy unless it actually
contributes something significant to a
Leavanny deck, assuming
Leavanny is worth playing (more on
that come Friday).
This
Swadloon has 70 HP, worse than its
counterpart and frankly annoying. Again,
I’d rather the HP boost be more
prevalent for the Stage 1 form that
needs it to be playable, let alone
competitive, and then have the Stage 2
form (still at whatever final max HP
score is appropriate) just be 20 to 30
points larger than the Stage 1.
If 80 HP was an easy OHKO (as
indicated when we reviewed the other
Swadloon), then of course 70 HP is
just that much easier, since currently
we have no unusual cards that have
altered that fact in the past.
The Weakness technically isn’t
any worse, since it the Pokémon TCG
always does damage in increments of 10
and thus it still takes a Fire-Type
Pokémon hitting for 40 points of base
damage being doubled by Weakness to
score a OHKO.
Of course, since this was bad for
the other version, it is still bad for
this version, though with the irony that
most of the time it doesn’t matter since
it’s already puny! No Resistance is
disappointing as usual but probably
wouldn’t have saved the card and oddly
this version has a two Energy Retreat
Cost, which is poor given the other
stats though only slightly chunky for a
Stage 1 Pokémon.
This is high enough that a
significant amount of the time you’ll
either lack the Energy needed to
manually retreat or else desperately
need to keep that Energy in play.
Effects
This
Swadloon also has two attacks, this
time Grass Cocooning and Razor Leaf.
Grass Cocooning demonstrates the
problem of most healing attacks: any
turn you heal yourself, you aren’t
attacking your opponent.
If you aren’t attacking your
opponent, how are you scoring a win?
If you play purely defense, your
only hope of winning is by deck out, and
that’s fails due to time limits and the
fact that Pokémon formats rarely lack a
generic form of recursion to replenish
the deck.
Now since this card’s primary job
is to survive and Evolve into
Leavanny is there some wiggle room?
Yes, but the stats still make the basic
idea of a healing attack impractical.
If
Swadloon survived through an attack,
a good deck will Evolve it instead of
using a healing attack!
Healing attacks have to provide
inexpensive, mass healing to be good
even in slower formats and/or be on a
massive Pokémon that is hard to KO
already.
This clearly should have been
something like a once-per-turn Ability,
in which case you could use it right
before Evolving into
Leavanny.
Razor leaf is vanilla damage doing 20
for (GC).
This is pricey on a Basic (though
quite common) and seems almost “mean” to
force onto a card that the designers
already made sub-par.
It’s just a bad attack: basic
Energy investment means you should be
doing at least 25 points of damage
(yeah, the extra damage would have to be
converted into an effect).
Since the first attack is almost
worthless and
Swadloon is a Stage 1 Pokémon (even
one that further Evolves), it should
have hit for at least 30 and probably 40
points of damage. Factoring in the poor
stats it needs to hit even harder than
that to be worth running.
Making
Swadloon this poor makes no sense
even as a balancing mechanism, since we
still have
Rare Candy and another version.
Usage
Not to cop out, but you can see the
other
Swadloon review for details on my
preferred
Sewaddle (hint: it’s the version
with more HP) and you’ll have to wait
until tomorrow for details on
Leavanny, but suffice to say if you
need to run a
Swadloon, you should use the other
version and ultimately for
Leavanny, rely mostly on
Rare Candy with
Swadloon just along in case of
Trainer lock.
The only place where you should use this
is Limited, and even then it is because
you need it: either you’re desperately
low on Pokémon and able to run
Grass Energy, or you’ve got the
other version and have room, or you’ve
got
Leavanny.
The healing is almost useful to
stall here, because the HP isn’t as
pitiful by comparison and the damage
output is lower, so
Swadloon can survive many attacks
and heal most of the damage it would
take.
That only holds true so long,
since you’re not hurting your opponent’s
set-up and thus eventually they’d power
through the stall.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
1/5
Limited:
1.5/5
Summary
Swadloon
has one redeeming feature, and that is
hilarious art.
I won’t spout all the annoying
clichés it works with, but simply put if
you need to tell someone “no” or that
you disapprove, are upset, etc. just
show them this card.
It even might work for
intimidation and confusion if you want
to go the
“crazy-TCG-player-wearing-a-card-as-a-locket”
route.
Seriously folks, I am trying!
I am selling my various toys, trinkets,
games, and collectibles on eBay
here.
Please give it a look!
