|
Simipour
(Next Destinies)
We finish the week with a review of yet another one of
the Monkey Trio cards. Since they made their debut in
Black and White, we have seen ten of them in just four
sets, and precisely none of them have been competitively
viable. I can’t decide if that means the designers like
them or not.
Today’s subject is Simipour
ND, a 90 HP Stage 1 Water Pokémon with Lightning
Weakness and a Retreat cost of one. There’s absolutely
nothing to like about any of that (from a competitive
point of view): all it means is that you have a Pokémon
which is relatively slow to get out (compared to a
Basic), and is incredibly easy to KO. Well, all I can
say is that it better have some stellar attacks . . .
The first, Collect, costs a single Water Energy and has
the effect of drawing three cards. Attack-based draw has
not really been viable for a long time and although
Simipour does give you a
generous amount of cards, the fact that it is a Stage 1
means that you draw less over two turns than you would
with Virizion NV (the only
draw-based starter to see play in a very long time). The
fact that you need to run Water Energy to use it is also
a severe drawback as it means
Simipour use is restricted to one (rarely played)
Type of deck as I doubt anyone would want to waste a
Special Energy (Prism or Rainbow) on it.
Simipour does have an
offensive attack too though. Stadium Wave costs
one Water and one Colourless
Energy, which isn’t too bad, but for that you get just
30 damage unless there is a Stadium Card in play, in
which case it does a still underwhelming 60. It isn’t
even as if there is a playable Stadium out there that
you would want
to play with a card like Simipour,
so you are forced to either rely on an opponent to play
one, or waste deck space on an otherwise useless card
just to be able to do 60 damage with a Stage 1 (and
no-one is going to do that).
So, what we are left with is a card that is incredibly
similar to the Simisage from
the same set. This either makes it on-theme or a lazy
piece of design, depending on your point of view. Either
way, it’s useless for Modified play and probably
intended just for use in the Limited format where any
form of draw is great and 60 damage isn’t too bad (plus
there are a couple of Stadiums in Next Destinies).
There’s nothing wrong with having cards that are meant
to shine in Limited, but once the
prereleases are done . . . so is this Simipour.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (too slow to be a draw engine, too weak to
be an attacker)
Limited: 4 (just because draw is so valuable here)
|
