Emolga
(Next Destinies)
In the anime, Iris has an
Emolga which
is nothing less than completely
adorable. However, she (the
Emolga, not
Iris) also has this habit of using her
Volt Switch attack to tag in another
Pokémon at random, much to the annoyance
of her owner. This card seems to kind of
replicate that in the TCG . . . not sure
if that is intentional or not.
Emolga
is an unevolving,
Lightning Type Basic Pokémon with 70 HP
and a Weakness to Fighting. Those last
two facts mean that it is not the most
durable Pokémon in the format (to put it
politely). The Retreat cost of one is
pretty standard, though there has been a
free Retreat Emolga
in the past, so it feels like it could
be better.
With just one attack and no Abilities to
offer, you know that Bounce is going to
have to be extremely good to tempt
players to take this card out of the
Binder. The first disappointment here is
the cost. To use Bounce, you need one
Lightning and one
Energy of any Colour. That means
that without acceleration (from
Eelektrik most likely), it will take two
turns to get Emolga
to do anything, and that is just not
good enough for an
unevolving Basic. The second
disappointment is the low damage output:
just 30 for two
Energy – barely enough to leave a
scratch on some of the Pokémon that see
play now. Even the effect is something
of a double-edge sword. After doing
damage, Emolga
switches out for a Benched Pokémon. Yes
this will give it
some measure of protection (it’s
unlikely an opponent will even want to
waste a Catcher on this), but at the
same time, it leaves another Pokémon
vulnerable to attack . . . and that
Pokémon is almost certainly going to be
more worthwhile in your deck than
Emolga.
You can see why Iris, Ash, and
Cilan find
Emolga so
annoying now, can’t you?
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (Cuteness isn’t enough,
unfortunately)
Limited: 2 (you may well not have
anything decent on your Bench to
Bounce into
play)
