Bouffalant
(Dragons Exalted)
Bouffalant!
Like Tauros,
only with a cool 70s style afro! He’s a
pretty nice Pokémon and his BLW card
brought us a decent revenge killer. Can
this tradition continue with the new
set?
Well, as you would expect,
Bouffalant
is a Colourless, non-Evolving Basic
Pokémon with a decent 100 HP. The
Weakness to Fighting isn’t the best as
Terrakion
(in both EX and non-EX flavours) is
still a thing. The Retreat cost is a bit
of a downside as well: two Energy means
that Bouffalant
is both a pain to Retreat and not
searchable with Heavy Ball.
Now that’s out of the way, we can start
looking at the things that
do make
Bouffalant a good card. For a
start there is weirdly-named
Bouffer
Ability (the Japanese called it ‘Afro
Guard’ which is so much better).
This should be familiar to anyone
who remembers
Donphan Prime’s Exoskeleton as it
is exactly the same: it reduces any
damage Bouffalant
takes from attacks by 20. Any
damage-reduction effect is extremely
useful in Pokémon, often leaving your
opponent either short of the KO, or
forced to spend extra resources (such as
PlusPower)
to get the job done. With an
Eviolite
attached,
Bouffalant can reduce damage
taken by 40 points per turn, making him
very hard to deal with in a single
attack.
But there’s more to
Bouffalant than just defence. For
three Energy of any Colour you also get
Gold Breaker (no, I don’t know why it’s
called that either). This attack does
just 60 damage under normal
circumstances (which is very mediocre),
but if the Defending Pokémon is an EX,
that is doubled to 120. Nice.
More than enough to
2HKO any EX, regardless of
Eviolite or
Giant Cape.
Put it all together and you have a nice
little weapon against all the big bad EX
Pokémon. Bouffer
makes it a two-shot KO for anything
non-Fighting or non-Rayquaza
EX, while Gold Breaker means that he can
exchange KOs very effectively, taking
two Prizes for the one which he gives
up. I suspect that in the end, this
Bouffalant
will be used in much the same way as his
BLW cousin – as a situational tech that
can tilt the Prize exchange in your
favour when played at the right time.
Colourless Energy costs mean he can fit
in just about anywhere too.
Bouffalant
is by no means an auto-inclusion in most
decks, but don’t be surprised to see him
popping up here and there at
tournaments.
Rating
Modified: 3.25 (useful card to have in
an EX format)
Limited: 3.75 (splashable,
durable, and handy if your opponent was
lucky enough to pull an EX)
