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Lampent (Noble Victories)
This has been a good week for evolving Poke'mon, as
first Elgyem and now Lampent are solid additions to
their evolutionary tree. Unlike Elgyem however, Lampent
already has a powerful evolution so being a useful Stage
1 is a major plus rather than a missed opportunity.
Lampent is another Psychic type, which has some good
energy support and a few in-type options for techs but
currently isn't known for exploting Weakness in other
Poke'mon to make them unplayable. Mewtwo Ex is expected
to change that outlook dramatically, but until then
there are only a few Psychics around and none of them
are insanely popular.
The lamentable 80 HP won't last a single turn in
combat, but fortunately you get a much more acceptable
score when you evolve. The retreat cost is low to match,
and since any Chandelure deck worth its salt is already
running a way to lower the retreat cost of their
Poke'mon it will usually be a non-issue.
Now the reason that Lampent is a cut above most
evolving Stage 1 Poke'mon is that it has a usually
useful and occasionally devastating first attack. Luring
Light follows a long tradition of 'lure' type attacks,
switching one of your opponent's Benched Poke'mon with
their Active for the low cost of [c]. The popularity of
Gust of Wind effects through the history of the game (Poke'mon
Catcher now, Luxray Gl Lv X last season, the older
Torterra Lv X and Metagross LA, the much older Double
Gust, et cetera) gives plenty of examples on how this
attack can be abused, and the current trend of higher
retreat costs coupled with more expensive attacks
relying on energy acceleration means that you usually
have at least one fat, helpless target you can drag up
to buy yourself some time.
Now all of you regular readers already understand
that using an attack to do something is nowhere nears as
good as using a Trainer, Ability or Poke-power/Poke-body
to do the same thing so usually this attack wouldn't be
cause for excitement, especially with Poke'mon Catcher
in abundance and Junk Arm to make sure you are never
short of tricks to play switcheroo with your opponent's
Bench. However, if you are already locked in to use
evolving Poke'mon for your brutal Stage 2 you might as
well get some mileage out of them, especially since the
low damage attacks most of them have used throughout the
history of the game do diddly squat in this format
against common tactics like Outrage, Rocky Helmet and
Eviolite. Not to mention that the redundancy is helpful
for those odd occasions where you aren't lucky enough to
draw Poke'mon Catcher.
Lampent might as well not have a second attack, but
Will-o-Wisp is also printed on the card. Sadly, the cost
of [p][c] is prohibitive when you consider the minimal
HP and the vanilla 30 damage isn't much of an incentive
to choose it over Luring Light. Even in Limited you
won't want to use this attack.
Lampent can be loads of fun when your opponent has
some high-retreat targets in play (Terrakion is a
favourtie and the Tao Dragons are a close second) and
would make a good argument against using Rare Candy if
Memory Berry and Broken Time Space were still in
Modified. Without those nasty cheats however, it is
still a useful middle Stage that will make a lack or
Rare Candies in your opening hand an annoyance instead
of a crisis.
Modified: 3.75 (Luring Light has a lot of synergy
with what Chandelure does to an opponent and can help
with the low survivability as well, so thumbs up for a
supporting lower stage!)
Limited: 4 (if you already have other Psychis like
Elgyem/Beheeyem and Victini in your deck, you could run
this for Luring Light alone nad having Chandelure
somewhere in your Limited deck is even better)
Combos with: Chandelure NV (what else?)
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