Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Jolteon
(Dark Explorers)
Today’s
Eeveelution is Jolteon,
possibly the most cute one of
all. Fun fact time – it is the only
Eevee evolution that doesn’t have a visible tail!
Jolteon
is (obviously) a Stage 1 Lightning Type Pokémon.
Lighting is a good Type to be right now as it hits those
popular Tornadus cards for
Weakness and gets brilliant support from Eelektrik. The
downside is that it comes with Fighting Weakness and
everyone and their mother is
teching Terrakion NVI
these days. Mind you, with only 90 HP, you don’t exactly
have to tech to KO a Jolteon
do you? On the plus side,
there is free Retreat – a rare and welcome sight in our
current format.
Like his fellow
Eeveelutions,
Jolteon has an (apparently)
cheap first attack. Electrigun
costs one Colourless Energy and does
20 damage. Pretty
unremarkable really. However, the bonus is that
if you discard a Lightning Energy, it does an extra
40, bring the total up to 60
for one Energy and a discard. This is very good value,
but it has the downside of making
Jolteon less splashable
than he first appears. You wouldn’t want to use
Electrigun without the
discard, but this means you now need to run Lightning or
Rainbow Energy in the deck for it, which limits its use
somewhat (especially as you are required to discard the
Energy you tech in).
Jolteon’s
second attack, Pin Missile, has the potential to be very
good or completely terrible. For [L][C][C]
you flip four coins and do 40 damage for each heads. Get
super lucky and you will do a massive 160 damage; fail
completely and you will do nothing. The average damage
output of 80 seems . . . well, average for the cost but
that isn’t the point. The fact is that you will never be
able to count on Jolteon to
do what you need.
So poor
Jolteon just doesn’t seem to
fit in anywhere. He could have been a Lightning
tech for decks that need one, but his Energy demands are
too specific. In an actual Lightning deck, he is
outclassed by the many other options (Zekrom
BLW, Thundurus EPO etc). If
you wanted to gamble with the flips why not just play
Zapdos NEX? It’s a Basic
with more HP, it Resists Fighting, has a useful snipe
attack, and it does 50 for every heads you flip.
Jolteon is one of those
cards that you start off by saying ‘hmm . . . could be
interesting’, but then after a bit of thought, you
realise that it just isn’t going to work.
Rating
Modified: 2.25 (nearly a tech
option, but nearly isn’t good enough)
Limited: 4 (sure . . . run him with
a lot of Lightning Energy and keep doing 60 for 1)
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virusyosh |
Happy midweek, Pojo readers! Today we're reviewing
the final Eeveelution from Gen I in Dark Explorers, and
my personal favorite of the three. Today's Card of the
Day is Jolteon.
Jolteon is a Stage 1 Lightning Pokemon. Lightning is one
of the most common types played in Modified right now,
along with Darkness. Therefore, due to the type's
popularity, Jolteon is going to have to do something
really special in order to distinguish itself from other
common Lightning types like Zekrom, Eelektrik, and even
less common Lightning Pokemon like Thundurus, Zebstrika,
and Zapdos. 90 HP is once against standard for a Stage
1, allowing Jolteon to take a weak hit before a KO.
Fighting Weakness is bad against Terrakion, but if it's
not common in your metagame, Fighting shouldn't be much
to worry about. To round out Jolteon's bottom stats, no
Resistance is unfortunate, but no Retreat Cost is
amazing.
Like the other Eeveelutions we've reviewed this week,
Jolteon also has two attacks. Electrigun is actually
very interesting for its cost, starting off at 20 damage
for a Colorless Energy, but it can deal 40 more if you
discard a Lightning attached to Jolteon. 60 damage for a
single Energy is amazing regardless of format, although
Jolteon is still probably a little too frail for
Modified. If you decide to try it there, Eelektrik is a
great partner, recovering the Lightning Energy discarded
by Electrigun to your Bench. It's too bad that Jolteon
is a Stage 1, as it would make an awesome opener in
Zekrom/Eels variants if it were a Basic.
Pin Missile is Jolteon's other attack. For a Lightning
and two Colorless, Pin Missile is your standard flip
attack, flipping 4 coins and dealing 40 damage times the
number of heads, for a maximum damage output of 160. 160
damage for 3 Energy is obviously amazing, but you'll
likely average 80, which is...rather average, at best. I
suppose it can combo with Victory Star Victini, but
given that any result less than 4 heads is outclassed by
Zekrom, you're probably better off just sticking with
Electrigun most of the time (though Pin Missile is
definitely usable in Limited).
Modified: 2.25/5 Jolteon isn't completely awful in
Modified, but isn't a dominant force, either. Electrigun
is very interesting and useful, as fast damage with a
built-in discard engine for Lightning Energy has the
potential to be incredibly powerful. Free retreat is
also a great boon that will serve Jolteon well in this
format. However, not all is rosy for the Lightning
Pokemon: a middling 90 HP, Fighting Weakness, and
unreliable second attack tend to make Jolteon fall
behind more reliable options like Zekrom. But if you're
an Eevee lover looking for a change of pace, Jolteon has
potential to surprise in a Modified deck.
Limited: 3.75/5 All of the Eevee evolutions tend to be
fairly good in Modified, and Eeveelutions works as an
excellent theme for this format. Electrigun tends to go
against the splashiness of most Eevee decks, but is an
absolute force in a format where cheap damage is
relatively rare. In a deck with Lightning as a dominant
type, Jolteon works as an excellent hitter. Pin Missile
is still unreliable, but you'll also be more likely to
use it here due to the format being much slower.
Overall, Jolteon is an excellent inclusion in any
Lightning deck in Limited, and can hold its own in
Eeveelution decks as well.
Combos With: Eelektrik NVI
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