Darmanitan
(Next Destinies)
Who knew? That weird hyperactive fire
monkey-thing
Darmanitan apparently has the
ability to go all calm and
zen-like.
When it does so, it turns itself into a
Psychic Pokémon, which leads us to
today’s card.
Darmanitan
is a Stage 1 Pokémon with 110 HP. That
seems solid enough until you remember
that anything with less than 130 these
days is just Dragon food for
Reshiram and
Zekrom. The
Retreat cost of three is, of course, too
horrible to ever
pay with actual Energy.
Darmanitan’s
Psychic Typing is a bit of a
double-edged sword in this format. It
means that it is in a position to KO
Mewtwo-EX,
which is great. On the other hand, it is
a frighteningly easy KO for
Mewtwo
itself.
Synchrodraw
is Darmanitan’s
first attack, and it will remind players
of Chatot
MD’s Mimic. Chatot
was a great (and probably underplayed)
card that you could use as a free
retreating starter thanks to Mimic’s
effect of shuffling your hand into your
deck and drawing the same number of
cards as your opponent. Put the same
attack on a Stage 1 with a massive
Retreat cost though, and it becomes a
lot less appealing. Still, if you have a
bad hand and you really don’t have the
Energy for anything else, it could serve
as a desperation move.
The real attraction with this card is
the brilliantly named
DarMAXitan
attack. (Are players required to
announce it with massive emphasis on the
second syllable? I hope so). The base
cost of this attack can be paid with a
Double Colourless Energy and for that
you get a coin flip
for each Energy attached to
Darmanitan,
with the pay-off being a huge 50 damage
for each heads. To make the most of
this, you need two things: a way to have
as much Energy as possible on
Darmanitan,
and a method of making the flips less
risky. Luckily the format provides
answers to both. Not only can you abuse
DCE to increase the number of flips, but
there is also
Gardevoir ND
whose Psychic Mirage Ability
makes all Psychic Energy count double.
As for the flips . . . well,
Fliptini is
the usual suspect here: didn’t get
enough damage for the KO first time?
Hey, why not try again?
It all sounds great in theory and of
course it completely
mullers
Mewtwo
(note: average luck required) if it can
get set up. The trouble is that it
does take a bit of setting up to
work really well, especially if
Darmanitan
is attacking things other than
Mewtwo and
not hitting for Weakness. Keeping
Gardy and
Fliptini
safe on the Bench while swarming
Energy-intensive Stage
1s, is very
difficult in this format full of
big-hitters and Pokémon Catcher. This
means that, despite the fact that you
can make some interesting and fun combos
with Darmanitan,
the deck isn’t really going to be
absolutely top class.
Rating
Modified: 3 (semi-competitive, and a fun
deck for League. Just remember to say
the attack properly)
Limited: 3.75 (why not try your luck?)
