Dark Claw is truly an enigma; how can
combining two super-heroes (Batman and
Wolverine) whose popularity has lead to
both overexposure and fanboy-ish writing
(which breaks suspension of disbelief)
be so good when amalgamated into one
being?
Batman should be dead several
times over since (as fanboys like to
dwell upon) he is “just” human; a highly
trained and conditioned human with an
iron will and state-of-the-art
equipment, but still not a
“super-powered being”.
All he’s got going for him
explains why he could survive a while…
but dodging bullets nightly even when
wearing body armor (let alone tackling
heavies alongside the Justice League)
and eventually Batman should come up
short.
Wolverine isn’t pushing suspension of
disbelief with his survival, but with
him being as important and “powerful” as
he is depicted.
His actual mutant abilities being
geared mostly toward healing would be
great to have but his offense comes from
being just a little stronger and faster
than a normal human can achieve, and the
“adamantium”-laced skeleton and claws
mean that he can be a threat up close
but even though he too is highly
trained, how does that make him a match
for super-powered (or properly equipped
“normal”) threats that have a good
medium-to-long-range game?
Claws that can “cut through
anything” only work if he can reach what
he wants to slice up.
Blending the two together, however,
alleviates these problems.
The “Dark Claw” has the best of
both characters and erases their
respective weaknesses.
Unlike Bruce Wayne, Logan Wayne
doesn’t need to make a miraculous
recovery from injuries; the healing
factor takes care of that.
The genius mind of Batman
combined with Wolverine’s senses means
Dark Claw can quickly analyze clues at a
crime scene, even if it is as simple as
tracking someone by scent.
Being a polymath with skills in
fields such as robotics and biology
allow those claws to quickly cripple the
mightiest foes… and combined with
Batman’s gear and Wolverine’s
super-human strength and reflexes, if he
can’t get to you, he’ll have the tools
on top of the plan to bring you to him…
Oops.
Wrong “Dark Claw”; if you can
track down Amalgam Comics, they are a
short, sometimes silly, but often
awesome reads.
So… is
Dark Claw (the new Pokémon Tool)
awesome or silly?
Stats
Dark Claw
is a Pokémon Tool, a sub-Type of Item,
which is in turn a sub-Type of Trainers.
So anything that applies to any
of those categories will affect
Dark Claw.
Pokémon Tools are one of those
cards that created a resource in the
game; each Pokémon may have only one
Pokémon Tool equipped at a time, and
thus each Pokémon can be thought of as
having a Pokémon Tool “slot”.
When there are good enough
Pokémon Tools, not having a Pokémon Tool
on a Pokémon can be almost as wasteful
as not using your Supporter for the
turn.
Other times it will be so
superfluous that it isn’t any greater
concern than a deck lacking a Stadium in
a format where Stadiums are only used on
occasion.
Effects
Dark Claw
can be equipped to any Pokémon, but only
has an effect when equipped to
Darkness-Type Pokémon.
Said effect is simple but handy;
+20 damage to the Active Pokémon.
The only real tricky part is
remembering that means
both Active Pokémon and not just the
Defending Pokémon; if
Zoroark (Black & White
71/114, BW: Next Destinies
102/99, BW Promos BW09) has
Dark Claw equipped to itself and
uses Nasty Plot to duplicate Bolt Strike
from
Zekrom (Black & White 47/114,
114/114, BW: Next Destinies
50/99, BW Promos BW005, BW24), it
will hit itself for 60 points of damage
(40 base points of self damage plus
another 20 from
Dark Claw) in addition to slamming
Zekrom for 140 points of damage
(base 120 points plus another 20).
Of course, that is assuming no
other effects are being applied, like
PlusPower or
Defender.
This is a simple but very good effect;
in Pokémon the best defense is almost
always a good offense as most of the
time KOed Pokémon can’t do anything back
to you (plus your opponent is usually
out whatever resources went into
building them).
Usage
Quite simply, this is the go-to Pokémon
Tool for most Darkness-Type decks, with
one possible (probable?) exception:
Eviolite.
If you are a Basic Darkness-Type
Pokémon,
Eviolite can often be as good as or
better for your overall game than
Dark Claw, so long as
Eviolite is buying you one extra
turn to attack.
That “extra attack” is usually
worth more damage than the
Dark Claw would have added.
With the current card pool, I
think this concern really only applies
to
Darkrai EX (BW: Dark Explorers
63/108, 107/108); all other
Darkness-Type Pokémon that will be
attacking are either Evolutions or small
enough that
Eviolite is unlikely to make a
difference.
Now
Dark Claw is mostly going to be used
to “cancel out”
Eviolite.
While not truly negating it,
since you’re adding 20 points of damage
and almost never hitting Weakness,
you’ll just end up breaking even after
all is said and done… which is often
worth it.
Many attacks will move into OHKO
range thanks to
Dark Claw, and even those that don’t
will often have the option of also
stacking on the effects of
Black Belt (unlikely due to it being
a Supporter),
PlusPower, and Special Energy
Darkness Energy.
In the case of the latter two, it
is all a matter of deck space; since
PlusPower is of course a one-shot
effect (on its own) and Special Energy
Darkness Energy isn’t compatible
with
Dark Patch, the two are often
fighting for space in an already crowded
deck.
On its own
Dark Claw can make most attacks
troublesome; all together they can make
most “weaker” attacks vicious.
As an example let us look at a
card I hoped would see more play (but so
far hasn’t)
Absol (HS: Triumphant 91/102)
“Prime”.
Absol Prime has some potential as an
inexpensive (in terms of game resources;
not sure about card price) means of
getting damage counters on your
opponent’s Pokémon early game due to its
Poké-Body (Disaster Eyes).
Its attack is pretty pricey;
though it only requires (DC) for Energy,
its text states you must also send a
Pokémon from your hand to the Lost Zone
in order to hit for 70 points of damage.
Stack the Poké-Body’s effect with
Dark Claw and its attack can take
out Pokémon with 110 HP.
It won’t be OHKOing most big
Basic Pokémon, but supporting Pokémon
can fall into this range and it sets up
almost anything for a 2HKO from a “real”
attacker.
Now let us take a minute to think about
the upcoming set, revealed to be named
BW: Dragon Exalted.
Skip the rest of this paragraph
if you don’t want spoilers of coming
cards.
With the warning out of the way I
can continue:
Tool Scrapper (Dragon Blade 48/50,
name subject to change) is an Item that
lets you discard up to two Pokémon Tools
from in play.
This is really going to hurt
“passive” Pokémon Tools like
Eviolite; only a few decks will be
able to make use of it on their own
turns (to absorb self-damage).
It seems quite likely that
players will at least have a clutch
Tool Scrapper to take out
Eviolite when it is important.
So won’t that hurt
Dark Claw?
A little, but it helps it more;
you’ll get the damage bonus from
Dark Claw on your own turn, and
since most Pokémon aren’t apt to last
more than two turns, using
Tool Scrapper after an attack has
already gone off is less appealing.
What this means is after
Tool Scrapper hits, Darkness-Type
Pokémon are more likely to get the
actual +20 damage through.
Of course it is hard to predict
how all the other cards will affect
things, or if the translation was
mistaken; don’t make major plans but
keep it in mind.
End spoilers.
In Unlimited, decks tend to focus around
first turn wins or locks, or at least
more traditional “donk” or OHKO
strategies backed by Trainer denial.
If
Dark Claw is really crucial to
scoring that first turn KO then it will
have some use… but the decks I am
thinking of will mostly not need it
and/or prefer to use
Focus Band, one of the greatest
Pokémon Tools every created (and in
typical Pokémon fashion, also one of the
first).
In Limited it is another story.
Most decks have room even for a
specialized Trainer, so as long as
you’ve got at least one Darkness-Type
Pokémon it is tempting.
If you’ve got even a few and they
can attack for damage, I’d say it
becomes a must run; with the lower
average HP that +20 damage is even more
significant, and will likely move many
Pokémon into OHKO range.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
3.5/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Summary
As is often the case with a specialized
card, the scores can be misleading; in
your average Darkness-Type deck in
Modified,
Dark Claw functions as if it were at
least a near staple, suggesting at least
half a point higher of a score.
As stated for Limited, it is all
about how many Darkness-Type Pokémon you
get that are worth running; none and it
is useless, one and it is handy,
multiple and it is a must run!
This card originally made my own
top 10 list, but I am somewhat glad it
didn’t make the final list; it is a good
card, but there are several that were
more worthy.
Please check out my eBay sales by
clicking
here.
It’s me whittling away at about
two decades worth of attempted
collecting, spanning action figures,
comic books, TCGs, and video games.
Exactly what is up is a bit
random.
Pojo.com is in no way responsible
for any transactions; Pojo is merely
doing me a favor by letting me link at
the end of my reviews.
