Intro
Stats
Stunfisk
is a Basic Pokémon, and right now being
a Basic Pokémon is the best: fastest and
easiest to get into play while taking
just a single deck slot per copy you are
running.
They even have a handful of
support which ranges from near useless
for
Stunfisk to most excellent.
Being a Fighting-Type remains
pretty great right now; the Type has no
overarching support (e.g. beneficial
cards that apply only to the Type), no
noteworthy counters, and while
Resistance to it is one of the most
common, so to is Weakness to Fighting…
including showing up on most popular
Darkness- and Lightning-Type Pokémon.
Stunfisk
posses a solid 90 HP; this is a relative
evaluation as 90 is still within the
bounds of OHKOs for many, many commonly
played attackers, but Pokémon with more
HP tend to be extremely hard to get in
the video games (i.e. “Legendary”
Pokémon, or at least event Pokémon).
So for what it is, it is an
adequate score.
90 HP also means you can snag
Stunfisk with
Level Ball, and
Eviolite will force similar extra
efforts on your opponent to score a
OHKO, unless your opponent is a
Water-Type as
Stunfisk is Weak to them.
Double damage from Water-Types
isn’t a huge concern right now, but the
change to BW-On gave the Type one or two
solid decks, approximately Tier 2 in
terms of popularity and/or power.
If it isn’t obvious, this is a
challenging time to evaluate Weakness
since most established decks still seem
quite viable while so many new(er) decks
have yet to establish real success or
failure.
So I’ll wrap up Weakness by
pointing out that as it so often does,
Water has promising, potential top tier
decks coming in the next set or two…
yes, it is hard to take such a warning
seriously given how often I’ve given it
and how often it’s rung hollow.
Lightning Weakness is still quite, quite
useful and a Lightning-Type deck
unprepared to handle it will find that
90 HP feels larger; -20 from Resistance
is bad enough but since this is a Basic
Pokémon we can use
Eviolite to soak a full 40 points of
damage from Lightning-Types!
Plus, having Resistance at all is
quite the treat right now.
I can’t be quite so positive about the
Retreat: three Energy is pretty chunky,
and I’ll tell you now that this card has
already been shown to be more an
“opening” Pokémon than anything else.
That means you’ll have to let it
go down swinging or pack something else
to get it out of the way, to your Bench.
At least this means it is
Heavy Ball compliant, making it a
legal target for both
Ultra Ball alternatives!
Effects
Stunfisk
has two attacks.
The opening attack is Muddy
Water, delivering not only a solid 20
points of damage for (F), but also
striking a Benched Pokémon for 20.
Totaling 40 damage for one is
great, and while splitting it between
two Pokémon robs you of an easier OHKO,
it provides an awful lot of strategic
use; you can simultaneously hit an
Active Fighting Weak Pokémon for 40 and
hit a Benched Fighting Resistant Pokémon
for 20!
Rumble is rather mixed.
40 for (FC) is a bit low, but
decks are running so tight on space (and
a few players still adjusting to the
lack of
Junk Arm) and/or relying on a free
Retreat cost (whether naturally or via
another card’s effect) that Rumble
blocking a Pokémon’s Retreat can be
amazingly disruptive.
Together, we have a very serviceable
first attack with an easy to power up,
niche use not-so-big “big” attack, and
that’s still pretty good.
Just remember that most cards
right now have great attacks.
Usage
Stunfisk
is a solid opening Pokémon,
paradoxically for either extremely
aggressive or slower, strategic decks.
Middle of the road decks are the
ones that can take or leave it, or decks
so aggressive they are built around one
narrow attacker and can’t spare the
resources to exploit
Stunfisk.
Blend Energy WLFM
and
Prism Energy help
Stunfisk work its way into a variety
of decks, besides easily working into
something else already focused on
Fighting-Type Pokémon.
Fast decks will count on
exploiting Weakness and/or setting up
two Pokémon for rapid fire 2HKOs or
3HKOs… which becomes a benefit because
usually the follow up attacker is a
Pokémon EX that remained untouched while
your opponent was stuck slugging it out
with
Stunfisk itself.
Strategic decks that still focus on
doing damage actually will be somewhat
similar, except
Stunfisk is there for easy, early
spread; the main attackers will hit
harder and/or wider (mostly “and”), but
it is enough.
With healing via
Max Potion such a popular strategy,
you don’t want an early game opposing
Stunfisk hitting your big Pokémon EX
and Stage 2 Pokémon for 20-40 damage and
putting them into OHKO range for the
aggressive decks and setting up an
easier multi-KO shot for strategic
decks.
For Unlimited, this isn’t overly
conducive to first turn win/lock decks
that I am aware of, but with the
anticipated shake-up Unlimited will
likely be getting after the next set or
two, it could be worth coming back to;
it really depends on if we see low HP
Pokémon (like classical “Baby” Pokémon)
coming back.
There are plenty of alternative
strategies to exploit such a thing,
however.
Stunfisk
shines brightest in Limited play.
The Weakness isn’t fun but can be
dealt with. The Resistance can be
amazing when if you are in the right
match.
Fighting Weakness is still pretty
common in the set though Resistance is
present as well… but the lower average
HP scores and damage output makes the
attacks and stats phenomenal.
Needing just one source of
Fighting Energy makes it fairly easy to
run in the majority of decks, and both
hitting the Bench and blocking Retreat
are several times more important in
Limited.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.5/5
Modified:
3.25/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Summary
Stunfisk
is a good but not great card… but not
every card needs to be great.
It serves a purpose and it isn’t
even an obscure one, being a solid
opening Pokémon that exploits popular
Fighting Weakness while also hitting the
Bench.
Make sure you’ve got a play set
handy, as we have already seen some
winning decks in and outside of
Japan
put it to good use.
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clicking
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It’s me whittling away at about
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collecting, spanning action figures,
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Exactly what is up is a bit
random.
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