Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Vespiquen
(Plasma Storm)
Hello and welcome to another week of Plasma Storm
reviews here on Pojo’s
CotD. We kick off the week
with a look at Vespiquen,
which appears to be a kind of queen bee/flying beehive
combination thing: weird, even by Pokémon standards.
Vespiquen
is a Stage 1 Grass Type with just 100 HP. Certainly
nothing to recommend her to players there, although the
Fire Weakness isn’t much of a problem and the retreat
cost of one is fine. Basically, she will need some
pretty spectacular effects if she wants to see some
play. What we get instead is
a couple of quite strange attacks that
look as if
they should be part of some kind of combo deck . . .
The first, Gather Order costs just a single Grass
Energy. It doesn’t do any damage, but it does allow you
to search your deck for as many
Combee as you like and
Bench them. Would you actually
want a bunch
of Combee on your Bench that
badly? They only have 30 HP and their attack is little
more than a novelty: 30 damage for one Energy, and you
shuffle it back into your deck. I suppose the idea is
that you use Vespiquen to
keep filling your Bench with a never-ending swarm of
Combee which you use to take
slow and drawn out KOs against 180 Hp EX
Pokemon. I think we all know
that’s not a very realistic scenario and any attempt to
try it will just result in your deck of low HP Pokémon
being overwhelmed very quickly.
Vespiquen does have an offensive attack of her
own. For a Grass and a Colourless, Damage Beat does
20 damage for each damage
counter on the Defending Pokémon. Yes, all it takes is a
couple of sacrificial Combee
attacks, before she can storm in and finish things off .
. . like that is going to happen.
Vespiquen
comes off as one of those cards that tries very hard to
be ‘on-theme’: she brings a swarm of (Com)bees
to work collectively to bring down a larger foe. At
least I assume that’s the theory. The actual execution
is very weak and of no real practical use. Even as a fun
deck, this would be frustratingly ineffective to play.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (just a gimmick, really)
Limited: 2 (I guess if you pull a load of
Combee . . .)
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virusyosh |
Welcome back, Pojo readers! Today we're reviewing a
new Stage 1 Pokemon from Plasma Storm. Today's Card of
the Day is Vespiquen.
Vespiquen is a Stage 1 Grass Pokemon. Grass Pokemon
aren't all that common right now (especially since
Blastoise/Keldeo usage has dropped, at least in this
area), but that will likely change with the release of
upcoming expansions. 100 HP is just about standard for a
Stage 1 Pokemon these days, which is somewhat
unfortunate because many common attacks in Modified will
easily KO Vespiquen. Fire Weakness isn't too big of a
deal right now, as Ho-Oh is a somewhat rare play, and
things like Reshiram aren't too common anymore. To round
out the bottom stats, no Resistance is unfortunately
normal, and a Retreat Cost of 1 is easily paid.
This queen bee has two attacks. Gather Order allows you
to search your deck for as many Combee as you want and
put them onto your Bench, shuffling afterward. This
attack can work nicely if you get a very fast Vespiquen
in your dedicated Vespiquen deck, but somehow I doubt
that there are too many of those, given that there
haven't been any intriguing Vespiquen in a while.
Anyway, you'll probably want to use a Trainer to grab
your Combees in Modified, but this attack can be good in
Limited to fill your Bench quickly (especially good if
you pull multiple Vespiquen). Damage Beat deals 20
damage times the number of damage counters on the
Defending Pokemon for a Grass and a Colorless. This
attack is interesting, but not great on its own, since
it takes a long time to actually build up damage on the
Defending Pokemon, and the Defending Pokemon needs to
have previous damage for Vespiquen do even do anything
(it's 20x, not 20+!). Therefore, this attack works best
with some other Pokemon to spread damage around quickly,
or in combination with Hypnotoxic Laser + Virbank City
Gym.
Modified: 1.5/5 Vespiquen isn't quite powerful enough to
compete in Modified. Gather Order will rarely be useful,
and while Damage Beat is potentially powerful, it
requires too much setup in order to be of real use. Use
more powerful options instead.
Limited: 3.5/5 Vespiquen is a really unique card, with
heavily restricted search capabilities as well as an
attack that is potentially very damaging. Gather Order
will only be useful if you pull multiple Combee and
Vespiquen, and even though Damage Beat requires previous
damage in order to be used, it is incredibly effective
in a relatively slow Limited environment (and even more
so if you pull Hypnotoxic Laser). Overall, Vespiquen is
a solid secondary attacker that can set itself up, which
is a pretty good thing to have if you're playing Grass
in Plasma Storm Limited.
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