Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Heatmor
(Plasma Storm)
I dunno what it is about
Heatmor, but the people who
design the cards seem to think that he is an excellent
Pokémon to troll players with. First off we had the DEX
Heatmor which was just
specifically designed to troll Durant decks to death
(though as it turned out, Darkrai-EX
could do that job on its own), now we have this.
Heatmor
is an unevolving Basic
Pokémon with 90 HP which is fairly standard for a
non-Legendary, non-EX, but does mean that it won’t be
surviving for very long on the field. The Water Weakness
is near irrelevant as the playable Water Pokémon (pretty
much the ones you see in a Keldeo
deck) will OHKO Heatmor
anyway. A Retreat cost of two is pretty inconvenient
really: too much to pay and not enough to use Heavy
Ball.
For a single Fire Energy, you get Luring Flame, which is
a nice disruptive little attack for dragging out your
opponent’s Benched Pokémon and
Burning them. It’s nothing too great but could
cause a few early game issues for opponents if you can
bring out a heavy retreater and they don’t have access
to Switch. Heatmor’s second
attack, Fiery Licks, is the one that promises big damage
for a pretty steep cost. For three Fire Energy, you get
to discard the top four cards of your deck and do 50
times the number of Fire Energy you discarded: hit all
four and you can get the OHKO on
almost
anything that is playable (no,
Crustle BCR is not playable). The trouble is that
this is never going to work in a Modified format. With
just 90 HP, Heatmor will be
long dead fainted before you get three Energy
attached, and running any form of acceleration (Ether/Pokedex,
Ability Emboar) means that
you need to reduce the amount of Fire Energy in your
deck, making Fiery Licks less powerful and much more
likely to deck you out long before you take six Prizes
with it.
So, why did I call Heatmor
an excellent troll card earlier?
Simply because it is hilariously effective in Limited.
Build a deck with any Heatmor
which you pull and fill up the remaining deck space with
nothing but Fire Energy and you have a very silly deck
which can just sweep your opponent in four attacks. In a
slow, low damage environment it will likely survive long
enough to get the three Energy on it (especially with
good use of Luring Flame), and then you can just hit for
a guaranteed 200 damage per turn, annihilating even the
biggest EX which dares to stand against it. It’s
ridiculous and won’t win you any friends, but it could
just win you the tournament.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (doesn’t belong here)
Limited: 4.5 (breaks the format!)
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virusyosh |
Greetings once again, Pojo viewers! Today we're
reviewing a Fire-type from Plasma Storm that could make
for a very fun (if not very good) Limited deck. Today's
Card of the Day is Heatmor.
Heatmor is a Basic Fire Pokemon. Fire-types aren't
seeing much play right now due to the prevalence of
Blastoise/Keldeo decks, but that could change soon with
the Water deck's usage decreasing. 90 HP is fairly good
for a non-evolving Basic non-Pokemon EX, meaning that
Heatmor can probably take a weak attack or two before
being Knocked Out. Water Weakness is once again a
problem against prominent threats like Blastoise and
Keldeo; no Resistance is once again unfortunate; and a
Retreat Cost of 2 is a little pricey, but payable in a
pinch.
Heatmor has two attacks. Luring Flame switches the
Defending Pokemon and burns the new Defending Pokemon
for a single Fire Energy, which is a pretty decent move
to disrupt your opponent, especially in Limited.
However, all things considered, you'll probably want to
use something like Pokemon Catcher instead in Modified.
Fiery Licks is Heatmor's attack, discarding the top four
cards of your deck and dealing 50 damage times the
number of Fire Energy discard for three Fire Energy. The
attack's Energy requirements are very steep indeed, but
the damage potential is also quite high. In Limited,
Heatmor is a great Pokemon to run "1 Heatmor, 39 Fire
Energy" and actually somewhat succeed, since you'll be
dealing 200 damage by Turn 3. Ethers can also speed this
up somewhat, but it's mostly a ridiculous idea, as it
won't actually work most of the time. You'll want to
stay away from this attack in Modified unless you're
building around it, as most Modified decks run 12-14
Energy, and the damage output would suffer accordingly.
Modified: 1.5/5 Heatmor could be a lot of fun to build a
noncompetitive deck around, but it simply won't compete
in our modern Modified. Too many things can OHKO the
anteater, and Fiery Licks often won't have a great
damage payout. There are better options.
Limited: 3.5/5 Heatmor works well in decks loaded with
Fire Energy, and more generally as a disruptive force
using Luring Flame. It works quite nicely as a big Basic
in Limited, especially if you're running 20+ Fire Energy
for some reason. It still falls to Evolutions and
Pokemon-EX, but if you can OHKO an EX by discard four
Fire Energy, isn't that really cool?
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