Serperior
(Boundaries Crossed)
Hello and welcome to
Pojo’s
CotD, where
normal service will now be resumed
following the Christmas/Top 10
festivities. Yep, it’s that time of year
where we have to stop having fun and get
back to normal life, which in my case
means reviewing Pokémon cards (which is
still fun, so I’ve got nothing to
complain about really).
We kick off the week with
Serperior
from Boundaries Crossed.
Y’know, with
all these Blastoise/Keldeo
decks around at the moment, we could
really do with a fast, hard-hitting
Grass Pokémon to give them a hard time.
Sadly, Serperior
isn’t it. It’s a Stage 2 with a
reasonable 140 HP, a Weakness to Fire
(not particularly relevant right now),
and a decent retreat cost of one. Being
a Stage 2 makes it somewhat awkward to
use in the present format, but that
isn’t even really the problem with
Serperior .
. . it’s those attacks.
The first, Double Slash, costs one Grass
and one Colourless Energy (which seems
reasonable), but unfortunately it’s a
flippy
attack that gives you two coin flips and
50 damage for each heads. As anyone who
has ever used one of the better
flippy
attackers (Vanilluxe
NVI, Darmanitan
NEX) knows, even Victory Star
Victini
won’t make you immune to catastrophic
‘tails fails’ at the very worst time.
Here, the trade off is nowhere near as
good as it is with those other cards,
offering a maximum of 100 damage and no
Status effects. The second attack is
little more than a taken gesture. Mega
Drain does a poor return of 70 damage
for three Energy and you get to heal 30
damage from
Serperior, which is rarely, if
ever, enough to prevent the two-hit KO
anyway.
So, for the moment, Grass goes without a
decent attacker once again. If you have
an uncontrollable urge to use
Serperior,
then at least
stick with the Ability one from Black
and White. This one is pretty much a
write-off as far as competitive play is
concerned.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (another subpar Stage 2
for your binder)
Limited: 2.5 (eh, somewhat
tanky, but
not really worth the effort)
