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Gallade
(Plasma Storm)
Hello and welcome to a new week of reviews on
Pojo’s
CotD. We have some interesting cards for you this
week, kicking off with the new
Gallade from Plasma storm. It seems like a
very long
time since we saw this Pokémon in the TCG, in fact you
have to go all the way back to Rising Rivals in 2009 to
find the last Gallade to see
print. Of course, long time players will have the memory
of Gallade and
Gardevoir from Secret
Wonders etched into their brains forever: no deck has
quite matched that level of dominance since.
This version is a Stage 2 Psychic Type Pokémon with 140
HP. As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, 140 has just
become a little bit of a magic number recently: it’s
what Darkrai can do with a
Dark Claw attached and a Hypnotoxic
Laser/Virbank City Gym
combo. I know that seems like a lot of cards, but
don’t go thinking that
Darkrai decks are not very
capable of pulling that off. 150 HP is much safer
these days. The Psychic Weakness isn’t so much an issue
for Gallade himself, as he
can trade with the almighty Mewtwo
(as we shall see), but it is a real problem for
Gallade’s pre-evolutions,
which are all OHKO’d by
Mewtwo/Double Colourless.
Let’s get Gallade’s second
attack out of the way first because it isn’t going to be
the attack you will be using. Swift Lunge costs one
Psychic and two Colourless Energy,
does 80 damage, and forces your opponent to switch the
Defending Pokémon with a Benched one (of their choice).
It’s not a horrible attack by any means: the damage
return is ok and there are situations where the
disruption is useful. However, this is nowhere near
enough to tempt anyone into playing a Stage 2 these
days. For that, we have to look elsewhere.
Powerful Storm is the real star here. For two Energy of
any Colour, it will do 20 damage times the amount of
Energy attached to all of your Pokémon. This may not
sound anything special in itself (40 damage for a Double
Colourless on a Stage 2?), but there are a
lot of
options when it comes to combining
Gallade with some kind of Energy acceleration to
really make this attack work. Remember: the Energy
doesn’t need to be attached to
Gallede, so you are free to stack it on benched
Pokémon . . . preferably ones which are tough to KO.
The most obvious partner is
Gardevoir NEX, which is part of the same
evolutionary line as Gallade
and has an Ability which makes all Basic Psychic Energy
count double. But why stop there? You could also try
Emboar BLW or
Blastoise BCR to accelerate
as much as you can from the hand; or Eelektrik NVI to
grab Energy from the discard; or
Colress Machine/Plasma Energy/Plasma Pokémon (I
suggest Snorlax PLS or
Lugia-EX); or how about
Darkrai and Dark
Patch . . . or even some
combination of these methods? The nice thing about
Gallade is that he doesn’t
care what Energy Type he uses, or what Pokémon you
attach it to: just get enough of it on the Field and
Powerful Storm really starts living up to its name.
So . . . does this mean we have a tournament-winning
card in Gallade? Eh . . .
not quite. I
actually think it’s a pretty good card and Powerful
Storm is an amazing attack in a format with so much
Energy acceleration available. The trouble is making a
Stage 2 work when his Basic is so easily
OHKO’d by
Mewtwo-EX,
Tornadus-EX,
Landorus-EX
with Laser and Virbank etc.
It’s also difficult to keep up a stream of
Gallades to attack when he
is being OHKO’d himself:
even though the Prize trade against EX Pokémon is in his
favour, you still have to keep the
Gallades coming. Finally, there is the issue of
getting and keeping enough Energy in play. To OHKO a
clean EX, Gallade will need
the equivalent of nine Energy on the
board, and that isn’t always easy to achieve or
maintain.
I’ve seen a few Gallade
decks over the past few weeks and they can pick up wins
against the established tournament decks if things go
their way. I wouldn’t recommend them to people who are
desperate to win, but if you want a semi-competitive
deck that’s fun to play around with, then you could do a
lot worse than take a look at
Gallade.
Rating
Modified: 3 (one of the better Stage 2s in the format)
Limited: 3.25 (if you can get him out, he will do
dome damage)
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