Greetings readers!
As this is the last Card of the
Day before, a happy Easter to those who
celebrate, and to all I hope you have a
good weekend.
We get a nice holiday treat
either way, a new
Snorlax (BW: Plasma Storm
101/135)!
…
For those unaware, I am a huge Snorlax
fan: it is my all time favorite Pokémon
and has been since I first caught one in
Pokémon Blue.
I also have been a fan of the
various “team” aligned Pokémon since
they first debuted as “Dark”
Pokémon in the original Team Rocket
expansion, so I begin by acknowledging a
double bias towards this card.
Fortunately my method of
reviewing, examining the parts of a card
and not just the whole, allows my
readers to draw their own conclusions
even if I make a mistake somewhere along
the line.
Stats
Miscellaneous:
Snorlax is a Team Plasma aligned
card.
There is one other Modified legal
version of
Snorlax, so for the rest of this
review today’s subject will be referred
to as
Snorlax [Plasma] for ease of
distinction.
Being a Team Plasma Pokémon is
pure advantage for now, as nothing
released outside of
Japan
negatively targets the cards.
We’ll discuss the full benefits
in the Card Family section.
Type:
Snorlax [Plasma] is a Colorless-Type
Pokémon as it is a Normal-Type in the
video games.
The Colorless-Type currently
faces no Weakness or Resistance; this is
as it was when the game first began and
seems to be an intentional return to
that “neutral” status; despite some
Types being Resistant to Normal-Types in
the video games.
Being a Colorless-Type Pokémon is a
small but practical advantage right now.
It is true that few decks are
concerned about Resistance right now and
many greatly enjoy the often obscene
amount of bonus damage granted by
hitting Weakness, but their “Type
neutrality” does come in as mildly
useful for Types that regularly crash
into Resistance, as does their access to
one piece of Type Support:
Aspertia
City
Gym.
Aspertia City Gym
grants Colorless-Type Pokémon a nice +20
HP; a small bonus that is somewhat
fragile considering an opponent need
only play another Stadium card, but as
Aspertia City Gym itself can
function as a “counter Stadium” to the
popular
Virbank City Gym, it is a useful
option and is not only one of the few
pieces of true Pokémon-Type based
support, but also one of the simplest to
run.
Stage:
As a Basic Pokémon,
Snorlax [Plasma] will enjoy a format
tailored to it.
Basic Pokémon already enjoy
several natural advantages; a perfect
1:1 ratio of cards required to get a
single copy into play, the ease of
simply needing an open Bench slot to get
into play, no turns of waiting to get
into play via Evolving, and being the
only (and thus required) Stage to open
the game with.
Many game mechanics favor Pokémon
as a natural consequence of these things
(like search) and if that wasn’t enough,
there are a few cards that work
expressly for them, like
Eviolite.
Of course, when both the card pool in
general and members of an Evolutionary
line are properly designed, fully
Evolved higher Stage Pokémon have their
own advantages to balance this out, but
rarely if ever has that been properly
executed.
I’ll save that lecture for
another time.
Hit Points:
Snorlax [Plasma] enjoys a
(currently) perfect 130 HP score.
With the release of the Black
& White expansion this became the
new maximum HP score for Basic Pokémon
that lacked a gimmick like being a
Pokémon-EX.
It is the most any previous
Snorlax (or
Snorlax variant) has ever been
printed with, and even in the current
format requires some effort or luck to
OHKO.
In the video games, Snorlax are known
for their great HP scores; the 160 Base
HP Stat is fifth highest amongst fully
Evolved Pokémon (sixth amongst Pokémon
overall thanks to fellow first
generation Pokémon Chansey).
Its Base Defense is actually
pretty poor, clocking in at only 65, but
its Special Defense Base Stat is 110,
tying with 10 other fully Evolved
Pokémon as the 38th highest
in the game; given the constraints of
the TCG I would say this easily
justifies maxing out its HP score with
the Defense versus Special Defense
balancing out.
Weakness:
Fighting Weakness is not a happy thing
to have but is completely justified; the
Normal-Types are naturally only Weak to
the video game Fighting-Type.
It is a little annoying that the
TCG Fighting-Type also contains video
game Ground- and Rock-Type Pokémon, but
that is an issue with the system and not
this card.
So the popular Fighting-Type Pokémon are
going to find
Snorlax [Plasma] an easy OHKO; the
saving grace is that at 130 HP,
Snorlax [Plasma] falls into a range
where it isn’t ludicrously easy.
Fighting-Type Pokémon tend to hit
hard and fast, but not even they are
that fast completely in and of
themselves; they will need Energy
acceleration or combos for a OHKO and
especially a FTKO… combos that often are
at least close to what would be needed
to do the same to a non-Fighting Weak
Pokémon of similar size.
Resistance:
Snorlax [Plasma] has no Resistance,
and despite my usual irritation here it
is pretty much justified as Normal-Type
Pokémon are Immune to Ghost-Types, which
does not translate well to the TCG where
Ghost-Type Pokémon are only one of three
Types that make up the TCG Psychic-Type
(the other two being video game Psychic-
and Poison-Types).
Having no Resistance is the
default in the TCG, so lacking one
shouldn’t hurt the card’s score anyway.
Retreat:
Snorlax in the video games are notorious
for their low Speed scores, tying with
11 other fully Evolved Pokémon being the
seventh slowest in the game.
It
is also the sixth heaviest Pokémon in
the game and used to be the heaviest;
only Legendary Pokémon are heavier (and
I am counting both forms of Giratina
separately as they have different
weights).
So yes,
Snorlax [Plasma] deserves its
massive Retreat of four.
Somewhat paradoxically, it
doesn’t seem to be the worst Retreat
score this format despite being the
highest; you never want to pay four
Energy to retreat even if you have that
many attached, but this is a format
where due to the card pool and metagame
no deck should lack a means of zeroing
out this card’s Retreat or bypassing
manually retreating to begin with.
Plus it makes
Snorlax [Plasma] a legal
Heavy Ball target, which makes a
Retreat of two functionally worse.
Effects
Ability:
Block prevents an opponent’s Active
Pokémon from retreating while it is
Active.
Ignoring the card pool, this
would be an irritant; factoring in the
metagame it is quite promising.
Many decks utilize
Darkrai EX (BW: Dark Explorers
63/108, 107/108; BW Promo BW46)
for its Dark Cloak Ability that sets the
Retreat of a Pokémon with a source of
(D) Energy attached to zero; as many
such decks have combos expecting that
free Retreat, losing it is very
disruptive.
I’ll discuss the combos in the
Usage section that really beef up Block,
but that is more to those cards’ credit
than that of
Snorlax [Plasma].
In the video games, Block is actually an
attack; I would prefer it as an Ability
but as I don’t play those much and am
actually kind of terrible at them (as
revealed by competitive play), maybe
that would be too good.
An interesting thing to note is
that if we go way back to Black Star
Promo 49 (that would be during
Wizard’s of the Coast time licensing the
game and releasing it outside of Japan),
we find a Snorlax with the “Guard”
Pokémon Power, which is basically the
same as “Block”.
Special Conditions stopped almost
all Pokémon Powers back when that
mechanic was used, but that also makes
it seem a little more “attack” like.
Attack:
I’ve already established that in the
video games Snorlax are slow, and while
it technically hurts the card’s
performance that is reflected by the
only attack on
Snorlax [Plasma].
“Teampact” requires five Energy
to be used; fortunately they are all
Colorless requirements, but that is
still a staggeringly huge amount.
The attack does 30 points of damage for
each Team Plasma Pokémon you have in
play; this gives a range of 30 points
(as the card counts itself) to 180 if
you have a Bench full of Team Plasma
Pokémon behind
Snorlax [Plasma].
Given the amount of Energy
invested and the current, going rate you
do need at least three other Team Plasma
Pokémon to come even close to a decent
return, but filling your Bench (even
with semi-specific targets) has never
been overly hard in Pokémon, and hitting
hard enough to OHKO any unprotected
Pokémon-EX will often be worth the huge
investment.
At first I believed this attack to be
significantly overpriced, but this is a
format with ample Energy acceleration
and if you’ve snuck a peak at what
Japan
already has or the revealed BW:
Plasma Freeze cards, you also know
that this attack will just become easier
to use with the next set.
Team Magma’s Zangoose sported a
similar attack called Team Play that
required only (CCC) and did 10 per
Team Magma Pokémon in play from both
players (unlike
Snorlax [Plasma]).
Said card was a pretty solid
attacker during its day, and considering
the entire format the five Energy cost
for 30 damage per aligned Pokémon seems
to be the only one that is neither too
weak nor too strong.
Synergy:
Besides the basic synergy that most
“only while Active” Abilities have with
a card’s only attack, if you are
fortunate (or using nearly universal
combos) you can take advantage of Block
to buy some time for powering up
Teampact.
Again, combos I’ll elaborate on
in the usage section will allow Block to
function as the inexpensive attack a
card like this needs to balance out the
massive cost of Teampact.
Usage
Card Family:
The only other Modified legal
Snorlax is BW: Boundaries Crossed
109/149.
It isn’t any competition for
Snorlax [Plasma]; 30 less HP an
unaligned but sporting the same Type,
Weakness, lack of Resistance, and
Retreat it has two attacks.
The first Double Lariat for
(CCC), which requires you flip two coins
and does 40 points of damage per
“heads”.
For (CCCC) it also has Rollout
which does a flat 60.
These attacks hit for about half
of what they would need to in order to
be competitive.
As for the Team Plasma support… it is
one.
Snorlax [Plasma] is Basic,
Colorless-Type Pokémon with all
Colorless Energy requirements, allowing
it to be run in pretty much any Team
Plasma deck that doesn’t have oddball
(and almost always arbitrary)
requirements.
The only other options like this
we current have are
Lugia EX (BW: Plasma Storm
108/135, 134/135) and
Bouffalant (BW: Plasma Storm
114/135); the former is another worthy
contender while the latter proved to be
filler.
Snorlax
[Plasma] has one over on
Lugia EX in that
Snorlax [Plasma] doesn’t require
Plasma Energy, though it is
definitely aided by the
Colress Machine/Plasma
Energy combo.
The damage wouldn’t be great, but
if you wanted you could run just
Snorlax [Plasma] with no other Team
Plasma aligned cards and still even get
decent Teampact damage (provided you
Bench three other copies of itself).
Note that I didn’t say that would be a
good idea; just highlighting that before
the obvious combos, this card isn’t a
total waste.
Hypnotoxic Laser makes Block
something to be feared; even a deck
relying on
Keldeo EX (BW: Boundaries Crossed
49/149, 142/149) and its Rush In Ability
needs another out… and with deck space
so tight not all decks run that second
copy of
Keldeo EX or emergency copy of
Switch.
Combos:
Hypnotoxic Laser, coupled with
Virbank City Gym and
Pokémon Catcher can strand some
important cards in the Active slot with
the damage counters piling up.
You probably won’t be fortunate
enough to take any Prizes with this
trick, but you will be able to force
your opponent to burn resources dealing
with it in most match-ups and/or set up
for later assaults.
You can even stretch this out
with
Max Potion and
Eviolite; especially if you are not
going to bother powering up Teampact,
this can really drain an opponent’s
deck.
Energy acceleration is a must, and while
I encourage the use of
Colress Machine and
Plasma Energy, that really isn’t
enough.
Team Plasma lacks good
acceleration options right now;
unaligned Pokémon won’t contribute to
Teampact damage but can speed up the
attack immensely.
I won’t claim it would be “good”,
but at least on paper you could take a
Pokémon like
Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed
31/149; BW: Plasma Storm 137/135)
or
Emboar (Black & White 20/114;
BW: Next Destinies 100/99; BW
Promo BW21) to power up Teampact in
a single turn.
Both of those Pokémon have been
tossed around as potential backers to
Lugia EX; there may be a legitimate
deck here.
However I would lean more towards
Double Colorless Energy and
Scramble Switch; while the latter is
only good for one shot in most decks and
still usually won’t supply the full five
Energy required, it should put
Snorlax [Plasma] within striking
distance; a
Double Colorless Energy or
Colress Machine/Plasma
Energy and manual Energy attachment
fully readying it.
While it requires giving up the
option of running
Computer Search or
Dowsing Machine, again this set-up
works well with
Lugia EX; the two seem to be
intended partners.
Unlimited:
This is a format built around first turn
wins.
If you choose to eschew the
dominant strategies, including more
efficient donk decks, you actually could
strive for a
Snorlax [Plasma] deck.
If your local metagame has tried
to adjust to the more common strategies,
it might even be a decent move; most
older Pokémon that see play are no where
near the size of Pokémon-EX, and even if
Pokémon-EX do see play
Snorlax [Plasma] could shoot for a
donk with just one piece of additional
support (over what you would use in
Modified):
Leafeon LV.X (DP: Majestic Dawn
99/100).
Main downside is that if you don’t go
first and get the donk, you won’t likely
have room for adequate Trainer denial to
protect your set up (just one
Leafeon eats up the non-Team Plasma
allowance).
You probably won’t win often, but
you could also just be crazy annoying by
running
Snorlax [Plasma] with the
Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo and a Bench full of
Slowking (Neo Genesis
14/111).
The rest of the traditional
Trainer usage of Unlimited would make
Snorlax [Plasma] a hard OHKO and
make setting up a reliable attacker
quite difficult.
Modified:
Snorlax [Plasma] is one of the
“good” Team Plasma Basic Pokémon.
It doesn’t look to be something
you build your entire deck around, and
even where it is used you won’t be
maxing it out, but it is too big to
ignore or easily deal with and feeds off
of similar combos as
Lugia EX.
Limited:
Retreating is fairly important in this
format, and of course 130 HP is hard to
beat when most Evolutions aren’t
playable and pulling a Pokémon-EX
requires a lot of luck.
Teampact won’t need to max out on
damage for a reliable OHKO here (just
two or three additional Team Plasma
Pokémon on your Bench will probably do),
but it will be very, very hard to
power-up (in terms of Energy) and you
probably will have to leave an Active
Snorlax [Plasma] up front until it
is KOed.
Future:
In
Japan,
this card was played and to my (very
limited) knowledge, it still is used
(though I can’t confirm that it is by
the winners).
I can tell you what it has going
for it that it doesn’t yet enjoy here:
Deoxys EX (BW: Plasma Freeze
53/116, 111/116)
Thundurus EX (BW: Plasma Freeze
38/116, 110/116),
Team Plasma Badge (BW: Plasma
Freeze 104/116), and
Team Plasma Ball (BW: Plasma
Freeze 105/116).
Yes, there are already English
scans floating around the web for all of
these cards as they were revealed early.
Deoxys EX
and
Thundurus EX are Team Plasma
Pokémon; the former has an Ability to up
the damage done by Team Plasma Pokémon
(doesn’t apply to itself or other
Deoxys EX) and the latter has an
attack (Raiden Knuckle) for just (L)
that allows it to attach an Energy card
(Special or Basic) from the discard pile
to a Benched Team Plasma Pokémon, while
also doing 30 points of base damage.
Once again, we have combos that
work well with not only
Snorlax [Plasma], but
Lugia EX.
Team Plasma Ball
is an Item that fetches a Team Plasma
Pokémon from the deck (no other
restrictions or requirements).
That
will make the above combo/deck much more
reliable.
Team Plasma Badge is a Pokémon Tool
that (when equipped) causes a Pokémon to
count as a Team Plasma Pokémon; whether
it is something run at a low count or
central to the deck design, that is
really useful for most of the deck ideas
I’ve mentioned in this review.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2/5
Modified:
3.75/5
Limited:
4.5/5
Summary
Snorlax
[Plasma] is a very good card, but not
quite a “great” card.
Right now a Team Plasma “Big
Basics” deck has almost no alternatives
if it wants to have an adequate amount
of Pokémon, and besides
Lugia EX said alternatives are at
least a little weaker than
Snorlax [Plasma].
In fact, I was surprised to find
out that such decks are already a
“thing”; but they are indeed being run
with mixed results.
Once we get the next chunk of Team
Plasma support,
Snorlax [Plasma] will be easier to
use but also face more rivals, though
ultimately I believe it improves the
card.
For now, enjoy a
Heavy Ball friendly Pokémon that
disrupts some common strategies and
works well with the
Hypnotoxic Laser you are probably
already using.
