Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Dialga
EX
I wish I could
say this was a whole lot better than the
Palkia we just looked at, but I
would be lying if I did. In fact it’s the kind of card
that tries to entice players with its combo/alternative
strategy potential, but just ends up being a (bad)
gimmick.
Yes, it’s got all the big HP you would expect from an
EX, plus Dragon Typing which seems to be pretty neutral
at the moment as Dragons aren’t commonly played (with
one notable exception). The attacks
do look
interesting, I admit. Reverse Edge does
50 damage for an awkward cost of
Psychic, Metal and Colourless with the bonus
effect of giving you a coin flip to put any card from
your discard pile into your hand.
Great when it works, but the low damage and silly Energy
requirements make it more or less unusable.
Fast Forward will probably bring back memories of the
dreaded Durant mill decks from a couple of seasons ago.
It costs four Energy, does 90
damage, and discards a card from your opponent’s deck
for each Plasma Energy attached to
Dialga. Without the discard, it’s just an
expensive vanilla attack, but then I guess you are meant
to play Dialga with
Porygon Z and Max Potions to
move around the Plasma Energy and keep healing off the
damage.
The trouble with this strategy is that it is very
vulnerable to any kind of disruption (Enhanced Hammer,
or an attack which discards Special Energy such as those
on Garchomp DRX or
Drifblim PLB), and it is
also badly hurt by anything that can OHKO a fully
Plasma’d up
Dialga (Black
Kyurem EX, stuff with Silver
Bangle and Hypnotoxic
Laser). To be honest, if you want to exploit Plasma
Energy and Porygon Z, you
are better off with the Plasma
Tornadus EX which can do ridiculous amounts of
damage and end the game in 3-6 attacks, depending on
whether it is KOing EX
Pokémon or not. Either way, it will get the job done a
lot faster than Dialga’s
damage-plus-mill attack.
This is a card that promises a lot more than it
delivers, and will likely be spending tournaments
looking pretty in the binder.
Rating
Modified: 2.25 (oh, go on then – use it for League)
Limited: 4.25 (it’s a big EX and if you pull some Plasma
Energy, decking out your opponent is a real possibility)
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