Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Malamar
#76 (XY)
According to the flavour text,
Malamar ‘wields the most compelling hypnotic
powers of any Pokémon’. I guess that means creepy old
Hypno knows where he stands
now. They’ve also made him into a somewhat interesting
card for the TCG. Yes, he’s a Stage 1 with only 100 HP,
but if the strategy he offers works, then that won’t
matter so much.
Said strategy revolves around
Malamar’s first attack, Mental Trash (fantastic
name, by the way). For the low cost of a single Dark
Energy, your opponent flips four coins and for each
tails discards a card from their hand (and no, it
doesn’t combo with Victory Star
Victini aka Fliptini
because the
opponent flips the coins). Combine this with other
hand disruption like Red Card, and you could leave your
opponent without anything in hand, and that is not a
good position for them to be in, as they can’t develop
their Field with the Pokémon and Energy they need to
pose a threat. Of course, you still have to take Prizes,
though you could do that with
Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym, meaning you can keep trying to deny resources
with Mental Trash while you whittle away at their
Pokémon with Poison damage. This is preferable to using
attacks, though Malamar’s
otherwise weak and overpriced Distortion Beam could buy
you a bit of time through its Status Condition effects.
Like any strategy that relies excessively on coin flips,
I would place Malamar in the
fun/casual category, rather than the competitive one.
If the flips go
well, this deck would be massively frustrating to play
against. If they went badly, or your opponent
topdecked their way into a
draw Supporter, then it kind of all falls to pieces and
Malamar is left looking a
bit silly. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see a card
bringing something new and semi-viable to the game.
Rating
Modified: 2.5 (have some fun at league why don’t you?)
Limited: 3 (risky, but may be worth a punt)
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HEZ
Intro to
Unlimited 150 |
Malamar XY 76.
Unlimited 150 review.
Darkness Pokémon and discarding cards seem closely
related in the TCG and this Malamar continues that
theme. After KOing their draw Pokémon, Mental Trash can
provide some very powerful hand disruption, the key word
being “can”. The fact it’s a coin flip attack weakens
this card considerably, you can’t even combine it with
Fliptini as it’s your opponent that flips the coins. It
doesn’t even do any damage while discarding like more
successful Darkness Pokémon like Honchkrow.
Its secondary attack is far too weak for 3 Energy to
redeem this Pokémon. Sharpedo (Triumphant) is like a
better version of this card and even that doesn’t see
play. A sad start in the TCG for a really cool Pokémon.
Rating:
2 (Not really worth evolving into a Stage 1 for what’s
essentially a poor Sharpedo)
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