|
Gorebyss
(Hidden Legends)
Ok, so I saved the best of our forgotten Pokémon until
last. There was even a decision to make when it came to
Gorebyss. The Legend Maker
one had a nice combo with Huntail,
but relied on the obscure React Energy Mechanic which
throws up a few nasty ruling questions these days,
thanks to some ambiguous wording.
Instead I went for Gorebyss
HL which was actually the main attacker of a
more-than-decent deck in its day. Yep, that’s right . .
. a playable 70 HP Stage 1. How things have changed.
Gorebyss had a pretty nice
cheap attack in Stun Needle (10 damage and a Paralysis
flip), but the real attraction was Mystic Water.
For just two Energy, it did
20 damage plus 10 more for each Psychic Energy in play.
How did this work? You combo’d
it with multiple copies of
Gardevoir RS, whose Psy
Shadow Power gave you extra Psychic attachments per
turn. Think of it as a kind of
Blastoise/Keldeo deck
from a slower format where the possibility of setting up
multiple Pokemon to do
90+ damage for a couple of
Energy was fantastic and not rubbish like it is now.
You also played
Gardevoir ex which could take advantage of all
that stored Energy to clean up with late game OHKOs.
Gorebyss/Gardevoir
was a neat deck that did have some actual tournament
success, but it probably seems hopelessly lame to anyone
who started playing after HeartGold
SoulSilver. *sigh*.
Notalgia
Rating
Actually good in its day and fondly remembered: 5
I know that reviewing these cards has absolutely no
relevance to the competitive player these days, but I’ve
enjoyed doing it, and it has raised some interesting
questions. With more and more Pokémon being revealed in
each Generation (over 700 now), it’s inevitable that
more and more will be neglected, just as this week’s
Pokémon have. The card designers seem more and more
focused on producing excessive multiples of version
mascots and the latest cutemon:
there are more printings of Zekrom
than of Arbok right
now, and more than three
times as many Victini as
there are Huntail. Heck,
even Emolga has been seen
more often than Linoone.
Variety is an important part of a TCG, and so is
nostalgia. It shouldn’t be too much to ask that all
Pokémon get re-visited once in a while, or who knows
which will be the next to fall out of the picture. Maybe
your own personal favourite could end up going the same
way as Kingler?
|
