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Welcome back guys! Today we're looking at yet another
Stage 1 Pokemon from the new Flashfire set! But fair
warning: it's got a Stage 2 that's vastly superior to it
and which completely nullifies the need for running it
outside of Rare Candy-less decks. That's right, we're
taking a look at Dusknoir's pre-evo, Dusclops.
Now back in Gen V battling, Dusclops was actually
superior to Dusknoir for being bulkier than it while
holding an Eviolite, making it a better wall than its
final form. Does the TCG capitalize on this and make
this Dusclops better than Dusknoir? Of course not!
Instead, Dusclops gets the "mid-Stage" treatment that
most Stage 1s with an evolution get. That is to say, he
gets a couple of mediocre at best attacks, and while
they are thematic with the evolution line, they don't
exactly instill a tournament-viable strategy.
The very first thing to note about Dusclops' attacks is
that neither of them does damage. Now that can be a good
thing, or it could be a bad thing, and both of those
depend on how good the attacks are individually, i.e.
what they can do. Dusclops' first attack is Confuse Ray,
which pretty much does what it's always done since Gen
I: Confuse the other Pokemon. Of course if you've been
reading along, then you'll know that Status Conditions
have the problem of getting nullified the moment the
Active Pokemon switches out in the TCG. It's the sort of
thing that made Walrein (FLF) from earlier in the week a
not-so-great card, but at least he could dish out damage
unlike Dusclops here.
His second attack, Cursed Drop, is just an upgrade of
Duskull's (FLF) Sneaky Placement but not quite the level
of Dusknoir's Pain Pellets. Basically all the move does
is place 4 damage counters on your opponent's Pokemon in
any way you like. Could be used for spreading damage
around or going for a small-fry KO, but there's just no
way you're gonna get 3 Energy on Dusclops to get to that
point without getting KO'd yourself! He only has 80 HP
after all.
So basically Dusclops is the underpowered Dusknoir that
gets replaced with Rare Candy just as many "mid-Stage"
Pokemon get shelved and slotted into sleeves in
sliders-I mean, binders.
Rating
Modified: 1/5 (don't bother trying it, it's not going to
work)
Limited: 1.5/5 (if you're running him, it's honestly to
try and bring out Dusknoir)
Arora Notealus: A shame that Dusclops has to waddle
around on his knees all the time...that's what those
stubs are, right?
Next Time: He's big, he's bad, and he's gonna BROCK THE
HOUSE!!
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