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As one might expect, my premature return means I have
need to promote something; in this case, I am trying to
raise funds for something a bit odd;
an injured pet.
With some help we can get it the treatment it needs,
instead of having to put it down.
Today
we look at Goodra (XY: Flashfire 74/106).
Evolutions have slowly made a comeback over the last
years or so, largely due to changes to the first turn
rules as well as the errata of Pokémon Catcher
that occurred last November. Note that those changes
weren’t good things in and of themselves, but because of
questionable card design they - or something like them -
was necessary to better balance the game.
Stats
Type
Goodra is a
Dragon-Type Pokémon. Right now Dragon-Type support
still has access to Altaria (BW: Dragons
Exalted 84/124; BW: Boundaries Crossed
152/149; BW Promo BW48) and Gabite (BW:
Dragons Exalted 89/124): it would be
counterproductive to run Gabite to search out
Dragon-Type Pokémon on its own unless we get several
more that can replace a significant amount of Trainer
and Energy cards, but Altaria has had some
success backing up another Stage 2 Dragon-Type Pokemon
before, Garchomp (BW: Dragons Exalted
90/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 120/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 96/113).
Still
the biggest advantage (probably) is hitting BW-era
Dragon-Type Pokémon for double damage. Rayquaza-EX
(BW: Dragons Exalted 85/124, 123/124; BW Promo
BW47) and Black Kyurem-EX (BW: Plasma Storm
95/135) are still the preferred primary attackers for
Inferno Fandango and Deluge decks, respectively, and
easily OHKOing them is why Druddigon (XY:
Flashfire 70/106) has become popular. It is also
handy for when you do encounter Garchomp decks
(which still see some competitive play). As a small
bonus, nothing is naturally Resistant to Dragon-Type
attacks.
Stage
Goodra is a
Stage 2 Pokémon, so its going to require a significant
investment to set-up; at least three cards* and often
more once you factor in the increased need for search to
assemble everything in a timely manner, before the Basic
Stage risks being KOed. Evolutions would fair much
better if their lower Stages could serve as something
more than “placeholders”; while they probably shouldn’t
upstage (pardon the pun) the final form, the obvious
trick would be for lower Stages to have attacks and
Abilities that helped set-up for the final form. We’ll
take a look at where Goodra comes from once we
have finished going over it.
Hit
Points
150 HP
is good enough to survive one hit from the hypothetical
“average” attack; this should not be confused with a
guarantee of such a thing as almost every deck has a
combo to take down something with more HP than that in a
single hit, and there are many decks that can regularly
OHKO something this big. The slight silverlining is
that it usually isn’t affordable; outside of exploiting
Weakness, most decks won’t easily deliver repeated OHKOs
to Pokémon the size of Goodra.
Weakness
Speaking of Weakness, Goodra sports Fairy-Type
Weakness, which is the norm for newer Dragon-Types. For
now, this is an improvement as the only Fairy-Type
attackers to see much use are Xerneas (XY
96/146), Xerneas-EX (XY 97/146, 146/146)
and perhaps Carbink (XY: Flashfire 68/106)
as an easier to search, single Prize but much more
fragile alternative to Mewtwo-EX (BW: Next
Destinies 54/99, 98/99; BW: Legendary Treasures
54/113; BW Promo BW45). You’ll notice none of
these are easy (or worthwhile) slipping into off-type
decks, which is good for Goodra… but we’ve only
had Fairy-Type Pokémon for two full sets and some
“extras”; we only just got our worthwhile, easily
splashed in Dragon-Type attacker
Resistance
Does
not exist on this card; Resistance is far less useful
than Weakness, though that isn’t entirely bad as
Weakness is very much overpowered in the current format
and has been since it shifted back to a universal “x2”
back in HeartGold SoulSilver. It still is
usually a nice thing to have, only becoming an issue
against cards that gain additional damage or effects
when attacking something with Resistance.
Retreat
Cost
Goodra has a
Retreat Cost of three; for now this can be a somewhat
good thing as it allows Heavy Ball to fetch it
from the deck, and there are multiple tricks to reduce
or eliminate a high Retreat Cost. It would take a truly
bizarre rotation to even eliminate all of the Retreat
Cost reducing options available to this card, because
peeking ahead at the attacks, we see it needs a source
of Fairy Energy anyway, making it so that you won’t even
be going out of your way to make use of Fairy Garden.
Still, once Heavy Ball is gone (and it is almost
guaranteed to leave the format with the next rotation),
it will be a detriment instead of being neutral or
slightly beneficial.
Effects
Ability
Gooey
Regeneration allows Goodra to heal itself.
Healing has often been a less-than-successful strategy
in the Pokémon TCG; there are indeed some decks that do
it well, but you have to have something that is unlikely
to be OHKOed and the effort to heal needs to be less
than the effort to build a replacement and/or take
Prizes more quickly. Gooey Regeneration provides a
built in Super Potion for Goodra… sort of. The
wording is such that you must discard an Energy to use
the effect and without it, there is no healing, but
Super Potion has seen some limited competitive play
largely because it is worded so that you heal and then
discard (which means if you have no Energy attached, you
just heal).
There
is more, though I almost missed it; you may use this
Ability “As often as you like, during your turn…”
which means not only can you effectively has a Super
Potion per Energy attached to Goodra, but you
potentially have a “better” Max Potion, though
this will depend upon how much damage and how much
Energy are currently on Goodra. You gain access
to healing without dedicating any extra slots solely to
healing cards, though you will be giving up
Energy/Energy attachments and of course most decks don’t
use a Stage 2 Pokémon as the primary attacker or worry
about healing anyway.
The
final concern for Goodra will be if it has a
worthwhile attack to make it worth keeping alive and
Active.
Attack
Heavy
Whip flirts with being a “borderline” attack. The
Energy cost is a bit complex as Dragons are still being
saddled with odd Energy combinations. In this case, the
attack requires (WYC); not the most difficult but still
requiring some effort. For this investment, you get 80
points of damage with an additional 40 if you get
“heads” on a mandatory coin toss. This is 10 shy of
guaranteeing (before Weakness, Resistance, and effects)
a 2HKO of all but Wailord (BW: Dragons Exalted
26/124) and Mega Evolutions before the coin flip,
but that 10 points of damage per attack will matter
because often enough, you will find yourself attacking
twice and getting “tails” each time. Still, you do have
the thread of 2HKOing anything should you get “heads”
each time, at least before Weakness/Resistance/Effects.
Intra-card Synergy
While
the elements of Goodra don’t violently clash with
each other, there is little to make the whole greater
than the sum of its parts. The HP is high enough the
Ability will be of some use, but the attack already
requires three Energy so you will be hard pressed to
spare even one to activate Gooey Regeneration. Heavy
Whip doesn’t really care about either save that it needs
to survive long enough to attack at least twice… which
goes for most attackers. The Type will help the attack
a little; Dragon Weakness isn’t the most common, but
“heads” will allow OHKOs of all currently released
Dragon-Types with self Weakness, even the big
Pokémon-EX. It also may allow Altaria to
function as a Bench-sitter to boost damage into OHKO
range, and even a single copy would enable guaranteed
2HKO range… before Weakness, Resistance, and effects of
course.
Related Cards
No, I
did not forget about the lower Stages. Unfortunately,
the only versions I am seeing usual “filler-style”, with
one each for Basic and Stage 1. Goomy (XY:
Flashfire 72/106) is a 50 HP Basic Dragon-Type
Pokémon sporting the new Fairy Weakness, no Resistance,
and a Retreat Cost of two. Its first attack has a fun
name - Gooey - and for (C) heals 10 damage from itself.
For (WY) it can use Tackle for 20 points of damage. Sliggoo
(XY: Flashfire 73/106) has the same Type,
Weakness, and lack of Resistance but sports 80 HP and a
Retreat Cost of three. It also has two attacks: for (C)
its own version of Gooey heals 30 points of damage,
while for (WYC) its unfortunately but aptly named Gentle
Slap does a mere 40 points of damage.
Being a
Dragon-Type and having Fairy Weakness and now Resistance
is to them what it is to Goodra, only “less”
because these cards have lower HP and damage output.
The 50 HP on Goomy seems like a relic of
yesteryear; power creep led to Energy-to-damage and HP
inflation, but HP hasn’t kept up. 50 HP is almost
indistinguishable from 40 HP and only better than 30 HP
because of frequent 30 point Bench hits and the
vulnerability to the Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo first turn being common in the
metagame. The 80 HP of Sliggoo is also quite sad
and an easy OHKO, even before Weakness. Both benefit a
little by being legal Level Ball targets, but
like Heavy Ball, Level Ball is almost
certain to rotate out soon.
The two
Energy Retreat cost is a minor issue for Goomy;
if you’re stuck opening with it you’ll need more than
just a “standard” manual Energy attachment to retreat,
though tricks like Fairy Garden still work. In
the short term it would have been better if it had the
three Energy Retreat Cost of Sliggoo, so that the
entire line would be legal Heavy Ball targets.
The real issue is the attacks; they do next to nothing
to aid in set-up; the healing is unlikely to matter
because both are probable OHKOs, and even if they
weren’t they just don’t heal enough damage to be worth
an attack. Their offensive attacks are horribly
overpriced, having the same awkward dual Energy-Type
requirements as Heavy Whip but doing about half the
damage they need to even if they had been all Colorless
Energy requirements.
You’re
stuck with the Goomy, but you do have the option
of running less Sliggoo (including none at all)
in favor of Rare Candy; just remember that Item
lock decks exist, as well as the odd Evolution lock deck
using Archeops (BW: Noble Victories
67/101; BW: Dark Explorers 110/108) that might
need Evolution Soda plus Sliggoo to still
Evolve.
Uses and Combinations
Modified
Goodra is
designed to be a deck’s primary attacker and thus a deck
needs to be built around it. I can think of four
different deck concepts to put it into, but all have
problems.
1) You
could put it in a Fairy Transfer deck so that
Aromatisse (XY 93/146) can easily move Energy
on and off of it while an opening Xerneas helps
to build up a stock of “spare” basic Fairy Energy
cards to discard for Gooey Regeneration. Rainbow
Energy could then meet the lone (W) requirement
while still being transferrable. Slurpuff (XY
95/146) can offer protection against Special Conditions,
another aspect important to tanking strategies. The
biggest strike against this notion is that after all is
said and done, you might as well choose a better
attacker alongside Max Potion to do the same job
better; if you’re able to OHKO Pokémon-EX (for example),
you likely would only need to heal two to four times.
Perhaps if you just used the Xerneas, the
Fairy Garden, and the basic Fairy Energy
instead of an actual Fairy Transfer deck?
2) The
next “making a worse version of an established deck”
I’ll get out of the way makes the Fairy Transfer idea
look good by comparison: you could insert this into a
Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed 31/149;
BW: Plasma Storm 137/135; BW: Plasma Blast
16/101), simply running a few easy to search and recycle
basic Fairy Energy cards (as the deck already
makes extensive use of basic Energy search and
reclamation cards). Given that this would mean running
two Stage 2 Pokémon for a clunkier deck and weaker
offense in exchange for healing you might not even get a
chance to use seems like a fool's bargain.
3) I’ve
made this suggestion many times before, and its never
panned out for a serious, competitive deck, but I’ll
make it again; a faux-Plasma build utilizing Team
Plasma Badge. Startling Megaphone/Tool
Scrapper, as well as all the disruption this opens
the deck up to (counters for Abilities, Items, and Team
Plasma) make this even more of a longshot than it used
to be, and just like the previous two suggestions you
quickly get to the point where another Pokémon would
probably benefit more. Still the combination of
Deoxys EX (BW: Plasma Freeze 53/116, 11/116)
and Umbreon (BW: Plasma Freeze 64/116) can
be used in combination to tailor damage output and HP to
the current match-up, while Colress Machine and
Thundurus EX (BW: Plasma Freeze 38/116,
110/116) help with Energy acceleration/reclamation, as
well as the latter being the opener.
4) The
first “real” deck still seems like a knock-off. Altaria
was mentioned earlier for its capacity to boost the
damage of Dragon-Type Pokémon. In the unlikely event
you could get a full four into play, the +80 damage
means you’re now a coin flip away from OHKOing almost
anything that sees competitive play, while a single copy
puts you into reliable 2HKO range, as stated earlier.
Less than four still puts various supporting Pokémon or
less common attackers into OHKO range (with or without
the flip, depending on the exact circumstances).
Instead
of or in addition to Altaria, you will probably
need Milotic (XY: Flashfire 23/106).
Nothing I have suggested so far locks you into
requiring Special Energy, and Milotic plus not
having to worry about Enhanced Hammer (or other
anti-Special Energy cards) gives you little reason to
run anything other than Basic Energy. Using Energy
Grace - the Ability on Milotic - you’ll give up a
Prize for some Energy acceleration, but it will be
enough to take a Goodra from zero to fully
powered. This also frees up the manual Energy
attachment for Gooey Regeneration.
Now for
the more “general” suggestions, that work for multiple
of the above decks, though sometimes just barely. The
big issue with any and all of them is space.
1) You
might want to include Hard Charm over more
commonly used Pokémon Tools like Muscle Band; a
little extra damage puts Heavy Whip into reliable 2HKO
range but if you’re OHKOed you can’t heal yourself.
2) A
benched Victini (BW: Noble Victories
14/101, 98/101; BW: Legendary Treasures 23/113;
BW Promo BW32) is tempting to improve the odds of
getting “heads” (that one coin flip is worth +40 to
damage after all), but I don’t know if any build I’ve
suggested has the room.
3)
Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze 47/116) would be
nice to protect smaller, Benched Pokémon, but I don’t
know if any build I suggested has the room.
4)
Virizion-EX would be useful to protect against
Special Conditions, provided you’re running Rainbow
Energy to trigger its Ability, though I suppose you
might still be able to do the trick with a Basic
Grass Energy for builds trying to avoid Special
Energy entirely.
5)
You’ll want an alternate attacker. No specific
suggestions here; everything I thought of had obvious
concerns. Just remember that if you don’t have
something without an Ability, the odd Latias-EX (BW:
Plasma Freeze 85/116; 112/116) could shut you down.
You’ll
always have to be wary of decks that can deliver OHKOs
as well as those that shut down Abilities. Odds are my
suggestions just won’t cut it, but hopefully they
give you an idea of what kinds of combos to be on the
look out for if you do want to make use of Goodra
in Modified.
Limited
For
Limited play, its all about what you can pull to work
with it. The fact that it is a Stage 2 Pokémon,
requires two different Energy Types to attack, and that
only one of those Types is well represented this set may
force you to ignore it even if you did pull a fleshed
out line. The good news is you might be able to fudge
things a bit because it can heal itself and in Limited,
you have room for a lot of basic Energy; so much
that even if Goodra was the only Pokémon able to
make use of Fairy Energy and/or Water Energy,
the deck might still work.
Ratings
Modified: 2.5/5
- This card does some good things, but just not well
enough for me to be optimistic about its place in
competitive play.
Limited: 3.75/5
- Again, assuming you can build a decent deck around it,
it will be amazing, but it does require both pulling the
entire line itself and preferably enough other Pokémon
with overlapping Energy costs.
Summary
Goodra
focuses on healing, a trick that has had some success in
the history of Pokémon, but far less than the amount of
times it has been attempted and rarely when the target
of the healing is the same as the source. In a format
built around OHKOs of Pokémon larger than Goodra,
its capacity to heal tank is questionable and it doesn’t
quite hit enough damage without support to be a credible
threat… unless you’re good at coin flips. Still, its so
close that if you can get a playset easily, it might be
worth holding onto in case future support can tip the
scales from “not quite” to “just enough”.
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