Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Krookodile
(XY)
We end the week with a look at
Krookodile from XY. The game designers seem to
really like him (six cards in three years), but not
enough to make him playable, apparently.
To be fair, making a playable Stage 2
at all is a
real challenge these days. When Basics are as
overwhelmingly powerful as they are now, it’s hard to
create an evolution that can compete without being
ridiculously overpowered. This means that Stage 2s have
been relegated to a support or combo piece role (Blastoise,
Emboar,
Gothitelle) and only rarely emerge as main
attackers in competitive(ish) decks (Empoleon,
Garchomp,
Dragonite, I guess).
Which is a very long way of saying that, because it is
an attacking Stage 2, Krookodile
has very little chance of claiming a place in the
competitive scene. It’s not as if his attacks are very
good either: both are relatively expensive (requiring
three and four Energy) and do underwhelming amounts of
damage (50 and 80). The effects are of dubious value
too. Bother gives you a coin flip to stop your opponent
using Supporters next turn, which would be ok if it
wasn’t so unreliable, while Knock Back forces the
opponent to switch out their damaged Pokémon. This will
often be counterproductive, sending their Pokémon to the
safety of the Bench so it can’t be finished off next
turn.
Like almost every Stage 2 we have seen in the post-Black
and White era, this doesn’t do nearly enough to deserve
your attention. Not by a long way.
Rating
Modified: 1.75 (if you want to try a Supporter-lock, use
Stoutland BCR)
Limited: 2 (Barely worth the effort, even here)
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HEZ
Intro to
Unlimited 150 |
Krookodile.
Standard.
There’s quite a few Krookodile legal in Standard, none
of which have been useful so far. Is the XY version any
better? No, it’s another frustrating “almost there”
card, that seems to be a theme this week!
Bother is so very nearly an amazing attack just like
Arbok’s Gastro Acid and Rhydon’s Mad Mountain. If it
wasn’t for that coin flip you could be locking your
opponent out of Supporters with an Active Krookodile and
locking their Abilities with a benched Garbodor. You
can’t even try to help your odds with this double lock
with a “Fliptini” as Garbodor shuts it down.
With so many hugely powerful, unrestrained Basics you’d
think the designers would stop restricting the attacks
on Evolved Pokémon, but it seems they’re mostly just
made to fill space in the packs where you don’t pull an
EX. It may have been a good deck but it wouldn’t have
been overpowered, it requires several evolved Pokémon, 3
Energy and to not get switched out or have its Tools
messed with. Oh well…
Unlimited 150.
The coin flip is just as restricting here but it does
have better Ability locking partners such as the locking
classic, Muk (Fossil). It also has Krookodile from Dark
Explorers to team up with, whose Bombast attack maxes
out at 280 damage in this format. Even with so many
printings in its short time in the game, Krookodile
doesn’t have a stand out card, the XY version just
missed out on being a monster in this format!
This card will always be somewhat dear to be as it
landed some lucky, well timed coin flips and won me a
Prerelease, so that’s something right?
Ratings.
Standard: 2
Unlimited 150: 2.5
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