Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#9 Toxicroak EX
Continuing the trend of seemingly random non-Legendary,
non-starter Pokémon that are given the EX treatment, we
have Toxicroak, which makes
the #9 slot on our countdown.
Toxicroak
is a mediocre EX in almost every respect (and that’s
being kind), with an especially
sucky second attack, but his one redeeming
feature is Triple Poison. For just a DCE, it does pretty
much what it says on the tin: inflicts Poison that does
30 damage between turns. Add
in a Virbank City Gym, and
that bumps it up to 50.
Now that’s pretty nice, but it would still take four
turns to KO another EX, and that is too slow without the
right support. Dragalge FLF
is a possibility as it prevents Poisoned Pokémon from
retreating with its Ability, but you might prefer
Garbodor DRX’s Ability lock,
which would prevent Virizion
EX from just shutting down the poison entirely.
Unfortunately you can’t have both so you are left with a
tricky metagame call on that
one.
For those reasons I don’t quite see
Toxicroak becoming the focus of a deck, but he
could possibly have some uses as a tech. For one thing,
he is one of the few basics than can hurt
Pyroar FLF, and he’s
splashable too thanks to the
Colourless Energy cost. Even so, it’s hard to see how
Toxicroak
fits into the current format, but that
Triple Poison is the kind of attack that deserves some
respect.
Rating
Modified: 3 (if only Triple Poison did some damage so
you could use Muscle Band . . . even 10 would do)
Limited: 4 (the Poison is great here, and even Smash
Uppercut is usable)
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