aroramage |
I dunno if Gen IV was the most "original" in terms of
Pokemon, but they did give us some interesting ones to
say the least. For instance, who would've thought that a
Bug/Poison type would suddenly evolve into a Poison/Dark
type? Sure messed with me battling Aaron of the Elite
Four! Welcome back to today's card of the day, Drapion!
Drapion is a Stage 1 Dark-type, with two attacks on very
different ends of the spectrum. First, we've got the
1-for-20 Venoshock, which deals 60 on a Poisoned
Pokemon. Could make for an easy combo with Hypnotoxic
Laser, and that's probably the best partner for it.
Sure, you've got stuff like Victreebel from last week,
but let's be honest, you'd rather just run Hypnotoxic
Laser for this attack. Not that 60's a whole lot, but
combine that with Muscle Band and Virbank Gym, and
you've got around 110 damage prior to any weakness. Not
too shabby!
But then you hit his second attack Venomous Fang, which
costs 4 Energy for 80 (really?) and...Poisons the Active
Pokemon. Wait, was I supposed to combo this with
Venoshock? So over the course of 2 turns I can deal 160
damage prior to Muscle Band? Sounds a bit backwards to
charge 4 Energy for an attack that sets up your cheaper
one, doesn't it? And that's why Drapion here just
doesn't cut it.
If he were better, maybe his Venoshock would cost a
little more (2-3), do more damage (60), and THEN plus
out of Poison (+40) while Venomous Fang would be MUCH
cheaper (1-2), do MUCH less damage (20-40), but still
Poison. As he is, though, Drapion just feels mixed-up;
why should I attach 4 Energies to a Pokemon that could
just as easily benefit from having a Muscle Band and an
Item that Poisons for 1? Sure, the damage output is
appropriate, but when Pokemon-EX can deal upwards of
120-200 damage for 4 Energy, it feels a bit cheap that
Stage 1s and Stage 2s continue to get cheated out like
this. Yeah yeah, they're not supposed to be as powerful
as EX, but it's hard to justify playing them to begin
with when this sort of thing comes up.
Drapion is a cool Pokemon with cool Typing, but his
attacks work against each other rather than compliment
each other because the more expensive attack leads up to
the cheaper attack rather than it being the other way
around. Because of this, even with all the benefits he
could gain, he's just not good.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (sorry, there's just no good reason to
run him)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (no amount of Dark support can justify a
bad card)
Limited: 2/5 (as much as I'd imagine the Poison aspect
to be useful, I still can't say that he's better here
because again, his 4-Energy attack sets up his 1-Energy
attack, and that's no good here)
Arora Notealus: The "ogre scorpion" Pokemon is really
brutal according to the data entry. Even when he can
tear opponents apart, he chooses to use his poison
instead. It'd be so noble if it wasn't a choice between
"death" and "dying". Also, where's my Drapion-EX? Come
on, you know you wanna see this guy as an EX! Not with
these attacks, of course...
Next Time: Now where did I put the key to that safe...
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Otaku |
Drapion (XY: Furious Fists 65/111) is a Darkness-Type; from the
release of BW: Dark Explorers May 9th, 2012 until
the rotation September 3rd of this year, the
Darkness-Type was one of if not the best supported
Pokémon-Type. With the rotation to BCR-On and XY:
Furious Fists becoming legal Darkness-Types took a
huge hit as as they lost Dark Patch (plus a few
other things) while Fighting-Types gained a lot of
direct and indirect Type support; coupled with
Fire-Types already having been bolstered by XY:
Flashfire, I would now put it as about the third
best Type in terms of support and that is primarily
based on the indirect support from having some amazing
Darkness-Type [D] Energy using attackers and/or
triggered Abilities. The actual, direct support left in
Standard appears to be just Zoroark (BW: Dark
Explorers 71/108; BW: Legendary Treasures
90/113) - because it does damage based on the amount of
Darkness-Type Pokémon in play - and that is it. Even
Shadow Circle is “indirect” support as it works with
any Pokémon with a source of [D] Energy attached.
In terms of hitting Weakness Darkness-Types aren’t actually that
good; just some Psychic-Types that correspond to the
Ghost-Type in the video games, even though both Ghost-
and Psychic-Type Pokémon take double damage from
Dark-Type attacks. In the TCG, currently only few such
Pokémon see serious, competitive play; mainly just
Dusknoir (BW: Boundaries Crossed 63/149;
BW: Plasma Blast 104/101. Darkness Resistance is
common to all the new Fairy-Type Pokémon barring an
error on my part, though thankfully only Xerneas
(XY: 96/146) and Xerneas-EX currently see
substantial play. There are actually four counter-cards
for this Type: Cobalion (BW Promos BW72),
Terrakion (BW Promo BW71), and Virizion
(BW Promo BW70). I don’t mean that these cards
are useful against Darkness-Types for the usual reasons
(like exploiting Weakness), but all have the Ability
“Justified” which adds 50 points to the damage their
attacks do to Darkness-Types… but their attacks are all
pretty bad. Factoring all of this together, it means
that overall being a Darkness-Type is still good but not
great; there are more important Weaknesses to hit and/or
better supported Types out there, but what you do get is
solid.
Drapion is a Stage 1 Pokémon, which means it is a turn slower and takes
one more card than the Basic Pokémon and takes one less
card (and barring Evolution acceleration) is a turn
faster than Stage 2 Pokémon… but instead of ultimately
being equals that function differently or the happy
medium between the best and the worst, Basic Pokémon are
still the dominant force of the format, and by a
significant margin. At least at this point, running an
Evolution isn’t hopelessly crippling and if Pyroar
(XY: Flashfire 20/106) and its Intimidating Mane
Ability can make having at least one non-Basic attacker
useful, though Pyroar usage itself is not stable.
110 HP is can sometimes take a hit; usually this means one with the
damage not being boosted, more likely early/late game
when resources are scarce or when an opponent is
struggling than against most competitive decks with a
solid set-up. Despite the pace and draw power of the
game (or perhaps even because of them) there are enough
exceptions to keep this from being especially bad,
though it isn’t really good either. Weakness, Strong
Energy and Muscle Band make it almost certain
that Fighting-Types will score a OHKO as most that are
used for attacking can hit for at least 20 damage before
those buffs thus 120 after them as they apply before
Weakness. The card’s Psychic Resistance is a welcome
sight and somewhat useful as Mewtwo-EX is one
against a major player in the format; with five whole
Energy between an attacking Mewtwo-EX and a
Defending Drapion, Mewtwo-EX still
requires another damage counter for the OHKO so if
Drapion can hit effectively for a single Energy,
this could provide an effective niche use. Its hefty
three Energy Retreat Cost could be problematic as that
is too much to easily afford, but Darkrai-EX and
its Dark Cloak should handle that (one of the indirect
pieces of Darkness-Type support) and in Expanded the
Retreat Cost is a small bonus as it makes the card a
legal Heavy Ball target.
Drapion has two attacks. For [D] Venoshock does 20 points of damage, plus
another 40 if the Defending Pokémon is poisoned. Thanks
to Hypnotoxic Laser this should be an easy
60-for-1, though remember that conditional is
conditional and a combo is a combo; even an easily
triggered one is going to fail some of the time. You’ll
need to add to that combo to make this attack anything
more than a set-up for something else. The second
attack is Venomous Fang, which requires a massive [DDCC]
investment to deliver 80 points of damage and Poison.
Even with automatic Poison in a format that begs you to
use Virbank City Gym, you’re 30 to 40 points
below where you might dare to use this as a glass canon;
Yveltal (XY 78/146; XY Promo XY06)
can help build it on the Bench while the two [C]
requirements make the car friendly to many forms of
general Energy acceleration, most notably Double
Colorless Energy, but the return means it just isn’t
worth it (for the price you need to be hitting for an
effective 120 before things like Poison damage) and that
hurts Venoshock, which could have used an inexpensive
attack or Ability that Poisons for a better built-in
combo… or at least a better finishing attack (Hypnotoxic
Laser really is an easy combo for the Poison).
It is of course possible that its Basic form, Skorupi, could
help. Skorupi (XY: Furious Fists 38/111)
is a 70 HP Basic Psychic-Type with 70 HP, Psychic
Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of two and two
attacks. Yes, its Type changes as it Evolves; in the
video games it goes from being a Bug/Poison hybrid to a
Poison/Dark hybrid. This is worth noting as the
Poison-Type is currently lumped in with the Psychic-Type
(it was originally part of the Grass-Type), so
Drapion could also have been a Psychic-Type which -
at least for now - might have been an improvement
(hitting Psychic Weakness is handy), especially if the
“dual-Type is Type 1 but has Energy costs, Weakness and
Resistance associated with Type 2”. I mention this here
because it is just a “What if?” and on extremely rare
occasions, you may be glad that Skorupi can hit
Psychic Weakness… not that the attacks lend to that
tactic very well. For (C) the Poison Sting attack
allows a coin flip to Poison; useful for leading into
Venoshock except for being unreliable (coin flip) and
overpriced. C’mon designers, even a slightly better
attack could have made for a combo that was - well -
still a bit desperate as Skorupi would be hard
pressed to survive to Evolve, but functional while a
solid Ability or really good attack could have made this
into a combo that took Advantage of being a Stage 1 (Skorupi
acting like spare Hypnotoxic Laser instead of
just a stepping stone). I am talking even with
Drapion still stuck with Venomous Fang. Oh, and for
[PCC] it can hit for 30. Pity as even 20 for [CC] would
have been preferable due to ease of use and the
occasional solid hit against Weakness.
Enough criticism-via-Create-A-Card: are there any reasons to use
this card, and what can be done to make it perform to
the best of its Ability? It is the Stage 1
Darkness-Type Pokémon with the highest printed HP in
Standard; in Expanded it ties with Honchkrow (BW:
Dragons Exalted 37/124) and if we factor in
Abilities, Umbreon (BW: Plasma Freeze
64/116) boosts its printed HP of 100 to 120 (in addition
to raising the HP of all Team Plasma Pokémon by 20,
including other copies of itself). Venoshock is
fortunate that using Hypnotoxic Laser is quite
common; with a Virbank City Gym you can hit an
effective 90 points of damage for [D], which as long as
the deck can afford the trade, is glass cannon status.
If facing something on the small to low-average side or
something big is already damage, Muscle Band or
Silver Bangle can allow it to provide an
inexpensive finishing blow as now the combo clocks in at
110 or 120 effective points of damage. I don’t really
think it is worth it, but if you really want a Stage 1
Darkness-Type attacker and Zoroark isn’t an
option, this at least is mostly functional.
Interestingly enough, I don’t think I can say the same
for Limited; not only is this set stocked with
Fighting-Type Pokémon and their support, but it is
unlikely you’ll have a good means of inflicting Poison
outside of the attacks of Skorupi or Drapion,
and even here they are still fairly bad. Skip it.
Ratings
Standard: 1.75/5 - Close to
having a semi-legitimate niche use, at least if you
ignore design disappointments that are problematically
probable.
Expanded: 1.75/5 - Gains
additional support but also additional competition, both
in general and for Stage 1 Darkness-Type Pokémon. Net
result is it scores the same as in Standard.
Limited: 1/5 - I really don’t like Fighting Weakness this set, so while I
would normally say “just work with what you’ve got”...
not this time.
Summary: It is almost like Drapion, or at least Venoshock, was
expected to be too good because so much of this card
screams intentional nerfing. It was released in a set
that boosted its own Weakness, the second attack is
horribly overpriced instead of giving us two nice low
Energy attacks (or complimentary Ability and attack, or
complimentary Basic for the attack, etc.).
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