Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#10 Swampert #36
It’s top 10 countdown time again, and we kick off with a
card that gives me very mixed feelings. On the one hand,
it’s great to see Swampert
in the TCG again after a long absence (since Supreme
Victors!) – for a Generation
starter, he’s been painfully neglected. On the other,
despite this card having
so much
going for it, I suspect it isn’t really going to have a
lot of success.
But let’s look at all that good stuff first. Cool
three-quarter art is nice and 140 HP is solid, but
that’s just the start. Swampert
has one of the new ‘Ancient Traits’, in this case α
Growth, which allows you an extra Energy attachment per
turn. That’s just brilliant: built-in,
unblockable
acceleration, and it has
great synergy with Swampert’s
Hydro Pump attack too. With a base damage of 40 plus 30
more for each Water Energy on
Swampert, it only takes a couple of turns of
attachments to bring him to the point of being able to
OHKO EX Pokémon, and that’s pretty mighty.
It doesn’t stop there either.
Swampert’s Diving Search Ability is basically a
rehash of Magcargo DX’s
Smooth Over, which allows you to search for any card you
like and put it on top of your deck. Combine that with
anything that draws (Acro
Bike, Bicycle, Juniper, Slurpuff
PHF etc), and you have the kind of targeted consistency
engine that the game has been crying out for.
Honestly, they couldn’t do much more to make a Stage 2
playable by itself:
acceleration, consistency
and a
powerful attack. However, it speaks volumes for the
state of the present day game that it most likely isn’t
going to be enough. With Seismitoad
EX crippling Stage 2 set up, and a whole plethora of
Pokémon that can hit just as hard without having to
evolve, Swampert will almost
certainly find itself passed over in favour of the usual
EX suspects (Seismitoad,
Yveltal,
Genesect), plus a couple of
new additions which find themselves a lot higher up our
top 10 list.
At this point, I’m wondering just what
would the
designers have to do to make Stage 2 attackers
truly competitive once more.
Rating
Modified: 3 (an awesome card that would have wrecked
older formats, but will struggle now)
Expanded: 3 (at least there is Tropical Beach)
Limited: 3.5 (get him out,
and he’s great)
|
aroramage |
Welcome back dear readers to
another installment of Top 10 Lists! Today we bring you
the beginning of our Top 10 List for the latest set
Primal Clash. And we probably touched every card at
least once with our hands in order to see what would end
up in the cumulative list, so starting off we've got
Swampert!
Now there are two Swamperts in this
set, so you wanna keep an eye out for this one. The
easiest way to tell is the artwork is WAY cooler on this
one, and instead of two attacks it's got one attack and
one Ability. But WAIT!! There's more! This Swampert is
among some of the Pokemon in the set with the special
Ancient Trait characteristic, which can give Pokemon an
extra Ability of sorts. The big four at the moment are
Omega Attack (allows for two attacks per turn), Omega
Barrier (shields the Pokemon from Trainer effects),
Alpha Recovery (recovers more health with health
recovery effects), and this one, Alpha Growth (can
attach 2 Energies to this Pokemon from your hand).
Swampert having access to Alpha
Growth makes his Hydro Pump attack pretty good - at
3-for-40 base, it's pretty terrible otherwise. Then
again, it's tacking on 30 damage for EVERY Water Energy
attached to him, which is absolutely phenomenal!
Considering the 3 Water Energies you could use to pay
for the cost, that's already 130 damage total you're
dealing! Any combination of Water Energy, Muscle Band,
and HTLBank later, and Swampert's kicking a lot of butt!
But this is a Stage 2 Pokemon, and
as we all know, Stage 2s have an uphill battle to cover
for. I considered Swampert for my own Top 10 list, but I
ended up picking otherwise because of this Stage 2
factor. On the other hand, Swampert's got an amazing
Ability in Diving Search; once per turn, you can search
for a card and place it on top of the deck. And this is
ANY card once EVERY turn, so Swampert can essentially
make one's deck far more consistent! You can add a
Sycaper on top when you're almost out of cards or any
Item you need after you've used Skyla. Really there's a
lot of ways to make this work, and the only real counter
I can think of is N simply because he shuffles the deck.
Swampert is an exceptional Stage 2
featuring the new Ancient Trait mechanic and a fantastic
Ability, so hopefully he won't be held back simply
because of his speed. If anything, I'd rather he be one
of the Pokemon to bring Evolutions back and make them
cool again......he probably won't, but one can dream.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (a handy search
Ability and a hefty attack)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (earlier Water
decks could really benefit from this, though Blastoise
decks will have a problem with the multitude of Stage
2s)
Limited: 4.5/5 (double Energy each
turn, the Ability to get any card you need, and an
attack that only gets stronger with more Energy? Oh
yeah, you RUN this guy)
Arora Notealus: Swampert's always
been my Hoenn starter (Water every gen except for Sinnoh),
and being Water/Ground was really cool. Also his Mega
Evo is REALLY awesome, I hope the designers will at
least give them a shot in the next set to come out!
Next Time: No matter whose side
you're on, it's gonna be the same thing!
|
Otaku |
At last it is time; here is our Top 10 list
for XY: Primal Clash! I’m not sure how to
specifically describe the Top 10 list; as usual a card
can’t be a reprint to be eligible for the list, but each
reviewer has a lot of leeway other than that. While
obviously a popular, powerful card good for every deck
should be the pinnacle of picks… but few cards are
released like that. So I looked at how strong a card
was in general, how strong it was in a particular deck
and how popular I expected it to be regardless;
especially before the first major event where XY:
Primal Clash is legal confirms or disproves the
predictions. Even if its only for a short time, some
cards are going to be major and ignoring them can be
even worse than burning deck space on an unneeded
counter. Plus I ran out of time so I kind of had to
eyeball my own list in the end.
Just making the list is Swampert (XY:
Primal Clash 36/160). This is a Stage 2 making a
Top 10 list; that alone is impressive. Being a Stage 2
right now is almost an instant deal breaker. Do people
still run Stage 2 decks, even when trying to win
tournaments? Yes they do. Do they succeed? Rarely;
given that Stage 2 Pokémon require more deck space, more
time to set-up and are more vulnerable to all forms of
disruption (especially Items) they’ve got to offer
something pretty amazing to balance the investment of
cards and effort. Still a few Stage 2 offerings seem to
have managed it.
Being a Water-Type has gotten much better.
This set introduces some more Water-Type support (though
no Special Energy for them… maybe next set?). Archie’s
Ace in the Hole is a crazy new Supporter that can
only be used when its the only card in your hand but
allows you to Bench a Water-Type from your discard pile
(including Evolutions which gets into somewhat
complicated rulings) plus draw five cards. Dive Ball
is an Item that allows you to search your deck for a
Water-Type; that’s pretty good if your deck is mostly or
mono-Water-Type… possibly even just for getting out
Seismitoad-EX in a non-Water deck. The one that
surprised me was Rough Seas; I dismissed it at
first but a mass healing of 30 points of damage for
Water- and Lightning-Types is great against spread and
can be handy when you’ve got something big. Already
I’ve had some easy 2HKOs become tricky because of it, so
with high HP Mega Evolutions or Wailord-EX, it
might be quite frightening. There are a few Pokémon
(mostly Fighting-Types) that are popular and potent like
Landorus-EX that have Water Weakness waiting for
you to exploit (huh, it won’t like Rough Seas
either) while Resistance is only found on some BW-era
Grass-Types. Still not on par with Fighting-Types but
still enough to get pumped (pun intended)!
In terms of HP, Swampert sports 140,
enough to have decent odds of surviving a hit, though I
think that XY: Primal Clash being added to the
metagame will narrow the difference between surviving
and being OHKed even more. Grass Weakness is already
risky; while outside of VirGen there aren’t a lot of
Grass-decks to worry about and there isn’t a Grass-Type
equivalent of Mewtwo-EX or Yveltal-EX that
is easy/relatively easy to work into a lot of decks,
there is added incentive as this set introduces a few
other standouts that are Grass Weak. The lack of
Resistance is common and just robs Swampert or a
slight bonus; nothing really worth docking its score
over. The Retreat Cost of three is handy… in Expanded,
where you can consider using Heavy Ball. That is
even less relevant than it used to be now that we have
Dive Ball; make sure to pack something to aid in
getting Swampert out of the Active slot without
sacrificing so much Energy, or build your deck so that
it can try to tank (the latter doesn’t seem too likely).
Swampert
sports an Ancient Trait, an Ability and an
attack. α Growth provides Energy acceleration, but only
to Swampert itself; specifically when you attach
an Energy card to it from your hand as part of your
manual Energy attachment for the turn (other things like
attacks, Abilities, etc. won’t trigger it) then you have
the option to attach two Energy cards instead. This is
good but not great; as stated it only applies to
Swampert so unless you’ve got a convenient way to
move that Energy to another Pokémon, it is only going to
fuel Swampert or effects that can make use of
Energy on Swampert. It is good that it doesn’t
care about Energy Type and even works with Special
Energy cards and unlike plain ol’ Abilities, so far
nothing can interfere with Ancient Traits. Speaking of
Abilities, Swampert also has Diving Search. This
is a bit of a throwback, as it is near identical to the
Poké-Power “Smooth Over”, found on Magcargo (EX:
Deoxys 20/107). I’m not sure if it will be as good
as that Magcargo was; the older card existed in a
slower format. Still whether it is for setting up a
draw for next turn (assuming your opponent doesn’t play
N or something else to force you to shuffle your
deck) or right before you use some other form of draw
power to get the exact card you want into your hand, it
can be anything from “useful” to “mind-numbingly
awesome”. The attack Hydro Pump; another familiar sight
as it has shown up on several cards (even when just
looking at Standard) this attack costs [CCC] and does 40
damage plus 30 per [W] Energy used to fuel the attack.
This is the largest “per Energy” damage bonus we’ve
seen on Hydro Pump, and it means the attack can flatten
anything so long as you can commit the Energy to it.
Swampert
Evolves from Marshtomp Evolves from Mudkip.
Right now the only options for those two are set-mates
Mudkip (XY: Primal Clash 33/160) and
Marshtomp (XY: Primal Clash 34/160). Both
are Water-Type Pokémon with Grass Weakness, no
Resistance, two attacks but lacking either an Ancient
Trait or Ability. Mudkip is of course a Basic
Pokémon, and it has 60 HP; better than less but not by
much. The single Energy Retreat Cost is at least easy
to pay. For [W] it can use Tackle for 10 damage and for
[WC] it can use Mud-Slap to hit for 20. Marshtomp
sadly is a pretty typical Stage 1: 90 HP with the
slightly chunky Retreat Cost of three. For [WC] its
Mud-Slap does 30 points of damage, or it can attack with
Endeavor, needing [WCC] and scoring 40 damage plus two
coin flips good for 20 points of additional damage per
“heads”. Unless you’re feeling daring, you’ll need
these two to get to Swampert, though there indeed
ways to avoid using both of them. I don’t expect Item
blocking effects (like Seismitoad-EX attacking
with Quaking Punch) to lose popularity, so I don’t
advise trying to skip Marshtomp completely in
favor of Rare Candy: it seems best to run both.
There is also one more Swampert to consider:
XY: Primal Clash 35/160. The differences between
today’s version and it are that it has +10 HP, no
Ancient Trait or Ability and two attacks: for [CWW] its
Water Arrow attack allows you to pick one of your
opponent’s Pokémon in play and hit it for 60 (ignoring
Weakness and Resistance for targets on the Bench) while
its Waterfall attack needs [WWCC] and does a flat 120.
I don’t think the differences are worth splitting the
line; while these differences are nice, they are also
very mild. Throw in that it will be slower to power-up
and that if three out of four Energy attached are [WWW]
than Hydro Pump hits harder than Waterfall, and its
clear one should just use today’s subject instead.
So how does one go about making good use of
this Swampert? I’m honestly not 100% sure. α
Growth needs help to take a Swampert from “zero”
to “attacking” in a single turn. Double Colorless
Energy can be one of the Energy involved, but with
[WCC] Hydro Pump does an underwhelming 70. I thought
about running it with Aromatisse (after all, α
Growth works with any Type of Energy) but for that much
effort, why not just run a Stage 2 that allows unlimited
Energy attachments per turn. I am thinking Swampert
at most needs to be central to any deck it is, though it
probably should also have an alternate opener. Then
again with Diving Search, you might finally be able to
make Ether work. Ether is an Item I
thought was going to shape the format but its release
outside of Japan ended up being the equivalent of a set
late, and before we had time to get used to it we had
Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym; for
the decks that had shown promise with Ether, most
were better off spending that space on Hypnotoxic
Laser and Virbank City Gym. Diving Search
guarantees Ether will work, allowing you to
reveal a basic Energy as the top card of your deck and
then attach it to one of your Pokémon. This combo would
allow [WWW] (and thus 130 damage before Tools) in a
single turn. Another card to consider is Acro Bike;
this new Item allows you to look at the top two cards of
your deck with you choosing one to add to hand while the
other is discarded; an Ability/Item combo to get the
exact card from your deck into hand at the cost of one
card of self mill.
Some might prefer an Ability/Ability combo;
not too long ago we looked at Slurpuff (XY:
Phantom Forces 69/119), which has seen some
successful play already backing up Seismitoad-EX
through its Tasting Ability; Tasting allows you to draw
one extra card during your turn (two if Slurpuff
is Active when you use Tasting). Diving Draw plus
Tasting is like the previous combo I suggested but
instead of having to deal with self mill and Item
denial, you have the difficulty of working in a Stage 1
line alongside an Evolution, as well as the whole thing
(instead of just half) being lost if Abilities are
blocked. There is one more advantage to it, though; it
is reusable. This is important both for speeding up
set-up and because Diving Draw stacks (you can use
Diving Draw once per turn per card with the Diving Draw
effect) but if you can’t draw the card you just
top-decked, subsequent uses of Diving Draw happen one at
a time so you still only can determine the top card of
the deck. Three Diving Draw and three Tasting mean
three cards of your choice added to hand each turn!
This brings us to what to have open for Swampert
as an attacker. Seismitoad-EX seems the obvious
choice; the deck will lose room for most of its tricks
by adding in a Stage 2 line, but what remains will
become precise. Plus you get a decent big hitter
to clean up. Alternatives are Qwilfish (XY:
Flashfire 21/106), Robo Substitute (XY:
Phantom Forces 102/119) and Huntail (XY:
Primal Clash 50/160). Qwilfish can just sit
there inflicting damage counters while it takes hits
(well, probably just one hit). Robo Substitute
is almost always going to only survive one hit, but
since it isn’t worth a Prize when it is KOed, that’s
fine. Huntail is another Stage 1 so it probably
won’t fit easily into a deck with Swampert and
much of anything else, but for [W] it can use Powerful
Storm, an attack that does 20 damage times the number of
Energy attached to all of your Pokémon; if you’ve got
multiple Swampert on the Bench that can add up
fast.
Ratings
Standard: 3/5 - This doesn’t seem like much but I haven’t seen
enough this set to convince me that being a Stage 2
isn’t still a huge burden. So this is about as good as
it gets for a Stage 2 right now.
Expanded: 3/5 - I don’t see the increased card pool adding a lot
of support or direct competition, either so it gets the
same score.
Limited:
4.8/5 - Almost a must run; you skip it if you pulled a
big Basic burly enough to build a +39 deck around it
or if you honestly can’t work enough [W] Energy in
to make Hydro Pump pay off. Odds that you can’t do the
latter are quite low, but not improbable.
Summary:
Since this is a Water-Type in the TCG and a
Water/Ground-Type in the video games, is it okay if I’m
wishy-washy and a bit of a squish on this subject? Swampert
sets the tone for this Top 10, whether you consider it
positive or negative: this set has a lot of cards with
potential but very few that are clear standouts. In
some ways this is good; if all cards are well balanced
with each other, standing out should boil down to
popularity or the obviousness of a card’s use and not
its actual potential… but it can also mean that the set
ultimately isn’t going to accomplish a lot because at
least for now, cards that aren’t great don’t see a lot
of play. Swampert is one of the best Stage 2
Pokémon we’ve seen in a while and it still seems
like its only going to work by shoving it into an
established deck that is pretty unpleasant to face. I
honestly didn’t even think about trying it with
Seismitoad-EX and Slurpuff until I was nearly
done writing this CotD, never mind when I was working on
my own list so Swampert didn’t even make my Top
15 (I like to cover a few extra cards in case of tie
breakers). It should have made the Top 15, but even now
I’m not sure if this is really good enough for the Top
10; its best bet is adding it to something established,
and I don’t know if it will be worth making something
already good less focused and harder to get the initial
set-up accomplished.
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