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We end the week with Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces
33/119). As a Stage 2 Pokémon, it is challenging to
play, though oddly helped because (as we pointed out in
yesterday’s review)
you will want to Evolve it from Golbat (XY:
Phantom Forces 32/119) because the two have similar
Abilities (more on that in a bit). Its 130 HP is
somewhere between “probable OHKO” and “possible OHKO”.
Its Lightning-Type Weakness is a danger because of some
of the cards that target Yveltal-EX as opposed to
something out to get Crobat in general, plus is
handy because its not the usual Psychic or Darkness
Weakness on most other Psychic-Types. The Fighting
Resistance can come in handy though its overall a small
bonus. The free retreat is perfect! Granted most decks
will need to pack something to help change out your
Active anyway for when retreating isn’t an option or for
other cards in the deck, but it is still quite useful.
Crobat has a useful Ability and a so-so attack. The Ability is Surprise
Bite; when you Evolve a Pokémon into Crobat (from
hand, so no using Evo Soda) you can select one of
your opponent’s Pokémon and place three damage counters
on them. This isn’t amazing but it really can set-up
some solid combos. Skill Dive is a little more
disappointing: [C] yields 30 to one opposing Pokémon of
your choice. The good news is that Dimension Valley
can make it an effective zero Energy attack, the bad
news is that since it is damage from an attack a card
like Mountain Ring can protect the Bench and
somewhere in between is that as damage things like
Weakness and Muscle Band boost the damage but
that also means Resistance and Hard Charm can
help soak it, and with so little to start that actually
becomes pretty significant. Normally I’d err on the
side of offense but since it does hit the Bench, where
Weakness and Resistance and Muscle Band
like buffs won’t protect but Hard Charm will (you
really shouldn’t be wasting cards like Muscle Band
on this attack anyway), I’m still going with it being a
bit ambiguous.
Thanks to the Golbat review from yesterday, you already know
my thoughts on all the Zubat, Golbat and
even the other option for Crobat. Combos for
Crobat are somewhat numerous, though none are
downright amazing. AZ, Scoop Up Cyclone
and Super Scoop Up all return the entire line to
hand, and in Expanded play you can make use of
Devolution Spray as well. VS Seeker is
important for AZ (or any other normally iffy
Supporters as I’ve also encountered Team Flare Grunt,
Xerosic and even Ghetsis played alongside
Crobat) because running more than one or two
would bog down the deck but with VS Seeker you
can just keep spamming what would otherwise be TecH
copies. Especially if you can make Lysandre’s Trump
Card work with the whole thing (which is conjecture
on my part and not a tested or observed fact). Dimension
Valley is also another obvious partner, mentioned
above; this Evolution line doesn’t have the best
attacks, but anything is better when its free.
Mr. Mime (BW: plasma Freeze 47/116) might be warranted to help
protect anything and everything on the Bench; the entire
Crobat line is on the low end of “normal” for
each respective Stage. Dimension Valley means it
isn’t quite so bad as an attacker, either. An Expanded
only combo is Level Ball and Pokémon
Communication; two thirds of the line are legal
Level Ball targets while any and all Pokémon are
legal for Pokémon Communication, so in a Pokémon
heavy deck like this the two help streamline the
process. Since Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) shuts the the main
benefit (the Ability), running plenty of Startling
Megaphone or other Pokémon Tool counters is also a
very important part of any Crobat utilizing deck.
I’ve been running into today’s card a lot more. Sometimes it is
used well, other times less so; the annoying thing is
that with how the game have unfolded the last few years,
it can be hard to tell what is a cunning new strategy
and what is just making what would have been a
mainstream, strong deck a little more creative but a lot
less effective. I’ll work through some of the examples,
but try to stick to what I think has the most potential
or has at least a Top 4 finish at the last City
Championships to its credit. In case it doesn’t get
corrected in a timely manner (or ever), I made a mistake
yesterday; first the
source of City Championship
results I am using
- while useful - only has about 65% of overall results,
so quite a few events went unreported. Second I flat
out misread the chart and didn’t notice there were three
decks involving Crobat that managed first place
finishes. One result was “Crobat (Unspecified)”,
which had one first place win and two additional Top 4
finishes: needless to say I can’t say much about a deck
where I know only one card.
Wobbuffet (XY: Phantom
Forces 36/119) seems like a natural partner for the
Crobat line; though not enormous, 110 HP does
make it a “big, Basic Pokémon” since it is not a
Pokémon-EX and thus is a mere 20 away from the printed
maximum. While a little less likely to successfully
soak a hit than Crobat itself, Wobbuffet
requires so much less effort that it is easier to
replace and strangely enough that might make it more
likely to survive: it isn’t worth as much effort to KO
if all things are equal. With Dimension Valley
it can attack for just [P] and its attack does more
damage based on the damage counters on the Defending
Pokémon, while its Ability shuts down other Abilities
while it is Active, sparing Abilities of fellow
Psychic-Types like Crobat; being set-mates, TPCi
basically giftwrapped this combo for us. It seems solid
enough you might make it the focus of the deck, but not
so card intensive you can’t combine it with other
aspects: in fact I suspect the next option included it.
Crobat/Mewtwo-EX seems fairly straightforward a concept though as
I’m operating without a list I can’t be so sure. Mewtwo-EX
gets to attack for less Energy if Dimension Valley
is in play and if you’re running mostly [P] Energy then
you might even pull off some surprise KOs with Psy Drive
(a much better attack when its cost drops from [PPC] and
a discard to just [PP] and a discard, though X-Ball is
still your main attack). I wouldn’t be surprised if
other Psychic-Type attackers show up, like Sigilyph
(BW: Dragons Exalted 52/124; BW: Plasma Freeze
118/116; BW: Legendary Treasures 66/113) or
Wobbuffet. Mewtwo-EX used to be strong
enough to more or less carry its own weight in a deck
and so I do have to wonder if the damage counter
placement is worth it as opposed to running more
Trainers or other Pokémon… but then again better the
opponent focus on KOing a Zubat than a Mewtwo-EX
and some tricks that just aren’t worth it for Mewtwo-EX
alone but that are for Crobat, like the various
“bounce” cards mentioned earlier. A Mewtwo-EX
with a Double Colorless Energy attached and a
free retreater on the Bench can easily shake off all its
damage and the effects of any attacks, then be replayed
and reenergized that same turn even if you had to use an
AZ (and thus your Supporter for the turn) to do
it.
Crobat with unspecified Fighting-Types are another option. I’ve run into
Donphan (BW: Plasma Storm 72/135) backed
by it; I’m not thrilled having so many Evolutions but
Crobat and Golbat retreat for free while the
former can take a hit and of course, the main point is
to shave a turn off of the KO you’re working on with
Donphan. Landorus-EX makes a decent amount
of sense; while lacking the shared Type support of
Mewtwo-EX, Fighting-Type support is fantastic and
in terms of exploiting Weakness it does an even better
job than the Psychic-Type. Landorus-EX and its
Hammerhead attack have long kept up a strong
Active/Bench assault; if you can get the deck to flow
right then again, it makes sense, at least as Theorymon.
The last option is one I ran into on the PTCGO. I am not sure if
it is or isn’t a good use of the card. I ran into it a
few times (I think against the same player) and lost to
it most of those times: Seismitoad-EX backed by
Manectric-EX and Crobat. The thing that
struck me most is that if you’re making a deck built
around Seismitoad-EX… Rock Guard actually
becomes a pretty good Ace Spec since you can’t discard
it and odds are your opponent has to attack into it
multiple times or forgo attacking, allowing it to match
or outpace the damage yield from a Muscle Band.
I fixate on that because even after facing it so many
times, I wasn’t sure about the rest of the deck. I
don’t think it ran Pokémon Tool F cards (and when I
faced it, it was with decks that contained just two
Pokémon-EX) so blocking Items meant blocking Tools meant
less damage when Manectric-EX did come up, but I
suppose as an anti-Yveltal-EX option that can
also hit the Bench, it makes some sense. Crobat
is partially protected by Seismitoad-EX and did
lead to some strategic KOs, I’m just not sure if the
deck would have been better backing Seismitoad-EX
with other cards. Doesn’t help that I was using a
somewhat odd deck myself.
Ratings
Note: Unlike Golbat from yesterday, the rating here will be a
reflection of the competitiveness of decks more or less
focused on Crobat, instead of on their value to
Crobat decks (Crobat is a must run staple
for a Crobat deck; go figure).
Standard: 2.5/5 - While
inferior to other previously competitive Evolutions, it
also doesn’t rely on Items (though it is enhanced by
them) and so Seismitoad-EX needs a partner like
Garbodor to wreck it, which is only a small
improvement because that is perhaps the most archetypal
Seismitoad-EX deck to begin with. Probably most
dangerous the first two rounds of an event, though with
some wins at Cities it is hard to be sure (people can
afford to experiment more there).
Expanded: 2.75/5 -
Crobat gains a lot in Expanded, but as is often the
case it faces more competition so I don’t expect it to
fare that much better.
Limited: 4.9/5 - In Limited just being a Stage 2 line that can hit the
Bench and only needs [C] for its attacks the entire way
through makes it a primo pull, only to be skipped
because you can run a decent +39 deck due to being even
luckier and having a big Basic to build such a deck
around.
Summary: Crobat doesn’t seem quite strong enough to be a serious
threat in the current metagame, but when it catches you
off guard it can get you into a losing situation from
which it is hard to escape. On one hand, I want to say
that it’s headed in the right direction but is just a
bit too weak; the Ability and attacks need to hit
harder. Zubat still is mostly a waste but
Golbat is worth using as much for its Ability/attack
as for Rare Candy not being recycled by cards
like AZ or Devolution Spray and avoiding
Item lock… but it isn’t so good that I’d be worried
about it getting all the attention while Crobat
is ignored, even if the top whatever percent of the card
pool suddenly (and without precedent) got banned. So on
the other hand, without at least some of the cards I
keep bemoaning as being too powerful, Crobat
probably could carry its own weight as a serious,
tournament viable card, maybe in multiple decks.
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