aroramage |
What do you get when you cross a
platypus with a pineapple and a Mexican stereotype? Heck
if I know, but today we're looking at Ludicolo, a
Pokemon powered by the ramba of samba, the dance of your
pants, and the music of the night! I know that last one
didn't rhyme, but I thought it was appropriate.
Especially cause Ludicolo's got
this Captivating Rhythm Ability that acts like Pokemon
Catcher without the Item slot - that's a nice way of
getting around that nasty Seismitoad-EX and snatching up
one of your opponent's Bench-sitters to get a good KO
in! Flip a coin, and if you land on heads, you can
switch the Active with a Benched Pokemon, really
straight forward stuff. Of course, it's about as
successful as Pokemon Catcher, but given how useful that
can be, it'll prolly be worth it.
Other than that, not much to sell
on Ludicolo. His Solar Ray attack is only a 3-for-80
(come on, you're a Stage 2, at LEAST hit for 90!) and
heals off 20...I mean, combined with Sceptile (8), it
could be useful, but would I rather be healing off 50
damage on my turn (which by the way, GREAT stalling
overall) or dealing 50 more damage on that attack? Who
knows, Ludicolo's no fighter, HE'S A LOVER!!
So there may be some usage in
Captivating Rhythm, but is it worth running a Stage 2 to
get a constant Pokemon Catcher effect every turn?
Arguably so, but it's going to take a lot of work and
convincing. VirGen decks are the most likely to run him,
and they've already got Genesect-EX's Red Signal, so
unless you're worried about Silent Lab nullifying that
Ability, Ludicolo's a hefty investment to work in.
Or maybe you'd rather just let
Ludicolo dance the night away-ZING!!
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (a constant Pokemon
Catcher is only as good as its offensive partner)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (it's not too bad
here either, probably better for targeting those pesky
Eelektrik)
Limited: 3.5/5 (if your opponent
has Benched Pokemon, then this guy is pretty useful, but
other than that ehhhhhhhhh)
Arora Notealus: You know what's a
fun musical instrument? Maracas. Just shake em around or
give them to your favorite Ludicolo, and WATCH AS HIS
POWER LEVEL REACHES BEYOND THE WILDEST DREAMS OF
MEGA-MEWTWO AND ARCEUS, OH HOW MEGA-RAYQUAZA TREMBLES AT
THE POWER OF THE FUNK (Ludicolo for Ludicolo tier)
Next Time: And now that EX you've
all been waiting for!
|
Otaku |
Time for the next-to-last entry of our XY: Primal
Clash Grass Week. For those late to the party, I
was given the chance to select cards for this week, so I
decided to keep it simple by taking the very first Type
of the set (Grass) and picking the five remaining that
had the most potential or (as sadly some haven’t had
much potential at all) seemed more interesting than
their peers I left out.
So today we are looking at Ludicolo (XY:
Primal Clash 12/160). Being a Grass-Type means it
enjoys hitting some key cards for Weakness (like
Seismitoad-EX), never has to deal with Weakness, and
has some support but most of what has already proven
worthwhile already works for more than just Grass-Types
(like Virizion-EX). This is our fourth Stage 2
this week, but as I like to be thorough I’ll reiterate:
at least one turn of delay (two if you don’t use
acceleration), two additional cards of investment (over
a Basic Pokémon) and unless the lower Stages pick up
some of the slack (something that would really help the
game overall) then the entire burden for justifying the
line falls onto the Stage 2, creating that awkward
situation of making a Stage 2 “superior” to or at least
offering something that no Basic (Pokémon-EX or
otherwise) or Stage 1 or Mega Evolution offers
without then tilting things too far the other
direction.
Ludicolo
has 130 HP, a score we’ve seen a few times this week.
It is large enough that Ludicolo won’t be an
overly easy OHKO, but neither is it overly secure. I
think it leans more “safe” than “unsafe”, but the margin
isn’t as comfortable as it was a year ago or the
beginning of this year or even as of last set. Fire
Weakness has also been a common sight this week; as I
keep pointing out most of the Fire-Types (at least that
I have seen used well competitively) don’t or only just
barely need the boost. Instead of making impossible
KOs, it will mostly allow a Fire-Type to use its attack
(sometimes primary, sometimes secondary, sometimes both)
for a OHKO with less effort than would have otherwise
been required. In a few cases its quite significant but
most will just be a mild bonus for the attacker… which
means Fire Weakness isn’t good but it isn’t as bad as
some other possibilities. The lack of Resistance is the
worst possible, but its also the norm so I won’t hold it
against the card. The Retreat Cost of [CC] is also
pretty much average as its high enough you’ll want to
avoid it but low enough you’ll often be able to both
provide the Energy and recover from the loss. Plus even
if it was higher, most decks currently pack multiple
alternatives to manually retreating at full price,
featuring either switching cards or those that simply
lower Retreat Costs.
This Ludicolo sports one Ability and one attack.
The Ability is Captivating Rhythm, which once-per-turn
(per copy of this Ability) you can flip a coin and if
“heads”, select an opponent’s Benched Pokémon and switch
it with his or her Active; so a free (beyond getting
Ludicolo into play) Pokémon Catcher per turn.
Years ago Metagross (DP: Legends Awakened
10/146) had a functionally identical effect, save it was
a Poké-Power (one of the predecessors to Abilities) and
named Magnetic Reversal. My memory is hazy but I seem
to recall it had some success. That was a different
format though; for now this is a nice Ability but alone
isn’t enough to justify running a Stage 2 in the current
metagame, in part because you need two or three as they
each individually have “even” odds of success or
failure. So let us take a look at the attack: Solar Ray
starts out promising as it has a cost of [GCC], allowing
Double Colorless Energy to mitigate some of the
difficulty of powering up Ludicolo. The output
is disappointing though not horrid; 80 damage means it
just takes a Muscle Band to put most things into
2HKO range and 20 healing isn’t bad, just largely
useless as most attackers that don’t take the OHKO will
still easily score a 2HKO the next turn regardless of
such a small amount of healing.
Let’s check the rest of the Evolution line. There are
two options for Lotad: BW: Plasma Storm
29/135 and XY: Primal Clash 10/160. Both are
Basic Pokémon with 60 HP, no Resistance, Retreat Cost of
[C], no Ability, no Ancient Trait and one attack. Plasma
Storm 29/135 is a Water-Type with Lightning Weakness
and for [WC] it hits for 20 with a coin flip to inflict
Paralysis. XY: Primal Clash 10/160 is a
Grass-Type with Fire Weakness and for [CC] it can hit
for 20. Neither attack significantly contributes to
keeping Lotad alive long enough to Evolve and
neither Type/Weakness combo strikes me as better than
the other. Plasma Storm 29/135 might be able to
Paralyze but the Energy cost of its attack makes it
unlikely to be a good deal, so I think I’d go with
XY: Primal Clash 10/160 just because if you actually
had to attack with it, this Lotad can use a
Double Colorless Energy to get in a quick, desperate
hit. Unless you have a reason to run Dive
Ball in the deck, in which case go with Plasma
Storm 29/135 since it is a legal target. There are
also two options for Lombre: Plasma Storm
30/135 and XY: Primal Clash 11/160. Both are
Stage 1 Pokémon with 80 HP, no Resistance, Retreat Costs
of [CC], no Abilities, no Ancient Traits and two
attacks. Plasma Storm 30/135 is a Water-Type
with Lightning Weakness and for [CC] it can attack for
20 damage (+20 if you get “heads” on the required coin
flip) or for [WCC] it can hit for a flat 50. XY:
Primal Clash 11/160 can do 20 for [G] or 30 for
[CC]. Even without Dive Ball being in the deck
(which is a possibility), it might be good to have
Lombre shift Types since it can hit without any [W]
Energy; altering your Weakness could be useful as well.
Still not enough to really warrant running one over the
other unless you specifically need to work with Dive
Ball or do need to avoid Lightning Weakness, etc.
There are two other options for Ludicolo itself:
Plasma Storm 31/135 and XY: Primal Clash
37/160. Both are Stage 2 Water-Type Pokémon with 130 HP
and no Resistance. Plasma Storm 31/135 is
Lightning Weak with a heftier Retreat Cost of three, the
Ability Rain Dish (heals 20 damage from itself between
turns) and the attack Groovy Dance (requires [WWC] for
70 damage, optional discard to Confuse the opponent’s
Active). The healing will occasionally come in handy
but the attack is pretty disappointing; hits to soft and
the bonus effect will rarely be worth an Energy discard.
Primal Clash 37/160 has a Retreat Cost of [CC]
and Grass Weakness, an Ancient Trait and two attacks.
Its Ancient Trait is α Recovery, which doubles the
amount of healing that healing effects provide for
Ludicolo; it can be useful but this isn’t a huge
tank so its mostly a small benefit. For [C] it can use
Astonish to hit for 30 while letting you shuffle a
random card from your opponent’s hand back into his or
her deck (after revealing that card). Not great, but a
decent “lesser” attack. The card’s “big” attack is
Splash Dance for [WCC]; this does 60 damage and during
your next turn ups the damage of Splash dance to 120.
Splash Dance is pretty disappointing as we learned a
while ago that attacks like this are too easy to
disrupt, so you’ll often just get 60 for three. Still
Astonish and the Type difference still makes this worth
considering if you are running today’s version.
Should you run today’s version? Again, only for fun. I
am not denying that Captivating Rhythm is useful, just
that it isn’t worth the hassle that comes with
Ludicolo. Splitting the line would allow you to hit
two of the reasonably in demand Weaknesses, Water
(usually for Landorus-EX) and Grass (usually for
Seismitoad-EX) but I’m don’t think they bring
enough on top of that to be remotely competitive. If
Bench disruption suddenly demands a premium though, you
might want to revisit this option.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
4.5/5
Summary:
For now, Ludicolo will be lucky to enjoy some
“fun deck” play, though it looks quite nice for Limited
play. Again if we get a format where it suddenly
becomes really important to mess with the Bench, this
Stage 2 will be worth revisiting, but again its
something to get when the price is right, not to make a
major effort in tracking it down.
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