aroramage |
It seems a tad peculiar to leave
this card set out from Evolutions when the rest of the
set was so devoted to these kinds of reprints, but
whatever. Here is Snorlax!
Unfortunately, he didn't really get
much from his previous counterpart. His HP got boosted
to 130 from 90, and his Body Slam does more damage,
albeit at the same cost with the same effect. The only
thing to really draw one's attention is Immunity, which
prevents Status Conditions from affecting Snorlax
entirely. Outside of cards that would shut down his
Ability - Garbodor, Silent Lab, and Wobbuffet being the
ones in question - it does make him a little bit harder
to take down.
...but at only 130 HP, it's not
THAT much harder.
Coupled with an overly expensive
attack, and Snorlax is barely a wall much less an
offensive force to be reckoned with.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (Immunity's a great
Ability to have in Status focused formats)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (but given the game
has accelerated into heavy damage output, it's not that
amazing)
Limited: N/A (and this is a promo,
mind you)
Arora Notealus: Snorlax could be a
pretty potent force in the right hands and against the
right deck, but since most decks I look at aren't
Status-reliant, he's only tech-able in certain ways at
certain times. And even then, 4-for-50 is a horrible
trade-off, I don't care how much better it is than what
it was before.
Next Time:...wait, we just reviewed
yo-WAIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING
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Otaku |
Today the Snorlax
GX Box officially goes on sale today, though I think
I’ve seen it on shelves locally already (no spare money,
so I was trying to avoid looking). If my
calculations are correct, that means the new cards
released in it will be tournament legal December 30th…
when we already have other cards scheduled for review.
So let’s take a look at them now, starting with
Snorlax (XY: Black Star Promos XY179).
This is a Colorless Pokémon so nothing will be Weak or
Resistant, but there are some bits of Type specific
support and counters. The former includes some
decent tricks like Winona while the latter
includes some cards not worth name dropping because
they’ve never been particularly effective (even when
Colorless attackers were on top of the metagame).
There are some solid Colorless Type Pokémon, most of
whom have attacks with only [C] Energy requirements,
allowing them to easily work off Type and meaning the
only added benefit to using them in a Colorless focused
deck comes from that explicit Colorless Type support.
No great tricks for [C] Energy cards either, which makes
sense since they exist only as Special Energy, and
include the very potent Double Colorless Energy.
Snorlax
is a Basic Pokémon, so it takes the minimal amount of
deck space to run, time to hit the field, can be your
opening Active, has access to Basic Stage support, and
enjoys a natural synergy with many card effects when
compared to other Stages of Evolution. The only
drawbacks to being a Basic stem from anti-Basic effects.
Snorlax sports 130 HP, around the point where I
believe it becomes just a bit more likely that a Pokémon
can survive a typical attack than be OHKO’d. It is
just 10 below the max for Basic Pokémon sans a special
mechanic (like being a Pokémon-EX). Fighting
Weakness shifts the card back into OHKO territory as
Weakness tends to do, however I find it a bit worse with
Fighting Types as many have strong single Energy
attacks… and stack a lot of damage buffs on top of them.
Snorlax is big enough to require multiple of
these buffs, but not enough to avoid the OHKO when a
couple are present. No Resistance is the worst,
but it is also typical so it is more of a missed
opportunity than a real detriment; with 130 HP, that -20
damage has a better chance of mattering, though still
not great since it would just be against one of 11
Types. The Retreat Cost of [CCCC] is bad but
totally expected since this is a Snorlax; make sure
you’ve got multiple options for getting out of the
Active slot and/or tanking. That means not only
more than one option, but more than one copy of at least
some of those options.
Snorlax
has the Ability “Immunity”, providing it full protection
from Special Conditions. Immunity doesn’t just prevent
Special Conditions, but should one get through anyway
while - for example - Silent Lab is in play, once
Immunity kicks back in it will cure Snorlax of
any and all existing Special Conditions. This is
not the greatest Ability, but it’s a decent one and it
could become more relevant as the Sun & Moon based cards
(plus rule revisions) suggest Special Conditions may be
getting a bit more of a focus again. Snorlax has
one attack as well, with a hefty cost of [CCCC]; your
reward for meeting that cost is 50 damage and a coin
flip to afflict the opponent’s Active with Paralysis.
When I see a four Energy attack cost, even when it’s all
Colorless Requirements, I expect at least 100 damage.
Paralysis is a useful Special Condition, probably the
best unless Poison or Burn leads to a KO, but it is not
worth 50 damage. If this Snorlax is worth
using, it will require some combos.
Before that though,
let us consider the other options for Snorlax:
BW: Boundaries Crossed 109/149, BW: Plasma Storm
101/135, XY: Kalos Starter Set 26/39, XY:
Flashfire 80/106 (reprinted as Generations
58/83), XY: BREAKthrough 118/162, and XY:
Fates Collide 77/124. All are Basic, Colorless
Type Pokémon with at least 100 HP, Fighting Weakness, no
Resistance, Retreat Cost four, no Ancient Trait, and
Colorless Energy requirements for one or two attacks. BW:
Boundaries Crossed 109/149, BW: Plasma Storm
101/135, XY: Kalos Starter Set 26/39 are Expanded
only. BW: Boundaries Crossed 109/149 has 100 HP,
making it the smallest of the bunch, and two attacks.
The first is “Double Lariat” for [CCC], which has you
flip two coins and does 40 damage per “heads”. The
second is “Rollout” for [CCCC] and it does a flat 60
damage. You can see why we skipped reviewing it;
even adjusting for lower damage outputs of the time,
these attacks are badly overpriced and the HP was (for a
Snorlax) still low. BW: Plasma Storm
101/135 is a Team Plasma Pokémon, so we’ll refer to it
as Snorlax [Plasma]. It has 130 HP, which
was the maximum when it was printed, the Ability
“Block”, and the attack “Teampact”. Block prevents
the opponent’s Active from retreating so long as
Snorlax [Plasma] is Active. Teampact has a
massive Energy cost of [CCCCC], and does 30 damage times
the number of Team Plasma Pokémon you have in play.
All together this is a good card; we first reviewed it
here.
This is a combo centric card, and it saw play for a time
in a stall/control style deck, then later (once more
Team Plasma support released) there because Teampact
could reach big numbers.
XY: Kalos Starter
Set
26/39 has 120 HP, the attack “Rock Smash” for [CCC] and
the attack “Strength” for [CCCC]. Rock Smash does
10 damage and has you flip a coin; “heads” means +30
damage while “tails” means just the original 10.
Strength does a flat 70 damage. Rock Smash is
horribly overpriced while Strength is overpriced. Flashfire
80/106 has 130 HP, again when this was the maximum HP
we’d seen on a card like this. It has the Ability
“Stir and Snooze”, but that isn’t a good thing as it
makes you flip two coins instead of one between turns
for Sleep Checks; if either is “tails” this
Pokémon is still Asleep. “Sleepy Press” is another
pricey one, requiring [CCCC], and it leaves Snorlax
Asleep after using it, but it does do 120 damage and
heals 20 damage from Snorlax first. This
isn’t the greatest, but its overall decent. XY:
BREAKthrough 118/162 has 120 HP with an Ability and
attack. The former is “Plump Body”, which reduces
the damage it takes by 30 after Weakness/Resistance.
For [CCCC] it can use “Knock Away” to do 50 damage and
flip a coin; “tails” means just that base 50 while
“heads” means +30 damage (so 80 total). We covered
this one
here
and I think we got it pretty close to right; the Ability
is great, but the attack isn’t even mediocre, it’s flat
out underpowered or overpriced. XY: Fates Collide
77/124 sets the record for regular Basic Pokémon with
its 140 HP. Its first attack is “Toss and Turn”
for [CCC], doing just 30 damage unless Snorlax
is Asleep, in which case it can still be used and does
30+90. For [CCCC] it can use “Swallow” to do 50
damage, and heal itself by the same amount as the damage
done (usually 50). This one we reviewed
here;
I had some hopes for it due to combo potential, and it
kind of lived up to it.
The other
Snorlax most likely to prove relevant are BW:
Plasma Storm 101/135 and XY: Fates Collide
77/124. Snorlax [Plasma] is more for Team Plasma
decks… but I have an idea for a deck built around XY:
Black Star Promos XY179, and both Snorlax
[Plasma] and XY: Fates Collide 77/124 also fit.
In fact it starts out similar to a deck built around
XY: Fates Collide 77/124: use Hypno (XY:
BREAKpoint 51/122) to put both Active Pokémon to
Sleep, then attack using Toss and Turn. You score
a decent 120 for three Energy on a 140 HP Basic, and
your opponent’s Active has a 50% chance of being Asleep
by the beginning of his or her next turn. To make
the deck more suited for XY: Black Star Promos
XY179, we could add Ariados (XY: Ancient
Origins 6/98), which Poisons both Actives. How
does that work for Snorlax [Plasma]? While
you might need to include something to help it shake
Poison, it can block the opponent from retreating
manually. This is not a brilliant combo;
Abilities and Trainers can still offer easy outs, and we
don’t have a good, reliable, repeatable way to power up
any of these guys to attack… especially because I am
thinking we need to squeeze in Vileplume (XY:
Ancient Origins 3/98) to lock down Items and make it
even more difficult for the opponent to deal with
Special Conditions.
If this sounds
vaguely familiar at all, bombarding your opponent with
Special Conditions from the Bench while a Snorlax
is Active, then you may be remembering one of my
favorite decks: Turbo Snorlax. It was built around
Snorlax (Jungle 11/64, 27/64; Base Set
2 30/130; Legendary Collection 64/110).
This is the ancestor of today’s card… and depending upon
how they interpret the changes made, today’s Snorlax
might even be classified as a reprint of it, albeit with
the kind of significantly different text changes that
force you to run the latest printing instead of the
older ones. Probably not due how much changed,
though; the original Snorlax was a Colorless
Basic Pokémon with 90 HP, Fighting Weakness x2, Psychic
Resistance -30, Retreat Cost [CCCC], the Pokémon Power
“Thick Skinned” (which protected it from being Asleep,
Confused, Paralyzed, or Poisoned), and the attack Body
Slam for [CCCC] (but only doing 30 damage with the coin
flip for Paralysis). 90 HP was 75% of the maximum HP
for any Pokémon at the time; scaling this up gets
a bit tricky as we didn’t have BREAK Evolutions or
Pokémon-EX. Even including those, XY: Black
Star Promos XY179 only falls short when the Pokémon
have 180+ HP (and by less than 2% for those at exactly
180 HP).
All Colorless
Pokémon based on the video game’s Normal Type Pokémon of
the time had Psychic Resistance -30 back then; we didn’t
have Darkness or Metal Types so that was how the
designers tried to balance things out. It was
quite handy though. Pokémon Powers are the
original non-attack effect: they were eventually divided
into Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies, with older effects
that worked on Pokémon Powers applying to both
subdivisions, and newer effects that that worked on both
subdivisions applying to older cards with Pokémon
Powers. The division was made so that some effects
could apply to only Poké-Bodies or Poké-Powers.
Abilities then came along and replaced it all; cards
that affect Pokémon Powers or its subdivisions don’t
work on Abilities and vice versa. Thick Skinned is
otherwise an inferior version of Immunity; even if the
last printing of this card hadn’t updated the text to
read “Special Conditions” so that Burn would also be
blocked, general rulings for Pokémon Powers already had.
Unlike Immunity, if Snorlax is afflicted while
something is disabling it, then Thick Skinned won’t cure
Snorlax should it kick back on. There is an
intermediary step between Thick Skinned and Immunity
called “Thick Skin”, which was a Poké-Body that operated
like Immunity, but it never appeared on a Snorlax
card (to my surprise). Body Slam actually does
come close to scaling properly, unless we limit it to
fellow Basic Pokémon sans mechanics like being a
Pokémon-EX, in which case like the HP it is an
improvement. It was reviewed by the CotD staff,
before my time,
here.
I would have agreed with them until I started working
with Turbo Snorlax decks.
The deck backed
Snorlax (Jungle 11/64, 27/64; Base Set 2
30/130; Legendary Collection 64/110) with Dark
Gloom (Team Rocket 36/82) and Drowzee
(Team Rocket 54/83; Legendary Collection
73/110). Both had Pokémon Powers that afflicted an
Active Pokémon with a Special Condition; “heads” it was
the opponent’s and “tails” it was yours. Drowzee
was overkill; the real partner needed was Dark
Vileplume (Team Rocket 13/82, 30/82); once
you locked down all Trainers (and you think
losing just Items is bad!), the barrage of Special
Conditions allowed Body Slam to be a decent attack.
I don’t know if this was a good deck “for real”, but at
local Leagues I did quite well with it. Getting
back to the present, the best I can come up with for
XY: Black Star Promos XY179 is to ape this deck as
described above, but it seems pretty likely that won’t
be good enough for Standard or Expanded play.
After all even with Ariados Poisoning your own
Active to nail the opponent’s, it would probably be
easier to include a way to deal with Poison and still
use XY: Fates Collide 77/124. This
Snorlax is not legal for Limited play, but should it
be reprinted in a future expansion, it would be okay to
include as a wall; probably never powering it up to
attack, but sticking it out front to soak damage.
Ratings
Standard:
1.5/5
Expanded:
1.35/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
It hurts to score Snorlax so low, but it suffers
the usual curse of Snorlax these last two
generations; either it gets a good attack or a good
Ability, but not both. Snorlax [Plasma] was the
exception to that rule, and even then had to deal with
the more general curse of all cards: heavy competition
in its niche! In this case, 130 HP and Immunity
are nice but Body Slam should not cost four Energy.
Still my favorite
Pokémon, just not my favorite Pokémon card.
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