aroramage |
Alright, I don't wanna overhype
this guy...BUT OMG IT'S GARCHOMP 2.0 REBETA'D MAX
EDITION!!
...er, okay, maybe not that much.
Still, you might be thinking, "A Stage 2 at #4?! What is
this?!" yeah I know I don't know what's up with that
either BUT!! We can take a look at this guy and find
out!!
So let's start off with his first
attack, Turbo Assault...hmm...something seems familiar
about this attack. Weird though. Anyways, it costs 1
Energy and does 60 damage...wait, no, something's
DEFINITELY familiar about this attack. You wanna know
what it is? It's like Garchomp (DEX - #90)'s Mach Cut
attack! It even costs the same 1 Fighting Energy, and
back then, Garchomp (DEX) was so hype! In fact he even
made it on the Top 10 List for Dragons Exalted at #5!
Well what's the difference then?
Well between Turbo Assault and Mach Cut, Mach Cut had
the ability to cut off one of your opponent's Special
Energy cards, which is a huge boon to have but is
nothing compared to Turbo Assault! Instead of removing
an Energy from your opponent's Pokemon, Garchomp will
instead grab an Energy card - note that's ANY Energy
card - from your discard pile and attach it to any of
your Pokemon - YES, ANY POKEMON!! This is HUGE!! But
before we talk more about that, let's talk about their
second attacks!
Similarly to Garchomp (DEX), this
Garchomp's second attack only costs 2 Energy! And it can
do an impressive amount of damage, kinda like Garchomp
(DEX) can, but instead of getting Dragonblade that does
100 and mills off a couple of cards, we get Bite Off,
which does a little less at 80 damage to start, but if
Garchomp goes after an EX with this attack, PREPARE FOR
TROUBLE!! And make it double, cause it does double the
damage with an extra 80 damage added onto the attack!!
Checking off my Team Rocket
reference off the bucket list, huzzah!
Seriously, how can Garchomp get any
better? He can grab stuff like DCE or Strong Energy and
attach it to just about any Pokemon while dealing a
hefty amount of damage to the opposing Pokemon - and
keep in mind, he can even equip HIMSELF with Strong
Energy to deal even MORE damage with Bite Off to
opposing EX!! Never mind that he's got access to all the
Fighting support and even can be brought out easily with
Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick!
Man, I rated this guy WAY too low
on my list. The only thing really holding him back is
being a Stage 2, and even THAT'S not an issue cause of
his typing!!...feel kinda bad about that now.
Rating
Standard: 4.5/5 (he's a strong
offensive powerhouse that can accelerate ANYTHING from
the discard pile, meaning if you can run Maxie's and
even Rainbow Energy, YOU CAN PLAY GARCHOMP)
Expanded: 4.5/5 (he's an incredible
Stage 2, easily besting his former self in ways one
would never have thought possible)
Limited: 4.5/5 (truly he is the
people's champion in these dark times)
Arora Notealus:...yeah, I'll come
clean with you guys. I only rated Garchomp at #10 on my
list. Yeah, #10, right at the bottom of my personal
Top...12. To be fair, there were some oddball picks that
I personally felt deserved some time in the spotlight,
and my initial impressions of Garchomp were that he was
a good Stage 2. I'm going to get all the flak for that
for sure.
Next Time: Another old favorite
returns...or does he?
|
Otaku |
Just
missing out on making the top three is fourth place
finisher, Garchomp (XY: BREAKpoint
70/122). As a Fighting-Type, this Garchomp
won’t be able to use cards like Double Dragon Energy,
but the tradeoff seems worthwhile. Fighting
Weakness is present on a good deal of Colorless-Types as
well as most Lightning- and Darkness-Types, though
notable cards like Yveltal-EX are instead
Fighting Resistant. Fighting Resistance can be a
problem, but usually just a small one: though Fighting
Resistance is one of the most numerous (along with
Psychic Resistance), no Resistance at all is the
most common and even if it wasn’t, -20 damage is only
going to matter in borderline cases, unlike the damage
doubling of Weakness. The Fighting-Type suffers a
few cards with effects that seem explicitly meant to
counter them, but most aren’t that great. What is
great is the cards that specifically help the
Fighting-Type: Strong Energy, Fighting Stadium,
Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick and Korrina are
huge and rarely absent in a Fighting-focused deck.
On top of that there are even more, somewhat less
impressive but often still useful Fighting-Type support
like Focus Sash as well as indirect Fighting-Type
support like Hawlucha (XY: Furious Fists
63/111). All in all a great deal, and I think
better than what is inherent to Dragon-Types… plus as
we’ll see, Type is very important to this card.
Garchomp
is a Stage 2 Pokémon and by now you know why being a
Fighting-Type is so important. Getting a Stage 2
Pokémon into play is comparatively difficult: you have
to Evolve from the Stage 1 form, which itself Evolves
from the line’s Basic Pokémon or else Evolve directly
from the Basic Pokémon via Rare Candy. Well
technically there are a few more tricks, but these are
what actually work and ally to all Stage 2 Pokémon.
Water-Types have Archie’s Ace in the Hole and
Fighting-Types have Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick to
Bench a Pokémon from the discard pile directly, even if
it isn’t a Basic. When those two Supporters were
first released this seemed like a major obstacle, but
later card releases has turned this into a sound
strategy to slap a Pokémon in a variety of decks.
So while being a Stage 2 is still a drawback, there are
ways to cope with it here. Garchomp has 130 HP,
which is a bit low for a Stage 2 but still not too bad;
nothing can count on surviving an attack in the game but
it seems like the new mean damage per turn is 120, so I
estimate that the bottom half of decks (or setups, as
those also factor in) will whiff while the top half
still does it in one shot… or effectively one shot, in
the case of various other means of damaging a Pokémon
outside of attacking. Grass Weakness isn’t good
but I am uncertain exactly how bad it actually would be:
you’ve got Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins
10/98) as a known, proven quantity, something you
expect to run into at any and every event, but the
other Grass-Type decks are less reliable to show, even
when they are still competitive. No Resistance is
typical but the free Retreat Cost is not; the former is
as bad as it gets while the latter is as good as it
gets… but a free Retreat Cost is typically much more
useful than any form of Resistance!
Garchomp
has two attacks: “Turbo Assault” and “Bite Off”.
The former requires [F] to do 60 points of damage while
attaching an Energy card from the discard pile to one of
your Benched Pokémon while the latter needs [FF] to do
80 damage in general with another 80 damage (so 160
total) if the opponent’s Active is a Pokémon-EX.
These attacks are great individually; both have
excellent damage returns for the Energy invested, being
good or great even without their effects. Turbo
Assault allows you to attach even Special Energy cards,
a potent effect as we’ve learned from other cards.
Bit Off is amazing once you add any damage boosting
tricks to Garchomp; even just a Muscle Band
means it at least half-KOs anything without some
defensive effect, increased HP or the like because
everything that is not a Pokémon-EX was printed
with 200 or less HP and no Pokémon-EX has more than 250.
The big deal is that the pretty typical 170-180 HP Basic
Pokémon-EX fall into OHKO range. The Energy costs
do keep this card from being easy to splash into decks,
but aren’t high enough to make it functionally
impossible either given it is just one or two [F] Energy
per attack. The staggering also means that you can
go from zero to attacking with just a single manual
Energy attachment. The attacks are real winners.
So… how
about Gible? Gabite? Other
Garchomp? Across the board, all versions of
Gible, Gabite and Garchomp except
for the versions from XY: BREAKpoint are
Dragon-Type Pokémon with Dragon Weakness, no Resistance
and no Ancient Traits, while the XY: BREAKpoint
versions are Fighting-Types with Grass Weakness, no
Resistance, no Ancient Traits and no Abilities (plus are
the only Standard legal options). Gible could be
BW: Dragons Exalted 86/124 (also released as
BW: Legendary Treasures 94/113), BW: Dragons
Exalted 87/124 or XY: BREAKpoint 68/122.
All are Basic Pokémon with a Retreat Cost of [C] but no
Abilities. BW: Dragons Exalted 86/124 has 50 HP
and can use “Tackle” for [C] to do 10 damage or “Gnaw”
for [WF] to do 20. BW: Dragons Exalted 87/124
has 60 HP and may use “Sand Attack” for [F] to make the
Defending Pokémon flip a coin if it tries to attack the
next turn, or for [WC] may use “Knock Away” to hit for
10 damage, with a coin flip that adds another 20 if
“heads” (“tails” still does the base 10 damage). XY:
BREAKpoint 68/122 also has 60 HP but with only one
attack: for [F] it can use “Never Enough” to discard a
card from hand and if you do, then you draw two cards.
None of these are thrilling, but if I need a Dragon-TYpe
Gible I would go with BW: Dragons Exalted
87/124 as it may stall for time with Sand attack, but in
Standard you have no choice and if you can get by with a
Fighting-Type then I would go with XY: BREAKpoint
68/122 as you probably need the draw power if Gible
is attacking.
Gabite
also has three options: BW: Dragons Exalted
88/124 (also released as BW: Legendary Treasures
95/113), BW: Dragons Exalted 89/124 or XY:
BREAKpoint 69/122. All three are Stage 1
Pokémon with 80 HP and Retreat Cost [C]. BW: Dragons
Exalted 88/124 has two attacks: Tackle for [C] shows
up again, but does 20 damage this time but adds “Shred”
for [WF] to hit, hitting for 40 damage while ignoring
any effects on the Defending Pokémon. BW: Dragons
Exalted 89/124 is the one member of the line that
has an Ability and it is a doozy: “Dragon Call” allows
you to search your deck for a Dragon-Type Pokémon once
per turn and add it to hand. Its attack is another
bit of filler as “Dragon Slice” just does 20 damage for
the now familiar cost of [WF]. XY: BREAKpoint
69/122 has “Sand Tomb” for [F], hitting for 20 damage
while preventing the Defending Pokémon from retreating
during your opponent’s next turn. You might wish
to run one or two of these in case of Item lock, but
otherwise use Rare Candy if you are going to
Evolve from Gible and not just use Maxie’s
Hidden Ball Trick. Only XY: BREAKpoint
69/122 is Standard legal, but in Expanded you… probably
still should use it with today’s Garchomp as I
would think Korrina would also be in the deck.
So what
about the other versions of Garchomp? There
is BW: Dragons Exalted 90/124 (re-released as
BW: Plasma Freeze 120/116 and BW: Legendary
Treasures 96/113) and BW: Dragons Exalted
91/124. Both are Stage 2 Pokémon with 140 HP, no
Ancient Trait and no Ability, but two attacks. BW:
Dragons Exalted 90/124 has a Retreat Cost of [C],
the attack “Mach Cut” for [F] which does 60 damage while
discarding a Special Energy from your opponent’s Active,
and the attack “Dragon Blade” for [WF] which hits for
100 damage but discards the top two cards of your deck.
This one actually has seen some success from time to
time, though I don’t think it has ever been major.
Decks using it tend to be Dragon-Type focused. BW:
Dragons Exalted 91/124 enjoys a perfect free Retreat
Cost, can use “Jet Headbutt” for its first attack to hit
for 40 damage at a cost of [C] while for [WFC] it can
use Sand Tomb to hit for 80 damage while again
preventing the Defending Pokémon from manually
retreating during your opponent’s next turn. This
one has never seen any successful play to my
recollection. Gabite (BW: Dragons Exalted
89/124) actually managing to score a 10th place finish
in our Top 13 cards of BW: Dragons Exalted list:
you can read the review
here
though of course very little applies to the present as
that over three years ago. BW: Dragons Exalted
90/124 earned a review as the
5th place finisher
in that same Top 10 and later its reprint BW:
Legendary Treasures got it a second look
here.
Even BW: Dragons Exalted 91/124 got
a review,
but mostly as a “Well we haven’t looked at this yet.”
kind of thing.
You
might run BW: Dragons Exalted 90/124 alongside
today’s Garchomp, but only in Expanded and only
if you aren’t relying solely (I’d also exclude decks
running mostly) on Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick.
What is a little more likely (in that I still bump into
people running it on the PTCGO) is a deck built around
BW: Dragons Exalted 90/124… in which case you
might consider running today’s Garchomp as a
one-of; more would be tempting except such decks usually
run heavy Dragon-Type support which XY: BREAKpoint
70/122 can’t benefit. Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick
will allow many decks to work in today’s Garchomp
if they wish, even if it isn’t a deck’s main focus.
You won’t get a groovy Ability like you would with say
Gallade (XY: BREAKthrough 84/162), nor
would it be able to operate with any Energy as that
example does, but as long as you have a decent source of
[F] Energy, you’ll enjoy a free retreater that can hit
for a decent amount while accelerating Energy from the
discard pile or take a nice hard swing at Pokémon-EX for
just [FF]. Getting back Special Energy cards is
nothing to scoff at so this card is already being used
in a variety of decks. Not every deck can manage
it though, plus another option are decks built squarely
around it. Seems like an important card for both
Expanded and Standard decks.
For
Limited play, if you can get the entire line it is well
worth running; the exception is if you can’t dedicate a
good chunk of your energy cards (three at least) to be
Fighting Energy or if pull something like a big,
Basic Pokémon-EX you would prefer to run completely on
its own (ensuring your start with it even if you
mulligan like mad). You can still appreciate all
the good about this card in this format: accelerating
Energy, hitting Pokémon-EX extra hard (though less
frequent than in constructed play), etc.
Ratings
Standard:
3.75/5
Expanded:
3.75/5
Limited:
4.25/5
Summary:
At this rate Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick is going
to be a staple; unless a deck has no room or is totally
ill-suited to trying to pull it off, between Archeops
(BW: Noble Victories 67/101; BW: Dark
Explorers 110/108), the aforementioned Gallade
and today’s Garchomp, there is practically a
useful Fighting-Type for everything. Archeops is
pure, disruptive Ability, Garchomp pure attacker
and Gallade the happy blend of the two.
Still Garchomp counts on a source of [F] Energy
so while I otherwise would prefer its two attacks be in
so many decks, it’s going to be restricted to those that
either already can meet the cost or will meet it with
some tweaking.
Garchomp
made the Pojo Top 10 list with 18 voting points, five
above the
fifth
and
sixth
finishers, but four below
tomorrow’s
third place pick. On my personal Top 10 list,
Garchomp secured fourth place, and I am kind of
wishing I had given it third.
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