aroramage |
And now at the end of a bit of a
long week, we finally come to Slowbro's cousin, Slowking.
And man does he look peaceful calm, like the nap we
wanna take after coming home from school or work or
wherever we go. Just, ya know, with less standing
involved.
Slowking isn't much of an attacker,
especially not with Psych Up. At 2-for-40, its only
saving grace is that it can double its damage output on
the next turn, tacking on an extra 40 damage. That being
said, it's too slow for competitive play, especially
given Slowking's low HP score of 100. Chances are if
you're using Slowking as your attacker, you're not in a
very good position.
On the other hand, you might be
using him to gain the advantage, since he does come with
an Ability in the form of Royal Flash. This nifty little
trick gives you the opportunity to flip a coin, and if
it's heads, you get to move around an Energy attached to
your opponent's Active Pokemon to one of their Benched
Pokemon. Think of it as a reverse Pokemon Catcher that
pushes Energy away from the attacker and onto something
else. Ideally you could use this to shove Energy onto a
Bench-Sitter whose intended purpose isn't to come out
and be Active - Garbodor anyone?
...no? No? Well, he does have a
better attack now.
Still, the disruption to your
opponent's tempo will be nice, but you do need to be
careful where you're moving it around - if you end up
just fueling their back-up attacker, you're not in any
better position than you were before. That being said,
this puts Slowking in a niche position that doesn't lend
itself to a very competitive level of play. If you're
teching him in, it's to keep him on the Bench and mess
up your opponent while pressuring with your own
attacker.
Course, you're also relying on coin
flips, so that should tell you how viable this is.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (he's not an
absolutely awful Pokemon by a long shot, but his Ability
can only do so much on its own)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (probably combined
with stuff like Head Ringer and the Hammers, Slowking's
disruption game can become even better)
Limited: 3.5/5 (and besides, nobody
expects their Energy to move!)
Arora Notealus:...I could use
pants.
Weekend Thought: So how do this
week's cards look to you? Are they hidden treasures
overlooked? Powerful cards whose potential is yet to be
tapped? Or are they collectibles only?
|
Otaku |
We end
the week with Slowking (XY: BREAKpoint
21/122), set-mate and alternate evolution to
yesterday’s
Slowbro (XY: BREAKpoint 20/122). The
cards are very similar in attributes (only differing in
name) but fairly different in effects as Slowking
sports an Ability and an attack instead of two attacks.
For the sake of being thorough (and because it decreases
my reading comprehension fails) I will still run through
the details, but fair warning this is going to be very
familiar if you have been keeping up.
Slowking
is a Water-Type, allowing it to tap incredibly support
like Archie’s Ace in the Hole while only dealing
with forgettable “anti-Water” cards in exchange.
In terms of exploiting Weakness, nearly all Fire-Types
fit the bill in addition to a decent chunk of the
Fighting-Type, though it doesn’t look like any of those
clocked in during the final weekend of Regionals, at
least in the Masters division (still using
The Charizard Lounge
as a reference). Water Resistance is limited to
some BW-era Grass-Types, which may still come up from
time to time (like Virizion-EX). Overall it
is a good Type with only minor concerns, the worst of
which may not exploiting Weakness as often as some other
Types. Being a Stage 1 is a small burden, but
quite manageable even if we don’t use the aforementioned
shortcut (Archie’s Ace in the Hole) to put
Slowking into play directly. Obviously not as
good as being a Basic, but you should still be able to
manage. The 100 HP means an Active Slowking
is probably a goner, even more so against Grass-Types.
The lack of Resistance is technically the worst, but
also the most common so no sense holding it against the
card; likewise the Retreat Cost of two, though not as
the most common cost but as the point where it is still
significantly advantageous to reduce the cost but not
crippling to pay at full price, at least not most of the
time.
The
Ability on Slowking is “Royal Flash”; it can only
be used one-per-turn, but that is per copy of the card
(so multiples in play can each be used once each turn).
The effect has you flip a coin and it “tails” it does
nothing, which is bad but actually not the worst that
could happen. On “heads” you can move an Energy
from the opponent’s Active to one of his or her Benched
Pokémon, which for your opponent is bad but not the
worst that could happen. You can use this
Ability if your opponent has no Bench but that just
means it does nothing. Obviously a deck using
Energy it can freely move around is only in trouble if
this can be made to matter that very turn. Silly
as that sounds, there are examples of that. Let us
say you were facing a Fairy Transfer deck. A
player with Slowking could try to use Royal Flash
to force at least one Energy from the Active to
Aromatisse (XY 93/146), Lysandre it
forward and take a highly probable OHKO. You
already had good reason to take out Aromatisse in
that example, of course.
Energy
transfer decks may have some Energy that they cannot
easily move around, because it only counts as the
correct Type under certain circumstances or because it
has other attachment restrictions; this too can apply to
various decks. In fact the Type exclusive Energy
like
Wednesday’s
Splash Energy will discard itself if it winds up
attached to the wrong Pokémon-Type; Prism Energy
counts as all Types but only when attached to a Basic,
so if it gets moved to an Evolution it loses its effect.
There are also decks where moving the Energy to
something that already has enough - be it something not
meant to have any Energy or something your opponent
already has prepped to attack - is better than
discarding it, like against Bronzong (XY:
Phantom Forces 61/119) decks that can attach Energy
from the discard pile. As you can use it turn
after turn, the coin flip is probably not the biggest
challenge for this card, but rather the fact that it can
only move Energy off the Active and to the Bench.
The attack (Psych Up) is nothing new; literally we’ve
seen it before. This iteration requires [WC] to
use and hits for 40 base damage, with an extra 40 if you
used Psych Up the turn before (and the effect wasn’t
somehow reset). For two Energy, 40 is low but not
unworkable, while the 80-for-two you get if you used it
the previous turn is adequate (though still not overly
good).
We
covered Slowpoke options yesterday, as well as
Slowbro (the other possible Evolution of Slowpoke)
and one other Slowking still legal. For
those either too lazy to go read it or unable to for
some reason, I am just going to copy and paste my own
work for those, tweaked ever so slightly since it is in
reference to today’s Slowking and not yesterday’s
Slowbro. This is because I am too lazy and
am also running out of time to get this written.
So let us take a look at our Slowpoke options.
There are three to consider, though the oldest is only
legal for Expanded play: BW: Dark Explorers
23/108, XY: BREAKpoint 19/122, and Generations
32/83. All are Basic Pokémon with no Resistance,
Ability or Ancient Trait but two attacks. BW: Dark
Explorers 23/108 is a Water-Type with 70 HP,
Lightning Weakness, Retreat Cost [CCC], the attack “Big
Yawn” for [C], which renders both itself and the
opponent’s Active Asleep), and the attack “Shot In the
Dark” for [WC], which requires two coin flips and both
must be heads just to do 20 damage. XY: BREAKpoint
19/122 is also a Basic Water-Type Pokémon with 70 HP,
but it has Grass Weakness and a Retreat Cost of [CC];
its first attack (Headbutt) does 10 damage for [C] and
its second attack (Tail Lure) costs [CC] while allowing
you to search your deck for a Pokémon and add it to your
hand.
Generations
32/83 is a Basic, Psychic-Type with 50 HP, Psychic
Weakness and a Retreat Cost of [C]. Its first
attack (Spacing Out) costing C to heal 10 damage from
itself, but only if you get “heads” on a coin flip.
Its second attack (Scavenge) requires [PP] and then has
you discard a [P] Energy from itself; if you do you may
add an Item card from your discard pile to your hand.
This card is not a reprint of Fossil 55/62
and Legendary Collection 93/110, however
they did alter Scavenge from adding a Trainer to your
hand to just an Item card. This is unfortunate;
the cards use the same art and so especially for someone
not paying attention they could easily be mistaken for
one another. Unless it would really help to have a
Psychic-Type version, go with one of the two Water-Type
options instead; BW: Dark Explorers 23/108 can
try to stall by putting both Actives to Sleep while
XY: BREAKpoint 19/122 can fish something important
from your deck. You also could skip Slowpoke
entirely by using Archie’s Ace in the Hole but
for a Stage 1 like Slowking that isn’t being put
into play for a lock or early aggressive play, that
seems a bit excessive (at least as the main method).
We have
two options for Slowbro: BW: Dark Explorers
24/108 and XY: BREAKpoint 20/122. I
mentioned earlier that XY: BREAKpoint 20/122 is a
close match for today’s Slowking; BW: Dark
Explorers 24/108 is similar as other than its name,
Lightning Weakness, and Retreat Cost of [CCC] it is the
same. BW: Dark Explorers 24/108 the Ability
“Airhead” that prevents it from attacking if you have
two, four or six Prizes left. The attack you get
in exchange for a detrimental Ability is “Lazy Headbutt”
for [WC], which does 80 and leaves Slowbro (“this
Pokémon”) Asleep. This wasn’t good enough when
we reviewed it before - well not really “we” as I didn’t get a review in for it and
aroramage wasn’t around back then - and it remains a fun
joke but not something to seriously use. Yes, even
when you’ve got Mew-EX to copy and use Lazy
Headbutt for just [W] thanks to Dimension Valley;
80 for 1 is nice but unless you’ve got an entire
Slowbro/Slowking/Mew-EX deck, you’ve
got better things to copy. XY: BREAKpoint 20/122
does a bit better because its first attack (Careless
Head) does 10+ for [W], where the “plus” is flipping a
coin that adds 50 damage on “heads” (“tails” still does
the minimum 10 damage). For [CCC] it can use
“Walk-Off Homer” to win the game, so long as you already
have just one Prize left. Neither are very good,
but theoretically XY: BREAKpoint 20/122 might
become useful if some amazing protective effect or combo
developed (and even then, you’d still need to be able to
take five Prizes first).
BW:
Dark Explorers
49/10 is the other, Expanded Only option for Slowking.
It shakes things up a bit by being a Stage 1
Psychic-Type with 90 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance
and a Retreat Cost of [CC], but it lacks an Ability or
Ancient Trait, again having just two attacks. For [P] it
can use “Psy Bolt” to do 20 damage and flip a coin;
“heads” means the opponent’s Active is Paralyzed,
“tails” means you still just do 20 damage. For
[PCC] it can do “Hand Press” for 50 damage plus 30 for
each card you have in hand more than your
opponent. This card was also reviewed
when it was recent
and once again I missed it. Still not good as even
if you can make your hand big, Slowking goes down
in one hit… and if your opponent has N or just a
large hand, the damage is likely quite bad for the
Energy. For the effort involved, you really need
to manage a OHKO of typical Basic Pokémon-EX (170 to 180
damage), if not Mega Evolutions (typically 210 to 240).
This is another card not likely to be used alongside
today’s Slowking.
Okay,
with that out of the way, is this Slowking any
good and what should it be used with if it is? I
believe the card has some potential, but as much as I
once did. The space used on a Stage 1 for
disruption can go to quite a few cards and while
Slowking can be handy, something that makes it
easier to KO the opponent’s Active, or which reliably
shuts down some of their resources, seem preferred.
All hope is not lost, though as Royal Flash (especially
in a swarm) should make some locks easier to execute…
provided you need to move Energy off the Active.
With something like Head Ringer or Trevenant
(XY 55/146) or Trevenant (XY:
BREAKpoint 65/122), preferably via Trevenant
BREAK just maybe the full control would be worth it.
So that is as much as I can say for Standard and
Expanded; it should come as little surprise that even a
1-1 for a Stage 1 line is a great pull here. The
Energy demands are not too bad for squeezing into a
mostly off-Type deck (as one expects to be stuck with)
and of course Royal Flash can be used by (and against)
any deck that has a Bench.
Ratings
Standard:
2.75/5
Expanded:
2.5/5
Limited:
4.25/5
Summary:
Slowking could be a diabolical Energy moving
machine, but probably is going to be doing well to find
a niche deck where reusable Energy manipulation sets up
for some sort of softlock. I guess it could also
function as a kind of counter against Giratina-EX
(XY: Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98), as it tends
to be reliant on Double Dragon Energy, which you
could move to a Benched
anything-that-isn’t-a-Dragon-Type to force a discard.
As you
can tell I want this card to be good, probably because
at first I was quite impressed by it. It actually
just missed making an earlier version of my Top 10 for
XY: BREAKpoint, and I kind of wish it had stayed
there, because I got it into my head that a reusable
pseudo-Crushing Hammer was going to shape the
format, so it jumped up to my sixth place pick! I
believe I forgot how constraining only being able to
move off of the Active was as again, most decks
are going to have an aggressive plan of attack so why
use a flippy Stage 1 Bench-sitter to move Energy off of
something about to be KO'd? Slowking finished
with 10 voting points on the site list, putting it in
11th place (tied with 12th place, actually).
|
