aroramage |
Perhaps one of the most powerful
Stage 1 Pokemon in existence, Kabutops has a sleek
design that suggests it used to swim in the water before
pursuing its prey on land. It brandishes two extremely
sharp claws that act like scythes as its main means of
tearing its prey apart - and now that ferocity returns
with this set!
At 150 HP, Kabutops is certainly no
joke, as most anything that doesn't hit his Grass-type
Weakness is only going to 2HKO him at best, with a few
exceptions. This means he's a tough nut to crack, but
his bulk alone isn't the only thing people need to worry
about. With Cling, he can use 2 Energy to deal 50 damage
and then heal off the same amount that he did to the
opposing Pokemon - a dangerous phrase, as that means if
he hits for Weakness, he's getting back 100 HP!! Never
mind what boosts from Muscle Band or Fighting Fury Belt
will lend him. And that's not even talking about
X-Scissor, which for 3 Energy does an impressive 80
damage and gives you a 50/50 shot of flipping for 60
more! Combined with the Cling from before, he could be
2HKO-ing EXs left and right!
Unfortunately though, that's about
all the good that can come from Kabutops. Due to the
nature of his Evolutionary line, he's tough to get out
in the first place, and the fastest way other than going
up through the Fossils is with a card like Maxie's. And
even then, Kabutops only does so much. At the very
least, he gets a lot of Fighting support like Strong
Energy and Fighting Stadium, which in turn means stuff
like Cling and X-Scissor can deal more damage, but
outside of that, he's a lost cause.
Try him out if you'd like, but
don't overestimate his abilities...or underestimate
them, for that matter.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (he's pretty hard
to get out, but once he's all powered up, he's a
reasonable force to be reckoned with)
Expanded: 2/5 (I wouldn't expect
him to annihilate games or anything, but at the very
least, he's gonna do his fair share of damage)
Limited: 2.5/5 (...did I mention he
was hard to get out?)
Arora Notealus: Of the two original
Fossil Pokemon, I did prefer Kabutops to Omastar and
would usually pick the Dome Fossil. Nothing really
against Omastar though, I just liked Kabutops more. That
being said, though, he is the avatar of evil now
according to TPP, sooo...
Next Time: HELIX BE PRAISED!!
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Otaku |
Our first actual Pokémon for the week is Kabutops
(XY: Fates Collide 39/124). As a Fighting
Type Kabutops can tap a collection of support
that is both abundant and potent, as well as striking
many Colorless and most Fighting and Lightning Types for
double damage (via Weakness). After “No
Resistance”, Fighting Resistance is the most common, but
that is mostly a concern in edge cases: -20 means a lot
less to damage calculations that x2, at least in most
cases. There are some anti-Fighting-Type effects,
but they haven’t proven competitive yet and show no
signs of changing. All in all, it is good to be a
Fighting Type. What is less good is the card’s
Stage. Normally being a Stage 1 is solid; it
isn’t great like being a Basic but it is the next
easiest to run Stage, however this is a Stage 1
that Evolves from a Restored Pokémon. That tends
to be a problem, though as a Fighting Type we have a
potential work around in Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick:
Kabutops just needs to prove itself worth the
effort. The Typing is a good start and the HP also
seems persuasive: at 150 Kabutops has a good
chance of soaking a hit; it isn’t as durable as the 170
or 180 HP Basic Pokémon-EX, but especially considering
the effects that hit Pokémon-EX a bit harder like old
school favorite Silver Bangle, it is reasonably
close. The Grass Weakness can be dangerous, but
mostly just because it allows Vespiquen (XY:
Ancient Origins 10/98) to reach OHKO levels more
quickly and reliably. The lack of Resistance feels
like a missed opportunity with its HP but again,
Resistance tends to only matters in select
circumstances, so let us move onto the Retreat Cost:
[CC] is low enough you can pay it if you must but high
enough you really want to lower or bypass it entirely.
Kabutops
has no Ability or Ancient Trait. Yes, that last
one was unlikely as the mechanic seems retired, but it
seems like it ought to have been saved for Restored
Pokémon and their Evolutions, plus select Legendary
Pokémon. Nitpick, I know, so onto the first attack
“Cling” which requires [CC] to do 50 damage while
healing Kabutops by that same amount. The
second attack is “X-Scissor” for [FCC] that does 80
damage plus has you flip a coin; “heads” means an extra
60 damage, but “tails” still does that promised 80. Double
Colorless Energy (as well as any non-Type or Stage
exclusive Energy acceleration) can help you ready Cling
in a single turn, and combined with that 150 HP and
potential damage bonuses, it looks like it might be one
of those healing attacks that actually work. Just
another attachment of a source of [F] Energy enables
X-Scissor, which is a good pricing structure.
80-for-three isn’t great, but it isn’t bad while 140
for three is; the two average out decently and keep
Kabutops a threat to larger Pokémon because again,
the Fighting Type is good for damage bonuses.
Now I already am leaning towards saying this out to just
be played via Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick, but we
should officially look at Kabuto and Dome
Fossil Kabuto to make it official. Kabuto is
a vanilla Restored Pokémon; if its Stage didn’t require
you use another card effect to put it into play, it
would almost be boring. Still, it almost does
“vanilla” well. Almost, but not quite as it is a
Restored Fighting Type with 80 HP, Grass Weakness, no
Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Ability or Ancient
Trait, and a single attack. That single attack is
“Mud Shot” for [F], doing 30 damage. While I much
prefer effects that improve setup, for a quick bit of
damage that is better than I would have expected.
If it had a bit more HP and wasn’t so hard to put into
play, it may have been worth the hassle. That
isn’t the case though; not only are you stuck with the
HP, but to put it into play you either need to use
Dome Fossil Kabuto or some of the alternatives. Dome
Fossil Kabuto just allows you to look at the bottom
seven cards of your deck and play Kabuto (only
one if there are multiples) should you find any there.
You can use Twist Mountain to try and play one
from hand, but not only is that using your Stadium slot,
but it only works on a coin flip and is a “once per
turn” effect. They make a Stadium so Grass Types
can be Evolved the turn they hit the field and the same
Pokémon more than once with no other costs or drawbacks,
but to Bench a Restored Pokémon requires a coin flip
(though to be fair, Twist Mountain released
before Forest of Giant Plants). The other
option is Omastar (XY: Fates Collide
18/124). Probably should have schedule it for
review first instead of having us review it
tomorrow,
but playing the Stage 1 of yet another Restored Pokémon
means I’d rather use Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick or
not run Kabutops at all.
So should we run Kabutops? Probably not; it
just isn’t worth suffering through the Restored Pokémon
mechanic, and once we go the Maxie’s Hidden Ball
Trick route, we bring in all sorts of competition.
For example there is Gallade (XY: BREAKthrough
84/162), who provides a better attack for [CC] along
with a great Ability. You could also include
Garchomp (XY: BREAKpoint 70/122) if the deck
has a source of [F] Energy, allowing you to do decent
damage while attaching an Energy from the discard pile
to something on your Bench, or for the low price of [FF]
do 80 damage that gets an extra +80 against Pokémon-EX
to become 160! If you insist on Kabutops,
Focus Sash is probably your friend, as it will
allow it to survive a hit and either go for Cling or
X-Scissor, depending on what is more suited (unless you
can only afford Cling). If you can boost the
damage of Cling by 20, then against a Fighting Weak
target you’ll do enough damage to heal all damage off of
Kabutops, so that approach isn’t without merit
either. With Fighting being what it is, against
neutral Pokémon (though neither Weak nor Resistant) you
theoretically could even try to boost Cling damage
enough to pull the same trick. Actually, the
Fighting Type is so crazy you can do it against
Resistant Pokémon as well, but +120 is going to require
almost every trick the investment is quite high for
something that may not matter; Focus Sash can be
discarded or otherwise compromised so it ultimately
won’t save you, and if you can do that much raw damage
with Kabutops, there are quite a few other
Fighting Types to consider in its stead.
In Limited, it would be amazing except it Evolves from a
Restored Pokémon (noticing a theme?). Your only
options to put it into play are Dome Fossil Kabuto
the Ability on Omastar, which just removes the
problem by a step because Omastar has to Evolve
from Omanyte which has to be put into play by
Helix Fossil Omanyte. All of this means hoping
you not only draw the correct Fossil Item but use
it when the correct target is in the bottom seven cards
of your deck. A small deck means that seven cards
covers a larger percentage of your deck, but also makes
it more likely you’ll have already drawn the Restored
Pokémon in question. It is still tempting to run
because it will be amazing if you can get it out.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
2/5
Summary:
A great card sabotaged by being too difficult to get
into play; Kabutops can hit the field via
alternative methods but if you use Maxie’s Hidden
Ball Trick, now it has to compete with several other
great cards. Against those, Kabutops comes
up short.
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