Ness's Card of the Day - Pokemon Trading Card Game Strategies

Alright everyone, I am alive. I will try to do CotD more, maybe it will become weekly, but in order to make it not take so much time I am going to have to cut back on the the quotes, the polls etc. I'm sorry.. I'll do big fancy ones occasionally.

Anyway, as for Ampharos..

Mareep
Mareep is the most important part of playing Ampharos. It's first turn Static Electricity is very nice even with 2 Mareeps in play. It allows a breeder and a next turn Ampharos. With one Mareep(the active one itself) you can still get Ampharos attacking next turn.
The idea is just to be able to protect Mareep.. unfortunately, this can be hard. The best you could do is probably gust something with a retreat, try to avoid having to flip (if you're against a baby) and try to make sure you're not gonna get Plasma'd with 2 PlusPowers or something. Maybe a Lass will do, then static.. but then you'll need to Eeeeeeek with a Cleffa or something to get your hand back.. I don't know, whatever floats your boat. 40 HP is nasty, but I am seeing less and less PlusPowers in tourneys, so you should be able to get away with it.

The attacking Ampharos!
Ampharos' attack is quite nice. Heads paralyzes and 10 to bench. The reason 10 to bench is better than it ever was before is because that 10 can actually add up for knock outs against babies, back in the days before Neo you didn't see 30 HP Pokémon being used.
The ability to paralyze allows it to take down 80 HP Pokémon in two turns without giving them a chance to attack. Not bad.

Flaafy
Geez this thing is bad, that's all I'll say. Well, it's not that bad, but it's 60 HP, and you should go for that fast Ampharos since Mareep can get you the energy.

Other Stuff
Well, there's not really much lightning weakness.. a Sneasel with a rainbow can be PlusPowered for a KO using Ampharos... overall, Ampharos isn't that bad, it's very close to being tournament playable. Maybe it's at the bottom..

I'd give Ampharos a 6.75/10. It's very, very close to being tournament useable.

-Jason Klaczynski

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