Here's my 16th article: Koga’s Beedrill, from Gym Challenge.

~ 80 HP. Nice. Gold Berry and Focus Band both help here. Nothing more to say...

~ Bottom Statistics. Weak to Fire, Resists Fighting, Free retreat. The first two parts, Weakness and Resistance really don’t affect the card a lot. Fire has gone down in popularity, and so has Fighting. But, free retreat on the other hand, NEVER goes out of
style, especially for a Stage 2 card!

~ Evolves from Koga’s Weedle, Koga’s Kakuna. You really don’t have a whole lot of choices here... Only 1 K’s Weedle and 1 K’s Kakuna were ever printed... You can either use Breeder, or if you’re under Modified, you can use K’s Kakuna’s Emerge Pokemon Power. Either way, nothing is bad.

~ Nerve Poison. (G)(G) can give you 20 damage, and a possibility of Paralysis AND Poison! Not many cards have this capability. It can Poison the Defending Pokemon, and also, not let them retreat to cure themselves!

~ Hyper Needle. Risky maneuver, sort of like Base Farfetch’d... but, it can do 70 damage for (*)(*)(*) once. If you are really insistant on trying to use this as a main attack, read the combos list below...

**COMBO CARDS**

~Koga. This card really doesn’t help as much to Koga’s Beedrill as much as Koga’s Muk, etc., but still can be used for safety to Poison the Defending Pokemon.

~Koga’s Ninja Trick. If your opponent decides to attack, you have the choice of quickly getting out of there before any damage is dealt to you. That is a nice thing you can combo with a free retreater...

~ Fuschia City Gym. This is only really good if you are nearing a Knock Out. Just hope for a heads, and get out of play!

~ Hyper Devolution Spray. This is how I mentioned you can use Hyper Needle more than once. Just use Hyper Needle, devolve, attack with the Kakuna, re-evolve, then use Hyper Needle again. Just be careful about the devolving rules...

RATINGS...
Unlimited... 8.5 out of 10. This is a nice, strong Stage 2 Pokemon with a unique Paralyze/Poison attack. Also, there really no cards that can crush K’s Beedrill.

Modified...8.5 out of 10. Once again, there are no cards that crush K’s Beedrill, but also, all the cards that K’s Beedrill is based on are in Gym Challenge! So none of the essential cards are banned.

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions, concerns, requests for future articles, or even just to say hi at Baboonskin@aol.com

AIM name: Baboonskin
~Chris