Crabominable V – Fusion Strike
Date Reviewed: November 19, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 3.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
9th-Place in our countdown of the top 15 cards from SW – Fusion Strike is Crabominable V (SW – Fusion Strike 076/264, 248/264). It lacks an Ability and we aren’t likely to fuel it with Grass Energy, so being a Pokémon with a Rule Box doesn’t really matter. Being a Pokémon V does, though: Crabominable V gives up an extra Prize when KO’d, is excluded from certain beneficial effects, and is included in certain deleterious ones because of this, but it should have significantly better HP than its baseline counterpart, and might have access to better effects. I also keep forgetting that Melony only cares about a Pokémon being a Pokémon V, and this set gave us Adventurer’s Discovery, a Supporter that lets you search your deck for up to three Pokémon V, then has you add them to your hand.
Crabominable V is a Water type, and that means it plays nicely with cards such as Frosmoth (Sword & Shield 064/202; SW – Black Star Promos SWSH007; SW – Rebel Clash 204/192; Shining Fates 032/072, SV034/SV122) and Nessa… though we’ll wait and see if that really matters. Crabominable V is a Basic Pokémon, so there’s no waiting to evolve or need for other cards to put it into play. Normally, Crabominable cards are Stage 1; this is another perk of being a Pokémon V. Crabominable V has 220 HP, 70 more than the largest baseline Crabominable V card; the added durability takes some of the sting out of giving up an extra Prize.
Metal Weakness is one of the worse ones to have right now, though the reason why may be changing; Zacian V doesn’t seem to be as popular but now there’s Genesect V. A total lack of Resistance is the worst, but is also the most common; with 220 HP it would have been nice but I won’t dock the card for its absence. Crabominable V has a Retreat Cost of [CCCC]. In Expanded, this lets it tap a small pool of support specifically for Pokémon with Retreat Costs of [CCCC] or [CCC] and higher. That doesn’t change that this is a chunky boy (or girl), so you’ll need to include cards to aid in retreating, switching out, and/or tanking in the Active position.
Crabominable V knows two attacks. Up first is “Trigger Avalanche”, priced at [W]. This attack forces your opponent to discard the top two cards from their deck. I’ve got a soft spot for milling tactics, and while two cards sounds like it couldn’t possibly be enough, the old Houndoom-EX decks proved that wrong. The caveat is that Crabominable V doesn’t have the support that Houndoom V had, so I think this is mostly just an option to push for the win if your opponent is already ripping through their deck. The real star is “Destroyer Punch”. Priced at [WWC], you’ll need some Energy acceleration to get it going, but when you do, it does 90 damage plus another 60 per damage counter on your opponent’s Active.
We’re at a time when accelerating Energy to Water types and placing damage counters is fairly easy. While 90-for-three is quite poor, getting even one damage counter on your opponent’s Active ups the damage to 150… which means you can KO something that has a total of 160 HP (since there’s already one damage counter on it). Still not great, but if we can just manage two damage counters on the target, Destroyer Punch swings for 210 damage. As the injured Pokémon has to have two damage counters already on it, that means targets with 230 HP or less go down. Two damage counters is something Inteleon (SW – Chilling Reign 043/198; SW – Black Star Promos SWSH113; SW – Evolving Skies 227/203) can accomplish easily. If you can get three damage counters on your target before attacking it with Destroyer Punch, it’ll take 270 damage. Four damage counters, and going just by HP, anything is finished as it would take 330 damage (and again, already has four damage counters on itself).
Crabominable V seems like a natural partner for Inteleon (SW – Chilling Reign 043/198; SW – Black Star Promos SWSH113; SW – Evolving Skies 227/203) and… no one seems to be doing well with it yet. I’m going by the results you can see for yourself at LimitlessTCG’s subsite (which covers tournaments that aren’t part of the World Championship series). Maybe it just hasn’t happened yet, but I’m fairly confident now that I badly overestimated this card. I had it as my fourth-place pick, and I’m not sure why I thought it had enough going for it to outrank Genesect V (which I had as my 5th-place pick). However, I’m not upset that I nominated Crabominable V, but that I had it so high; it does have a lot going for it so I’m not writing it off completely.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 3/5
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