The Facts About Evolution Creatures Part II - Smcman

The Facts About Evolution Creatures Part II
June 15, 2004

In the past two weeks I have been to several Duel Masters tournaments and learned a lot more about the game. This helped me see several problems in my first article. I am writing Part II to fix some of my incorrect information from before and also add new observations.

There are eleven individual Evolution Creatures currently released in the English TCG. In the expansion Evo-Crushinators of Doom, ten of these were unleashed, with each civilization having one Super Rare and one Uncommon Evolution. In the JDC league, there are two more promotional Evolutions. One is a variant Barkwhip the Smasher and the other is the too-good-to-be-in-an-expansion-set Armored Groblav.

If you haven't figured it out by now, Evolution creatures are some of the most powerful cards in the game. They have no summoning sickness and usually have a lot more power than their mana cost, not to mention the great effects we have come to expect with Evos.
So why doesn't everyone pack their decks with these monstrosities?

Well, Evolutions do have weaknesses just like every type of card. They must be placed on top of, or evolved from, a base monster of the same civilization and race. So by looking at which civilization has better base creatures we can also tell to what extent this weakness limits Evolutions. If a civilization has good base creatures, then the only weakness is not even that bad. But if a civilization has bad base creatures, then that will be a big problem for getting out the Evoluions.

Another weakness of Evolutions is that you have to get the base creature on the field. To do that, you want to have a good number of the base race in your deck. The standard ratio is two base creatures for every Evolution. So if you run all eight possible Evos, you should probably have about sixteen copies of the base creatures. Now if those base creatures are bad, then you just had to put sixteen not-so-good cards in your deck in order to be effective at running the Evos.

Now in the online and real-life environment, some evolutions have had more of an impact than others. This is mainly because that civilization has better base creatures to offer. Now I want to re-evaluate each civilization's Evolutions and base creatures.

Green's Beastfolk
Beast Base Creatures: Bronze-Arm Tribe, Burning Mane
Evolutions: Fighter Dual Fang, Barkwhip the Smasher

I use the almighty Beastfolk Evolutions in my (tournament-winning) deck and I must say they are incredible. Barkwhip the Smasher can come out on turn three if you played a Burning Mane or Steel Smasher the turn before. And a 5k beatstick that can attack on turn three is something your opponent does not want to see. Fighter Dual Fang is also huge and provides an incredible mana boost. But what makes these trump cards so powerful is that Nature has the most base creatures (eight) and probably the best too. Bronze-Arm Tribe and Silver Axe are great because they can provide extra mana before being evolved. Fear Fang and Golden Wing Striker are base creatures that can hold their own for a few turns if you need time to get those Evolutions to your hand. Overall, lots of solid choices for Beastfolk basics.

Yellow's Guardians
Best Base Creatures: La Ura Giga Sky Guardian, Reso Pacos Clear Sky Guardian
Evolutions: Ladia Bale the Insperational, Larba Geer the Immaculate

Most of Light's Guardians are costly blockers, but you want to use cheaper base creatures to evolve from. That's where La Ura Giga comes in handy. He is already probably in your mono-yellow bloackade deck, so you are not being forced to add sub-par cards to your deck in order to use the Evolutions. Reso Pacos is also decent, and a good creature to turn into the powerful Ladia Bale. The shiny yellow evo has become known as one of the best evolutions because of its huge power and multi-purpose uses.

Blue's Liquid People
Best Base Creatures: Aqua Hulcus, Aqua Vehicle
Evolutions: Crystal Paladin, Crystal Lancer

The Water civilization was lucky enough too get solid tournament material. The uncommon evolution is arguably better than the Super Rare one and has tremendous power. Aqua Vehicle is a fast 2-mana drop that can swarm the field, so even if one dies you should have another Vehicle waiting to be evolved. Aqua Soldier can also swarm the field due to his self-recursion effect. And finally is Aqua Hulcus, a great creature in any deck running blue and a high-caliber base creature.

Black's Parasite Worms
Best Base Creatures: Horrid Worm, Poison Worm
Evolutions: Ultracide Worm, Chaos Worm

Darkness did not far as well as the other colors when it comes to base creatures. There are only four different Parasite Worms and Horrid Worm is the only one without a drawback. Poison Worm may have a drawback, but it can easily be overcome and is not as horrible as Stinger Worm's effect. Even though the base creatures are crummy, the uncommon Chaos Worm makes up for it with a Terror Pit and a 5k body for only five mana. Ultracide Worm is pretty good too, boasting the highest original attack in the game at 11,000. Great Evolutions and bad base creatures make black an iffy choice.

Red's Humans
Best Evolution Creatures: Mini Titan Gett, Immortal Baron Vorg
Evolutions: Armored Blaster Valdios, Armored Groblav, Armored Cannon Balbero

Fire is the civilization to have three Evolution creatures, and they needed Groblav to make up for sub-par uncommon evo. Valdios and Groblav are both good evolutions that could make it at a tournament level. What is really good about red is the base creatures. There are four different Human base creatures, three of which cost only two mana. Can you say swarm? Mini Titan Gett is very nice, and Vorg over Zyler is just a personal preference. Ree finished nicely.

Overall, here is my rating of how each civilization fared:
1. Beastfolk
2. Humans
3. Liquid People
4. Parasite Worma and Guardian (Tie)

In conlusion, each of the civilizations has at least a few decent base creatures for your evolutions creatures to evolve from. Some are a little better than others, but they are all useable. I hope you have learned something from this article (otherwise I am wasting my time).

Steven Cantrell
Thrash-494 on the boards
Smcman7@aol.com