Galarian Cursola – Rebel Clash Pokemon Review

Otaku

Galarian Cursola (SSH – Rebel Clash 079/192) is a [P] Type Pokémon, letting it make use of some nice support, like Mysterious Treasure.  Exploiting [P] Weakness can still be valuable, though not as much as when Mewtwo & Mew-GX was on top.  Older [D] and [M] Types still carry -20 [P] Resistance, but that isn’t too much of a concern.  As a Stage 1, Galarian Cursola falls into that place where it is neither especially easy nor difficult to run, whether you go for full 4-4 line or a 1-1 TecH line.  It is possible a Ditto {*} running deck could run it as a 0-1 line.

Galarian Cursola has 100 HP, which is on the low end of the spectrum.  It is an easy OHKO for most decks while Active, and not overly durable when it comes to Bench hits, but neither is it especially fragile.  Certain technical attackers, or those without their proper setup, have a small chance of whiffing on the OHKO.  Galarian Cursola is fragile when it comes to Darkness Types due to its [D] Weakness, and is slightly more durable against Fighting Types due to its -30 [F] Resistance.  The former might matter, but the latter probably won’t.  A Retreat Cost of [CC] is high enough you won’t want to pay it, but low enough you often can.

Galarian Cursola has the Ability “Perish Body”, which only works when it is KO’d by damage from an opponent’s attack, while it is your Active.  If all those conditions are met, you flip a coin and if “tails”… nothing happens.  If “heads”, though, the attacking Pokémon is KO’d as well!  For [PC], Galarian Cursola can attack with “Corner” to do 60 damage and prevent the Defending Pokémon from manually retreating.  The Ability can be bypassed by attacking something else, scoring the KO through a means other than doing damage, or KOing Galarian Cursola while it is on the Bench.  Even with it not even working half the time it is triggered, a “free” KO is amazing!

60 for two Energy, even with a mildly useful effect, is not.  Corner isn’t worthless, but it needs two or three hits to KO even many single Prize Pokémon.  Yes, keeping something you want to be KO’d Active can be handy, but if Perish Body does score the KO, then any damage Corner does before hand is wasted.  You need to do something, though, or what incentive does your opponent have to attack back and risk being KO’d by Perish Body?

Though, you could use Galarian Cursola as a wall when you don’t want your Pokémon KO’d, hoping your opponent loses time waiting for an out to it.  Or you could look for a hit-and-run style attacker, so you can do better damage before bringing Galarian Cursola into your Active position.  There are also some Abilities that can place damage counters or inflict Special Conditions on your opponent’s Pokémon from the Bench.  Unless you really are just relying on Ditto {*} to field a single copy, you’ll need to run Galarian Corsola (SSH – Rebel Clash 079/192) as well.  Its pretty much filler, but at least it has 80 HP.  Currently, there are no other versions of Galarian Corsola or Galarian Cursola.

There are also no examples of proven decks in the one tournament results from the Limitless Online Series – Qualifier #3.  As such, Galarian Cursola’s potency remains theoretical.  Perish Body could be nuts with the right support, or it might never amount to anything.  Countering Abilities in Standard isn’t as easy as in Expanded, so its odds of success strike me as being better there, especially as your opponent only needs their Ability-counter during their own turn.  As with most of the cards we’ve reviewed from this set, if you pull Galarian Cursola (and a Galarian Corsola), then you run it.  The natural exception being if you pull a good enough Basic Pokémon V to run totally solo.

Ratings

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: 4/5

Perish Body is powerful, especially in a metagame full of massive, multi-Prize attackers.  Between the workarounds and the fact half the time, Perish Body does nothing, though, I’m being generous with these scores.  Galarian Cursola would have been our 29th-place pick. Though it didn’t make my Top 15, I understand why it made someone else’s.