Giratina – Space Time Smackdown
Date Reviewed: April 14, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Giratina (A2 078, 167) is a Psychic-Type Basic Pokémon. It has 120 HP, (D) Weakness, (C)(C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Levitate”, and the attack “Spooky Shot”. Thanks to Levitate, whenever you have an Energy attached to this Giratina, it’s Retreat Cost becomes zero. Spooky Shot costs (P)(P)(C), and lets Giratina hit the opponent’s Active for 70 damage. Giratina is available as both a ♦♦♦ rare and ★ full art.
Giratina is a Basic Pokémon, requiring no additional cards or turns to hit the field. It can even be your opener, and that’s going to be important for Giratina. If you do whiff on it in your opening hand, you’ll have Poké Ball to attempt to snag it from your deck. The other bits of Basic support1 are unlikely to matter, as are the two anti-Basic effects.
As a (P) Type, Giratina can take advantage of (P) support3 but it isn’t dependent upon it. Nor are we worried about exploiting (P) Weakness, though again, at least it’s there when it works out. Probably the best thing about the card’s Type are the other competitive (P) Types4… which still are not required for Giratina to be a useful part of your deck.
As a Basic Pokémon, worth only one point when KO’d, Giratina’s 120 HP is reasonably sturdy. Giratina is not tanking hits from the vast majority of main attackers, using their main attack, but other under circumstances, it has a very good chance of surviving. Unless it’s from a (D) Type. Yeah, (D) Weakness isn’t great right now, with Darkrai ex (A2 110, 187, 202; P-A 042) dominance5.
Normally, Giratina’s chonky Retreat Cost would be a major concern, but thanks to Levitate, it only matters if you both have no Energy attached to your Active Giratina, and you can’t spare the current turns attachment to Activate it. Still, that means when you can’t, Giratina is almost certainly stranded. Even with Leaf (A1a 068, 082), Giratina needs to discard an Energy to retreat… and if you had that Energy to spare, you’d be using Levitate to retreat for free.
Speaking of Levitate, it’s one of the three “parts” of this card that make it work. The other two we’ve already covered; Giratina is a Basic, and it’s got 120 HP. With Levitate, you get a combination of meatshield and pivot Pokémon. Spooky Shot becomes an afterthought, but a relatively good one. I had to remind myself this is not a Pokémon ex, nor is it a main attacker so… yeah, if you’re running Giratina in a (P) Energy, attacking with it is a decent emergency option.
Unless (or until) we get a card effect that specifies it applies to Giratina and Giratina ex, or cards with “Giratina” in their name, there’s zero in-game relationship between Giratina and Giratina ex based on their names. As they’re both Basic, (P) Type Pokémon, though, they’re connected in that manner. There is, however, another card named “Giratina”, which means it competes directly with today’s Giratina for deck space: Giratina (A2 061).
Giratina (A2 061) is a Basic, (N) Type Pokémon with 120 HP, no Weakness, (C)(C)(C) Retreat Cost, and the attack “Crisis Drive”. For (G)(P)(C), it lets this Giratina attack the opponent’s Active for 120 damage… but also forces it to discard two random Energy from itself. This is awful. 120 for three is good, but you’d still prefer some compatible Energy acceleration to speed things along. Needing two different Energy Types is not good; it’s probably too demanding for the payout.
Then we add in the random two Energy discard. Meaning, even if you prep Giratina with extra Energy and it survives attacking, you’d have to have three each of (G) Energy and (P) Energy to ensure you don’t discard all of either. Even then, an opponent might use something like Team Rocket Grunt and A2b 072, 091) and… I just noticed this Giratina is so bad, that processing how bad has made this review late!6
Giratina (A2 078, 167) has been seeing competitive success since shortly after it released. We don’t have any Basic Pokémon with a natural free Retreat Cost in Pocket. There are a few others that can
fake it, like Giratina. Heatran (A2a 013) and/or Rotom (A2a 035) are better for most, if not all, Arceus (A2a 070) and/or Arceus ex (A2a 071, 086, 095, 096) decks. If they even need a pivot Pokémon. Shaymin (A2a 069, 081) has an Ability that lets any Basic you have in play except itself Retreat Cost (C) less.7
Rating: 3.2/5
Giratina (A2 078, 167) is a good card. I wish I could be more specific with what decks should use it, but it’s not important enough to be a name-level part of anything. The good news, is that it slots into many decks with relative ease, so it’s quite flexible. Even needing an Energy to trigger the Ability isn’t always a deal breaker, thanks to Dawn. Using Dawn to retreat Giratina for free, then moving the Energy onto your new attacker, is already a time-tested combo for Giratina!
1Combee (A2 017, 157), Celestic Town Elder (A2a 073, 088), and Shaymin (A2a 069, 081).
2Pokémon Flute (A1a 064) and Victreebel (A1 020).
3Gardevoir (A1 132) and Mythical Slab (A1a 065).
4Giratina ex (A2b 035, 086, 093), Mew ex (A1a 032, 077, 083, 086), and Mewtwo ex (A1 129, 262, 282, 286; P-A 050).
5Darkrai ex’s “Dark Prism” attack does 80 base damage. Giratina’s (D) Weakness turns that into 100. That last 20 HP can be taken out before attacking, so long as the Darkrai ex player can attach a (D) Energy to Darkrai ex, triggering it’s “Nightmare Aura” Ability to do 20 damage to the opponent’s Active Giratina.
6This is how my brain works; I found a possible way to use Giratina (A2 061), though it won’t be worth the effort. Use Leafeon ex (A2a 010, 082, 091), maybe Giratina ex, and Dawn (A2 151, 194). You can’t attach the (G) and (P) Energy from the Ability found on either of these two directly to Giratina, but Dawn would let you move it over at the cost of your Supporter for the turn.
7I hate leaving these kinds of things out, so Tatsugiri (A2b 021, 075) lets cards named “Dondozo” retreat for free. Good for Dondozo (A2b 020, 102), but I don’t know if that really helps any actual decks.
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