Lucario – Space-Time Smackdown
Date Reviewed: February 7, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Note: To my chagrin, multiple errors made it into the posted version of the review. From incorrectly stating Submarine Blow’s damage later in the review, even though I had it correct in the first paragraph, to having misread the data from another website, I apologize. While I warn that these reviews are more for entertainment than anything else, I do try to get the underlying facts correct.
The 10th best Pokémon of Space-Time Smackdown is Lucario (A2 092, 170)! This Stage 1 (F) Pokémon evolves from Riolu, has 100 HP, (P) Weakness, (C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Fighting Coach”, and the attack “Submarine Blow”. Fighting Coach provides a +20 damage to attacks made by your (F) Pokémon, against your opponent’s Active. Submarine Blow costs (F)(F) and does 40 damage. Lucario is available at both the ♦♦♦ and ★ rarities.
We’re starting with the Ability. Many attacks have an effect that increases how much damage they do to the opponent’s Active Pokémon. Only four cards have an effect which does that for other cards: Blaine, Cynthia, Giovanni, and Lucario itself. Lucario’s Fighting Coach Ability provides +20 damage, but only to (F) Type Pokémon. This does include itself, and if you have multiple instances of Fighting Coach in play, they stack.
These damage boosting effects seem to increase the fewer Pokémon they boost. Cynthia provides the biggest bonus at +50, but only works for two Stage 2 Pokémon1. Blaine provides a +30 boost, but only works with a Basic and two Stage 1 Pokémon2. Giovanni provides the minimal boost, +10 damage, but works with all Pokémon3. Lucario seems to have found a great place between both extremes; a solid +20 damage to all attacks4 made against the opponent’s Active, by Pokémon of the correct Type.
Lucario is why being a (F) Type has significantly improved since the days before Space-Time Smackdown. It is the only piece of Type-based support (F) Types enjoy. Unfortunately for them, there’s also now one card with an anti-Fighting effect, Snover (A2 044). Fortunately for the (F) Type, it isn’t overly potent; unless Abomasnow (A2 045) is much better than I expect, at worst (for Fighting Types), Water decks might get a 70 HP Basic who can do 40 damage to them for just (W). 40 damage for one Energy is nice, especially on a Basic, but against all non-Fighting Pokémon, this Snover only hits for 10 damage.
The value of exploiting (F) Weakness has also changed due to Space-Time Smackdown. We’re now up to 98 unique Pokémon with (F) Weakness: 38 Colorless Pokémon, 25 Darkness, and 35 Lightning. (C) and (D) Types are about two-thirds (F) Weak, while (L) still only has Zapdos (A1 103) and Zapdos ex (A1 104, 260, 276) for non-(F) Weak options. Thanks to Fighting Coach, it’s also no longer as easy to tell how many metagame relevant Pokémon will become significantly easier to KO. Things are still adjusting to Space-Time Smackdown, but overall, the uncertainty is more likely to help Lucario than hurt.
Lucario has 100 HP; it’ll take at least two full-power light attacks, or one full-power medium attack, to KO Lucario. Its (P) Weakness doesn’t mean much; some supporting (P) or more obscure main attackers have an easier time KOing Lucario, but Mew ex (A1 032, 077, 083, 086) needs another +20 even after Weakness to OHKO Lucario, while Mewtwo ex (129, 262, 282, 286) was in overkill territory before Weakness. The Retreat Cost of (C)(C) is a bigger concern, but still minor concern. If Lucario has no Energy and is forced Active, you’ll need Leaf or your manual Energy attachment plus X Speed to retreat… or two turns of manual attachments.
Submarine Blow is a straightforward attack; 40 damage for (F)(F). 40 for two is underwhelming, but not awful for a Stage 1 run for its Ability. Speaking of which, until we get something that can shut off Abilities, Submarine Blow will always function as a 60 for (F)(F). This is better, though it still only enough for Lucario to function as a secondary attacker at best. Another copy of this Lucario on your Bench bumps the damage up to 80; good, but still not great considering your other (F) attackers enjoy the same +40 damage. I’m not going to complain about the lack of (C) Energy costs in Submarine Blow; why would you be running Lucario in mixed company?
Lucario is a Stage 1 Pokémon; it might have been broken as a Basic, but it’s still the 10th best Pokémon in the set as a Stage 1. Fighting Coach is good enough it might have still been worth it had Lucario been a Stage 2… but what matters now is Riolu (A2 091). It is a Basic (F) Pokémon with 60 HP, (P) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. “Jab” costs (F) and does 20 damage. It’s not a big advantage for Lucario, but it’s also not much of a disadvantage. If Lucario is already in play, your second Riolu can even deliver a decent 40-for-(F) with Jab.
Lucario is already seeing some competitive success. It won’t help every deck built around one or more (F) Pokémon, but it definitely shows promise. Looking at the results over on LimitlessTCG, seems like the new Rampardos (A2 089) is actually quite, quite well. Remember to sort the results by “Win %” and not “Share” (of the metagame), and to not select “Combine related deck variants into one archetype”. While some of the other Lucario-backed (F) decks aren’t too many percentage points below Lucario, there were enough underperformers to drag down the average.
Which (F) decks should include Lucario? Besides being able to make space for a Stage 1 Evolution line, ask yourself:
“Will one or two instances of Fighting Coach significantly improve the deck’s capacity to OHKO or 2HKO metagame relevant Pokémon?”
Whether by reducing how many attacks are required for KOs, or by making relevant KOs more reliable, a small +20 can make a big difference. Especially when it is reusable and doesn’t have a cost. You also need to remember the new aspects of the metagame; that +20 from a Fighting Coach may now be necessary because a former target is now sporting Giant Cape!
Rating: 3.5/5
Lucario sets a pretty high standard for this countdown, given the performance of one of is variants (Rampardos). My original review, no so much, given its errors. As someone not participating in tournaments, and lacking any Riolu, I’ve barely experienced Lucario decks firsthand. I almost had us review Rampardos instead, but while a few of the other Lucario variants still performed decently, Rampardos has fewer proven alternatives.
1Cynthia works for Pokémon named “Garchomp” and “Togekiss”.
2Blaine works for Pokémon named “Magmar”, “Ninetales”, and “Rapidash”.
3As a reminder, damage boosting effects in Pokémon only work with attacks that already do damage.
4An attack that don’t do damage at all, or that do zero damage because of an attack’s own effects won’t receive any damage bonuses.
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