Pawmot – Scarlet & Violet 76/198
Date Reviewed: May 11, 2023
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.30
Expanded: 2.50
Limited: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
Pawmot (Scarlet & Violet 76/198. SV Promo 006) is the fourth and final prerelease promo that we’ll be looking at! A Stage 2 Lightning-type with 130 HP, Fighting weakness, and free retreat, it has an ability and an attack. Electrogenesis states that once during your turn, you may search your deck for a basic Lightning energy card and attach it to that Pokemon and then shuffle your deck. Electro Paws costs LLC for 230 damage, with the clause saying that you must discard all energies attached to it.
The way it is worded is that only the Pokemon with that ability can only get the energy attached to it and not to somebody else. That’s what I used to think it would do, and I have misread the card entirely and learned it the hard way of that fact one Pawmot alone won’t be able to go from zero into attacking; I am one attachment short. Still, it’s not that bad if you have a method to move some energies around after you have multiple Pawmots (at least two in play) using that ability, and Energy Switch happens to be in Scarlet & Violet as well! 230 damage is a lot, OHKOing nearly all single prize Pokemon and maybe some of the lower end Pokemon-V and Basic Pokemon-ex. It might need some help like Defiance Band to cross certain threshold against some Stage 1 Pokemon-ex and some Pokemon VSTAR, but Stage 2 Pokemon-ex and Pokemon VMAX are out of range to be OHKOed. The drawback of discarding all energies attached to it stings, but fortunately, Energy Recycler is still in the format, with the recent reprint is in Sword & Shield Battle Styles, which is in the “E” block, so you could, on your next turn, be accelerating energies via Electrogenesis from multiple Pawmots. But you can only use so much Energy Switch, and eventually, you will be one attachment short after your fourth use of Electro Paws. That is something for me to figure out in Standard.
For Expanded, while Pawmot struggle to take hits due to its low HP and Fighting weakness, it does make up for wonderful Lightning based support. Tapu Koko (*)’s Dance of the Ancients lets you choose 2 of your Benched Pokemon and attach a Lightning energy from your discard pile to each of them. Thunder Mountain (*) has Lightning-type Pokemon’s attack costs reduced by 1 Lightning Energy. That would make Electro Paws cost LC instead of LLC, and suddenly, having just one Active Pawmot in play is enough to meet the attack cost via ability and manual attachemnt while Thunder Mountain is in play. Each use of Electropower grants a +30 boost for Lightning-type Pokemon to muscle through certain thresholds. Using four Electropowers mean that Electro Paws can reach 350 damage, enough to OHKO anything in the game since the max printed HP is still 340. As such, Pawmot would appreciate the help even though a lot of investment has to be made.
In Limited, Pawmot would be a must run since it appears the Build and Battle box. The Pawmot group only contains the 3-3-2 Pawmot line (with the promo is 3-3-3) and 1 Rare Candy. The caveat is that within four packs, you have to pull at least an Energy Switch so that you can move some energies around to hopefully have three energies on Pawmot. Electro Paws will OHKO most things in the Scarlet & Violet card pool except for some of Pokemon-ex, even with Defiance Band. Mesagoza has a 50/50 chance to help fetch a Pokemon so that you can bench a Pawmi or evolve them.
Ratings:
Standard: 2.3/5
Expanded: 2.5/5
Limited: 4/5
If the format wasn’t dominated by multi-prize rule box Pokemon, Pawmot would have been a real contender. Still, it is one of the hardest hitting single prize Pokemon out there alongside Dondozo, and with enough optimization, Pawmot could be able to reliably achieve 2HKO or OHKOs.
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