Regirock V – Sword & Shield Pokemon Review

Otaku

Regirock V (Sword & Shield 104/202) is a Pokémon V, worth an extra Prize when KO’d.  As a Basic, its the easiest Stage to run.  [F] Typing is great for stacking damage bonuses and exploiting Weakness, easily overwhelming [F] Resistance and the handful of anti-[F] effects.  220 HP is often enough to soak a hit, and typical for Basic Pokémon V.  [G] Weakness is a concern in Expanded, and could become one in Standard.  No Resistance isn’t a concern, even though it is technically the worst.  A Retreat Cost of [CCC] is a pain; plan around it.

Regirock V has two attacks.  “Raging Hammer” requires [FC] and lets Regirock V do 30 damage plus another 10 for each damage counter on itself.  “Rocky Tackle” requires [FFC] and does 190 damage to your opponent’s Active, plus 30 to Regirock V itself.  They form a simple combo, using Rocky Tackle’s recoil – while delivering solid damage for the Energy – to feed into a potentially big final attack with Raging Hammer.  Too bad its backwards.

The Energy costs aren’t the easiest to meet, but they’re not bad if you’re behind in Prizes and so can use Karate Belt.  Without Energy acceleration, Regirock V can’t attack right away; good for game balance, not good for its own usefulness.  Even with it, you need enough to jump straight to Rocky Tackle, because Raging Hammer isn’t a good deal until Regirock V has the right amount of damage.  Attacking while injured enough for Raging Hammer to be good is likely to get Regirock V KO’d the next turn, so the timing can be tricky.

At least Raging Hammer isn’t priced any worse; for what it does, it should probably just cost [F], in which case it wouldn’t be so bad lightly thumping opponent’s for just 30 damage when uninjured.  That would also make it easier to just let Regirock V soak hits up front, daring the opponent’s to attack knowing anything less than a OHKO is an Energy attachment away from being thrown back at them… instead of two attachments away, like the actual card.

Regirock V isn’t showing up in the high-performing lists available on LimitlessTCG, in either Standard or Expanded.  Part of that could be that the [F] Type as a whole hasn’t been doing well lately, even though they have so much going for them.  Stonjourner V (Sword & Shield 115/202, 193/202) is also competing for the “Basic Fighting Pokémon V” niche, with the same stats but capable of evolving into Stonjourner VMAX.  Imagine its “Guard Press” attack with Regirock V’s Raging Hammer…

…no, not as an actual combo, but just as a bit of Create-a-Card daydreaming.  With Stonjourner V likely being the better option for the same role if [F] decks ever get their acts together in Standard, the only place outside of casual play to enjoy Regirock V is in the Limited Format.  Any non-Mulligan deck that can run a some [F] Energy should consider it, or it can be run solo and thus star in its own Mulligan deck.  Odds are good your opponent’s start won’t be fast enough to chip away Regirock V’s last 10 HP before you take four Prizes, though it will likely be close.

Ratings

Standard: 2/5

Expanded: 2/5

Limited: 4/5

Regirock V strikes me as Johnny Bait; I can already come up with combos that start off sounding nice, like combining it with Ninja Boy, but which I can’t really justify in an actual deck.  I can still understand why it caught one of the other reviewer’s eyes, because Regirock V is actually a runner-up to out Top 11 countdown.  It could have been 15th-place if we’d started a little higher… but as you can tell, I don’t think it was good enough to warrant that honor.

Vince

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