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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

Golem - Dragon EX


Date Reviewed: 1.30.04

Ratings & Reviews below

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating.


Heidi Craig
 Golem
Modified 2.5/5
The hit points aren't bad at 120 for a Pokemon that isn't an EX. The weakness to water could really hinder this Pokemon with Kingdra being played so much. The retreat cost is brutal switching cards would be a good thing in this deck.

Rock Vengeance could deal some decent damage once you get some damage on Golem. This attack isn't too bad for 3 energy.
Rock Slide at first glance 5 energy seems high but with boost around this can really speed things up. Doing 60 damage to the active and 20 damage to 2 different benched Pokemon really is pretty good. That's 100 damage per turn, though it's not all to the active it's still a lot of damage for one turn.

Unlimited 1/5
There are much better Pokemon to use in this format. I'd could try to convince it was good but I don't think that is possible.

Draft 4/5
If you were able to draft the whole line and actually get it all into play it would be great in this format. If I drafted the line I would use it.

Heidi
Otaku

Well, today we look at Golem from Dragons.  Since I found five versions of Golem (including ex) and its lower stages, we’ll just look at the Dragons group… which I conveniently already had typed up for the Golem ex review we did not too long ago. ;)

Name: Golem
Set:
Dragons
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
2 (Evolves from Graveler)
HP:
120
Weakness:
Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CCCC

Attack#1: (FCC) Rock Vengeance [20+]

Does 20 damage plus 10 more damage for each damage counter on all of your Active Pokémon.

Attack#2: (FFCCC) Rock Slide [60]

Does 20 damage to 2 of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon (1 if there is only 1).  (Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)

Name: Golem ex
Set:
Dragons
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
2 (Evolves from Graveler)
HP:
160
Weakness:
Grass, Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CCCCC

Attack#1: (FCC) Magnitude [60]

Does 10 damage to each Benched Pokémon (both yours and your oppnonent’s)(Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)

Attack#2: (FFCCC) Double-edge [120]

Golem ex does 50 damage to itself.

Name: Graveler
Set:
Dragons
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
1 (Evolves from Geodude)
HP:
80
Weakness:
Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CCC

Attack#1: (C) Grind [10x]

Does 10 damage times the amount of Energy attached to Graveler.

Attack#2:  (FFCC) Big Explosion

Does 80 damage to each Active Pokémon (both yours and your opponent’s).

Name: Graveler
Set:
Dragons
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
1 (Evolves from Geodude)
HP:
80
Weakness:
Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CCC
Attack#1:
(FC) Magnitude [20]

Does 10 damage to each Benched Pokémon (both yours and your opponent’s)Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)

Attack#2: (FCC) Rollout [40]

Name: Geodude
Set:
Dragons
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
Basic
HP:
50
Weakness:
Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
C
Attack#1:
(C) Light Punch [10]

Attack#2:  (F) Pebble Throw

Choose 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon.  This attack does 10 damage to that Pokémon.  (Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon).

Name: Geodude
Set:
Dragons
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
Basic
HP:
40
Weakness:
Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
C

Attack#1: (F) Steady Punch [10+]

Flip a coin.  If heads, this attack does 10 damage plus 10 more damage.

Attributes: Being a Golem is a mixed blessing-until recently, the Golems were a pretty lackluster line.  Now, we are starting to see some worth running.  Overall, its probably for the best-there is one good Golem right now: the Expedition Version has a decent Poke-Body and attack (but got the low end for HP-just 100).  It’s a Fighting Pokémon-not a lot of Resistance going around, but a good amount of Weakness.  It’s a Stage 2, which, as always means that it will need to be stronger than normal to compensate the difficulty or running it (as compared to a Basic or Stage 1).  For lower stages, I suggest you experiment, as nothing really jumps out at me.  I tend to favor the versions with the highest HP.  Rare Candy is a thought, though as you’ll see later, could be problematic for multiple reasons.  The Weakness to Water is probably better than most other choices, save perhaps Fighting (since that’s not heavily played): Rock-Types are weak to Fighting and Ground.  Mind you, Water is fairly accurate too-Rock/Ground are Water Weak, and Ground is Ice Weak too.  Water isn’t played much either: like Fighting, though, it’s usually TecHed into many decks.  Sadly, no Resistance: as usual, this just irks me: there are many options, and all are better than nothing.  Retreat is four: worst there is for a non-Pokémon ex.  Don’t pay it unless it’s an emergency-make sure you have some Switches or Warp Points or something in your deck.

Abilities: So, here’s one reason why we don’t want to Rare Candy a lot-you need at least 2 Energy cards (something to provide Fighting and a Boost) to use the first attack.  The first attack is fairly decent, though I sometimes wonder if Rage-like attacks should be a bit cheaper.  Still, for (FCC), 20+ 10 per damage counter will do some serious damage after Golem takes a hit or two.  The second attack is tricky to evaluate.  Five Energies kinda throws the normal pricing off.  I think its okay-you pay for 60, and get 20 to two benched Pokémon as well.

Uses/Combinations:  Once again, we have another big hitter with some nice tricks, so I’d say it’s a Gojira candidate.  For those who don’t regularly read, that means playing Sandstorm Xatu with it for mass healing.  One might also add one or two Golem ex with Retro Energies-Double Edge once then retro and re-evolve to Golem to have a strong Rock Vengeance attack ready.  Also, it could be comboed similarly with its Expedition cousin.

Ratings

Unlimited: 1.5/5-No.  Too slow, too energy dependent, and water is easy to TecH even if it wasn’t so hard to play the thing.

Modified: 3/5-Try it with Expedition Golem and Golem ex and –you guessed it-Sandstorm Xatu.  It’s got the HP and a bench hitting attack…

Limited: 3.75/5- It’s got the HP and a bench hitting attack. ;)

2-on-2: 3.5/5-Notice Rock Vengeance references both actives. ;)

TMP: 3/5-Don’t think you can use both you and your partners Pokémon for Rock Vengeance the way it’s worded, though either/or may work.  On the bright side, if you opponent tries to gang up on just this, they’d better KO it before you get a chance to attack again. ;)

Summary

Could be a real contender, could be another never-was.  If you have it, I encourage you to try it: we really need some more Fighting decks in Modified (don’t use it in Unlimited XD ).

-Otaku (nintendotaku@hotmail.com)

 


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