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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Tropius Lv. 35

Rising Rivals

Date Reviewed: 08.04.09

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 1.87
Limited: 3.00

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

Back to the main COTD Page


Meganium45
OK, this Pokemon is FRUSTRATING to play against in limited!!

1 energy attack with heads, 30 and prevent all damage done to tropius the next turn.

Talk about floating Chinchous!!!

Hit heads and you are golden. Hit tails and your are meh.

Great staller. Then a 2 energy attack to remove all damage from one of your benched Grass Pokemon. Somehow, an Alakazam damage swap strategy with Torterra screams at me…but that is a lot for a little.

Then a 4 energy solarbeam for 60. Overcosted. Way overcosted.

Modified…not too good. I would smile if it was flipped against me. 1.5/5

Limited…much better here. 3/5
Steel_Winger Welcome back to the Pokemon COTD!

Today's card happens to be the promo card given out to those who went to the Rising Rivals Prerelease. I present to you: Tropius!

Let's look at the basics. 80 HP on a basic is nice on a non-legendary and non-SP Pokemon. It's Grass-type, but not that many notable Pokemon are weak to that except Claydol, Armaldo, and Rampardos, and the former will rarely be active if whoever you're playing is sane. A +20 Weakness to Fire is expected; Ninetales can OHKO it, amongst other Fire-types. A -20 to Fighting is okay; Machamp will need to hit all 4 heads on Hurricane Punch to OHKO it if Tropius has Unown [G] attached. A Retreat Cost of 2 is a bit high, though... you can use Sceptile (GE) so that you'll only have to use 1 energy to retreat it.

No Powers or Bodies, but there are 3 attacks. The first attack is Fly. For 1 energy of choice, you get to do 30 damage, but it's on a flip. Tails means the attack fails. Heads, means that you actually do the damage and Tropius is protected by attacks next turn, similar to Flygon when it uses Sand Wall. Only use this attack if you're lucky or you're starting with it and don't have a Call Energy at the ready.

The second attack is Blessed Fruit. For 2 Grass energies, you can heal one of your benched Grass Pokemon completely. If Tropius sees any play at all, this will likely be the reason for it. Maybe this could work in a Tortile build; when Torterra takes enough damage, retreat it and bring in Tropius to heal it completely. Not to mention Shaymin (Land Forme) LV. X gives Torterra (and Tropius, and any other Grass Pokemon) even more endurance, it could be worked in as a tech there.

The last attack, Solarbeam, does 60 damage for a whopping 4 energy, one which must be Grass. Very overpriced attack for mediocre damage. Again, you can use Sceptile with it, but there are better options for attacking.

Ratings:

Modified: 2/5 Blessed Fruit is Tropius' only saving grace, but it can be excellent when played in certain decks.

Limited: 2.5/5 There are quite a few Grass Pokemon in the set, mostly thanks to Aaron and Gardenia, so Tropius could have a chance to help is breteren. Just watch out for all of the Fire Pokemon in the set as well.

This is Steel_Winger, wishing everyone luck going to Worlds and/or the Supreme Victors Prerelease in a few days!
drtomoe123
Professor
League Leader
Tropius
Rising Rivals
Uncommon

Oh boy, we've got set filler on our hands here. Tropius has always been a oddball Pokemon, coming from the Hoenn-era (which is pretty fuzzy for me to begin with...the initial shock of Johto/Kanto not being in R/S never really faded...). While Tropius received some help in the DS games to improve it from an extremely lackluster, boring Pokemon into an interesting, yet still flawed upgrade, the TCG version from Rising Rivals is stuck as flippy filler.

So we've got the basics. 80 HP is okay, but pretty disappointing for a non-SP basic with no evolution. +20 Weakness to fire hurts against Infernape 4 (and Blaziken FB, which will probably overtake the ape), which is crazy popular right now, and it's -20 Resistance to fighting really won't help it too much, especially considering that Machamp still KOs it with Take Out. To make things worse, the 2 retreat cost is never good.

Looking at its attacks, Fly could be pretty useful. 30 for one colorless, with the chance of invincibility next turn? Sign me up!...until you realize that if you get tails, you get NOTHING. Aside from Level Max and Super Scoop Up, I'm not a very flippy person, so I could see myself using this first, second turn maybe, but not for much else. Blessed Fruit heals one of your benched Grass Pokemon completely for two Grass, which may be nice, but is completely overshadowed by a Leafeon deck running Dawn Stadium and the Leafeon from Rising Rivals. Solarbeam, which only does 60, is completely not worth one Grass and three Colorless. Honestly, I don't see Tropius ever getting the chance to use Solarbeam unless you get REALLY lucky with the Fly flips. Tropius just can't last four turns, especially with Infernape 4 in this format.

Of course, combo-wise, Tropius works well with Sceptile and Shaymin Lv. X (Landmin), but seriously, what Grass Pokemon doesn't? Tropius gets 120HP, Blessed Fruit goes down to one and Solarbeam goes down to two, but in this case, why would you end up using Tropius in the first place? There are so many better Grass Pokemon out there, Tropius just can't match up. While you're wasting time on Tropius, you could be getting out a Torterra, Shaymin, or Leafeon. Poor guy, maybe he'll get an evolution in the next generation.

Ratings:

Modified: 2/5 I could really see this card being useful early game or late game to stall for a little bit, but in today's format with Machamp, Infernape 4, and high output Lv. Xs, he's down as soon as your Fly flip fails.

Limited: 3.5/5 Higher HP basic is nice in this format, but don't really try to use anything other than Fly. Use it to stall a few turns and maybe grab a KO.

So overall, Tropius is average filler. If Fly didn't require a heads to work, I'd probably like him a lot more...otherwise, he requires a lot of luck to do a little damage. He's just not worth it, guys.


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