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Galvantula (Emerging Powers)
Another day, another card. Today we have the Poke'mon
that competes with Ariados for the crown of 'Scariest
Bug Poke'mon that would make me scream like a pinned
piglet if I ever found it in my garden'. It's a hard
choice too, Galvantula has the paralysis but Ariados has
those creepy legs and violent markings... and those
fangs... yeah, Ariados still wins but Galvatula gets an
Honourable Mention. Damned montrous spiders!
Anyhow, Galvantula has not been well received so far
as it is a lightweight competing in an arena full of
titans. This card fits in the same mould, and while it
fills a niche in Limited matches I never expect to see
it running around the tournament tables.
Galvantula is a non-evolving Stage 1 Lightning type
with 80 HP, Fighting weakness, a free retreat cost
(praise the makers!) and two attacks.
Being a Stage 1 means you only need to dedicate a few
deck slots to run Galvatula with a reasonable level of
consistency but the low HP means that I can't think of a
single reason why you would want to. The free retreat is
a welcome feature at least, seeing as how only 4 cards
have been printed with it since B&W was released.
Galvantula comes with two light attacks, the first of
which is Gnaw. For [c] you deal 20 damage, which is
ineffective aginst all but the smallest targets (needing
a Pluspower to KO a Baby Poke'mon is the definition of
weak) but at least it is splashable and cheap.
Stun Needle is a little more powerful, costing [l][c]
to deal 30 damage with a coin flip for Paralysis, which
if you are lucky will allow you to take down a much
larger target in Limited (it is even efficient if you
are hitting for weakness against cards like Tornadus).
However, in Modified it is just a joke, seeing as you
can't take out anything larger than a Baby in less than
2 hits and the 'fast' attackers (the Tao Dragons,
Donphan Prime, Yanmega Prime, Cincinno BW, etc) will
actually be able to hit you first, making the speed a
moot point.
Galvantula seems doomed to always receive the short
end of the stick (and the heavy end of the newspaper)
but at least it makes gardening in the Poke'mon world an
incredibly risky business.
Modified: 1 (low HP, low damge cap, low everything)
Limited: 3.75 (it's splashable, can inflict Paralysis
and has a free retreat cost so it can run away from
Poke'mon Catcher. It's still pitifully weak though)
Combos with: the shoebox
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