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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Dodrio  

- Plasma Storm

Date Reviewed:
April 22, 2013

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 1.25
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

Combos With: See Below

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

Dodrio (Plasma Storm) 

Hello and welcome to the week on Pojo’s CotD. It’s always nice to kick off with a card featuring kawayoo artwork. He always makes the Pokémon seem so dramatic and full of life, and he has done his usual great job here, making Dodrio look very intimidating and super fast. 

As a TCG card, it’s going to need both of those qualities to make it playable, especially as Dodrio is a Stage 1 with just 90 HP. Still, the Resistance to Fighting is nice, and the Lightning Weakness ok for about another two weeks until everyone starts playing Thundurus-EX. I would have like to see a free retreat cost on a Pokémon like this, but oh well, one isn’t bad I suppose. 

Dodrio’s first attack, Raging Pecks can’t be faulted for value, costing just a single Colourless Energy. What you don’t get from it is reliability: you flip three coins and do 30 damage for each heads. So, ok, there’s a possibility of doing 90 for one Energy, but it isn’t a very likely possibility. What’s more, there are much more consistent ways of doing that kind of damage with the Basic EX Pokémon we all know and love, so there really isn’t any incentive to risk it all with Dodrio. Speaking of lack of incentive, that phrase just about sums up Dodrio’s second attack too. Drill Peck is a vanilla attack which does 60 damage for three Energy. Underpowered in today’s format and not very effective. That’s all I have to say about it. 

My advice is to just enjoy kawayoo’s talent for making an unattractive, over familiar Pokémon look a bit special, and not bother playing this card. 

Rating 

Modified: 1.5 (Lots of risk, not a very attractive reward)

Limited: 3 (eh, it’s Colourless and you might get lucky)


Otaku

So… Dodrio (BW: Plasma Storm 100/135)!

 

Stats

 

Type: Dodrio is a Colorless-Type Pokémon, meaning it doesn’t have to worry about Weakness or Resistance when sticking with currently Modified legal cards.  Hitting for Weakness is valuable, but never having to worry about Resistance is nice… the latter being more important than the former this format.  Fortunately the Colorless-Type is also one of the few with actual support, and it is even easy to run and straightforward: Aspertia City Gym grants Colorless-Type Pokémon an extra 20 HP.

 

Stage: Evolution cards have a hard time this format; we have multiple Basic Pokémon, capable of attacking quickly and efficiently even on the first and second turns of the game.  This robs anything slower, like Evolutions, of needed time to set-up, and creates a lop-sided metagame.  Only the most potent Evolutions have proven themselves strong this format; this does not bode well for Dodrio as few have been Stage 1 Pokémon like itself.

 

Hit Points: 90 HP is small enough to be a OHKO first turn, not that you could actually have a Dodrio in play immediately.  This makes the card quite vulnerable and will require it be a Bench-sitter, possessive some protective effect, or have truly amazing attacks.  The “small” bonus is that it is a legal target for Level Ball.  Much as I don’t like it being so vulnerable, Dodrio in the video games have a very low HP Base Stat, so it is accurate.

 

Weakness: Lightning Weakness isn’t a good thing, but it isn’t the most common amongst attackers.  It also isn’t too likely to matter given that most prominent attackers are going to hit for 90 points of damage before Weakness anyway.  The other two video game Weaknesses (Rock and Ice) are part of TCG Types that are composed of multiple video game Types, so they wouldn’t work well at all.

 

Resistance: Dodrio actually has Resistance!  It is even to a Type that sees a good deal of play; Fighting!  Taking 20 less damage isn’t going to save it from some huge hit, but it is enough to frustrate some weaker moves, and require attacks that hit for the more common 80-100 points of damage to require a boost.  Of course, many such decks will have a means of bolstering their damage, namely the heavily played Hypnotoxic Laser.

 

What is interesting to someone like me is… Dodrio really shouldn’t be Fighting-Resistant.  As a Normal/Flying Hybrid, it does take no damage from Ground-Type and Ghost-Type attacks in the video games, the former being the likely justification for its Fighting-Resistance.  The TCG Fighting-Type also consists of the video game Fighting-Type (of course) and the video game Rock-Type; Fighting does normal damage and Rock-Type moves actually do double damage as that is a video game Weakness for Flying-Types!

 

Grass-Type Resistance actually would be the most appropriate; in the video games Dodrio take half damage from both Grass-Type and Bug-Type attacks and those two Types make up the TCG Grass-Type.  This wouldn’t be very useful at all, so the card is better off with the Fighting Resistance; I just don’t like the inconsistency.

 

Retreat: The single Energy Retreat isn’t hard to pay, but given the rest of its TCG stats and its video game Speed Base Stat, just seems like it should have been allowed to retreat for free.

 

Effects

 

Attack#1: Raging Peck requires (C) and has you flip three coins; the attack does 30 points of damage per “heads” and automatically Confuses Dodrio.  With three coin flips, one in eight possible results are all “tails” and thus zero damage.  This is balanced out by there also being one in eight possible results (all “heads”) that would result in an impressive 90 points of damage.  Three of eight results would be one “heads” for 30 points of damage, again balanced against three of eight results being two “heads” for 60 points of damage.

 

So the attack has a zero to 90 point range with an average of 45, plus Dodrio always Confuses itself.  The self-Confusion isn’t too terrible because most decks are already running measures to deal with Poison and Sleep due to Hypnotoxic Laser, and frankly Dodrio is unlikely to survive the turn anyway.  Given that the attack is difficult to use repeatedly, I think the damage could and should have been higher; probably 40, 50, or possibly even 60 points per “heads”; this is a 90 HP Stage 1 after all; even at one Energy you are out three cards when it gets OHKOed, and doing 60 points per “heads” would still only average 90 points of damage.

 

Attack#2: Drill Peck is an attack from the video games; a straightforward Flying-Type attack.  Here it requires (CCC) and does a vanilla 60 points of damage… 30 less than it needed to be “average”.  Given the card’s low HP, this attack doesn’t really work; damage would have to be insanely high (100+) to really justify running a Stage 1 that is usually going to be OHKOed.

 

Synergy: Basic synergy of having a smaller, flippy attack lead into a more expensive but reliable one, as well as both attacks having all Colorless Energy requirements.

 

Usage

 

Card Family: There are no other Dodrio that are currently Modified legal.  There is only one Doduo to Evolve from: BW: Plasma Storm 99/135.  It is a Colorless-Type Basic Pokémon with 60 HP and other than that has the same Stats as Dodrio.  It has a single attack, Gatling Peck, which requires (CC) and has you flip five coins for 10 points of damage per “heads”.  Zero to 50 point range with an average of 25 points of damage, for a cost that should guarantee an easy 30 points of damage tells you not to bother attacking with it.

 

Combos: Almost every form of Energy acceleration works with Dodrio; Double Colorless Energy won’t power it up completely on its own, but it is easy to run and saves you an Energy attachment.  As stated, Level Ball can fetch it with ease, as well as Doduo.  If you had a Colorless deck already making use of all of those, this wouldn’t be a good choice, but it could function.

 

Unlimited: There is no need for this kind of attacker here, and better options for Stage 1 Pokémon, Colorless-Types, Stage 1 Colorless-Types, and even other Dodrio.

 

Modified: There isn’t much call for a straight up, Stage 1 attacker.  There are better Colorless-Type attackers, even Fighting Resistant ones… and some are even Basic Pokémon!  While there are no other Dodrio in the format, there are other Stage 1, Colorless-Type attackers that aren’t being played but are better at it than Dodrio.

 

Limited: Dodrio is a solid pick here; you’ll need to mind the Lightning Weakness and Doduo still isn’t very good, but several other things are much better.  The lower average HP and damage outputs make most Evolutions valuable, and the fact that most players will be running multiple Energy Types makes the all Colorless Energy requirements a lot more valuable.  Still, the attacks are only about “average” here; if space were tight I could see leaving it out entirely.

 

Future: Nothing I am aware of will improve Dodrio in the near future.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1/5

 

Modified: 1/5

 

Limited: 3/5

 

Summary

Dodrio isn’t a powerful card, nor is it terribly interesting.  The best thing it does is making some sense as a Dodrio card; not sure how I feel about the art (and I am not an art critic anyway), but Raging Pecks does fit a three-headed, bird-like Pokémon, and of course so does Drill Peck.

virusyosh

Welcome back, Pojo readers! Today we are reviewing a new Colorless Pokemon from Plasma Storm. Today's Card of the Day is Dodrio.
 
Dodrio is a Stage 1 Colorless Pokemon. Colorless Pokemon are great for many decks, as they can easily fit in due to their ability to use Energy of any type for their attacks, making them great support Pokemon. 90 HP is pretty standard for a Stage 1, and will sadly not be enough to combat most of Modified's major fighting forces; that being said, Dodrio could still work in Limited, as long as it stays away from big hitters. Lightning Weakness will eventually be problematic against Thundurus-EX (and against Zekrom-EX now); Fighting Resistance is decent against the likes of Landorus-EX and Terrakion; and a Retreat Cost of 1 is pretty standard, and payable when necessary.
 
Dodrio has two attacks. Raging Pecks allows you to flip three coins, dealing 30 damage times the number of heads for a single Colorless Energy. Normally, this attack would be pretty good, as you'll usually average somewhere between 30 and 60 damage when you use it. Of course, Raging Pecks also has the secondary effect of Confusing Dodrio after you use it, so you'll probably want to have some way to cure the Confusion (or switch out) after use. This attack isn't nearly consistent enough for Modified, even with Victini tricks, but it could be pretty good in Limited. Drill Peck is the three-headed bird's other attack, dealing a vanilla 60 damage for three Colorless Energy. 60 for 3 is unimpressive in almost every format, but it provides a solid hitting attack in Limited if you don't want to chance your luck with Raging Pecks.
 
Modified: 1/5 Dodrio is too weak and flip intensive to really work at all here. Use something else instead.
 
Limited: 3/5 Dodrio works pretty well in Limited because it's Colorless and can fit in as a secondary attacker anywhere, but it's really not that great on its own. Raging Pecks can be useful if you get lucky, but Confusion is a pretty bad Status Condition. Second, Drill Peck is rather lackluster, but can still be useful if you power it up fast enough.


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