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Ahhh, Durant...you just...you just
really hate decks, don't you?
I know Durant's cards haven't
always focused around the idea of deck destruction -
really, so few cards in Pokemon TCG do - but his debut
in Noble Victories was the first attempt at putting out
the deck destruction strategy. It was simple: put
Durants into play, mill 4 cards at a time with Durant's
Devour attack for 1 Metal Energy, and then repeat until
victory by deck out! It may sound slow at first, but
considering that that means a player is losing at least
5 cards each turn (4 from the mill, and 1 from drawing
their next card), in theory you only need about 10 turns
to win.
Unfortunately for Durant, that's
when the EX showed up.
And now we come to today's Durant!
This one's somewhat more efficient than the other
Durant, since he doesn't need the rest of your Durants
in play in order to mill out your opponent. With his
first attack, Mountain Munch, he's only doing a paltry
1-for-10, but he also shaves off the top card of their
deck. And if you're wondering how he's planning on
cutting down on more, well look no further than Scrape
Down, which for an extra Energy and a little damage,
Durant will take off the top 4 cards of their deck!
That little damage, I might add,
should be on Durant himself. It's part of the
requirement for Scrape Down.
Again though, Durant has come at a
bad time. The most popular deck of the format continues
to be Night March, a deck that last I checked LIKED
having their cards put into the discard. Sure, Durant is
randomly chucking cards out of their deck into the
discard pile, but the more he mills, the more likely he
can put something they want. It's the same with
Vespiquen decks, since they want Pokemon there, and for
other decks it can be inconvenient or ineffectual
depending on what gets hit. Let's face it, how many
decks have you heard of winning by deck-out as of late?
That's probably why you're not
playing Durant.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (decking out is
still a big threat, but Durant is built solely for that
in a time when sending cards to the discard pile is
actually a good thing)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (and let's face it,
he's not built for big damage otherwise - Muscle Band
would only put him at 1-for-30 max)
Limited: 3.5/5 (stick with him in
Limited, since the lower damage output means he'll
survive long enough with 70 HP to threaten Scraping Down
your opponent's deck and limited resources)
Arora Notealus: Durant's still a
pretty cool Pokemon. I mean, he's a giant steel ant!
That's pretty crazy in-and-of itself! He may not be the
best Bug/Steel Pokemon out there, but he's still pretty
niche!
Weekend Thought: What do you think
of this week's cards? Got some good ones? Some bad ones?
Some potentially good ones? Do you like my new picture?
That'd be me with some of my rarest and favorite cards.
Nothing too impressive, but still, it's some cool stuff
to look at!
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