aroramage |
Let's start with the Grass-type
Wormadam for starters. She's got two attacks, with Solar
Ray dealing 20 damage and healing from all of your
Pokemon. That's a little like Rough Seas, except it
heals less and you need to attack to do it, so it's
almost like Fresh Water...but again, you need to attack.
Then there's Leaf Cutter, which is
3-for-60 with a 50/50 shot of doing 90 damage. Useful
somewhat if it hits 90...which means Wormadam is useful
half the time.
In any normal Grass deck, Wormadam
is subpar healing with an okay offensive maneuver. In a
dedicated Wormadam deck, she's basically a way of
healing off the damage that Mothim can spread around
with his own Ability, but nothing much beyond that. So I
guess she's average at best and terrible otherwise, huh?
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (at least she can
heal)
Expanded: 2/5 (and evolve quickly,
I guess)
Limited: 2.5/5 (...yeahhhhhhh)
Arora Notealus: NO EXCUSES,
WORMADAM, YOU ARE A LADY AND A BUG, SO GET...wait,
right, never mind...
Next Time: Getting a little dirty
for my taste, madam.
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Otaku |
Wormadam
(XY: Fates Collide 3/124) is our card for the
day. This review will be written under the
assumption you read
yesterday’s CotD.
I’ll try to avoid repeating myself except for I think
it’s relevant, like directly comparing Wormadam
versus Mothim. Wormadam is a Grass Type
and a little more of the specific Type support might
matter to it. For example buffing its HP with
Floette (XY: Flashfire 64/106) or Poisoning
the opponent’s Active but not Wormadam with the
Ability from Ariados. It also might benefit
just a bit more from the supporting cards that happen to
work better with Grass, like Virizion-EX. Grass
Weakness on some Fighting and a good chunk of Water
Types might matter as this one could be doing a bit more
attacking, and for that reason the lack of Resistance
may matter just a bit more as well. There are some
anti-Grass card effects, but most just reduce the damage
they do akin to Resistance, and the best example (Parallel
City) is used for its other effect more than messing
with any of the three Pokémon Types against which it
lowers the damage they do. Being a Stage 1 isn’t
bad and as the only Burmy is a Grass Type,
Forest of Giant Plants can avoid the usual single
turn wait to Evolve. Still two slots in your deck
for one Wormadam, though.
100 HP may technically be worse than the 90 we saw on
Mothim, as you now can no longer use Level Ball
to fetch it but you’re not that much more durable.
Fire Weakness isn’t good but it isn’t especially bad;
many Fire Types hit hard enough that Weakness is
overkill, or just saves them a little since a smaller
attack does the job they normally do with a larger
attack. Plus Mothim has Lightning Weakness,
so we have the mixed blessing of Weakness
diversification; your opponent has a better chance of
something doing double damage to your Pokémon, but less
of a chance of hitting everything for double damage.
Lack of Resistance is disappointing but typical, and the
Retreat Cost of [CC] is low enough you could probably
pay but high enough you really ought to avoid it.
The first attack on Wormadam is “Solar Ray” for
[G], and does 20 damage while healing 20 damage from
each of your Pokémon. Not quite what I’d call
adequate, though if we can keep Wormadam (any of
them) from being OHKO’d it could serve a purpose as you
spread the damage taken across your Bench and heal it
away. The second attack, “Leaf Cutter” is even
less adequate though not wholly without use; for [GCC]
it does 60 damage plus has you flip a coin with “heads”
being worth another 30 damage while tails just means the
base 60 is done. 90 for three is decent while 60 for
three is not, but as long as you have a source of [G]
Energy this would provide a deck built around the two a
better Grass Type attacker than Mothim.
That may be this card’s role in a possible Mothim/Wormadam
deck; the token Grass Type attacker. It is also
possible you would use Floette and make this
Wormadam your focus, accepting low damage because
you’re going to bump it up to about 160-180 HP and then
have the cards needed to constantly heal the damage
Wormadam will be taking. Which might include
attackers like Kyurem (BW: Noble Victories
34/101; BW: Black Star Promos BW44; BW:
Legendary Treasures 43/113), Reshiram (Black
& White 26/114, 113/114; BW: Black Star Promos
BW004, BW23; BW: Next Destinies 21/99; BW:
Legendary Treasures 28/113, 114/113, RC22/RC25), and
Zekrom (Black & White 47/114, 114/114;
BW: Black Star Promos BW005, BW24; BW: Next
Destinies 50/99; BW: Legendary Treasures
51/113, 115/113). All three have good HP scores
for Basics (130) and the attack “Outrage” for [CC],
doing 20 damage plus 10 per damage counter on them.
You’d be sending them up when either Type matching or
raw damage were worth it… and after you’d loaded them up
with damage that had been on Wormadam.
Another option is to consider Vileplume (XY:
Ancient Origins 3/98) to block Items and then
include cards like AZ and Cassius to
safely remove whatever Pokémon you load up with damage
from the field. In Expanded you might even work in
Vileplume (BW: Boundaries Crossed 3/149)
as well, to quadruple Weakness damage instead of
doubling it.
Do I think any of these ideas have merit? Not
particularly; the big issue is if you stumble onto
something that works, what about decks with similar
resources? I mean if you make a good Vileplume
deck but it isn’t better than Vespiquen/Vileplume, you
still only run it for fun. Which isn’t me saying
this makes for a good deck, either. In fact, I’d
say it isn’t really good enough for Standard or Expanded
play, only having a real home in Limited, for the usual
reasons: most things are just better there because
you’re building decks with what you pull from your
boosters. Even the Evolution Pack doesn’t look
like it would raise the bar that much.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary:
Another review for the Mothim/Wormadam
Evolution line down. Will any of the others offer
some hope, or will they continue to be cards that at
best are interesting but not worth using? Today’s
suggests I need to include those that aren’t
particularly interesting or worth using as a category.
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