Pojo's Pokemon news, tips, strategies and more!

Pokemon Home

Pokedex

Price Guide Set List

Message Board

Pokemon GO Tips

Pokemon News

Featured Articles


Trading Card Game
- Price Guide
- Price Guide
- Card of the Day
- Professional Grading
- Killer Deck Reports
- Deck Garage
- William Hung
- Jason Klaczynski
- Jeremy's Deck Garage
- Johnny Blaze's Banter
- TCG Strategies
- Rulings Help
- Apprentice & Patch
- Apprentice League
- Spoilers & Translations
- Official Rules
- Featured Event Reports
- Top of the World
- An X-Act Science
- Error Cards
- Printable Checklist
- Places to Play


Nintendo Tips
- Red/Blue
- Yellow
- Gold & Silver
- Crystal
- Ruby & Sapphire
- Fire Red & Leaf Green
- Emerald
- SNAP
- Pinball
- TCG cart
- Stadium
- PuPuzzle League
- Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire
- Pokemon Coliseum
- Pokemon Box
- Pokemon Channel


GameBoy Help
- ClownMasters Fixes
- Groudon's Den
- Pokemon of the Week

E-Card Reader FAQ's
- Expedition
- Aquapolis
- Skyridge
- Construction Action Function
- EON Ticket Manual


Deck Garage
- Pokemaster's Pit Stop
- Kyle's Garage
- Ghostly Gengar


Cartoon/Anime
- Episode Listing
- Character Bios
- Movies & Videos
- What's a Pokemon?
- Video List
- DVD List


Featured Articles

Pojo's Toy Box

Books & Videos

Downloads

Advertise With Us
- Sponsors
-
Links

Chat

About Us
Contact Us


Magic
Yu-Gi-Oh!
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman



Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Beedrill δ

EX Delta Species

 

Date Reviewed: 01.24.06

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 1.88
Modified: 3.50
Limited: 3.67

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


Otaku

Skip straight to the scores and summary for a concise overview.

 

Please note that while I denote δ Delta Species Pokémon by adding a δ to the end of their name, but that said symbol is not actually part of their name for gaming purposes to my understanding.  For example, a “Pokémon δ” can Evolve from or into a non-Pokémon δ, so long as no other rules are being broken.  That is, I can Evolve Dratini δ into a Dark Dragonair, plain Dragonair, of the “Dragonair δ”.  I cannot, however, Evolve a Dark Dragonair into a Dragonite δ or a Dragonair δ into a Dark Dragonite.

 

Name: Crobat δ

Set: EX Delta Species

Card#: 1/113

Type: Grass, Metal

Stage: 2 (Evolves from Kakuna)

HP: 90

Weakness: Fire

Resistance: None

Retreat: None

Poké-Power: Final Sting

Once during your turn (before your attack), you may Knock Out Beedrill.  If you do, choose 1 of the opponent’s Defending Pokémon.  That Pokémon is now Paralyzed and Poisoned.  Place 2 damage counters instead of 1 on that Pokémon between turns.  This power can’t be used if Beedrill is affected by a Special Condition.

Attack: (GMC) Super Slash [50+]

If the Defending Pokémon is an Evolved Pokémon, this attack does 50 damage plus 20 more damage.

Name: Kakuna

Set: EX Delta Species

Card#: 46/113

Type: Grass

Stage: 1 (Evolves from Weedle)

HP: 60

Weakness: Fire

Resistance: None

Retreat: CC

Attack#1: (G) Fast Evolution

Search your deck for an Evolution card, show it to your opponent, and put it into your hand.  Shuffle your deck afterwards.

Attack#2: (CCC) Rollout [30]

Name: Weedle

Set: EX Delta Species

Card#: 87/113

Type: Grass

Stage: Basic

HP: 50

Weakness: Fire

Resistance: None

Retreat: C

Attack: (C) Strong Shot [10]

Flip a coin.  If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed.

 

Attributes: Beedrill δ is a Stage 2 Pokémon, so first let me give a brief overview of the latest two versions of its lower stages, Kakuna and Weedle.  Notice that while they are in this set, they are not δ Delta Species themselves: they are plain Grass Pokémon.  This is the first Kakuna (barring Koga’s Kakuna) to have 60 HP… and since we are talking a Stage 1, it is pretty low, even considering we have another Stage of Evolution left.  The last not including reprints, the last few Kakuna have had 70 HP, and needed it.  Since it maintains the standard Fire Weakness, lack of Resistance, and Retreat Cost of two common to every version of Kakuna, I can only surmise that the attacks are supposed to be very, very good.  Outside of Limited, they aren’t: for one Grass Energy, you can search your deck for an Evolution.  Not bad, but as it only goes to your hand, it’s not too useful for constructed play.  Rollout is a solid 30 for three.  I could maybe see these attacks as good for a Basic, but they are pretty standard issue for a Stage 1 and don’t really demonstrate any “price breaks”.  Between that and the HP, this is destined for your trade pile.  The Weedle fairs a little better: it has the 50 HP common to its last three iterations, which certainly beats the 40 HP of older versions.  Fire Weakness, No Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of one are no surprise, especially since all Weedle share them.  Its attack does 10 for Colorless, and has a solid bonus (at least for a Basic that still can Evolve twice) of having a 50% chance of Paralysis.  While not horrid, it is definitely surpassed by its EX Fire Red/Leaf Green counterpart, as that version can search out two Grass Basics.

 

Returning to Beedrill δ, we see it is a Dual-Type Pokémon; Grass and Metal, in line with the other “altered” Pokémon of the set.  Grass is an “okay” type: at the very least, more Pokémon are Weak to it than Resistant in Modified.  The addition of Metal to that almost doubles the Resistance, but still results in fewer than 60 Pokémon being Resistant to you, and nothing is “double Resistant”.  More Pokémon are Resistant to Metal than Weak to it, and nothing is “double Weak”.  Still, you come out ahead with this type combination for two reasons.  Obviously it gets the bonus of being able to reduce damage via Metal Energy cards, but it would have that if it were a pure Metal type.  What is very nice is that the two major sources of Grass and Metal Weakness are from the same type, Water Pokémon.  This should mean that almost any Water deck should fear you.  Unfortunately, roughly 75% of all Water Pokémon currently legal for Modified are Lightning Weak.

 

Beedrill δ has a very low 90 HP.  This is pretty much as low as you should ever see on a modern Stage 2 Pokémon unless it has phenomenal effects.  This low, Metal Energy cards may not reduce damage enough to significantly help against any serious attacker.  Being a Pokémon δ is a good start towards being worth it.  Moving onto the “Bottom Stats” we see Fire Weakness.  This is fair, and at the moment not too bad.  Still, every Modified format has spawned a powerful Fire Deck, and this one’s is expected to hit with the next set.  I mention this since Pre-Releases for that set are only a few weeks away.  What is a bit disappointing is no Resistance.  Something would have been better than nothing, and really this card could use one favorable type match-up given its low HP.  The second highlight of this card comes from its free Retreat Cost.  This is fantastic, allowing you to abuse position changing cards.

 

As a whole, this card comes up short in the Attributes section, being “satisfactory” at best.

 

Abilities: We have just one Poké-Power and one attack.  Given the deficit on this card, they’d better be brilliant.

 

Final Sting is an interesting Poké-Power.  It does KO yourself, which means your opponent gets a prize.  On a Pokémon with more HP, this wouldn’t be so bad, especially for a Metal Pokémon.  With this little HP it is extremely hard to survive anything more than a trivial hit, so more often than not it’s a pretty big sacrifice.  The effect of it is quite nasty, though, and the two Special Conditions compliment each other nicely: you are guaranteed at least 2 damage counters being placed, and the Paralysis increases the odds of them being stuck there and taking 2 damage counters while simultaneously being unable to do anything to your own Active(s).

 

Super Slash is a solid attack.  It requires two colored Energy and a Colorless.  That should yield 40 points of damage right there.  Since the two Colored requirements are different, that’s worth 10 more points of damage, boosting it up to 50 points of damage paid for.  Finally, it gets a 30 point bonus against Evolved Pokémon, which are fairly common, but that isn’t much given that this is a small Stage 2.  This is a solid bonus.  On its own it is a solid attack.

 

The real problem comes from the lack of synergy for the two abilities, at least without having two copies of the card.  There also is no inexpensive supporting attack, and using Double Rainbow Energy might help with speed, but this card needs every point of damage it does.

 

Uses and

Combinations: It is nice that this card can combo with EX Deoxys Weezing’s Liability attack to score an automatic KO, but since you are almost guaranteed to lose two Prizes yourself doing it (at best having Weezing cling to life via an attached Energy Root with only 20 HP left), it I a pretty desperate measure.

 

After some testing I did with this before, I believe it works best as a TecH card for a Fire Red/Leaf Green based Beedrill deck.  I didn’t run the deck that way, but it seems apt to solve most of my problems: one can still use the previously mentioned Weezing to diversify Weakness and access the power of Liability (even if it’s a bit pricey), or possibly with EX Unseen Forces Ariados.  Still, running it with other the Beedrill allows a better turn one/two option, and it can get better damage if you successfully swarm.  Conversely, Beedrill δ adds a nice fall back option for when you are down to one Beedrill.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 1/5 – Speedrill isn’t a particularly viable deck, and if you run it, you should just stick to the other versions of Beedrill.

 

Modified: 4/5 – Please note that this it not a general score, but just the score for running a single copy in a deck using the EX Fire Red/Leaf Green Beedrill.  On its own, it would just be a full point lower.

 

Limited: 3.75/5 – Much better here.  The lower stages become much stronger, meeting Metal requirements to attack aren’t impossible in this set, and if you absolutely have to, using just Final Sting can pay off since it is very hard to shake Special Conditions in this format, outside of retreating… so Final Sting, followed by another Pokémon attacking will likely end with a Prize by the end of your next turn.

 

Summary

Beedrill δ represents a good idea executed poorly.  If this would have had the added the option of Final Sting triggering when Beedrill δ is KO’d by an opponent’s attack, even with a lesser effect, and/or a smaller, opening attack, this could have been a real good card.  As it is, it’s a niche card and that’s all it looks to be good for: supporting other Beedrill.  Of course, that really is better than nothing.

 

-Otaku


~
R Pac~
Today's card is Beedrill from Delta Species

I'm still not a fan of the whole metal blending in this series, but I'm trying to be open to it :-\. The 90 HP given to beedrill is kinda stingy for a stage 2 evolution and getting to him will be a problem with weedle being a usual one hit knock out, but his power makes up the difference. Final sting allows you to choose when to knock him out and in doing so, he double poisons and paralyzes the opponents Poke. Not half bad. Reminds me of Liability on that old Weezing a few sets back. The technique here is to choose when to knock him out. For example, when he only has 10 or 20 HP left and he will be knocked out during the opponents next turn, or if you have a back up hitter that will damage the Poke enough that the 20 poison damage (or 40 over 2 turns) will knock him out. So, if you run a deck with this stinger, run a set of focus bands and rare candies (of course). He could probably work well with jungle Scyther or some other hard hitter that can be powered quickly. You should keep speed the basis of the deck seeing as he and Sycther have zero retreat cost. The metal energy could also keep him alive a little longer which might help. Overall, he's not the next Vileplume EX, but he has potential to be the center of a decent deck.

Unlimited Rating 2.5/5

~R Pac~
Zennium66@aol.com

Kevin89
Kevin89

Beedrill [delta species]

Unlimited:
well, it's an ok card but the weakness hurts a bit, and the attack doesn't hurt the 70 HP basics that much.
I wouldn't use the power unless it gets me a prize either, but it's an ok card.
2/5

modified:
I think this card is a nice addition to the speedrill deck which was popular well, a long time ago. although the other beedrill's attack probably does more damage, this beedrill can use metal energy to survive 1 turn. I think the power isn't competitive here, unless you are in a real energy shortage, you could always do his attack for more damage, the status conditions aren't a big deal here really, considering that you lose 1 prize.
3/5

Limited:
well, I hope you got metal or something that provides metal, otherwise this card is near to useless, you could always discard your beedrill out of frustration to poison + paralyze your opponents main and only hitter.
if you got metal/something however, this card would really rock, despite the weakness to fire.
50 KO's most basics, and 80 KO's most stage 1's, pretty good if you ask me. kakuna's fast evolution helps a lot here too.
3.5/5


Copyright© 1998-2005 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.