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Meganium HGSS
Another Grass Pokémon and another example of the great
card art in HGSS. Not quite as epic as the tin version
of Meganium Prime (go look it up - Meganium looks crazy
angry!), but still very nice. Being a Grass type does
bring some benefits as it is probably the best supported
of all types, thanks to cards like Sceptile GE, Sunflora
HGSS, and Shaymin LV X. On the other hand, Grass Pokémon
don’t often get to hit for Weakness. Of all commonly
played Pokémon, only Claydol GE is weak to Grass, and
that is not likely to ever be active. That could change
in future if Feraligatr Prime ever finds itself a decent
attacking partner.
Meganium has a respectable 130 HP and a very useful
Water Resistance with Gyarados still hovering around the
metagame. Double Fire Weakness isn’t so bad at the
moment either. The retreat cost of two is no surprise,
but it still isn’t something you would want to pay.
What IS a surprise is that Meganium actually has a
cheap, quick attack. For just a single Grass Energy,
Sleep Powder will do 30 damage (bargain!) AND put the
Defending Pokémon to Sleep. Now Sleep isn’t the best
Special Condition out there (in fact it is arguably the
worst), but it’s better than nothing. If your opponent
flips tails and can’t remove the Sleep, then Sleep
Powder can buy Meganium time to attach enough Energy to
use a powerful second attack . . .
. . . Except that it doesn’t have one.
Sure, Giant Bloom has a reasonable cost of [G][C][C]
(thanks to Double Colourless Energy), sure it’s effect
of removing two damage counters from Meganium will help
the Pokémon to survive a hit or two from most non-Fire
Pokémon, but the main problem is the damage output. Only
being able to do 60 damage means that Meganium is
struggling to 2HKO most Stage 2 Pokémon and will have
real difficulty knocking out sturdy SP Basics, thanks to
Poke Turn and Garchomp C LV X’s Healing Breath PokePower.
Yes, you could beef it up a little with Expert Belt, but
all you are doing there is spending resources and deck
space in trying to bring a mediocre attacker up to
standard when there are plenty of cards out there that
will do a much better job as a main attacker, with or
without an Expert Belt.
Rating
Modified: 2.25 (very average . . . and average won’t cut
it in tournament play)
Limited: 3 (low damage output isn’t so much of a problem
here, and Meganium can be a useful tank)
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