|
Hello again, Pojo readers! Today's Card of the Day is
Gyarados from the HeartGold and SoulSilver set.
Gyarados is a Stage 1 Water Pokemon. Being a
Water-type right now nets you decent support, but can be
a problem if there are many Lightning or Grass types in
your area, depending on Weakness. Additionally, there
are other Gyarados that are currently played in the
metagame:
Gyarados SF is somewhat popular, as is Gyarados G.
How does this one compare?
Gyarados HGSS has 130 HP, which is really great for a
Stage 1. It is unfortunate, however, that Magikarp is
almost always a 30 HP basic, so that's something to
think about too. Double Weakness to Lightning is awful
with Luxray GL and the emergence of Ampharos Prime.
Resistance to Fighting is always nice, especially
with Machamp SF and Donphan Prime. A Retreat Cost of 3
is awful, so use Switch or Warp Point.
Gyarados has no Poke-Powers or Poke-Bodies, but just
two attacks. The first attack, Hydro Splash, deals a
vanilla 50 damage for [WCC], which is very overpriced
even though the attack can be powered up by Double
Colorless Energy. The second attack, Hyper Beam, does 80
damage for [WWCC] and discards an Energy attached to the
Defending Pokemon. 80 damage for 4 energy is still very
overpriced even with the Colorless energy requirements,
and the discard effect isn't quite enough to justify its
use.
Modified: 1.5/5 Even though it has high HP, the
attacks are way too expensive to really be useful. One
could theoretically use this in a Rain Dance deck where
Energy placement isn't really a problem, but there are
generally better alternatives.
Limited: 3/5 Gyarados isn't actually that bad here.
Colorless energy requirements, high HP, and decent
damage output (for Limited) make this a pretty nice
pick, although the attacks are still expensive.
|
