Baby Mario
Top 4 UK Nats |
Shuckle HGSS
Hello, and welcome to another week of reviews here on
Pojo’s CotD!
We start with Shuckle, a Rare Holo from the recent HGSS
set. Shuckle is one of the more . . . different looking
Pokémon, but it’s pretty cute and likeable. We all know
that it is going to have to come up with more than that
if it is going to get any tournament play though.
Shuckle’s stats don’t do anything to make that possible.
60 HP on an unevolving Basic? Ewwww. Fire Weakness seems
to be not too bad at the moment as BlazeRay use has
declined and Charizard hasn’t made much of an impact.
The Retreat cost of one is . . . ok.
Much like its brother Shuckle from SW, this Shuckle has
a PokeBody that tries to give it some protection.
Whereas Shuckle SW’s Pot Shell was semi-useful
(protection from Pokémon with Special Energy attached),
Shuckle HGSS’s Shell Barricade is really . . .
pointless. Ok, it prevents all damage done to Shuckle
while it is on the Bench but . . . why would you even
want Shuckle taking up space on your Bench in the first
place? It doesn’t have a useful Power or Body to use
while sitting there, it isn’t waiting to evolve into
something good . . . it isn’t even a starter Pokémon
that you might want to Retreat after setting up. I
suppose you could use it to absorb damage from Luxray’s
Flash Impact, but there are many better options for
that.
Even worse, you are unlikely to want Shuckle in the
active position either. Its solitary attack, Poison Jab,
costs [F][F] to do 30 damage and auto Poison. That’s not
terrible in itself but . . . Status Conditions are
easily dealt with (Unown G, Retreat, Poke Turn, or
Evolve your way out of them), and 30 damage is puny
these days. Only having one attack that needs two Energy
is also bad . . . it makes Shuckle slow and
resource-hungry: two things that you really don’t want a
60 HP Basic to be.
Sadly, Shuckle offers players little or nothing of any
real value, and so will never be worthy of a place in
any decent deck.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (I suppose it does something . . . but not
nearly enough)
Limited: 2 (the Poison attack works better here)
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