Today we look at a Pokémon infamous for
pushing the HP scores to new heights,
Wailord.
Years ago
Wailord ex set the current record
for a Pokémon’s HP score at 200, and was
worth two Prizes when KO’d.
Wailord of HS – Triumphant is a
Stage 1 Water Pokémon that clocks in at
only 20 points less (180 HP), and is
only worth a single Prize when KO’d
(barring the effects of other cards).
This is the biggest base HP score
available for Modified play, and second
biggest available for Unlimited.
This would be great on a Stage 2
Pokémon, so it is phenomenal on a Stage
1!
Being a Water Pokémon is okay:
you won’t get a lot of benefit from type
matching, but Fire decks never seem to
disappear entirely, and are often the
hot deck sometime in the format (pardon
the pun).
This is a great start for a Stage
1 Pokémon, whose chief asset is being
faster and easier to run than a Stage 2
Pokémon while having more power than a
Basic: we have some very fast Stage 2
Pokémon in this format and some brutes
of Basics.
Alas, the Weakness nearly beaches this
whale.
Lightning Weakness is considered
by many players to be the worst.
I think it might not be the
absolute worst but it certainly is up
there thanks to powerhouses like
Luxray GL Lv.X.
For that matter, Lightning-Type
Pokémon in general will fry this thing
up like it was inspired by a fish and
not a mammal, completely nullifying the
HP advantage.
The lack of Resistance is extra
painful with such a great HP score and
lousy Weakness: it would have provided a
balance to the near shut out caused by
the Weakness.
The four Energy required to
retreat is expected on such a large
Pokémon but it also means you must
dedicate several slots to cards to get
Wailord out of the Active slot,
cards to heal it or a combination of
both.
The first attack, Submerge, is very
disappointing.
The good news is that it can be
powered in a single turn with a
Double Colorless Energy.
The bad news is that it is
Moomoo Milk.
Flip two coins; remove up to
three damage counters for each “heads”.
That isn’t worth two Energy: a
healing effect needs to do a lot more to
matter in most formats.
The second attack is Swallow Up.
This familiar attack has you
check the remaining HP of the Defending
Pokémon and
Wailord.
If
Wailord has more HP left, you score
a total of 100 points of damage (50+50).
If
Wailord ties or is smaller, only the
base damage of 50 points is done.
It requires a daunting investment
of (WWWC).
When you get the bonus damage
it’s a solid attack and without it, it
painfully slow and underpowered.
It hurts that this attack
cannot use
Double Colorless Energy which makes
using it for the first attack a bad
idea, besides dropping the turns needed
to power up by one.
Fortunately there are combos, but first
I’ll touch upon the related cards.
All Modified Legal versions of
Wailmer have bad attacks, but the
Supreme Victors version has a better
Weakness.
Even at 80 HP (10 points less
than the HS – Triumphant version) it is
much better to add 20 to a Lightning
Pokémon’s attack than to double the
damage.
The other
Wailord is pretty forgettable; same
HP, Weakness, (lack of) Resistance and
Retreat, but with worse attacks.
I wasn’t thrilled with what this
Wailord brings, so that comment
should be quite telling.
What can save such a slow Pokémon
that needs to be fast?
Feraligatr
Prime.
With that card’s Rain Dance, you can use
evolution acceleration (Broken
Time Space and/or
Rare Candy) to get both Evolutions
into play fast, easy and fully powered
second/third turn, though that is
resource intensive.
By getting them out that early,
you should easily be able to beat out
the Defending Pokémon in HP and score
100 points of damage that first turn,
and at least 50 the next.
What is more, you can then run
the supporting Trainers and Supporters
needed to maximize
Wailord.
It will cost your Supporter usage
for the turn, but
Seeker will let you bounce a Benched
Pokémon and all cards attached to it
back to your hand, plus force your
opponent to do the same.
Just remember you’ll want an easy
way to Bench
Wailord, but you needed to run those
anyway.
Since you should have plenty of
Energy attachments, I’d go with
Warp Energy: you’d give up your
(probably unneeded) manual Energy
attachment and recycle it when you
bounce
Wailord.
If you feel lucky, you could also
use the Trainer
Super Scoop-Up, but as we all know
that requires a successful coin flip and
won’t do anything to your opponent.
This also makes
Uxie into a more efficient draw
engine.
With
Vs Seeker you can recycle the
Supporter
Seeker, allowing you to run less or
use it long enough to seriously
frustrate your opponent.
If Lightning-Type Pokémon are
everywhere, consider running
Exploud in the deck as well: it
might be a tight fit but it when you mix
it with
Feraligatr; you remove all the
downsides of
Wailord.
Top everything off with an
Expert Belt for good measure and
you’ll have a 200 HP powerhouse that
opens at 120 points of damage and at
worst drops down to 70.
The Prize penalty shouldn’t
matter because a
Wailord within KO range should be
Benched and bounced back to hand.
In Limited play,
Wailord is great.
Submerge is actually worth using,
as the average attack isn’t as potent
and at least sometimes, you’ll KO your
opponent’s only ready attacker and will
just get to enjoy a turn or two of said
opponent powering up.
Even if you are forced into an
awkward situation where
Wailord is stuck up front early and
isn’t worth finishing powering up all
the way, using Submerge for a few turns
will turn a card your opponent needed
two or three turns to KO into something
that lasts four or five turns.
As long as you can build
Wailmer/Wailord
on the Bench and avoid taking damage,
about two-thirds of the Pokémon in this
set are in OHKO range.
Even trading blows with Stage 1
or 2 Pokémon with the same Energy, if
you go first you should at least be able
to “trade Prizes”.
While there are Lightning Pokémon
in the set and you should expect to meet
them, most of the Common/Uncommon
Lightning-Types aren’t that great.
The rest of your deck will have
to cover Weakness.
Without facing its Weakness and
with the normal pacing of Limited play,
Wailord should do quite well.
Ratings
Modified:
3/5 – A solid Rain Dance partner whose
sub-archetype is hurt by Weakness, Poké-Power
denial, and rivals crowding it out of
the deck.
Bondiborg had to remind me about
that last point, so “Thanks
Bondi.”
Limited:
3.75/5 – If you don’t get enough Water
Pokémon (or multiples of itself) to
justify running
Water Energy, you might have to pass
on this.
Otherwise, go kill and eat!
I am still selling my former
collectables on eBay. I’ve had a
lot of hobbies over the years, so at
various times I’ll have comic books,
manga, action figures, and video games
on the auction block. You can take
a look at what’s up for bids
here. Just a reminder, Pojo is
in no way responsible for any
transactions and was merely kind enough
to let me mention the auctions here. ;)
