|
Seismitoad
So . . . today we find out just how useful
Palpitoad can be when we
look at its final Stage Evolution,
Hypnotoad Seismitoad.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist the
Futurama reference).
Seismitoad
is a Stage 2 Water Type Pokémon with a nice 140 HP which
puts it outside of the unboosted
OHKO range of Zekrom and
Reshiram (and that’s good
news in the current format). The Water Typing is good as
Fire decks are still relatively popular, and it’s nice
to see a Water Pokémon without the Lightning Weakness
that means it just dies the instant
Zekrom so much as looks at it. The only real
threat to Seismitoad’s
Weakness at the moment is Virizion
NV which does
get some play, so be wary. The Retreat cost of three
isn’t a shock on a bulky Pokémon like this, but it is a
bit of a pain, so run a Switch or two with it, please.
Although Seismitoad has two
attacks, only one is really worth talking about. Hyper
Voice is just a vanilla attack with a fairly high cost
of [W][W][C], and a pretty
poor damage output of 70. No-one is going to use it.
Round on the other hand has some potential. For the easy
cost of two Energy of any Colour, Round does 30 damage
times the number of Pokémon with the same Round attack
that you have in play. This means that, with a line up
of Seismitoads and
Palpitoads on the Bench, it
can hit up to 120 damage with
for a single Double Colourless Energy.
Players who have been around a while will no doubt be
reminded of the similar attack that
Beedrill GE used to such great effect (it was a
World Championship winning deck in 2009). Does this mean
that Seismitoad could also
have a huge impact?
Somehow, I doubt it. The old
Beedrill decks benefitted from the old Rare Candy
rules and the Broken Time-Space Stadium which allowed
them to set up and swarm in a single turn. They also had
the RR Beedrill to search
out Grass Pokémon. Seismitoad
has none of that good stuff to help it with the massive
task of getting out multiple Stage 1
and 2 Pokémon quickly. What’s more, it also has to deal
with Pokémon Catcher and the fact that
120 damage leaves it somewhat
short in a format where 130 is the magic KO number
against the most popular attackers (even more when it
comes to Dragons with an Eviolite
attached).
Looking to the future (as usual, I mean spoilers of
Japanese sets), it seems we will be getting a
Wigglytuff that also has the
Round attack . . . this means that a fully set up
Seismitoad deck could be
hitting as much as 180 damage for two Energy, which
would be brilliant . . . if it was feasible. Stage 2
decks have been so badly hit by the Rare Candy
nerf that only the most
brilliant (Magnezone Prime)
or the ones that can work with
Vileplume (Chandelure)
are playable in today’s format.
Seismitoad doesn’t fit into either category: it’s
not game-breakingly good,
and it can’t afford to devote Bench space to the Trainer
Lock. Unless they decide to release Basic Pokémon with
the Round attack, I just can’t see the deck ever being
truly competitive in a format of big hard-hitting
Basics.
Rating
Modified: 2.5 (has ‘fun League deck’ written all over
it)
Limited: 2 (nice HP, but it will be very difficult to
pull what you need to make Round worthwhile)
|
