Well folks, this week we Pick Your
Poison, as the theme for this week is
simply Poison-Type Pokémon that we
haven’t reviewed.
Except for today’s card, as it was
reviewed all the way back on July 9th,
2008.
I needed one more Pokémon for my
Poison week, didn’t realize we had
reviewed it (oops), and Brock has a
Croagunk in the animé so I went with
it.
Let is see if the modern metagame
is any friendlier to it.
Toxicroak
Lv.32 is a Psychic-Type Pokémon.
That is not a bad starting point:
there are some good Psychic decks
already in existence and even if there
weren’t, Psychic Weakness is commonly
seen in most decks thanks to
Uxie/Uxie
Lv.X.
It is a Stage 1 Pokémon as you
would expect, and unfortunately that
does hurt right now: between powerful
Basics, powerful Level Up forms for
Basics and Evolution acceleration making
Stage 2 Pokémon so fast, being a Stage 1
Pokémon becomes the least desirable
option.
Still,
Broken Time Space can allow them to
Evolve quickly and they do take less
space than a Stage 2, so it isn’t a huge
gap.
Toxicroak
has 90 HP, which is about 10 points
lower than what a Stage 1 hopes for in
this format.
It won’t be impossible to play,
but at 90 HP a Pokémon needs its other
stats and/or effects to compensate.
Psychic Weakness +20 pretty much
middle of the road: no Weakness is of
course best and Psychic is the expected
Weakness for a Poison or Fight-Type
Pokémon (the video game types belonging
to
Toxicroak), but since this is an
older card it is only taking an extra 20
points of damage.
This means other Psychic Pokémon
have to hit for base 70 damage to OHKO
it, another important but simple point.
Lack of Resistance feels like a
missed opportunity: rarely will
Resistance make or break a card, but if
the rest of a card is decent, it can
give it can provide a niche use.
The single Energy Retreat Cost is
nice and easy to pay, plus one could use
an
Unown Q to simply eliminate it.
Toxicroak
has two attacks, Paralyze Poison and
Slash.
The first requires a single
Psychic Energy to use, hits for 20
points of damage and guarantees Poison,
and on top of that gives a coin toss to
inflict Paralysis.
So barring extra effects, you’ll
clear three damage counters from using
the attack, just enough to be annoying.
If you get Paralysis, it will be
a minor or a major annoyance, but
probably not a threat.
Most decks will have a way to
deal with it.
It isn’t supposed to win you the
game; rather it’s supposed to force your
opponent to use up resources early on or
give you time to stall while inflicting
a little damage.
It succeeds at that, and rather
well.
The second attack is Slash for (PCC).
It hits for 60 points of damage
but has no effects.
If it had any sort of useful
effect, this would be a much better
card.
This is not a bad attack but it
clearly isn’t good enough to build a
deck around.
Notice that it can use
Double Colorless Energy, so it is a
solid attack.
If
Toxicroak had an even better first
attack or a Poké-Body/Power we’d really
have something to work with.
All hope is not lost.
I can definitely see a very small
niche use for the card.
If you already have a deck
packing
Vileplume to shut down Trainers and
running
Psychic Energy and
Double Colorless Energy, this
Toxicroak is a solid opening/closing
Pokémon.
This is especially true if your
opponent rushes ahead to avoid the
Trainer lock and Evolves/Levels Up
everything he or she can.
You might take an early Prize
just poking away Paralyze Poison.
If they force
Toxicroak to the Bench or try to
snipe around it, they run the risk of
you dropping a
Double Colorless Energy and slamming
them for 60 points of damage.
It may not be as significant an
amount of damage as it was in formats of
yore, but it isn’t easily ignored.
It seems unlikely you’ll find many
Limited Events using Majestic Dawn
boosters, but if you do and then pull
this and a
Croagunk, make room for a few
Psychic
Energy and run it.
90 HP is good in Limited play.
A solid 60 damage is great.
Special Conditions are much more
potent and an attack for a single
Psychic Energy that auto-Poisons and has
a 50% chance of inflicting Paralysis is
great!
Unless you honestly can’t fit all
that in, run it.
Ratings
Modified:
2.5/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Please check out my eBay auctions
here.
Remember that Pojo is in no way
responsible for any auctions, but is
merely kind enough to let me link in my
reviews. ;)
