Torkoal
(Dark Explorers)
Torkoal is
one of those Pokémon that (unless you
are a true fan of the franchise) tends
to be forgotten about. He’s not much use
in the video game, and every now and
then they release a card for him . . .
and that is almost always forgettable
too. Oh well, let’s see if that
situation will change with Dark
Explorers.
What we have here
is an unevolving
Basic Pokémon with a very mediocre 90
HP, Fire Typing (neither good nor bad)
and a Retreat cost of two. Since Heavy
Ball was printed, that has pretty much
become the worst Retreat cost in the
game, and there’s nothing very inspiring
about the rest of
Torkoal’s stats either.
He doesn’t have an
Ability to help redeem things, so we
move straight on to the attacks.
The first, Flame Cloak, only
costs one Energy
of any Colour, but for that cost you get
an unsurprisingly poor 10 damage. But
wait . . . there is also an effect! You
get to flip a coin and, if heads, attach
a Fire Energy from your Discard pile to
Torkoal. Now
obviously it would be a lot better if
you could attach it to any of your
Pokémon, but it is what it is, and I
guess it’s meant to power up what will
(hopefully) be
Torkoal’s awesome second attack!
Except that second attack, Heat Blast is
a generic, vanilla [F][C][C]
for 60 damage effort. Not worth it, not
one little bit.
You could say the
same thing about the whole card really .
. . it’s filler that will just about do
to add bulk to your limited deck if you
happen to be playing Fire Energy. As for
Torkoal . .
. I’ve forgotten him already.
Rating
Modified: 1.25
(move along, nothing to see here)
Limited: 2.5 (can
take a hit or two, but outside of that
he’s fairly useless)
