Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Weavile
(Plasma Freeze)
Hello and welcome to another week of reviews here on
Pojo’s
CotD. There are still some good cards from Plasma
Freeze to look at, so let’s get on with it. We kick off
the week with Weavile, a
Pokémon which doesn’t seem to have all that much going
for it. Remember that we are in a format dominated by
hugely powerful Basic Pokémon with massive HP and scary
good attacks. Weavile on the
other hand is a Stage 1 with just 90 HP, making him an
easy OHKO victim for those same big Basics.
So, why would anyone bother giving
Weavile a second glance? Well, he has two things
going for him that I haven’t mentioned yet. First of
all, he is a Dark Type so he has support from Dark Patch
for Energy acceleration and Dark Claw to increase the
damage he can do. Secondly, Weavile
is a Team Plasma Pokémon so that damage can be boosted
even further with Deoxys-EX
and he gets some other nice pieces of support too
(notably Team Plasma Ball). Of course, this wouldn’t
mean anything if the attacks were terrible (you don’t
hear anyone talking about Bisharp
PLF, do you?), but luckily for
Weavile, he has something to offer in that
department.
Weavile’s
first attack, Hail, is pretty good. It puts
10 damage on each of your
opponent’s Pokémon for just a single Energy of any Type.
This can create pressure and help with KO maths later in
the game, but it’s not even the reason you would use
this card. Nope, the star of the show here is Vilify:
for one Dark and one Colourless Energy you may discard
as many Pokémon as you like from your hand and do
30 damage for each one.
Now obviously this attack is capable of
OHKOing absolutely anything
very cheaply: discarding six Pokémon will send any
undamaged EX straight to the discard pile. Equally
obvious is the fact that this attack, under normal
circumstances, is completely unsustainable. I mean, how
many times can you just dump a load of Pokémon like
that? Once per game maybe, if that.
Well, luckily there is a solution in the form of the
card we will look at tomorrow:
Exeggcute. Briefly,
Exeggcute has an Ability which allows you to
return the card to your hand once per turn if it is in
the discard pile, so in theory you can run four and
constantly recycle them to give you four Pokémon to
discard for Vilify every turn. That is
120 damage from discarding
Exeggcute alone. If
you can toss another Pokémon, use
Hypnotoxic Laser and/or Dark Claw, you can see
that it is not at all impossible for
Weavile to OHKO those big EX
Pokémon. Will it get revenge KO’d a lot? Well yeah – but
don’t forget that Weavile is
not an EX and its Energy requirements are relatively
low. This means that a Prize/resource exchange will
almost always be in your favour.
So, do we finally have a Stage 1 competitive Pokémon
(it’s been a while now) that can take on the EX Pokémon
and win? Well, sort of. The deck has seen some success
in Japan and has also placed well in a few tournaments
in the West. It is however an
extremely
risky deck to play. Weavile
itself is a real glass cannon, and the deck runs a lot
of very low HP Basics (Exeggcute
has just 30 HP!) which are just asking to be KO’d on the
first turn. Even if the deck gets going, it is not easy
to maintain a stream of Stage 1s while searching out all
the Exeggcutes you need for
the combo. Viable deck? Sure.
Fun deck?
Absolutely. Good choice for a major tournament?
Not as far as I’m concerned, but less conservative
players might be tempted.
Rating
Modified: 3.25 (part of a neat combo which is a whole
lot of fun, but very fragile)
Limited: 3.5 (Hail is great here, but unless you pull
Exeggcutes, Vilify will be
tough to use much)
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virusyosh |
Welcome back, Pojo readers! We're continuing our
Plasma Freeze reviews this week, so be sure to check
back for more updates! Today we're reviewing a new Team
Plasma Pokemon. Today's Card of the Day is Weavile.
Weavile is a Stage 1 Darkness Team Plasma Pokemon.
Darkness Pokemon are still very common in the Modified
metagame, with Darkrai-EX and Sableye still seeing
substantial play; therefore, if Weavile will see any
play, it either needs to work with those cards and/or
fill a niche of its own. As a Team Plasma Pokemon,
Weavile gets support from the likes of Team Plasma Ball,
Frozen City, and Colress Machine, among others.
Therefore, Weavile may possibly fulfill a niche in the
Plasma decks, too. 90 HP is what we'd expect for a
Stage 1, although this value is very low for an
incredibly hard-hitting Modified metagame where Weavile
is likely to be OHKOed. Therefore, Weavile's HP score is
definitely a problem. Fighting Weakness is bad against
the rare Landorus-EX and Terrakion you'll see around;
Psychic Resistance is good against Deoxys-EX and the now
very rare Mewtwo-EX; and a Retreat Cost of one is easily
payable, even if you don't have a Switch or a Float
Stone handy.
Weavile has two attacks. Hail does 10 damage to each of
your opponent's Pokemon for a single Colorless Energy,
which would be a fantastic attack on a Basic. That being
said, Hail works wonders in Limited, even if it doesn't
do quite enough in Modified, where spread damage is
somewhat hampered by how hard other main attackers hit.
Vilify is Weavile's second attack, allowing you to
discard any number of Pokemon from your hand, dealing 30
damage for each Pokemon discarded in this way for a
Darkness and a Colorless. A natural partner for this
attack is Exeggcute, since the eggs can use their
Propagate ability to get back to your hand again and
again, allowing for some steady damage output. Of
course, without reliable recursion, this attack gets
weak somewhat quickly, so if you're planning on using
Weavile in a deck, you'll likely have to build around
it.
Modified: 2.5/5 Weavile would be decent in Modified in a
slower format. Hail isn't really a bad attack for the
cost, but spread is dead right now due to how hard
Darkrai, Kyurem, and others hit. Additionally, while
Vilify can be excellent in the right deck, Weavile's low
HP score really brings it down. Overall, Weavile has
some potential, but the unforgiving nature of our
current Modified format will likely keep it on the
sidelines looking in.
Limited: 4.5/5 Weavile is fantastic in Limited. Hail
will do a number on your opponent for a very low cost,
and Vilify is a perfect attack for this format, as your
hand will likely be full of Pokemon you won't be able to
use. Throw in some Plasma support, and you'll have
yourself a deck in no time!
Combos With: Exeggcute PLF
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