Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Manaphy
(Plasma Storm)
Oh Manaphy, you’re such a
cute little Pokémon, and you almost always get an
interesting, vaguely playable card (or am I thinking of
Phione?).
Anyhoo, today’s offering at
least falls into that category, and is the best card of
the week by a country mile.
Manaphy
is an unevolving Basic of
the Water type with a handy 70 HP. This is crucial
because it will mean he survives a Hammerhead/Laser
combo from Landorus-EX and
also an unboosted
Raiden Knuckle from the
(just released) Thundurus-EX which can exploit Manaphy’s
Lightning Weakness. The single retreat cost isn’t bad
either. This may not be the biggest, baddest Basic
around, but it has a chance, provided the rest of it is
up to the job.
One thing that might help with that is the Ability,
Final Wish. We’ve seen this before on a cute Legendary (Jirachi
RR), and it’s never quite as useful as it appears to be.
When the Pokémon is knocked out by damage (note: Poison
won’t trigger it!), you get to search your deck for any
card and put it in your hand. How can a free search for
anything not be useful? Well, when it relies on the
opponent being obliging enough to give it to you, that’s
when. You can never count on being able to use this
admittedly excellent Ability because your opponent will
either KO Manaphy using
Hypnotoxic Laser, or just
ignore him and go after more important Pokémon with
their Pokémon Catchers. I’m not saying this Ability
isn’t useful or good, I’m saying don’t play
Manaphy because of it. Treat
it as a bonus when your opponent gets sloppy or is
desperate to draw a Prize.
So, what should you play Manaphy
for then? The answer to that is the attack, Seafaring.
For the cost of one Water Energy, you get to flip three
coins and for each heads attach a Water Energy from your
discard pile to one of your Benched Pokémon. Obviously
this isn’t useful for every deck, but it is a possible
inclusion in Blastoise/Keldeo
for those occasions when the Energy is in your Discard
pile rather than your hand, or you don’t have a
Blastoise out, or you want
to do something on the first turn with all that Water
you just discarded with Juniper and Ultra Ball. It’s not
a staple by any means. It’s not even something I would
necessarily recommend. But in a week of terrible cards,
it’s just nice to come across something that has been
used legitimately in a top tier deck.
You go Manaphy!
Rating
Modified: 2.75 (quirky little niche tech for people who
like that kind of thing)
Limited: 3.5 (probably worth it for the one-off search
alone)
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