Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Kingler δ (Crystal Guardians)
Today’s card features another of the original 151 who
gets no love from the card designers Sad to think that
someone could have played their way right through
Seniors and into Masters without ever seeing a legal
Kingler.
Like the Arbok we reviewed on Monday, this is another
one of those Delta Species cards, where the Water
Pokémon is somehow transformed by weird electromagnetic
rays into something that is both Fire and Steel Type.
The dual Typing was a nice feature of these cards,
making them more flexible in offence, but also giving
you some other toys to play around with, like Special
Metal Energy in the case of Kingler. With just 80 HP on
a Stage 1, any defensive boost is welcome.
This Kingler is one of those cards that wasn’t really
out of the top drawer, but nevertheless could be part of
a usable deck for league or casual play. Body Slam
offered good value in those times, doing 30 damage for
two Energy and giving you a coin flip for Paralysis,
while you could also have some fun with Prop-up Pinchers
which could do 80 damage as long as Kingler had a
Pokémon Tool attached. Luckily this era of Pokémon
offered some excellent Tools to use including Crystal
Shard (so you could hit Flygon for Weakness, basically),
Strength Charm (for extra damage), or best of all
Cessation Crystal which shut down all Poke-Bodies and
Poke-Powers (that’s what we used to call ‘Abilities’,
kids!).
It seems to me that, since the Black and White era
began, Pokémon has become even more . . . black and
white. Cards are either incredibly good or uselessly bad
and many more players are now focused ruthlessly on
winning rather than having fun. This Kingler might not
be such a great card, but it reminds me of a great era
in the TCG, where more cards had more possibilities and
more players were willing to take the risk and use them.
Nostalgia Rating
I’m starting to feel old now: 3.25
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HEZ
Intro to
Unlimited 150 |
Kingler δ
(Crystal Guardians)
Continuing the theme of Pokémon that haven’t been
printed on cards for 6 years is Kingler!
Modified:
Another card from the excellent Delta Species series and
probably the best Kingler ever made. It doesn’t really
look like much by today’s standards but like Arbok
δ earlier this week, it’s able to
deal 80 for 3 energy which was very good for a Stage 1.
Unlike Arbok however, it was the Kingler player who
decided if the requirement for 80 damage was met, making
it more reliable to build around. Crystal Guardians was
a set with a Tool sub-theme so there were plenty of
options to support the Prop-up Pinchers attack including
the highly playable Mysterious Shard which would prevent
Kingler being damaged by exs and Cessation Crystal which
deactivates all Poké-Powers
and Poké-Bodies whilst the user is the Active Pokémon.
The Supporter Castaway searches for 1 Basic Energy, 1
Tool and 1 Supporter which made it a must for Kingler
decks.
If you didn’t want to go for the Cessation Crystal
option there were several good partners that could back
up the Tool theme such as Slowking (Unseen Forces) and
Quagsire δ (Dragon
Frontiers). Overall, Kingler
δ was never a top tier deck but made a nice main
attacker for a Tool-themed
toolbox deck.
Limited:
Because Steel wasn’t a Basic Energy type at the time it
would make using the first attack quite difficult
outside pulling the rare Double Rainbow Energy. Luckily
for Kingler δ, Prop-up
Pinchers was well supported even in Limited with 4 Tools
and Castaway at Uncommon. I remember a friend of mine
pulled 2 Kingler and plenty of Krabby and she absolutely
wrecked that Pre-release!
Unlimited 150:
As seems to be a theme this week,
the card chosen is ok but it suffers from a total lack
of other good Pokémon with the same name. 80 for 3 is a
little weak these days but at least it beats every other
Kingler ever made! I wouldn’t run this unless Kingler is
your favourite Pokémon and even then I’d recommend you
consider your 2nd favourite instead!
Ratings.
Modifed: 3.5
Limited: 4
Unlimited 150: 1
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