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Today we look at Vibrava (XY: Furious Fists
75/111) as a fan request. This is a Dragon-Type, which
isn’t a huge benefit right now. It is an Evolving Stage
1, so it doesn’t have to be brilliant, just help its
Stage 1 in a manner that justifies its existence. It
has 80 HP (typical of Evolving Stage 1 Pokémon, but also
bad) with Fairy Weakness (better than most others), no
Resistance (a missed opportunity but not a real
drawback) and single Energy Retreat Cost (very good,
though I believe “free” was warranted).
Vibrava
has two attacks. The first is Charge Energy, and for
[C] it allows you to search your deck for up to two
basic Energy cards. This is handy, but really would
have worked better as an Ability, or else needed to get
much more as an attack on something so fragile. After
all, giving up a Stage 1 Pokémon, an Energy (and usually
attachment) and an attack to accomplish the same feat as
an Item (Professor’s Letter) is a poor deal. The
second attack is Vibration, a vanilla 30 for two, even
though that “two” is the sadly typical oddball Energy
pairing common to Dragon-Types: in this case [GF].
There is another Vibrava that is Standard legal:
BW: Boundaries Crossed 98/149. It has the same
Attributes as today’s card, save for Dragon Weakness
instead of Fairy; for now at least being Weak to the
Fairy-Type strikes me as being a bit better, though with
80 HP it probably won’t matter very often anyway. It
also has two attacks; for [G] its Quick Turn attack
gives you two coin flips good for 20 damage per “heads”
and for [FCC] you get 50 damage to the Defending Pokémon
with 10 points of spread to the opponent’s Bench.
Honestly, these aren’t all that impressive either so I
would stick to today’s for the better Weakness. If
you’re stuck attacking with it, it also combos with
set-mate Flygon (XY: Furious Fists
76/111); its Rainbow Show attack allows you to attach as
many Energy from your hand to your Pokémon in play as
you wish, how you wish. The other Flygon (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 99/149; BW Promos BW53)
could possible make use of hunting for Energy, except
most decks that run it don’t attack with it anyway.
Of course, Vibrava has to Evolve from something,
and the options are Trapinch (BW: Boundaries
Crossed 83/149) and Trapinch (XY: Furious
Fists 53/111). Both versions are Basic
Fighting-Types with 60 HP, single Energy Retreat Costs
and two attacks. The older option is Water Weak with
Lightning Resistance and the first attack requires [C]
and gives a coin flip to discard an Energy attached to
the Defending Pokémon while the second attack is simply
[FC] and does 20. The newest Trapinch has Grass
Weakness, no Resistance and for [F] discards a card from
the top of your opponent’s deck while [CC] buys 10
damage. While each first attack is a little
interesting, these cards are pretty poor. Adjust to
your metagame; if Grass is strong, go with the older
option but if Water is bigger, go with the newer.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5 - Go ahead and use a copy or two if you’re
running a Flygon, but only so you have a means of
Evolving despite Item lock.
Expanded:
1.75/5 - Same as for Standard.
Limited:
3/5 - Being able to search for multiple Types of basic
Energy can be very helpful here as decks are often
multi-Type, though it is hampered by being a Stage 1.
Don’t worry about being able to use the second attack
unless you’ve got room or need those Energy Types
anyway.
Summary:
It is nice that Vibrava has some synergy with its
set-mate Flygon, but it is sadly still quite
underpowered, meaning most will use Rare Candy if
possible. Enjoy it in Limited if you get the chance.
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