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Pangoro
(XY: Furious Fists 68/111) is a Darkness-Type;
like yesterday its actually a Dual-Type Pokémon in the
video games, specifically Fighting/Dark hybrid… which
means like yesterday’s CotD it would have been immensely
powerful had it been allowed the same Dual-Type status
in the TCG (it was rare, but once this was an actual TCG
mechanic as well!). Being a Darkness-Type is good in
Standard; you don’t hit much for Weakness and while
Fairy-Types are Resistant, they generally keep to their
own deck. Direct Type support is forgettable or limited
to Expanded (where it can access the impressive Dark
Patch). Mostly those Darkness-Types benefit from
the indirect support; great Darkness-Types like
Darkrai-EX, Yveltal-EX and Yveltal (XY
78/146; XY Promos XY06). On the other hand
thanks to hitting so much Weakness on top of even better
Type support, this card probably would have been better
off as a Fighting-Type (since it seems unlikely they’ll
revive the Dual-Type mechanic for the TCG anytime soon).
Being a Stage 1 is a knock, but its not as bad as being
a Stage 2; just a single turn delay and you have better
odds of pulling it off sans Items (Seismitoad-EX
has made that an important distinction). We’ll take a
look at Pancham later to see if the Basic
actually carries enough of its own way to really address
the imbalance between non-Evolving Basic Pokémon and
Evolutions. Pangoro has 120 HP, which may be
adequate; it can’t reliably take a hit (but most things
that aren’t Pokémon-EX are in the same boat) but its
odds are decent, at least outside of getting hit for
Weakness. Speaking of which, unfortunately it has the
iconic Fighting Weakness of Darkness-Types; its video
game Typing means that it really should have been Fairy
Weak (and I’d rather have to deal with that than
Fighting Weakness, at least for the immediate future).
Just to underscore how odd Fighting really is… in the
video games a Pangoro takes double damage from video
game Fighting-Type attacks but normal damage from
Ground-Type moves and only half damage from Rock-Types:
those are the three Types that form the TCG
Fighting-Type.
This card actually has Resistance: Psychic to be
specific. Again referencing its video game Typing,
something else might have been better: Darkness! About
as useful (Resist X-Ball or Evil Ball?) it also wouldn’t
have any clashing: Poison-Types are one aspect of the
Psychic-Type, and that should actually do normal damage.
Of course as this combination is Immune to
Psychic-Types and Resistant to Ghost-Types, it still
fits; I guess I just appreciate the novelty of the
hypothetical. Plus Resistance just is just a small
bonus right now; -20 is nothing compared to (for
example) the x2 of Weakness. The Retreat Cost is
relevant… to a degree. Most decks should be packing
something to either lower the Retreat Cost (possibly
zeroing it out completely) or to bypass manually
retreating all together, but if you do have to retreat
you’ll suffer a significant setback… if you can even
afford it. The small silver-lining in Expanded is that
it makes Pangoro a legal Heavy Ball
target.
Pangoro
has two attacks; Clobber and Hammer Arm. Clobber
requires [DC] to use and hits for 30 points of damage,
with the option of discarding an Item from hand to jump
the damage by +40. Unfortunately you can only discard
one Item for a single +40, so its not going to score you
a OHKO. Items are usually valuable, but decks also tend
to pack several including “spare” copies of cards you
run mostly to ensure you get the one or two copies
you’ll really need early on as well as context sensitive
cards (like TecH) that just aren’t going to matter at a
particular point in the match or at all during a
particular match-up… so the cost is very borderline; I
don’t like it but you can probably make it work out
reasonably well. You’ll still need something else on
top of this damage to reach 2HKO level and there will be
times when you either lack an Item you can afford to
discard, or any Item at all.
Hammer Arm requires [DCC], allowing it to make use of
off some of the less restrictive forms of Energy
acceleration, like Double Colorless Energy. For
three Energy you score 80 points of damage plus you
discard a card from the top of your opponent’s deck; the
discard can backfire, either because its specifically a
card your opponent wants in the discard pile or because
the card after it ends up being a better draw worth the
loss. Sometimes you’ll hit something valuable so
overall its a decent bonus… but not something I’d
consider worth the effort of running a Stage 1 Pokémon
to access; its 10 points shy of the magic 90 per turn,
and while that isn’t fatally bad, it again gives us no
reason to run the card. There is also a lack of synergy
between the attacks; they don’t compliment each other
save the first being less expensive than the second, and
the second providing a steady source of damage. The big
thing to note is that the Energy costs may look
complimentary at a glance, but if you’re running
Double Colorless Energy (and you should be) then you
also should be able to skip Clobber and go straight to
Hammer Arm! If Clobber was priced at [CC], even if it
was 10 points weaker, it would have helped the card.
Pancham
has two options: XY: Furious Fists 59/111 and
60/111. These set-mates are both Basic Fighting-Types
with Psychic Weakness and no Resistance. 59/111 has 60
HP, a Retreat Cost of just one and two attacks; for [C]
the first allows you to search your deck for a card that
Evolves from it and Evolve right away, but only if you
have a Darkness-Type Pokémon on your Bench (reflecting
its video game Evolution requirements). For [FCC] it
can also do 30 points of damage. 60/111 has 70 HP, a
Retreat Cost of two and just one attack: for [CC] you
flip four coins and score 10 points of damage per heads.
Honestly I am a bit torn; 70 HP is better than 60 of
course, but lower Retreat Cost and ability to attack and
Evolve are likely more helpful for reaching Pangoro…
with the additional caveat that (as you can’t attack the
first turn of the game) your opponent will have a chance
to take down Pangoro before it can attack. As
such, use whichever best fits your deck. Neither
Pancham is great, but at least 59/111 both reflects
how the video game works and aids in setting up
Pangoro.
So much again like yesterday’s CotD I don’t see a lot of
reason to run Pangoro. We’ve got other Stage 1
Darkness-Types if you think your deck needs one, such as
getting around Intimidating Mane on Pyroar (XY:
Flashfire 20/106) without resorting to Garbodor
(BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113); something like
Zoroark (BW: Dark Explorers 71/108; BW:
Legendary Treasures 90/113), which (with effort) can
actually ramp its damage up to OHKO levels against
Pokémon-EX.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5 - Though it isn’t something I’d run and expect to
win a tournament with, it can be made at least somewhat
functional with the correct build; it is a pretty even
mixture of not doing what it does do especially well, in
addition to other cards just filling its role better.
Expanded:
2.5/5 - I cannot under emphasize how amazing Dark
Patch can be; a Benched Pangoro can go from
zero Energy to Hammer Arm ready in a single turn with
either two Dark Patch and your manual Energy
attachment or one Dark Patch and a Double
Colorless Energy for that manual Energy attachment.
An Energy Switch could let you ready an Active
one in a similar manner… but in the end all these tricks
work just as well or better for other Stage 1
Darkness-Type Pokémon.
Limited:
3.75/5 - A great pull for Limited; the fact that there
are two Pancham in the set increase the odds of a
more fleshed out Evolution line, and everything that was
nearly good enough in Standard is definitely good enough
here. Just mind the Weakness!
Theme Deck:
4/5 - This particular Pangoro is part of the Dark
Hammer Theme Deck that released alongside XY: Furious
Fists; as such it qualifies for a particular
specialized Limited format. On the PTCGO you simply can
select a Theme Deck you have access to and play someone
else who is also using a Theme Deck, and occasionally in
real life there are both identical events as well as
similar events; the latter may include a few booster
packs of either the same or a different set with which
to augment your deck. In either case, the Theme Deck
contains other Darkness-Types, Pancham (XY:
Furious Fists 59/111) and Pangoro and in
multiples, plus a decent compliment of Items, Korrina
and Professor Sycamore. All these elements being
pre-assembled for either just makes Pancham
function that much better than in a regular event. The
score would be higher but that would be spilling into
the other cards’ territory (Professor Sycamore
improves pretty much everything, after all).
Summary:
Pangoro is another Pokémon that wishes it were
either a Dual-Type; as a Darkness-Type it just lacks a
niche and it isn’t good enough as a general attacker to
not occupy a niche. If the attacks hit a bit harder it
might have been a contender, but even then there isn’t
much demand for Stage 1, Darkness-Type attackers anyway:
the major Darkness-Type attackers just work so well with
Garbodor, which handles Intimidating Mane, which
is the main reason you’d need to run said Stage 1
Darkness-Type.
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