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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Top 5 Double Crisis Cards

#2 - Team Magma’s Camerupt 

- Double Crisis

Date Reviewed:
April 2, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 3.05
Limited: 4.00

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page

Baby Mario
2010 UK National
Seniors
Champion

#2 Team Magma’s Camerupt 

Unlike the other cards on our countdown, here’s one that people are trying out right now. 

That’s because Team Magma’s Camerupt offers Energy acceleration that has great synergy with the Camerupt EX from PRC. His Burning Draft Ability means you can recover a Fire or a Fighting Energy from the discard pile every turn and attach it to Magma’s Camerupt. While underwhelming in itself (Magma Camerupt’s Flame Ball attack is pretty poor), it can be used to keep fuelling Camerupt EX’s impressive Explosive Jet, which does 50 damage for each Fire Energy you discard from any of your Pokémon. With 2-3 Magma Camerupt in play, plus your regular attachment and a Muscle Band, you can OHKO anything short of a Mega every turn. With no effective damage cap, you can even take out one of the big guys if needed too. 

Getting the Energy into the discard is hardly an issue either: the usual suspects (Ultra Ball, Computer Search, Juniper) work well, and you also have the option of discarding Energy with the Scorched Earth Stadium for extra draw. It’s a very efficient combo that is somewhat reminiscent of the old Magnezone Prime decks that were so powerful a few years ago. However, Camerupt does have a few problems as a deck, such as the time it takes to power up Explosive Jet in the first place and the fact that Water Weakness isn’t exactly desirable in a format full of Seismitoad EX and even the odd Primal Kyogre deck. Garbodor LTR is pretty bad news for Camerupt too. 

Nevertheless, the deck has the potential to be competitive and you’ll probably see some players trying it out at tournaments. It’s not an absolutely top tier choice, but once it gets going (if it gets going), it can devastate pretty much any deck that doesn’t have a ready answer for it. 

Rating 

Modified/Expanded: 3.5

Team Magma deck: 2


aroramage

And now it's time for Team Aqu-wait...Team Magma's Camerupt? What happened to my Sharpedo? Guess it's just too theme-specific for general play. Oh well, Team Magma's Camerupt it is then! And what an...interesting choice.

Team Magma's Camerupt pretty much emulates a pack mule with Energy. You can attach Fighting or Fire Energy onto it once per turn with its Burning Draft Ability, then use Flame Ball to keep the party roaring at 3-for-60 and moving one of those Energies onto one of your Benched Pokemon. Probably the best part about him is that he doesn't have to target Team Magma Pokemon - it can honestly be anything you want! 

There are some drawbacks to this, one being that Flame Ball isn't a particularly powerful attack, and outside of a Team Magma deck, I see this being run more in Fire decks rather than Fighting decks - let's face it, Fighting's already got all the cards they'll need, we don't NEED to give them a Stage 1 does the same thing that Landorus does in one attack. And it's been my experience that Stage 1s don't tend to hang around for particularly long. At least he's got 110 HP so he won't immediately die to, say, Seismitoad-EX. (Though let's face it, he ain't got NOTHING on Primal Kyogre-EX) 

Team Magma's Camerupt does one niche thing, and in a Team Magma build, that's pretty good. Outside of it, it's a rather selective slot that's either already filled or too slow to be useful. Still, he'll probably be around a little, but I don't expect him to make a big...splash. 

Hehe, get it? Cause he's NOT TEAM AQUA!! 

Rating 

Standard: 2.5/5 (good Energy cycler in Team Magma, not so much anywhere else) 

Expanded: 2.5/5 (same here) 

Limited: 4.5/5 (getting Energy from the discard is a very nice thing! Look at Bronzong, Landorus, Eelektrik - especially in Limited, they're pretty good!)

Arora Notealus: Geezus!! What is going on here?! Apparently Camerupt is saving this female Magma Grunt with the help of the male Magma Grunt. Like...okay, I'll admit it, this is a cool epic pic that makes me wanna use Camerupt! Too bad they didn't come out with M Camerupt-EX... 

Next Time: Inside the depths of the volcano...


Otaku

First, a quick “Happy birthday!” to my brother-in-law, Kevin! 

The second best card from XY: Double Crisis is… the first Pokémon in the set we are going to look at (and it may or may not be the last): Team Magma’s Camerupt (XY: Double Crisis 2/34).  Yes, that’s right, we are saying the number two card in the set really is the number two card in the set!  I’m going to start by focusing on something I didn’t address for the previous cards; this mini-set has excellent flavor, the kind which isn’t necessary but which is greatly appreciated by players like me.  The “flavor” of which I speak comes not only from every card being part of a “theme” but from enjoyable art and lore that fills us in on what it is like both being a part of Team Aqua and/or Team Magma, including their rivalry.  I especially enjoy that instead of rehashed Pokédex entries the text describing the Pokémon at the bottom of the card is from the perspective of an actual Team Member. 

Being a Fire-Type could be handy, but only if Team Magma’s Camerupt ends up being an attacker and in the interest of brevity (a rarity for me) I’ll just point out that no, you should not be attacking with this card so the Typing does little for it.  It is a Stage 1 making it take twice the time and space to get into play as a Basic but still being within reason to run in a competitive deck.  It has a decent 110 HP; this is enough to be more likely to survive a hit than not and (again) as this is a Bench-sitter, that will do.  Water Weakness is bad right now because it allows Seismitoad-EX to actually score good damage with Quaking Punch (keeping in mind Quaking Punch only requires [CC]); if Seismitoad-EX can equip a Muscle Band it just needs another damage counter for an effective OHKO… like it would gain from a Hypnotoxic Laser.  Most of the time though, this isn’t a big deal because - say it with me now - “Bench-sitter”.  No Resistance is even less of a missed opportunity than normal for that same reason, though the Retreat Cost still matters as you might need to get Team Magma’s Camerupt to the Bench: [CCC] is usually going to be difficult to pay and as such means you’ll probably need more than just a clutch Switch to get by, though it does make Heavy Ball an option for Expanded. 

So what does Team Magma’s Camerupt do?  Just to get it out of the way, the attack - Flame Ball - does 60 for [RCC] and requires you move a basic Energy from Team Magma’s Camerupt to one of your Benched Pokémon (if both are present).  While it hits for at least 30 points less than I’d like, at least moving Energy off of it is going to be a benefit since you don’t want to be attacking with it.  So… why run it at all?  The Ability, Burning Draft, allows you to attach a Basic Fighting Energy or Fire Energy from your discard pile to Team Magma’s Camerupt, once per turn.  The Ability does stack so two copies could each attach an Energy to themselves (one Energy each) per turn.  On its own, this doesn’t mean much; sure a Double Magma Energy or better still a Double Colorless Energy could allow you to go from no Energy to attacking in one turn, but we established we don’t want to attack with this card.  Team Magma’s Numel doesn’t help any either, not that most expected it would; you need to use it to get to Team Magma’s Camerupt and it also has nice art and lore, but it is simply a Basic Fire-Type with 70 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [CC]. no Ability, no Ancient Trait and a single attack for [RC] - Ember - which does 30 with a mandatory Energy discard from Team Magma’s Numel itself.  Also if you aren’t used to the old “Team-affiliation-in-name” mechanic, yes you must Evolve from Team Magma’s Numel into Team Magma’s Camerupt - no Evolving from the plain Numel into the Team Magma’s Camerupt (or vice versa). 

The Team Magma support is… not why you should consider using this card.  Don’t get me wrong, there is an obvious combo between this and Team Magma’s Claydol, which has an Ability to (once per turn) move a basic Energy card from one of your Pokémon to one of your Team Magma Pokémon (again, multiple copies can each be used once per turn).  This allows any Team Magma Pokémon Energy acceleration, with Team Magma’s Aggron, Team Magma’s Groudon and Team Magma’s Zangoose all potential dance partners… just like their counterparts from the original EX: Team Magma Vs Team Aqua expansion.  What you might want to look at are other combos that can make use of Energy on your own Benched Pokémon.  The one of which I am aware that seems most likely to succeed (though it is still just a chance) is the combo with Camerupt-EX (last reviewed here).  While it takes some effort as you’ll need at least two and want at least three Team Magma’s Camerupt on your Bench (four being the idea) and still need something else (probably Double Colorless Energy plus a Blacksmith) in order to get Camerupt-EX itself powered up, when you do you get a nice, beefy Fire-Type attacker that can OHKO almost anything. 

Ratings 

Standard: 3/5 - Useful for the probably not-great Team Magma deck and useful for a possible worthwhile Camerupt-EX deck… that seems worth a “good-average” rating.  Even if Camerupt-EX could somehow dominate the format (no idea how that could happen) Team Magma’s Camerupt is only worthwhile with something else that can specifically make use of its Energy, so its own score wouldn’t be much higher. 

Expanded: 3.15/5 - As above, but Heavy Ball can snag Camerupt-EX and this card, leaving either Level Ball or Team Magma’s Great Ball to get Team Magma’s Numel.  Unless you also run Fighting Energy, I’d go with Level Ball. 

Limited: 3.5/5 - Only a slight bump because this card is very combo dependent; here you’re running it because either you also got Team Magma’s Claydol or else you’re going to actually have to attack with Team Magma’s Camerupt itself… but again here that can actually work. 

Summary: While mostly “average”, in a set of mostly fun, nostalgic cards, Team Magma’s Camerupt can stand tall.  This one might be worth snagging for experimental deck building, not just for collecting or casual Team Magma decks. 


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