aroramage |
Ahhhh, Dewgong. You're truly a
majestic aquatic mammal from the northern arctic
circles. Home no doubt to the happy life of a Water/Ice
type like yourself. In any case, let's see what the new
Dewgong card can do for us.
First of all, no. Bad Aurora Beam.
Stop being vanilla in the TCG! And don't you EVER be
worth 4 Energy again, I don't care that you do 100
damage! YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS, AURORA BEAM!! YOU'RE
GIVING ME A BAD NAME!!
Anywho, Freezing Breath is a
1-for-20 strike that has a neat effect. It's one of
those rare attacks that flips a coin and ends up with a
bad result for your opponent either way. On Heads, the
Pokemon is Paralyzed, and if it's Tails, they'll be put
to Sleep instead. Obviously, that's a 50/50 shot at
getting the best Status effect in the game, and while
Sleep isn't terrific, being reliant on your opponent to
flip a coin in order for them to attack is a 50/50 risk
anyway. Ultimately, the probability of your opponent
being able to do nothing is a strong 75% (you flip Heads
or you and your opponent both flip Tails), which is much
more in your favor than your opponent's.
But does that make Dewgong good
enough to use as an attacker? Well, provided you can
stall out your opponent for long enough with Freezing
Breath, there is a chance to use Aurora Beam to snatch
the KO, but even having that 25% chance that they'll be
able to do something is risky in its own right. Not to
mention the numerous ways to get out of Status
Conditions. Putting Dewgong forward, then, is a risky
measure, as it's going to take time to build up 4
Energy, and I don't think your opponent's gonna wait
around long enough for it to happen.
Now as an alternative attacker to
stall out the opponent while you power your main
attacker up? Dewgong might have some potential there...
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (Dewgong is built
to stall out more than attack or survive)
Expanded: 2/5 (but if you can
successfully work with that in mind, he could add a
niche balance to one's deck)
Limited: 3.5/5 (just keep in mind
that either Dewgong's not always going to be safe
attacking or that the attack will be ultimately
successful in stalling)
Arora Notealus: Dewgong is probably
one of the simplest designs from the first generation,
but it's always been a neat one. Even Lorelei used a
Dewgong on her team, going to show how powerful this
Pokemon could be. Not that Dewgong's anything much in
competitive play these days, but it still had some stuff
going for it back in the day.
Next Time: WE'VE GOTTA CATCH THEM
MEGAS!!
|
Otaku |
What a beautiful
Duwang!* Wait, that doesn’t sound quite right…
...so now that I
have begun with obvious joke that is obvious (and
painful!), let us really review Dewgong (XY:
Fates Collide 16/124). This is a Water Type,
so most Fire Type and a chunk of the Fighting Type are
Weak to it while the bulk of BW-era Grass Types are
Resistant (which means nothing is Resistant to it in
Standard). There are some anti-Water Type effects,
but most just mimic the effects of Resistance and only a
concern for Water Type attackers that do extremely low
amounts of damage, like Seismitoad-EX as it is
typically used. None are likely to be run to
counter Water TYpe, instead being incidental, like when
a player is running Parallel City to shrink the
opponent’s Bench but the other side of that Stadium
reduces the damage of Fire Type, Grass Type, and Water
Type Pokémon by 20. The Water Type offers some a
lot of support, but the best stuff tends to favor
certain strategies or deck builds more than others, so
we’ll have to see if Dewgong can take advantage
of all, some or none of it. A solid start at
least.
As a Stage 1
Dewgong has to either Evolve from its Basic Stage (Seel)
or be put directly into play via Archie’s Ace in the
Hole. Typically, the latter is reserved for
Stage 2 Pokémon or other cards that require a great
investment; Stage 1 cards usually are usually better to
manually Evolve. You do have the option of
Wally to speed things up; giving up an additional
card and your Supporter use for the turn in order to
avoid the turn delay needed to Evolve. It has 120
HP, in that gray area where you might survive a hit or
you might not, which is better than being a guaranteed
OHKO but still not all that good. Either
Dewgong will need a way to protect itself or it will
have to hit hard and be easy to set up over and over
again. Metal Weakness isn’t safe, but isn’t one of
the more dangerous ones to have at the moment. No
Resistance is typical; it probably would have helped
Dewgong a little but not been critical. The
Retreat Cost of [CCC] is at the point where paying it
will most likely be difficult; make sure you pack
alternatives.
Dewgong
has two attacks, with the first requiring [W] and the
second requiring [WCCC]. Said first is “Freezing
Breath” and it lives up to its name pretty well; you
only do 20 damage but you flip a coin with “heads”
Paralyzing the opponent’s Active like “tails” leaves it
Asleep. Before other effects, your opponent will
only have a one-in-four chance of being unimpeded by a
Special Condition. Seems pretty good to me.
The second is “Aurora Beam” and it just does a flat 100
damage for [WCCC]. 100 for four is about as low as a
vanilla attack can do while still having some use.
The Energy requirements being mostly Colorless should
allow Dewgong more flexibility. It is
impractical to try and buff this attack to OHKO range
for typical 170-180 HP Pokémon-EX, but at least on its
own it 2HKOs most of them with a Muscle Band
allowing it to 2HKO most things in the game that lack
some form of protection, or OHKO them if they are on the
smaller side of things.
Dewgong
Evolves from Seel and the only Expanded or
Standard legal option is XY: Fates Collide
15/124. It is a Basic Water Type with 80 HP, Metal
Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], and just the
attack “Icy SNow” which does 10 damage for [W]. It
is a vanilla bit of filler, but at least it does have 80
HP. There aren’t any other Dewgong either,
so this is what we have to work with for the entire
line. Powering up Aurora Beam quickly and slapping
on multiple buffs isn’t going to be too impressive, so I
guess if you wish to use this card, you should focus on
Freezing Breath. Victini (BW: Noble Victories
14/101, 98/101; BW: Black Star Promos BW32;
BW: Legendary Treasures 23/113) or Trick Coin
will allow you to flip for Freezing Breath again, but
the attack already has pretty good odds already of
disrupting your opponent, guaranteed to hit them with
either Paralysis or Sleep; not sure if it is worth the
space to improve the odds of getting Paralysis instead
of Sleep. What you probably need to do is make
sure your opponent is inconvenienced in other ways. Vileplume
(XY: Ancient Origins 3/98) to block Items so that
your opponent can’t just drop a card like Switch
to shake Special Conditions by bringing up a new Active,
maybe something to shut down Abilities because you’ve
got cards like Keldeo-EX that can also bypass
locks. You might also try running it with
Slowking (XY: BREAKpoint 21/122) in order to
mess up the opponent’s Energy attachments, or perhaps
Crawdaunt (XY: Primal Clash 92/160) to just
discard the Energy. Something like Crobat (XY:
Phantom Forces 33/119) and Golbat (XY:
Phantom Forces 32/119; Generations 31/83)
might help with the damage output.
Some of these ideas
could be mixed and matched, but none of them sound very
competitive and indeed, sound rather slow and annoying
to face (perhaps even to play). As such I’m not
too thrilled about this card for Expanded or Standard,
but it is a beast in Limited. Freezing Breath
should often buy you enough time to build to Aurora
Beam, as well as ensuring Aurora Beam finishes off
whatever was up front. With the lower average HP
scores and damage output of this format, Aurora Beam may
even score a run of OHKOs once it gets going. The
other big thing is that the mostly Colorless Energy
costs become important here as it should allow you to
run Dewgong in a deck with nearly any other
Energy; just include a few Water Energy as well.
I’d only avoid Dewgong if you pulled a big, Basic
Pokémon-EX and were building a deck entirely around it
(as in no other Basic Pokémon in the deck).
Ratings
Standard:
1.45/5
Expanded:
1.25/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Dewgong is a card to enjoy in Limited where it is
very strong, but its Special Conditions are easy enough
to shake and its damage output too low for Expanded or
Standard, unless you try for a lock that can be tedious
to both players. The big thing to remember is even
if you get it working, you can take the same resources
and use it with something else to better effect.
*Jojo’s Bizarre
Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable reference, based
on a faulty fan translation from years ago for the name
of the town “Morioh”.
|
