Otaku |
Our second card
this week is Dhelmise (SM: Guardians Rising
59/145). Dhelmise is famous for his stretching
limbs, sliding, and flames, debuting in Street
Fighter II: The World Warriors and… oh, that’s
Dhalsim? Forced opening joke is forced.
So Dhelmise
is a Psychic-Type, which I suspect won’t be relevant too
often because of its Ability (we’ll get to it).
Being a Basic is totally relevant, though, making
it as easy to work into decks as one could hope. Dhelmise
sports 120 HP, 20 below the highest we’ve seen printed
on a Basic Pokémon worth a single Prize. This is a
somewhat sturdy amount; decks going for a OHKO or
reliable 2HKO are still likely to take it down in one
hit, but everything else is likely to fall short.
Darkness Weakness is unfortunate, but many Darkness-Type
attackers one expects to see are the same ones likely to
have scored a OHKO before Weakness; there are
some exceptions, especially if certain old favorites
regain their popularity. Fighting Resistance may
not prove useful for a while, though you might run into
the odd Passimian deck still running around, and
it does push you outside of a full-power Team Play
boosted by Fighting Fury Belt and Professor
Kukui (at least, when used by Passimian
itself). The Retreat Cost of two is actually a bit
awkward as it is a bit high to comfortably afford, but
is still low enough that paying it is an option.
One of the few bits of Psychic-Type support, or rather
Psychic Energy Type support, that might prove relevant
is Altar of the Moone, and Dhelmise has a
cost low enough for it to zero out entirely.
Dhelmise
has one Ability and one attack. The former is
“Steelworker”, which increases the damage done by your
Metal-Type Pokémon to your opponent’s Active Pokémon.
Specifically, Steelworker adds 10 damage after
Weakness and Resistance are applied, and the wording
means it ought to stack with itself: one instance of
Steelworker provides +10 damage, two mean +20 damage,
three +30, and four +40. Abilities like this have
an odd history; some have proven quite effective, while
others have not. One of the ones that seemed like
a given but ultimately feel flat is Regirock-EX;
most Fighting focused decks had trouble making room for
it, especially as it could be easy to strand in the
Active spot, and its Grass Weakness wasn’t doing it any
favors. The attack found on Dhelmise is
“Anchor Shot” for [PCC]; it does 70 damage and prevents
the Defending Pokémon from manually retreating during
his or her next turn. Not brilliant, but the cost
doesn’t look too bad as even something like Double
Colorless Energy can shave off a turn of building.
While you might be tempted to use Dimension Valley
to just reduce the cost to [PC], as the Ability
suggests, we probably won’t be focused on attacking with
this card, using it instead to back up Metal-Types in a
Metal-Type deck.
Which is where
we’ve seen it used with some success. The only
list I’ve seen is the one mentioned yesterday, which
Christopher Schemanske used to finish second at the
Madison, WI Regional Championships in the Masters
Division. It only includes one, but that is
enough for Metagross-GX to swing for 160 damage
instead of 150. Choice Band bumps it up to 190,
Professor Kukui to 180, and together they can hit
210. That does not OHKO everything, but it
will take out most things. I’m tempted to
see what it can do in Expanded as well; as I’ve stated
before, we have some very nice attackers still legal in
Expanded, plus some good [M] Energy acceleration in the
form of Bronzong (XY: Phantom Forces
61/119; XY: Black Star Promos XY21). SM:
Guardians Rising doesn’t have a lot of Metal-Type
Pokémon and most of them are Evolutions occupying
premium rarities, but just being a 120 HP Basic
that can do 70-for-three is good enough in Limited.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Conclusion
Dhelmise
is probably at least a “loose” staple for future Metal
decks; though at first glance I thought it might be a
“must max out card!” I forgot my own warnings about
making sure damage increases are relevant, shifting how
many turns it takes to score a KO. Also, there are
many ways to mess with Abilities and Benches, so that’s
another thing that prevents one from going “all out”
with Dhelmise supporting another attacker.
Don’t forget about it, though, as that 10 damage should
put a few attackers just over the top.
Dhelmise
only scores four voting points, hence being all the way
down here, in 29th place. It missed joining the
three-way tie we already had for 26th through 28th
place, and it missed tying with our 31st place card by
just one voting point as well. I awarded it 17th
place on my own list; I’m not sure where I would place
it now. Why? 29 places down the list and I’ve
lost track of where I would have moved what. Even
being just TecH in a single competitive list makes me
think it might deserve to be a bit higher but
unless Metagross-GX (or other Metal decks using
Dhelmise) take over the format, 17th place might
have been too generous.
|
