OK, so when was the last time you saw someone play with a Victreebel?
*waits for the chorus of laughter and yeah-rights to die down*

Victreebel is actually a pretty good card, in the right deck. Let's
consider it for a moment.

VICTREEBEL:
Stage 2, evolves from Weepinbell
80 HP
Weakness: Fire
Resistance: None
Retreat: 2
Attacks:
G: Lure: If your opponent has any Benched Pokemon, choose one of them
and switch it with his or her Active Pokemon.
GG: Acid: Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokemon can't retreat
during your opponent's next turn. 20 Damage.

Let's see. The biggest disadvantage to Victreebel is that it's a Stage
2. It takes a while to get to. However, Weepinbell is a pretty good
Stage 1 (decent attacks with low costs), so it's worthwhile including
them instead of skipping around them with Breeders.

Victreebel's weakness isn't the best, but it's certainly not the worst.
It's much easier to fend off Fire than it is Electric or Water, both of
which are much more common in my play areas. It's also Grass, which
fights well against all those Water decks. Unfortunately, it has no
resistance. A resistance would improve the card tremendously. Its
retreat cost is about average for a Stage 2.

Now, the attacks. I know some folks are thinking, "Compared to
Blastoise, Hitmonchan, Electabuzz ... these attacks are terrible!" Not
true -- in the right deck. For starters, Lure is a great way to annoy
your opponent. That one Pokemon he hasn't had the energy for is of
course the prime target for Lure. It helps when that target has a high
retreat cost, which many of the big basics do.

Acid doesn't hit all that hard, but it does prevent your opponent from
retreating 50% of the time. It's also cheap -- just GG, which helps
against the Energy Removal decks. If there's a Pokemon the rest of your
deck just can't handle, lure it out to the front, then hit it with Acid
so that it has to stick around and fight Victreebel. Again, it's an
annoyance factor. While Victreebel is not a heavy hitter, it can be
seriously annoying. Coupled with other annoyance cards like Koffing, it
becomes much more powerful.

Of course, all of this means that Victreebel is going to get seriously
beat up. There's an easy way around this, and the Lure attack actually
makes it easier. If you deprive your opponent of Energy with Energy
Removals and Super Energy Removals, he'll have not only a hard time
being able to retreat, but also a hard time attacking you. Mr. Fuji is
also a decent option: when Victreebel has gotten too beat up, shuffle it
back into your deck.

I'd like to hear your comments and thoughts. Email me at lopaskar@san.rr.com

==Leanne

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Leanne Opaskar                  lopaskar@san.rr.com