Crabominable ex – Celestial Guardians
Date Reviewed: May 20, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
The sixth best card of Celestial Guardians is Crabominable ex (A3 049, 183, 201)! It’s a (W) Type, Stage 1 Pokémon ex that evolves from Crabrawler. Crabominable ex has 160 HP, (M) Weakness, (C)(C)(C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. Priced at (W), “Insatiable Striking” let’s Crabominable ex do 40 damage to the opponent’s Active. If you used the attack the turn before, however, Insatiable Striking does 80 damage (40+40). There are three variants of this Crabominable ex: one ♦♦♦♦ rare and two ★★ rares.
The Water-Type may be the best supported in Pocket: Fishing Net (A3 143), Irida (A2a 072, 087), Manaphy (A2 050, 162; P-A 048), Misty (A1 220, 267), Primarina (A3 048), and Vaporeon (A1a 019, 072). However, Irida looks like the only one to directly matter. The Type has many proven Pokémon as well, a mixed blessing as potential partners could be rivals for the same niche. Piloswine (A2 032) and Mamoswine (A2 033, 160) have Abilities that reduce the damage they take from (W) Types, but they yet to prove successful.
Stage 1 Pokémon are alright. While Rare Candy (A3 144) and Lillie (A3 155, 197, 209) have elevated the Stage 2 Type collectively to be on par with non-evolving Stage 1 Pokémon, the latter are the simpler option. Plus, not every Stage 2 benefits equally from Rare Candy and Lillie. Neither Stage is as fast or cost effective as Basic Pokémon. While not everywhere, Aerodactyl ex (A1a 046, 078, 084) is seeing some competitive success again; against it, your Active Crabrawler won’t be able to evolve.
Pokémon ex have better stats and/or effects than their baseline counterparts, give up an extra point when KO’d, and have to deal with multiple anti-ex effects. Meowscarada, Red (A2b 071, 090), Oricorio (A3 066, 165), Sudowoodo (A2a 036, 079), and Tauros (A1a 060). Red lets anything do an extra 20 damage to an opposing, Active Pokémon ex. Oricorio has an Ability that lets it ignore all damage and effects from attacks by opposing Pokémon ex. The rest just hit Pokémon ex harder.
160 HP is just outside of the 130 to 150 HP range of most Basic Pokémon ex and non-ex Stage 2 Pokémon, making it very good. Only Gyarados ex (A1a 018, 076) and Stage 2 Pokémon ex have more. Decks capable of extra heavy attacks can still one-shot Crabominable ex, though. It’s (M) Weakness isn’t the worst, but it will matter. It’s probably most important for allowing Skarmory (A2 111; P-A 039) a 2HKO and Solgaleo ex (A3 122, 189, 207, 239) a OHKO if you can use a Red.1
Normally, a Retreat Cost of (C)(C)(C) is really bad. Unless you use both an X Speed (P-A 002) and a Leaf (A1a 068, 082), you’ll still need to discard Energy to retreat. This is thrice what you need to actually attack with Crabominable ex as well. However, with its sturdy HP, access to extra healing effects, and the nature of Insatiable Striking, odds are good you won’t often want to retreat Crabominable ex. The net result, I believe, is neutral, as it would still be better if the cost was lower.
Speaking of Insatiable Striking, in the full Pokémon TCG, this attack is simply bait. Meaning, it looks good, can get the juices flowing for combos, or even entire decks, but it rarely leads to actual success. This is because, in the full TCG, the metagame is such that an Active is quickly KO’d or can be forced out of the Active position. These actions reset the effect; even if that same Crabominable ex attacks next turn, it won’t get the extra damage.
This is not of a deal-breaker in Pocket. Yes, most decks are going to include Cyrus (A2 150, 190) and/or Sabrina (A1 225, 272). Some may even have less common options… and of course, sometimes your opponent will just KO your Crabominable ex, ending the chain of Insatiable Striking attacks. Remember, the effect of Insatiable Striking only applies to the exact same Pokémon who used it the turn prior.
It is still a viable strategy here. Similar attacks have not worked in the past, but there are significant differences in the case of Crabominable ex. Insatiable Striking is almost as affordable as it gets, requiring just (W) to use. If you open with a Crabrawler Active, and it survives, or you can field one on your first turn and get it or – after evolving – Crabominable ex Active, you can begin the assault Turn 3 (or 4). 40 for one Energy is decent, while 80 for one is very good…
…and the rest of Crabominable ex supports this. Another big factor for an attack like this, if if the attacker can survive long enough to be worth the effort. After all, attacking once means you just gave up two points, a Stage 1, and a (W) Energy (plus attachment) to do 40 damage. If that happens, then what I said earlier about 40-for-one being decent does not hold true. Even attacking twice is iffy; that’s only 120 damage total, or an average of 60 per turn. It’s the third strike where you total 200 damage that it really starts to pay off.
I’ve mentioned it a few times, so before we move onto the decks using Crabominable ex, let’s look at Crabrawler (A3 097; P-A 071). Its our only Crabrawler, though at least you can select between two different illustrations. Crabrawler is a Fighting-Type, Basic Pokémon with 70 HP, (P) Weakness, a (C)(C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. For (C), it can use “Punch” to do 20 damage to the opponent’s Active.
The HP is a little higher than most evolving Basics, giving it a little better chance of surviving to evolve. Punch can use any Energy Type, so it’ll work perfectly well in a mostly or mono-Water deck like Crabominable ex prefers. Punch doing 20 for (C) is actually kind of good, all things considered. The Retreat Cost is a little high, probably the trade off for the rest of the Crabrawler being decent. A subjective bonus is that Crabrawler reminds me of pre-timeskip Franky (from One Piece).
Now for the decks. Using the results found on LimitlessTCG, at the time of writing this review, we’ve got two major partners for Crabominable to discuss, but I’m going to include a third that has seen very little play but that showed up during the Alolan Ninetales Solo Mode drop event. Those partners are Greninja (A1 089; P-A 019), Palkia ex (A2 049, 182, 204, 206) and… Primarina. Yeah, not Alolan Ninetales (A3 041; P-A 070); the featured Pokémon of a drop event isn’t always the big threat of the event’s deck.
The Greninja version of the deck has a 58 Count, 0.52% Share, and 50.00% Win Rate. The Palkia ex version has a 25 Count, 0.22% Share, and 51.45% Win Rate. The Primarina version has only a 6 Count, 0.05% Share, and 25.00% Win Rate. All three have low Counts, making their Win Rates suspect. Its possible that, were the deck played more, these rates would all drop. Yeah, even Primarina’s already poor showing. Though there’s also the chance they could remain the same or improve.
All three decks can overlap, though running all three together is likely too much for a remotely viable deck. Though Irida is the only (W) support that is directly useful for Crabominable ex, Manaphy and/or Misty can benefit the others, though Palkia ex is the only one who really needs a lot of Energy. As for what the decks are trying to do, there’s one major issue facing Crabominable ex, one I haven’t addressed yet: a lack of raw power.
When your opponent’s field is lacking, typically early or late game, Insatiable Striking can easily overwhelm your opponent. Even if you take an early lead, though, what happens when your opponent can ready their heavy (or preferably, extra heavy) hitter? Crabominable ex likely loses the damage exchange, while also breaking the deck’s stride. This makes it easier for your opponent to pick off something weak(er) from your Bench, or just power through a second Crabominable ex.
Greninja builds address this through its “Water Shuriken” Ability. It can soften up current or future targets, or even take out some small Benched targets on its own, given enough time. Greninja is an “okay” emergency attacker, and its Retreat Cost is only (C), making it difficult to strand. Palkia ex gives the deck a heavy hitter. Even if you don’t pack Energy acceleration, there’s a decent chance you can manually build it while Crabominable ex keeps your opponent busy.
The goal of Crabominable/Primarina decks is not to overwhelm the opponent with speed, weaken them with strategic, Ability-based extra damage, or the raw power of Palkia ex. Instead, it’s about increasing Crabominable ex’s durability. The same reason the deck likes to run one or two copies of Irida, Primarina has an Ability it can use once during your turn, per instance of it you have in play, to heal each of your injured (W) Pokémon by 30.
Early in the Celestial Guardians metagame, Crabominable ex decks were fierce. Maybe it was because, compared to a deck that required multiple new higher rarity cards, it players had an easier time assembling it. Especially while decklists were developing, and players – like me – didn’t realize they actually didn’t need two copies of something like Incineroar ex (A3 033, 182, 200) or Decidueye ex (A3 012, 180, 198) for the leading competitive decks that would use them.
Rating: 3.5/5
At the time of writing, Crabominable ex decks still exist, but they’re no longer as heavily used. It could be they’re on their way out, but Crabominable ex is reminding me of another chonky Stage 1 Pokémon ex with a solid, single-Energy attack and access to good healing. I’m talking about Exeggutor ex (A1 023, 252; A3 231). The score I just gave factors in its past performance and future potential. It is lower than yesterday’s Decidueye ex, so I am calling myself out, at least a little.
What I can tell you is, that I often struggled against Crabominable ex decks when they were new. The decks I was running at the time, simply put, were vulnerable to the Crabominable ex strategy. The metagame itself has adjusted, hence my having to elaborate so much about the card’s score. Even now, part of me wonders if it’s just waiting for another metagame shift.
1Skarmory also needs to have a Tool attached, to get the extra damage from its attack’s effect clause. It still only requires one Red, however.
2Rounded up to the nearest tenth of a point. Yes, Pokémon only deals damage in full increments of 10.
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉 Click here to read our Pokémon Card of the Day Archive. We have reviewed nearly 5000 Pokémon cards over the last 25 + years!