Komala – Celestial Guardians
Date Reviewed: May 27, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Komala (A3 141, 179) is a Colorless-Type Basic Pokémon. It has 90 HP, (F) Weakness, (C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Comatose”, and attack “Rolling Tackle”. Comatose triggers each and every time you attach an Energy from your Energy Zone to this Komala. Comatose then puts Komala to Sleep. Rolling Tackle costs (C)(C) and does 70 damage.
There are no (C) Weak cards in Pocket. Colorless Pokémon do have their own piece of support in the form of Ilima (A3 149, 191), which lets you bounce one of your injured (C) Pokémon to your hand. (C) Energy acceleration exists in the form of Delcatty (A3 130), or rather, its attack. This is a novelty; (C) Energy requirements can be met with any Energy Type, but actual units of Colorless Energy can only be used to meet (C) Energy requirements.
Being a Basic is the best! Komala doesn’t need any extra cards to hit the field, nor does it have to wait to evolve from something else. 90 HP is decent; most competitive decks can OHKO this amount, but not before they have at least a half-decent setup. (F) Weakness is messy. It enables a OHKO or 2HKO that would otherwise be missed but decks that run Lucario (A2 092, 170) allows many single-Energy attacks from (F) Types to do the deed.
A Retreat Cost of (C)(C) is neither good nor bad. It’s more than you’ll usually want to pay, but it’s still low enough to be plausible, even without Retreat Cost lowering effects. The usual caveat applies; I prefer a Pokémon’s Retreat Cost be lower than its lowest attack cost. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s worth noting, especially when you also factor in the Ability.
Any and every time you attach an Energy from your Energy Zone, to your Active Komala, its Comatose Ability will put Komala to Sleep. It doesn’t matter if this is your manual, once-per-turn Energy attachment, or an attachment that resulted from an attack, Ability, or Trainer effect. What matters is if the Energy is going directly from the Energy Zone, to your Active Komala. Fortunately, there are three workarounds:
1) Use an effect that prevents and/or removes Special Conditions.
2) Use an effect that attaches Energy from someplace other than the Energy Zone.
3) Attach Energy to Komala while it is on the Bench.
Yeah, let #3 sink in; you just need to attach two Energy – in any manner – to a Benched Komala, then promote it to the Active position and it won’t be Asleep. You can also get a little fancy, using a card like Dawn (A2 154, 194) to move an Energy to Komala from a Pokémon. Since the Energy is not coming directly from the Energy Zone, Comatose doesn’t trigger. Or you can just deal with Sleep by running (and using) cards that deal with Special Conditions.
Now for what makes Komala useful; Rolling Tackle. It’s not an original or amazing attack, but it does provide a solid 70 damage for (C)(C). Yes, that means you’d need to move two Energy to an Active Komala to avoid Comatose… or does it?! Forgive the exaggeration, but I wanted to stress that it doesn’t actually matter if that first Energy puts Komala to Sleep; it wasn’t retreating or attacking anyway. During the each Pokémon Checkup, there’s a 50% chance Komala wakes up on its own.
So it’s only the second Energy attachment that really matters. Still, is 70 damage worth this hassle? Yes, because of what Komala is not; it’s not a Pokémon ex, or locked into using Energy of a specific Type. I’ve brought up Oricorio (A3 066, 165) multiple times during the countdown. It’s “Safeguard” Ability prevents it from the damage and effects of attacks made by your opponent’s Pokémon ex but it takes the normal amount of damage from non-Pokémon ex. This Oricorio only has 70 HP.
Komala provides an easily splashed-in attacker that can one-shot an Oricorio. At least, before other card effects. As such, it’s showing up in multiple decks, including the current the current, dominant deck of the Celestial Guardians metagame: Darkrai ex (A2 110, 187, 202; P-A 042)/Giratina ex (A2b 035, 083, 096). You can argue that this is not the best deck, but to give you an idea, over at LimitlessTCG it currently has a Count of 1684, a Share of 12.28%, and Win Rate of 52.97%.
There aren’t currently any decks that have seen more play during the Celestial Guardians time, and while there are two with higher Win Rates, they’re decks with less than 200 Counts when we’re nearly four weeks into the Celestial Guardians metagame. You could also argue that Darkrai ex/Giratina ex is on the decline, but if it is, it’s a gradual decline from a fantastic height. There are other decks that can or do run Komala, but this alone was enough to earn it a review.
Rating: 3/5
Whether you’re bypassing Comatose attaching Energy while Benched, or moving it around with Dawn, or preventing the Sleep with Comfey (A3 080, 168), or curing it with Pokémon Center Lady (A2b 070, 089), we’ve got many options to allow Komala to smack opponent’s for a quick, relatively reliable, and relatively easy 70 damage… and Oricorio has made doing so a valuable asset for decks. I don’t know how long Komala will remain relevant, but give it a try yourself if you’re in need of its services.
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!