Toxtricity – Fusion Strike
Date Reviewed: November 13, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 2.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
If you missed yesterday’s review, welcome to our countdown of the top 15 cards from SW – Fusion Strike! Our 14th-Place pick is Toxtricity (SW – Fusion Strike 10/264)! Not to be confused with the other Toxtricity in this set (107/264), today’s Toxtricity is almost all about its Ability, “Maximum Downer”. This Ability only works if you have nothing but Fusion Strike Pokémon on your side of the field. If you satisfy that condition, Maximum Downer reduces the maximum HP of your opponent’s Pokémon VMAX by 30 while they are in play. It won’t alter how many damage counters are on them, but they’ll be KO’d once their total damage counters exceed the modified HP score. -30 isn’t much; even a 300 HP Pokémon VMAX will still have 270 HP. Good thing Maximum Downer stacks!
Yes, there’s even an official ruling on this: you can field four of this Toxtricity, your opponent’s Pokémon VMAX have to operate with 120 less HP than normal! Of course, that is the ideal, and easier said than done. Keeping two copies of Maximum Downer in play seems quite plausible, and even three at a time doesn’t seem too difficult. Especially if you have a strong attacker your opponent cannot afford to ignore. Now, the next logical aspect of this card to address is its Battle Style: Fusion Strike. Yeah, if it wasn’t one, the Ability could never work. It may also prove important due to the available support for Fusion Strike Pokémon. Relevant Fusion Strike support isn’t 100% clear, and some of these we’ll either will be reviewing as part of this countdown, or will probably manage to squeeze in before the end of the year…
..but I’ll still list them:
- Chili & Cilan & Cress – Supporter; add three Fusion Strike Pokémon from your deck to your hand.
- Elesa’s Spark – Supporter; select up to two of your Fusion Strike Pokémon, then search your deck for two Fusion Energy to attach to them (one to each selected Pokémon).
- Fusion Strike Energy – Special Energy; discards itself when attached to a non-Fusion Strike Pokémon. It provides one unit of Energy which counts as all types while attached and prevents an opponent’s Abilities from affecting the Pokémon to which it is attached.
- Genesect V – Basic Pokémon; its Ability lets you draw until you have a number of cards in your hand equal to how many Fusion Strike Pokémon you have in play. This Ability may be used once per turn per copy of this Pokémon you have in play.
- Oricorio (SW – Fusion Strike 042/264; SW – Black Star Promos SWSH168) – Basic Pokémon; it’s Ability reduces the damage your Fusion Strike Pokémon take from the attacks of your opponent’s Pokémon by 20, after Weakness and Resistance. Only one instance of this Ability may be applied at a time.
- Power Tablet – Item; the attacks of your Fusion Strike Pokémon do an extra 30 damage to your opponent’s Active, before Weakness and Resistance. Attacks that don’t normally do any damage in the first place cannot receive the bonus. Multiple copies of Power Tablet stack.
At least one of these will appear later in the countdown. I’ll let you guess which one(s) and how many. Getting back to Toxtricity itself, the next most important thing is that it is not a Rule Box Pokémon. Not because this means it is worth only one Prize when KO’d (though that is nice), but because it won’t be affected by Path to the Peak. After that, you need to know that it is a Stage 1 Pokémon, so two cards of investment per copy and one turn of waiting for it to evolve. Being a Basic would make it a little too good, but being a Stage one is still functional in competitive play. Pokémon VMAX also need a turn to Evolve, so that doesn’t hurt.
Toxtricity has 120 HP. This is pretty important; unless you have one of the Oricorio I mentioned earlier on your Bench as well, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX can use its “G-Max Rapid Flow” attack to OHKO up to two of your Toxtricity with a single attack. Even with Oricorio’s protection, your Toxel will still be well within OHKO range. An Active Toxtricity fears most Fighting type attackers, because it is [F] Weak. The lack of Resistance doesn’t really matter; most of the time you’ll want Toxtricity on your Bench and -30 on top of 120 won’t stop medium-sized (and larger) attackers from scoring a OHKO. The Retreat Cost of [CC] is typical for this Pokémon, and neither high enough to be a problem nor low enough to be an advantage.
Toxtricity knows one attack, “Head Bolt”. Priced at [LLC], it does 90 damage. This is definitely overpriced, and even with Fusion Strike Energy, makes it highly unlikely you’d be able to attack with Toxtricity in a non-Lightning deck. It isn’t completely abysmal, at least, but is definitely filler. Speaking of filler, that describes every Toxel. You don’t have to evolve from Toxel (SW – Fusion Strike 106/264), but you may as well do so as it can use the Fusion Strike support I mentioned earlier. Theoretically, you could use this with other Toxtricity cards, but there’s no point; the others aren’t Fusion Strike Pokémon, so they turn off the Ability if they’re in play.
I don’t know exactly what kind of deck will use Toxtricity, other than it being some sort of Fusion Strike deck. Even a single as a 1-1 line (0-1 in Expanded, if you use Ditto {*}) has an excellent chance of making your opponent’s Pokémon VMAX just that little bit easier to KO. In other words, there a chance it would be a Fusion Strike deck staple. I think you’ll really want two or three of it in play, which means it’ll have to be the deck’s focus or co-focus with something else. I’m thinking Power Tablet will be an important part of the combo as well; you’re shaving off some of the target’s max HP while also hitting harder than normal. You won’t be able to do so over and over again, but we’re talking about messing with triple Prize targets: pulling it off twice can win the game!
My chief concern is that there could be enough diversity in the metagame that a Maximum Downer deck will struggle when it faces something with few or no Pokémon VMAX. Which leads into why I can’t score it too high in Expanded; there are some strong Pokémon VMAX decks there, but also other stuff plus better Ability counters. It isn’t hopeless for Toxtricity… in fact, it came close to scoring the same in Expanded as Standard. Instead, we have a “high” three-out-of-five and a “high” two-out-of-five. Toxtricity didn’t appear on my list, because I didn’t realize the Ability stacked! Glad Vince was on the ball.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 2/5
Vince
Editor’s Note: Vince had this as his 9th-Place pick.
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