Sneasel ex, the final card in the Ruby and Sapphire set, was meant to be an updated version of likely the most broken card of all time, Neo Genesis Sneasel. Sneasel dominated play in a way no card before or since could ever claim, and had to be banned rather quickly. Sneasel ex was nowhere near as good as that, as there were several balancing steps being used here, but it was still a solid card in its own right.
80 HP was really low on a Pokemon ex, the same as the awful Scyther ex from yesterday. Luckily, Sneasel ex had other traits to make it useful despite being that frail. The Fighting Weakness was not exactly ideal, since Team Magma’s Groudon and Nidoqueen, the top attackers in their formats, both took advantage of that for an easy 2 Prizes. Luckily, there was a Psychic Resistance to be had here, which helped some against the likes of Gardevoir ex and basically caused a stallfest against Wobbuffet. The Retreat Cost was higher than the original card, at 1, and care needed to be taken that the one discard wasn’t a Special Energy, since those were limited and Sneasel ex badly needed to use Special Energy to get going.
Double Scratch cost 1 Darkness Energy and did 10 damage times the number of heads in 2 coin flips. Not that impressive, and something mostly to be ignored.
Beat Up, on the other hand, probably looks all too familiar to people who played when Neo Genesis Sneasel was around. It added an extra Energy in the attack cost, but the attack was the same otherwise: A coin was flipped for each Pokemon on Sneasel ex’s side of play. For each heads, it did 20 damage. That was an average of 60, and if you could get two of those Energy to be Darkness Energy, that could average almost 80, a really strong number. There was luck involved to be sure, but the average was so high that it was still a good attack.
So what kept Sneasel in check when its best attack was just slightly more expensive? Several things. The still low HP in a hard-hitting format was a pain, as many top decks were perfectly capable of trading Prizes with it at worst, and a couple of good decks came out ahead quite easily. Things also had higher HP on average, so Sneasel ex wasn’t KOing as much as the original Sneasel was. That all being said, the damage output was still nice, and anything even slightly weakened, outside of the most bulky Pokemon ex, were going to go down to a Beat Up with even average luck, so it was very usable. No, it was nowhere near the broken monster from Neo Genesis, and it wasn’t even part of a top-tier deck, but underestimating something that could hit this hard was a very, very bad idea.
Armaldo, the first card in the Sandstorm set, was awesome. I know I haven’t really mentioned it when it comes to important cards, because it was only the staple of a lower-tier deck, but it provided something very different than the normal competitive deck back then could. It was more of a disruptive Pokemon, yet it could deal some really solid damage as well. It wasn’t a full lock that stopped an opponent’s deck from working at all, but really slowed things down since so many decks got a lot of help from Supporters. Sure, it wasn’t something that destroyed everything, but it was solid and different.
Armaldo had 120 HP, which was amazing. It was the highest available on a Stage 2 that wasn’t a Pokemon ex, and high HP was really important on something that wanted to keep a lock down for a while. The Grass Weakness wasn’t bad at all, as Grass was one of the weakest types at the time. There were a few decent Grass-types, such as Sceptile and Dark Crobat, but nothing that saw much play. The Retreat Cost, sadly, was 3, so a weakened Armaldo would usually need something like Warp Point to get back to the Bench.
Primal Veil was Armaldo’s Poke-Power and the reason to use it. When Armaldo was the Active Pokemon, neither player could use Supporter cards. As Armaldo’s player was building a deck to make use of that restriction, and including cards such as Delcatty and, in RS-On, Pidgeot, to help, the opponent was likely relying more on such cards. This gave a notable advantage to the Armaldo user if it got up in time, though that timing was critical. Armaldo decks were going to have some trouble if it didn’t set up before the opponent, though at least these decks were better at salvaging a game than many lock decks at the time.
Armaldo’s attack, Blade Arms, was surprisingly powerful for something meant to play defensively. 3 Energy to do 60 damage with no catch at all was actually really good, especially for a Pokemon like this. That took down everything that wasn’t a Pokemon ex in two turns, and since Desert Ruins fit in Armaldo-based decks really easily, even those extremely bulky Pokemon ex were taking a ton of damage each turn.
Armaldo did need some help to work optimally, however. This wasn’t the sort of card that could just sit there and win games, and defensive decks usually needed more careful play to work at all. Even this deck needed some Supporters, mostly drawing cards such as TV Reporter, to get going in the beginning. It wouldn’t run as many as most decks, but they were still important. Pokemon such as Wobbuffet could help against some of the more tricky to deal with Pokemon ex, though it did take off the Supporter lock for the turn. Delcatty, as mentioned earlier, could help with some drawing power, and Pidgeot let you search out a card every turn. Just be warned that other decks used Pidgeot often as well, and weakened Armaldo’s usefulness quite a bit.
Overall, Armaldo wasn’t the center of the best deck out there, but it could keep up quite often with the best. It relied on some luck to get going as quickly as it needed to, and evolving from Claw Fossil was quite a pain, but when it worked it was magical. Anyone tired of the typical hard-hitting decks of the formats this card was available in had a nice chance to use something more defensive here, though let it be noted that even better lock decks came around a year or two later. Playing defensively would become a very good strategy in the not-too-distant future.
