I’ll start Charizard’s post with this: It was way better than Celebi. That doesn’t mean that it was objectively good, as it really wasn’t, but it could actually do something occasionally. The ridiculous Retreat Cost and awful Energy costs held Charizard back quite badly, but at least it had some potential to do damage.
110 HP was actually really good, and probably Charizard’s best point. This was not a card that would typically roll over and die to one attack, unless it was to its Weakness, Water. Water was still quite a good type in the E-On format, though it had probably fallen to being the 4th or 5th-best type (depending on how you view Darkness) so it wasn’t quite as awful of a Weakness to have as it had been for the previous couple of years. Sadly, the Retreat Cost really was awful: 4 was the highest that existed to that point (though that was a record soon to be surpassed), meaning that Switch and similar cards were Charizard’s only realistic way out of the Active position.
Crystal Type was a Poke-Body that every Crystal Pokemon had, and Charizard’s types were Fire, Lightning, and Fighting. Honestly, these were not a very good group of types to try to hit Weaknesses with, the best being Lightning. There were times that staying Colorless was actually better, such as against Rayquaza ex. That required careful Energy management, but was still possible.
Fireblast was an okay attack for Crystal Pokemon standards, but for most cards it wasn’t worth it. For 2 Fire and 1 Fighting Energy, the attack did 40 damage. The mixing of types really hurt the card, and requiring a discard to use the attack made it worse.
Dragon Tail was Charizard’s best attack despite not existing in the games until about 8 years later. The cost was still awful, requiring 1 Fire, 2 Lightning, and 1 Colorless Energy, and it was unreliable, with 2 flips with a potential 50 damage each. That being said, it did actually have damage potential with luck, and a Colorless Charizard could take down Rayquaza ex with one heads flip. That gave it some minor utility and was probably hilarious if it actually worked.
Honestly, Charizard was still best being in some sort of protective covering, keeping its value as a Shining Pokemon of a something very popular. It had some slight playing value, but not enough to warrant using it considering its worth. Keep it in a safe place.
Here is a very interesting card, and a deck that may just be dependent on luck.
Accelgor is a very interesting card. Deck building is not about how strong your deck is, (normally) sometimes it’s just about making a deck you can have fun with. I would consider this a tier 3 deck, barley a tier 2 deck but possibly so, this will be a fun deck to play, for fun. The reason this card would be fun to play is because it’s quick. fast and effective. I would consider as a base for you deck, 4 Shelmet, 4 Accelgor, 4 Muscle Band, 4 Super Scoop Up,a Evosoda and and trainer/ace spec to bring a card from the discard pile. So as you can guess from me saying Super Scoop Up, you will be cycle these cards like crazy. Basically Accelgor can’t take a lot of hits, so your gonna use a scoop up to get him into your hand. I would also consider using a 4 line Cassius for guaranteed pick up. Also put in a tank for back up, to keep your bench lively use something like Keldeo Ex. This is a very strange yet fast deck that could work in some cases. You will mostly be using Raid but if you have no Keldeo to back you up, use Afterimage Strike to back you up.
I just remembered that I promised two cards in one day to make up for something I missed like two weeks ago and I never did it. Here’s one to fill in that spot (It’s also the second to last Crystal Pokemon so it’s nice to get it done)
Ho-Oh was another card that didn’t have much going for it. It was, at least, a Basic, so it required less set-up than most Crystal Pokemon, but it was plagued by the same issues: Relatively weak attacks, horrible Energy costs, and a high Retreat Cost hurt Crystal Ho-Oh just like most Crystal Pokemon and left it well behind.
Ho-Oh had a solid 80 HP, which worked nicely for a Basic. It was still higher than the average Basic, though it was by no means invincible or anything. The Water Weakness wasn’t ideal, as Suicune ex was good, but it could have been worse. The Retreat cost was the worst part of Ho-Oh’s stats, costing 3 Energy just to go back to the Bench, which made it hard to switch.
Ho-Oh’s Crystal Types were Fire, Water, and Lightning. Water was very useful here, as it hit the common Blaziken decks for Weakness. It could try to be Colorless for the Rayquaza ex in many of those decks as well. Lightning and Fire were less useful, but had some occasional uses of their own.
Holy Flame was a pretty basic attack with an awful cost. Doing 20 damage for 1 Fire and 1 Lightning Energy was extremely low. This was best avoided most of the time.
Scalding Steam was slightly better, but was still quite bad. The cost was ridiculous: 1 Fire, 2 Water, and 1 Colorless Energy was needed to do just 40 damage. It also required an Energy discard, and then a coin was flipped. If heads, the Defending Pokemon was Burned, which had the potential (but not a guarantee) to add some extra damage between turns. It was likely Ho-Oh’s best attack, but that just showed how bad this Pokemon was at attacking.
Ho-Oh was a strong Pokemon in the games, but that didn’t always translate to a good card. In this case, it was just the opposite, as this was a really bad card. Ho-Oh did have some decent cards later in the TCG, but this one clearly wasn’t it for anyone outside of collectors.
So have you seen mega sceptile, tyranitar, and ampharos?! Omg these are gonna be beasts! M tyranitar does 110 I believe plus 60 per damage counter on the opponent! Sceptile does 100 and allows you to attach 2 grass energy to your bench in any way if you do heal ALL damage to those pokemon!
Yes I have seen them! I check Pokebeach.com daily, so I see most leaks that happen, but I guess that makes me a bad TCG blogger for not making posts about them >///<. Bearing in mind that the translations we have aren’t 100% confirmed (but Pokebeach.com is usually pretty good with their translations) [M Tyranitar-EX] does look formidable, and it can get the energy it needs in one turn with a DCE and 2 Mega Turbo, don’t forget that it has Theta Double too, which means that after you put a Spirit Link on it to evolve it, you can then put on an additional tool ([Muscle Band] would be a bit redundant, but I can see using [Hard Charm] or maybe even [Weakness Policy] if Fighting decks kick off). People are excited about playing this alongside [Golbat PHF 32] and [Crobat PHF 33]. This deck will most likely make an impact on the competitive Meta.
The other two I’m not so impressed with. Firstly, I don’t quite get [M Ampharos-EX]. To do 170 plus Paralysis it takes four energy and then it does 30 damage to itself. Granted, it gets set up just as fast as M Tyranitar, but it just looks so sloppy. Also it doesn’t have the same longevity in a game that Tyranitar or another Mega would have since it helps your opponent KO-ing it.
The thing is, we want our Megas to do a ton of damage—that’s why we put in the work to get them out and powered up. 170 damage truly isn’t something to laugh at, but we’ve got [M Rayquaza-EX ROS 76] doing 240 damage; [Primal Groudon-EX PRC 86] doing 200+ damage with lots of support from Muscle Band, [Strong Energy], and [Fighting Stadium]; M Tyranitar-EX is doing 230 damage after one Golbat hits the field. For a Mega not to be doing amounts of damage of this magnitude, it has to have a stupidly good effect or some other benefit. For example, [M Kangaskhan-EX FLF 79] used [Aromatisse XY 93] by moving the energy off of it so you could heal with [Max Potion] (it was also the best Mega at the height of its popularity). [M Manectric-EX PHF 24] was good for its energy acceleration (to power up your next Mega Manectric) and also plain old [Manectric-EX PHF 23] turned out to be a great attacker on its own.
[M Sceptile-EX] I’m really on the fence about. I think it suffers the same problem as Ampharos, that its damage output is just too low. The attack effect on paper does look “stupidly good” but let’s dissect it just a little bit. The current translation says that you may attach up to two energy from your hand to your benched Pokemon. So to get off a Jagged Saber to accelerate two energy, you need two energy in your hand when you attack. That’s the deal-breaker for me, the consistency of that attack seems a bit too low for me. But I could be wrong, and I’m certain there will be a lot of players wanting to play an M Sceptile-EX deck, and from that, eventually someone will come along with a really good decklist.
Now let’s consider an alternative. What about [Sceptile PRC 8]? Now, this is a bench-sitter whose ability does half of what Jagged Saber does (granted, without the damage) but the consistency is somewhat increased. We can play an extra Grass Energy (healing 30 when we do) but this can be to our Active Pokemon if we wanted. Again, it has to be from your hand, but this time we aren’t pressured to have the energy in-hand for an attack, but rather we can put down Grass Energy as we draw into it.
