Drapion 4 (Rising Rivals RR 17) – Card of the Day

pokebeach.comAnybody else up for COTD to make its return after what seems forever? Well I can at least try and fill the void, I hope you enjoy my reviews.

Well for my first review, I decided to take a look at Drapion 4 from the Rising Rivals expansion, as it seemed to receive small amounts of interest in certain circles of the community. Drapion 4 is a basic SP, which means it has full access to the SP engine, but its growth stops there as it neither levels up or evolves.

Its base statistics can be described as average at best. 100 HP is amazing for a basic, only rivaled by some of the bulky legendary Pokémon (Palkia, Dialga, etc.) so it can withstand being 1HKO’d reasonably well. Its Fighting weakness is awkward but could be worse. It already gets Knocked Out in one hit thanks to Machamp’s “Take Out”, so is only really an issue against Donphan Prime and Toxicroak G Promo. It’s Psychic resistance is brilliant, being able to withstand the rampant Gengar and Uxie LV.X.

Drapion 4 has two attacks, both rather sub-par in all honesty. The first, “Body Slam” for CC does 20 with a coin flip for possible paralysis. While paralysis is nice, I shouldn’t need to explain how redundant status is in a metagame of Poké Turn and Warp Point. Even evolution and levelling up. It’s second attack, “Mega Impact” for PCCC does a disappointing 70. Well I say disappointing, 70 on a basic is pretty useful, especially taking into consideration that it can be powered up in one turn using Double Colorless Energy, Bronzong G’s “Galactic Switch” and Energy Gain. However, it’s a huge resource guzzler for the damage output it provides, especially compared to other cards which can do the same for 1 energy.

So all in all, a rather mediocre card right? So why am I bother reviewing it? Well the one aspect of the card that I haven’t covered is it’s Dark typing. Counters to Gengar Prime are on the forefront of many minds at the monment, and this is certainly a candidate in SP decks as it can 1HKO Gengar Prime and its LV.X counterpart. It’s natural to thus compare this card to Weavile G as its the most popular option at the moment.

pokebeach.comDrapion 4’s main advantage is the lack of set-up required to be effective. It’s a straight 70 damage, no tricks or gimmicks unlike Weavile G which requires the bench to be full of Pokémon SP to start 1HKOing Gengar. Another main advantage is it’s use of a Psychic energy over a Darkness energy. This gives access to other useful attacks from the likes of Azelf, Crobat G and Toxicroak G Promo.

However, these positives are greatly offset by its negatives. It will have to be Poké-turned up should it be your only active, which is a stark contrast to Weavile G who has become somewhat of an ideal starter with it’s ability to set up a T2 “Bright-Look” or “Dragon Rush”. Also the energy consumption of 4 in a deck that typically runs on average 12 is horrible for a simple tech.

All in all, I’m going to give this card a 2.5 out of 5. Seemingly harsh but with sound reasoning in my opinion. There’s a card out there that does the same job but better, and is helpful in other matchups too. Also the necessity to counter Gengar Prime is waning due to the realisation that it could have been over-hyped.

(Thanks for reading my first review, tell me how I can improve and I’ll try and step it up for next time!)