Tyranitar Prime (Unleashed UL #85) – Card of the Day

pokebeach.comHey guys! Now I know that usually I give a horrible rating, but with the help of some friends at my league (and researching here on SixPrizes), I will try my best to give normal ratings. :)

So for today’s CoTD, I will be reviewing Tyranitar Prime. It’s an interesting card that has it’s own Tier 2 deck. Currently, it’s a hybrid between the speed version, and the Trainer Lock version. These decks are favored by Juniors, and even got 2nd place at the 2010 National Championships (Juniors). Let’s take a look at his stats.

He’s a Stage 2 Darkness Pokémon with a massive 160 HP — this guy is hard to take down. He has an OK x2 Weakness to Fighting, and an awesome -20 Resistance to Psychic.

I say he has an OK Weakness because Mahcamp has fallen low in popularity, and is not seen as often as you used to. Tyranitar also has a 3 Retreat Cost, though, so that can hurt ya. SSU might be needed in non-Trainer Lock versions.

His attacks are much better, though. For 1 Darkness energy, Darkness Howl does 20 damage to every Pokémon in play (both yours and your opponent’s), excluding any Darkness Pokémon.

That means that if you have a benched Uxie, you’re just making it easier and easier for him to get sniped. Power Claw, on the other hand, for 1 Dark and 2 Colorless, it does 60 damage, and it isn’t affected by Poké-Powers, Poké-Bodies, or any other affects on the Defending Pokémon. Much better than Darkness Howl. But the real killer is Megaton Tail.

It takes 2 Dark & 2 Colorless, but it does a whopping 120 damage, with the side effect that you have to discard the top 3 cards of your deck. The discarding isn’t too fun, but, in my opinion, it’s a fair price of doing so much damage. (So would putting 30 damage on T-Tar, but that ain’t gonna happen :P).

You also need to remember that this guy can abuse Special D Energy, so Power Claw could do 100, and Megaton Tail can do 160.

So, now let’s talk about Tyranitar’s deck. As I stated above, there are two different types of Tyranitar: the speed version, and the Trainer Lock version. In the speed version, you have a trainer-based deck and the only goal is to get Tyranitar out as soon as possible, and will do anything to do so.

pokebeach.comKind of like Speed Machamp and Turbo Gyarados, only it’s using a big green dino, instead of a four-armed freak or a blue, mean-looking water dragon. Simple. I honestly know more about the Trainer Lock version, though. In this version, your starters is (obviously) going to be Spiritomb AR. You then Darkness Grace up Larvitar and Oddish into Tyranitar and Vileplume.

This version, in my opinion, is much better because it slows down your opponent. In the Speed Version, you have two main weaknesses: your opponent starting Spiritomb, and other speed decks outspeeding you. With the Trainer Lock version, opposing Spiritombs aren’t going to kill you, and other speed decks have practically lost all hope.

Obviously, these two decks aren’t the only ways you can use T-Tar. You could also pair him with Sableye (if they don’t ban Sableye/do mid-season rotation), and could possibly have a way to donk with the Black & White rules (Donk = :D ). Another idea is to use him with Mightyena PL and Skuntank G to have an extra back-up attacker. That sounds pretty nice to me. What do you think about this idea?

Tyranitar obviously works well enough to be in a known deck, but other than that, he can’t do much. He’s horrible as a tech, while many other Primes are great as techs (for example, Donphan, Blissey, etc.). He’s a one-trick pony. If you want to use Tyranitar, he needs to be the main focus of the deck.

So, saying that, I think that I should rate this as a 3 out of 5. It has great stats, cool attacks, and is the center of his own deck, but, other than that, this guy is just binder candy. Thanks for reading, and hopefully this rating is better than my previous ones. :) See ya later! Bye.