pokebeach.comTrainer Derek here, taking a crack at card of the day! I figured I’d take a shot at the Pokémon I’ll be running at Nationals, Blastoise UL.
People’s opinions of Blastoise have been swinging up and down over the last few months. It finally has a chance to be played now in this format despite it being printed some time ago in the Unleashed set.
Blastoise has 130 HP which is a decent amount, and he can take a hit from Reshiram. Sadly he has a x2 weakness to Electric which puts a smile on the faces of Zekrom and Magnezone Prime. The 3 cost retreat is pretty intimidating as well but is a bit less than usual Pokémon of this caliber, which sit around 4.
What makes old Shellshocker here an interesting card is that he is easily the best sniper in the current format. For WWCC he can hit any Pokémon on the field for 100 HP.
The icing on the cake is that the only backfire to this is that you have to pick up 2 W Energy from the turtle back into your hand. This makes it easy to set Blastoise back up to attack every single turn with help from Floatzel UL, who has Water Accelerate, which allows you to attach a W Energy to Floatzel without using your 1 Energy per turn. You then attach the other water back to Blastoise, and use his “Wash Out” Power which lets you move W Energy to Blastoise from other Pokémon.
This also makes Blastoise easy to set up if you have 2 Floatzel out. Attaching 1 DCE to Blastoise then “Water Accelerate” to both Floatzel and “Wash Out” both those energy onto Blastoise. That’s 4 energy attached in a single turn.
With Fire being a big contender in the format Blastoise is really a card to consider, but the up rise of Magnezone has made it a questionable deck. But if you get set up quick enough you could stop Magnezone from ever hitting the field.
Pros: Heavy hitting sniping power, tears up Fire types.
Cons: Weak to Electric types, Stage 2, relies very heavily on Floatzel.
this is a great card in hgss-on, the last weekend i play blastoise / floatzel / magnezone… just lost against machamp :( my t/s/s was incosistent …the magnezone was a last minute idea..
greetings from Chile
Magnezone as a back up attacker or just a draw tech? sounds very interesting and would help against the Zekrom and Magnezone match ups
back up attacker…for revenge ko´s
A good Blastoise deck seems to be Blastoise/Floatzel/Donphan using Donphan Prime as an early game attacker and hard counter to Zekrom and Magnezone variants. As regular Blastoise/Floatzel decks just cant handle Zekrom’s speed and Magnezone’s late game intensity, if it can’t get lots of quick snipes on Magnemite’s/Magneton’s its just downhill from there
He’s the strongest sniper for sure, but I disagree that it’s the best. Yanmega Prime claims that title for me.
Yanmega snipes for 40, that hardly makes him the best, no matter how fast he is, he cant even take a shot at a basic, except for the really weak ones, being oddish the only relevant one amongst them.
Im not buying by all this yanmega hype, sorry.
However, Yanmega and PlusPower takes out most basic set up Pokemon. (That is the sole reason why I use the 60hp Vulpix and the 60hp Cyndaquil in my tyRam)
Two things.
One, re-read plus power. It won’t add damage to the snipe attacks.
Secondly, I’ll have to agree, Canada’s Nats proved Yanmega was the sniper of the day. One Blastoise made it into top 16, and like HALF the T-16 had Yanmega.
maybe so, but that hardly was because of yanmega´s sniping capabilities IMO, but rather because:
A) there were TOO MANY yanmega decks; and
B) the decks yanmega was in did good, which doesnt automatically translate as yanmega being the best sniper.
I stand by the opinion that a sniper that cant take out opponents basics on his own is not good.
That also doesnt mean yanmega is a bad card, after all he is not a sniper per se, but an hibrid, while blastoise is no doubts a pure sniper.
maybe so, but that hardly was because of yanmega´s sniping capabilities IMO, but rather because:
A) there were TOO MANY yanmega decks; and
B) the decks yanmega was in did good, which doesnt automatically translate as yanmega being the best sniper.
I stand by the opinion that a sniper that cant take out opponents basics on his own is not good.
That also doesnt mean yanmega is a bad card, after all he is not a sniper per se, but an hibrid, while blastoise is no doubts a pure sniper.
I must agree, yanmega is probably the better card, but not the better sniper. Also yanmega didnt see more play because its necessarily better than blastoise, it saw play because it is extremely splashable and, being a Stage 1, easier to set-up and was seen as both a counter to Donphan and an awnser to baby pokemon. While blastoise is IMO the more powerful card yanmega requires far less room in a deck to function, and is both faster and more consistant. Its much easier to find room in your deck for yanmega as a tech card, where as blastoise has the potential to be far more devestating but requires that largely the whole deck be devoted to him.
Blastoise didn’t do well because not many people played it, while yanmega did great because it was played and played and played. At nats, I didn’t play against ANY blastoise while I played at least 30 yanmega based decks. I’m not trying to say yanmega is a bad card, because it isn’t, but blastoise needs at least SOME credit. A good blastzel build could be amazing especially once catcher comes out.
I’ll agree Blastoise certainly deserves some credit and consideration and the fact that there were so many yanmega decks compared to the number of Blastoise decks definately helped yanmega’s chances. However I have to say I think catcher will hurt Blastoise alot more than it will help. One of the best selling points for Blastoise is its ability to hit hard on any pokemon on your opponent’s field. Catcher gives this ability to every deck in existence. Note this isnt to say that Catcher will kill Blastoise decks or anything but IMO it will hurt more than help Blastiose’s chances of doing well.
I recently found that, if you can spare to extra stage 2 line, Metagross is a great sniper, and possibly better then Yanmega Prime. Hitting for 40 for 2 benched instead of 1, that’s a little better then Yanmega.
I personally use Yanmega though, haha.
Slightly odd that you didn’t mention Gatr Prime at all.
I know a lot of people prefer Floatzel, but Gatr has advantages – one Gatr can set up a Blastoise in one turn without DCE and it diversifies Weakness.
Should have a place in the review imo.
Also it’s a stage 2. However, the ability to not depend on DCE’s helps, but setup is also a pain. Lets not forget that your MAIN attacker is (himself) a stage 2. It’s not likely to keep a stream of stage 2’s coming when they depend on OTHER stage 2’s to attack.
Nice. Im gonna play Blastoise/Floatzel now. LOL i just got a sixprizes account too!
who has room for a spare metagross? yanmega is the best because of free retreat, resistance to fighting, a free attack depending whether or not you have the same hand size which is very easy to do metagross is just…….no
Just an update guys, I went a decent 5-4 at Nats with Blastoise /Floatzel. Not bad for my first season of playing.