Bellsprout (Triumphant TM 57) – Card of the Day

pokebeach.comHello, everyone! Sitting in the Card of the Day hot seat is the perennially cute Bellsprout, requested by baby_mario.

Bellsprout is a 40 HP basic Grass-type Pokémon. 40 HP is already pretty bad, but couple it with Fire weakness and you’ve got an utterly donkable card. Bellsprout obviously isn’t a great starter, and it can only do 20 damage. So, what does this little guy have going for him?

The only reason Bellsprout should ever see play is for its first attack, Inviting Scent. For one C energy, it basically acts as a Pokémon Catcher, letting you switch one of your opponent’s Pokémon with another benched Pokémon.

The reason Pokémon Catcher works so well is that it’s a Trainer – you can use it to drag up a Bench-sitter for a quick KO, putting you ahead in the prize race. But since Inviting Scent is an attack, your opponent can just Switch out. Then you’ve got a puny 40 HP Pokémon Active, giving them an easy prize.

Bellsprout can be really disruptive when used properly; however, it is such a liability when left active that, in order for it to be worth using, you’ve got to make sure that your opponent can’t switch out and attack next turn – you need Vileplume to Trainer lock.

Now, there are only two decks right now that use Vileplume. One is Ross Cawthon’s deck, which got second place at Worlds, and the other is Mew Box. The latter already uses Muk UD (as well as Mew Prime, using Muk’s attack) to serve pretty much the same purpose as Bellsprout, except that it also Poisons and Confuses the defending Pokémon.

pokebeach.com
Bellsprout is this guy's worst nightmare.

In Ross’ deck, on the other hand, I think Bellsprout may be worth a try. Say you’re playing a MegaZone deck and your opponent is taking cheap prizes with Yanmega. They have an energy-less Magnezone on the bench. If you use Inviting Scent, you can pull up the Magnezone and stall. This enables you to start evening up the prize race against speedy decks (a.k.a. anything with Yanmega or Donphan), something that’s really important in order for Ross’ relatively slow deck to win.

Bellsprout has another, less obvious use – as a Trainer-lock counter. Think about it: Vileplume decks utilize Bellsprout to drag up and stall; but Vileplume itself is toast when it gets pulled up. While it does have a decent 120 HP, Vileplume’s 2 Retreat Cost makes whoever is playing it waste either 2 energy attachments or a DCE in order to retreat it. 120 also happens to be the “magic number” in this format, with Reshiram and Zekrom both hitting for just that much, enough to 1HKO a dragged-up Vileplume.

While there are other cards that have the Catcher-like effect (Liepard BW, Muk, and Drowzee HS come to mind), Bellsprout’s advantage over all these is that it’s a basic Pokémon. It may not be a top tier card, but this little guy may find a niche in the metagame if we see an increase in Trainer lock.

What’s your guys’ opinion on Bellsprout? Have you tested him out in any decks? Any feedback is appreciated. I hope you all enjoyed this Card of the Day!

Reader Interactions

5 replies

  1. Sam Stevens

    “(Liepard BW, Muk, and Drowzee HS come to mind), Bellsprout’s advantage over all these is that it’s a basic Pokémon” ….

    Drowzee is a basic too, and has 20 more HP. But 2 retreat and needing Psychic energy to attack is a nuisance

  2. stephen shirley

    im just wondering bellsprout has had reasonable hype but what about carnivine triumphant it’s attack your opponent switches and their’s another efeect but i can’t remember it all for colourless and it’s got double the hp
    of bellsprout

    • Anonymous  → stephen

      Carnivine’s attack, Saliva Lure, does exactly what Inviting Scent does, also for one colorless. Carnivine does have 80 HP, but it has 2 retreat, which makes it hard to get out of the active once it performs its function.

      • Jamie Reid  → Anonymous

        Makes sense. Decks that contain Carnivine would rarely also contain Dodrio. Switches would be useful, but running 4 is ill-advised unless your deck is built around switching about (Gyro-Goth).

  3. Ricky Turrietta

    i tried this out and found out that most decks that include trainerlock also include dodrio ud or dces so it really isnt worth putting into any decks

Leave a Reply

You are logged out. Register. Log in.