Trainer Derek here, taking a crack at card of the day! I figured I’d take a shot at the Pokemon 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 Pokemon 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 Pokemon 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 Water 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 Water 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 Water Energy to Blastoise from other Pokemon.
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.
