Today I have another review for you in the form of Houndoom Prime. Houndoom is a stage 1 Darkness Pokemon, which is pretty great because it can (ab)use Special Darks as well as hit Gengar SF and the new Gengar Prime for weakness. The x2 Fighting weakness is pretty bad, but the -20 Psychic resistance is nice and 1 retreat cost is average. We’re off to a nice start, hopefully we can keep it going.
Houndoom has a Poke-Power and an attack. It’s Power, “Fire Breath” lets you flip a coin each turn. If heads, burn your opponent’s active Pokemon. We kinda lost our stride with that one. Burn is on the bad end of the special condition chain, along with Asleep & Confusion with the better being Poison and the best, Paralysis. Plus, just to put the meager condition on in the first place, you’ll be relying on a coin flip. One nice thing about it, though is it can be used while on the bench and it’s stackable. However, factors don’t really make it much better.
It has one attack in the form of “Dark Clamp” for DDC (DCE cries) does a measly 70 damage and stops the defending Pokemon from retreating. While the effect is a nice bonus, the only way this attack would make Houndoom a commonly used card would be if “Dark Clamp” did at least 90. Sure, special Darks can increase it rather easy (even easier thanks to EE and Unown Dark), but I’m not sure if all of that work is worth the reward.
I suppose it wouldn’t be terrible in a Houndlock type deck that uses Sableye with lots of disruption, but I doubt it would be on the same level as Sablelock or Chenlock, it doesn’t disrupt enough and isn’t as fast. It could work with Umbreon UD, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
2.75/5 (It’s just too slow, doesn’t hit for enough and is will be KOed rather easily.)
