What’s up Prof-It fans, welcome to another video- Wait, never mind, I just finished watching like three Prof-It episodes, so it’s stuck in my head. Let’s start over.
Welcome to the latest Card of the Day. For this review, I’ll be taking a look at Infernape 4 LV.X, from Platinum: Rising Rivals. Like every other day, we’ll start of with its stats. Infernape is a Level Up Pokemon who boasts an average 110 HP.
Since Infernape is a Fire type, it can hit Scizor, Steelix and most importantly Dialga G LV.X for twice as much damage. It has a x2 Water Weakness, which means Gyarados will easily OHKO it, even if there are only two Magikarp in their Discard Pile. The no Resistance is expected from most cards, unfortunately. The free Retreat Cost is very much appreciated.
In order to look at any Level Up Pokemon’s attacks, we must first take into consideration its previous form as well, which has two attacks, “Split Bomb” and “High Jump Kick,” which are both unimpressive. “Split Bomb,” for RC does 20 damage to two of your opponent’s Pokemon. “High Jump Kick” does a vanilla 50 damage for the high cost of RCC (even with DCE or TGI Energy Gain).
Thankfully, Infernape 4 LV.X comes with a much better attack in the form of “Fire Spin”, which is a classic attack that dates all the way back to Base Set Charizard. While the cost and damage all vary, the base of each is the same: A high priced, high damage output attack that forces you to discard Fire Energy. This particular one costs RRC, does 100 damage and requires two Fire Energy to be discarded.
Overall, its attacks are barely average. Is there any good Poke-Something to make playing this card worthwhile? Well, its Poke-Power is certainly interesting. “Intimidating Roar”, when it’s used, forces your opponent to switch their active Pokemon with one on their bench.
So, is Infernape 4 LV.X worth playing? I think so. First of all, it will help against Kingdra decks as it will really lower Kingdra Prime‘s attack power. In addition, it could be a very useful tool against Gyarados as you can keep KOing a bench Pokemon as many times as you need. Also, its attack is great for OHKOing a pesky Dialga G. I definitely think that SP players should really consider this card as a great tech for quite a few match ups.
The other question that may be on your minds, should it be tried in non-SP decks? I think it could be, but it would really depend on what deck and the type of list you have.
My Recommendation: It is an older card, so it isn’t on the same level as a lot of later Pokemon, but I do believe that Infernape 4 LV.X could have a second life in this format. Your best bet IMO is in SP decks.
My Rating 3.5/5
