Awhat-up, 6P? It’s Dane here, and I’m back with the HS-On CoTD of Ninetales HS/CL.
Requested by coolestman22 on TCGScans.com, Ninetales is a Stage 1 Fire type with 90 HP. It has the standard 2x Weakness to Water, no Resistance, and a single Retreat. The single Retreat is nice so you can easily maneuver it if it happens to be brought up by Pokemon Catcher, but due to the relatively low 90 HP, it would probably be knocked out before you have the chance to retreat. It has a single attack called Will-o’-the-Wisp that, unlike in the video game, does not burn the opponent but does a vanilla 60 damage for the cost of RRC. Meh. So far, it seems like a pretty mediocre card.
But as you may have heard, people use Ninetales competitively. Why? Because along with the mediocre attack, it has a Poke-Power called Roast Reveal that instructs you to discard a Fire Energy from your hand and draw three cards. Now that has kind of a risky deal, but if you take a look at Typhlosion Prime, also from the HS set, Ninetales’s power can be used very well.
Typhlosion Prime’s Poke-Power, Afterburner, states that you can search your discard pile for a Fire Energy and attach to one of your Pokemon at the cost of a single damage counter on the Pokemon you attached it to. If it was last format (MD-On), I would advise you to use these two with Charizard AR, but in the HS-On format, Reshiram is the way to go.
This deck, also known as Reshiphlosion or Tyram, has won many Battle Roads this season, did extremely well at the (2011) US Nationals and even won Worlds in the Seniors division! With the 130 HP Basic Pokemon known as Reshiram powering out 120 damage a turn, Typhlosion putting Reshiram in turbo-mode, and Ninetales for extra draw throughout the game, Reshiphlosion certainly is a very good deck.
Some people also use Ninetales in Reshiboar. Reshiboar uses Reshiram and Emboar to get a string of Blue Flares going. I personally like this deck better than Reshiphlosion (the deck described in the paragraph above), but I also don’t use Ninetales; I just see it as discarding more unnecessary energies, but, then again, that’s just my opinion, as almost every Reshiboar list you see online has at least a 1-1 Ninetales line.
But Ninetales isn’t just confined to Reshiram decks; you can also use him in decks that take very little energy, such as Yanmega and Donphan decks. Some people use Ninetales in their Stage 1s list; Yanmega attacks for free, Donphan requires only one energy, and Zoroark/Cinccino only need a DCE. But alas, you rarely see Ninetales perform well when out of a Reshiram deck.
But there are also reasons you may want to stay away from Ninetales. Catcher can hurt it badly, and if you’re only running a 1-1 line, then Pokemon Catcher could ruin your entire game because you have no draw power. And his relatively low 90 HP makes Catcher even worse; they can knock you out much more quickly with the low HP.
Conclusion
With a mediocre attack and a great power, Ninetales looks like a really good card. The fact that Catcher’s about and that Ninetales has low HP kind of hinders it a little, but I think it still deserves a spot in every Reshiphlosion deck. What do you think? Have you had any success with the card? Have any other ideas using Ninetales? Please leave a comment in the comment section below. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see ya next time. Bye!
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