Hey there SixPrizers (is that even a word?)! Hope you all had fun at Regionals! Today I’ll be reviewing a card that was (hopefully) not played in a single deck last weekend, but nonetheless was requested by 6P member Reshikrom64. That card is Politoed from Unleashed.
Politoed is a Water type Pokemon, which in this format is a blessing and a curse. You’ll be hitting ReshiPhlosion, one of the most popular decks right now, for weakness, but at the same time you’re weak to Zekrom, one of the other big cards in the metagame.
The rest of his stats are a bit below average. 120 HP for a Stage 2 is rather low when compared to beasts such as Magnezone and Typhlosion, and two retreat cost is high, making Politoed an obvious Catcher target.
Politoed’s Poke-Power, Leap Frog, is intriguing. It lets you choose a Water Pokemon on your bench and switch it with your active Pokemon. Having a built-in Switch every turn seems very nice. However, are there any real partners for this ability?
There are only really two good Water attackers in this format: Kyurem NVI and Blastoise UL. Let’s theorymon for a second and pair each with Politoed. Kyurem is great at spreading damage fast, doing 30 each turn to all of your opponent’s Pokemon. Politoed could, I guess, be used so you could constantly switch out your damaged Kyurems for fresh ones.
But one must take into consideration that fact that Kyurem only works when combined with clunky evolved Pokemon (such as Feraligatr Prime, Floatzel, or a Vileplume/Reuniclus engine). Adding Politoed into the mix just isn’t worth it, as you’ll lose a ton of consistency and speed. In addition, it’s often advantageous to have a damaged Kyurem active so you can use Outrage to finish off your opponent’s active Pokemon.
Blastoise, on the other hand, may be able to make slightly more use of Politoed. You could take a damaged Blastoise and switch it safely to the bench with Leap Frog, then bring up another Blastoise and use Wash Out to transfer all energy from your benched one to the active one. Then, you could use a healing card like Max Potion or Blissey Prime to freshen up the Blastoise on the bench without discarding loads of energy.
However, Blastoise has the same problems as Kyurem, but magnified. It’s a Stage 2 itself, plus it runs Stage 1 or 2 energy acceleration Pokemon. Throw in another stage 2 and you’ve got an extremely slow, inconsistent deck. Politoed’s cost outweighs its effectiveness big time.
One more possibility with Politoed is to use it with a Water type that has free retreat, like Floatzel or Manaphy. You could “Leap Frog” out your bulky active for one of these free retreaters, and then be able to retreat back at will.
We mustn’t forget to mention, if only briefly, Politoed’s attack, Big Chorus. For WCC, it lets you flip a coin for each of your Water Pokemon in play, and does 30 damage for each heads. So there’s the potential to do 180 damage for three energy! But that’s on an extremely lucky day.
More realistically, you’ll hit for 90 damage. That isn’t terrible for three energy (or two, with a DCE), but it’s outclassed by the new Seismitoad NVI with Round.
So, to sum it all up, Politoed’s power is OK, its attack mediocre, its stats average. If it were a Stage 1 instead, it would be much more effective, but requiring a three-card combo (Poliwag + Poliwhirl + Politoed or Poliwag + Rare Candy + Politoed) is just too much. In addition, the two retreat cost practically screams, “Catcher me up!”
Politoed gets a 5/10 (Mediocre). That’s pretty much the best description of Politoed there is. Everything about it is OK, but not great.
What did you think of my rating? Do you have any ideas for using Politoed? Comment below! And of course, thanks for reading!
