Hello! It’s Celebi’ here with another Card of the Day. 
Today I’ll be reviewing Whimsicott from Emerging Powers, as requested by forum user Whimsicott1.
First I’d like to take a brief look at the two Cottonees. One has 40 HP, and one has 50, which makes them susceptible to donking, and fire weakness makes it even worse. They both have attacks which do 10 damage for a grass energy; the 40 HP Cottonee also heals 10 and the 50 HP one prevents 10 damage next turn. These Pokemon are both weak starters, and shouldn’t ever do anything more than sit on the bench for a turn until you evolve them.
Now on to Whimsicott itself. Whimsicott is a Grass Pokemon, which is not a great type to be right now, as nothing really is weak to grass other than a few obscure Water Pokemon. In addition Fire, which pretty much all Grass types are weak to, is extremely popular in the HS-EPO metagame.
80 HP is fairly low for a Stage 1, meaning that even a Cyndaquil could one-shot it with a couple PlusPowers. Free retreat is nice considering one retreat cost is the norm in this format. Water resistance is pretty much useless, since it’ll likely get OHKO’d by a Water type anyway with its low HP.
Now let’s take a look at Whimsicott’s attacks. The first is called Helping Hand, For one colorless energy, you search your deck for a basic energy and attach it to one of your benched Pokemon. However, there are a couple Trainer alternatives to Helping Hand.
If you want a basic energy, you can use Energy Search or even Interviewer’s Questions. But Whimsicott has the added bonus of attaching that energy, right? Well, an extra attachment is always helpful, but the ends (leaving a wimpy Pokemon up for your opponent to decimate on their turn) simply do not justify the means, in my opinion.
The next attack is Cotton Guard. It’s pretty much a copy of “Leaf Guard,” an attack belonging to Jumpluff from HeartGold/SoulSilver. The attack costs one Grass energy and does 30 damage. The attack also reduces damage done to Whimsicott by 30 during your opponent’s next turn.
Damage reduction is nice, but Whimsicott is still KO’d by an attack doing 110 or more damage. Magnezone can do 110, Lost Zoning 2 energies and dropping a PlusPower. Reshiram and Zekrom hit for 120 (Reshiram can also KO Whimsicott with Outrage if it has 40 or more damage on it, due to weakness).
Sure, Yanmega and Donphan Prime can’t one-shot it; however, Whimsicott’s damage output is just too low, doing 30 damage to Yanmega and a measly 10 to Donphan, due to its Exoskeleton Poke-Body.
In this format of OHKO’s, 30 damage just isn’t enough against the metagame’s super-ultra-buff Pokemon (think 130 HP basics and 140-150 HP Stage 2′s). If you want the option of the “Cotton Guard” effect, Jumpluff, with its swarming and speed, or played in a Mew deck, is certainly the better choice (in fact, a Jumpluff variant is my current testing deck). While Whimsicott is adorable, it doesn’t get the job done.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to get another Card of the Day up by Monday.
