First off, I’d like to thank bateboy from the forums for suggesting this great CoTD subject. So that brings us to our Card of the Day: Gengar from Arceus.
This Gengar (also known as Cursegar) used to hold its own Top Tier deck, CurseGar. The deck started to fail off this season, mainly because of Vileplume being released, but I personally think that he still has some potential. Let’s check out his stats.
Gengar has a low 110 HP — equal to most SP Pokemon’s Level-Ups (i.e. Luxray GL LV.X, Garchomp C LV.X, Blaziken FB LV.X, etc.). So you could have a Turn 2 110 HP Pokemon (with SP), or a Turn 3 or 4 110 HP Pokemon (Gengar).
Yeah, you have Expert Belt, but so do the others! Gengar also has a +30 Weakness to Darkness, an absolutely AWESOME -20 Resistance to Colorless (i.e. Garchomp C), and a nice lack of Retreat Cost. At least he has some versatility.
The +30 Weakness to Darkness is gonna hurt, mainly because of Honchkrow and the fact that Zoroark came out. Let’s hope his attacks & powers are better.
Yep. They are. First let’s take a look at Gengar’s Poke-Power, “Curse”. This power allows you to move 1 damage counter from one of your opponent’s Pokemon to another one of your opponent’s Pokemon. That can help you get KO’s on high-HP Pokemon, such as Magnezone, Feraligatr, and the occasional Wailord (I’ve seen ‘em in tournaments… they’re freakin’ tanks, man :P).
Gengar also has an attack, Shadow Skip. For the cost of PPC, Shadow Skip does a mediocre 60 damage, and 10 to one of your opponent’s Bench. It also says that your may switch Gengar with one of your benched Pokemon. This worked out a combo with Spiritomb AR. What you do is set up with Spiritomb and build up a Gengar on your bench.
Then, you attach an Unown Q to Spiritomb, retreat it and bring up Gengar, use as many Trainers as you want, and then use Shadow Skip and bring up Spiritomb. It was an effective combo, but VileGar easily overtook it.
In my opinion, Cursegar could still work. You could also tech in a Gengar SF for heavy Poltergeist hits, if you’re worried about tankers. I think Cursegar is better than VileGar, mainly because you’re able to use Trainers, while in VileGar you can’t. Of course that’s just me.
I like using Trainer-heavy decks. I’m not much of a fan of Trainer Lock. I’d like to know your opinion on this, so please answer that by commenting below.
So, saying all that, I think that in this current format, I think that I should rate Gengar a 3.5 out of 5. Gengar still has massive potential, but is outclassed by VileGar. Though I’d pick Cursegar over VileGar, the latter is much better. So thanks for reading! I’ll see ya next time. Bye.
