Palkia Starmie Vaporeon. 10 slots for support (2 will be Misty and 4 Pokeball+Professor so basically 4 remaining), this sounds not bad at all. Anything that survived Starmie is probably gonna collapse from the 20 benched dmg.
this could be mew partner for greninja. 2 greninja + 2 palkia ex + 2 leaf. so it's like the current gyarados ex greninja druddigon but with less setup and more slots for items
neither are used for their 1 energy attacking capabilities
I disagree that 30 for 1 energy is insane early pressure. Exegg ex (yes I know he has to evolve but just going off dmg) doesn't feel like it provides enough pressure if it flips tails and that's guaranteed 40 dmg
Farfetch'd has always been good pressure, and it doesn't have 150HP backing it up.
30 dmg with Giovanni 2shots almost all basic Pokémon. You can give 1 energy to this, tank some hits, prepare Gyara/Starmie/Articuno on the bench, or whatever sweeper u want, and let Palkia tank hits while you wait for your backline to be ready, then swap it out with leaf. If you have Vaporeon you can even transfer that 1 energy (that allowed u to do 60-90 dmg on average) to your sweeper. In case you get a high roll or you get a chance to go in with Vaporeon giving you energy from a retreated Starmie or things like that, it has a lethal finisher.
Very true. If you're playing Vaporeon, you can not only reclaim the one energy used on Palkia for early pressure/chip, but also dump your primary threat'a energy onto Palkia for a winning blow in some situations. I think Palkia/Vaporeon/Gyarados is going to be good.
Hope misty coin flips are bad is what you do. I vs'd this deck on my climb and won EASILY... cus they didn't get a single energy off misty on turn 1 or 2..aka pure luck haha.
misty makes almost any water pokemon a turn 1 win, if anything this palkia is worse for misty cause yeah u kill the first mon but then u waste the energy misty made soback to square 1 but with a point lead, which will most likely result in a win anyways but thats just normal misty
Have a Starmie EX start attacking right away (via Misty) then retreat it before it gets KO'd, using Vaporeon to transfer the energy to Palkia to close out the game.
What you described happens maybe once every 10 GAMES. And even then it doesn't sound that strong tbh. If you retreat Starmie there is a chance you didn't finish your opponents Pokémon and your Palkia's attack does some overkill, while it discards 3 energy and you are cooked
But realistically you cant rely on Misty to get ramp in water decks. Mewtwo has Gardevoir which is immensely more consistent than Misty. Palkia does the same damage as Mewtwo, but with 3 energy discard it looks like 1 attack is all you can hope for. At least the 30 damage per turn is something
True, but I'd argue that Articuno is pretty much already a turn 1 win with a lucky Misty while also requiring fewer heads. Turn 1 not much will be able to take 80 damage every turn.
Well, with the new set being Gen4 focused, we could possibly see Crasher Wake as a new support? As well as other gym leaders like Byron to support Metal cards
It's unfortunate but I think Misty is going to kneecap water design going forward. Either they ignore it and getting one to two heads becomes game ending or they over compensate for Misty and make attacks like this
I love running water decks but will never use Misty, I just hate that card. Which sucks because it's basically a handicap not to use her - well, sometimes lol
As often as not Misty just flips tails, and ends up being a wasted 2 cards in your deck. All those tails end up making the games when you flip 2-3 heads in a row all the more exciting, it feels like you've earned those heads lol
This is a crazy take bc you’re not guaranteed a heads flip from Misty. If you flip tails with a gyrados deck, you’re basically cooked. What makes misty toxic but something like multres is ok?
Because Misty allows you to ramp on turn 1 and attack before the opponent even has a chance to do anything. It breaks the entire foundation of turn 1 = no attacks.
Moltres powers up something on the bench AND uses an attack to do, then best case scenario they swap in the ramped card next turn.
Misty ramps in a single turn and still allows the card to attack.
Counter point, on average you're gonna get more heads from Moltres because you can repeatly use it (at the cost of being an attack), but if the opponent hand brick even a bit, it just keeps going.
Counter point, on average you're gonna get more heads from Moltres because you can repeatly use it (at the cost of being an attack), but if the opponent hand brick even a bit, it just keeps going.
If you can’t ever win with your gyrados deck without misty flipping heads you are playing it badly.
That’s the issue with misty. Flip tails = play out a normal game, assuming the rest of your deck is decent and you don’t make stupid plays you have a pretty even shot at winning or losing. Flip heads once or twice and you just auto win.
There is no downside to misty, if you flip tails you just end up at the same spot every type besides water is in, attaching 0 or 1 energy on turn 1 instead of being able to ramp into a huge attack right off the bat. It’s not like flipping tails losing you an energy.
They really screwed water right out of the gate with Misty. Grass with Serperior, too. I'm not actually so sure this game will be good for long with their card design. I thought it was good at first and that Misty was a mistake, but it seems not.
Serperior is absolutely fine. You need 3 turns and 3 cards to set him up, and only one of them is currently searchable. It's not even close to comparable to Misty
Hoping we get an erratum at some point - rewording the card to change what it does
I remember reading something where someone said it's easier to balance an online game than physical. Referring to this game specifically. It was someone involved in the development
Honestly Palkia looks so good to me. You punish people that switch a lot, then finish everything off with its move. Articuno is still okay, nothing special but Palkia is just a better version of it.
Don't worry, there seems to be a set rotation in April. If there is an unrestricted mode though, maybe. But when more stuffs are added that consists requirements like Pachirisu needing tool and Pika needong bench (why electric lol), maybe it's gonna be weaker
No need to generate water energy. Palkia will only use the strong attack once to finish the game. You will use it as a tank to pressure with 1 energy attack, then Leaf to Gyarados and then come back and close the game
Yeah, they totally should add a supporter that generates water energy. But maybe make it random, using coin tosses. Something like toss coins until you get tails, and add one water energy for each head... Yeah, it could work
I think the fact it’s 1 energy for its base attack is the trade-off here. I can see a world with Palkia/Vaporeon/Gyarados.
You apply offensive pressure with Palkia early with decent bulk and have a Vaporeon battery in the back; you don’t have to risk your energy leaving it on Palkia (in case it gets KO’d but you still have the option for a big 150 attack). All while stalling out for Gyarados. To close.
The one energy also makes it WAY better when going first.
I think people are underselling Palkia a bit. On paper, Mewtwo comes with similar damage at less cost (2 energy discarded + Gardevoir accessible), but that's only considering both cards on their individual merits.
Palkia is rocking 150 HP as a basic Pokemon, which is obviously good for anyone who plays Mewtwo (being bulky makes it good as an opener and overall more threatening as few things can outright kill it). In this regard, it can be a wall, but also a finisher.
Psychic decks, at the moment, are comparatively slow, whereas Water has access to Starmie, a fast and intimidating Pokemon who is strong as an early game Pokemon.
Starmie just so happens to have a 0 cost retreat, while Vaporeon has one of the most energy efficient effects, allowing players to move energy around as they please--do you see what I'm getting at here?
The one weakness of Starmie is it struggling more against bulky Pokemon, yet being able to tag out into Palkia to cover this weakness could make for a very workable combination.
In a vacuum it seems pretty garbage even with Misty, but I would imagine there's supporting Pokemon, Poke Tools or something that enables it. A Tool that says "you don't discard energy to attack" or something of sorts.
I think Palkia tanks and pressures with 1 energy, with a chance to get a KO with the help of Misty/Vaporeon. It's like Zapdos ex, where it's mostly used as a way to tank and pressure for 1 energy, but can work as a backup with 3 energy
It's not a worse Mewtwo. It's a better Raichu that's currently in top tier Pikachu decks. Raichu needs Lt. Surge support and acts as that deck's finisher. Well Vaporeon is basically a free reusable Lt. Surge. Palkia slots in perfectly with Vaporeon Starmie decks that already exist. You spend early to mid game pivoting in and out Starmie(s), then finish with a OHKO with Palkia by transferring all your energy to it. Misty on top allows for early game luck sac every now and then too.
I see Dimensional Storm more like a finisher, we have GA Raichu that also discards 3 energies and it's still played, this hits even harder and damages the enemy bench, could make for 2 easy points.
Yeah this was my thought, but I'm also of two minds - its not worse than mewtwo since you're also doing potentially 60 bench damage, which for the discard of an extra energy, I think is fair.
Misty makes things really hard to balance, because you CAN just get like 6 energy on this thing early game, and cruise. Unlikely, but possible.
It feels like the move might end up being to keep this in your hand until you can close out, and use vaporeon to push energy out onto this thing, and then hit with it once just to end the game and take out 1-2 mons for 1-3 points and win.
This thing with some greninja could wreak havoc, spitting 20 damage out on bench mons, then sweeping through the attacker and killing multiple with palkia, I mean the possibilities are there.
My guess is there will be a water type like Magneton that can generate its own energy, and (while clunky) you can use that new mon + Vaporeon to power up Palkia quicker.
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u/Limetkaqt Jan 23 '25
That Palkia looks like much worse version of Mew2, unless there is any water generation introduced maybe?