One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is an article that is kind of about a set profile and card reviews.  You might understand it later, hopefully. The article will mostly cover the Japanese Dragon Selection Mini-Set.  The scans of it were released a couple weeks ago, but I am just getting to it now because all of the NV hoopla.  Since their are currently no English scans of the Dragon Selection Mini-Set that we are talking about, I will instead show you pictures of a tv show that I liked when I was 4…. Noozles.  Now I know it doesn’t make sense, but only good websites bring you things that make sense, we don’t want you to have your standards too high.   

If you have been listening to any Pokemon news from Japan, you will have heard a while ago that we will be getting a new type of Pokemon.  It will be the Dragon Type and it will consist of the Dragon Pokemon that have previously been scattered into other types.  The Next Japanese Set will probably contain more Dragon Pokemon, since the sets will be called Dragon Blade and Dragon Blast, but for right now the only Dragon Pokemon in Japan have came from the Dragon Selection Mini-Set.  This is another one of those small sets that gets released in Japan between sets.  The set itself is very “mini,” only 20 cards were in this set.  Most of the cards  haven’t been that earth shattering, but there still might be a couple gems in it.

The Dragon Type

We still have a lot to learn more about the Dragon type.  We do have some scans from Dragon Selection, but we don’t really know how other Pokemon will be effected by them (weakness and resistance wise) and if they will get any support (from trainers or special energies).  Here is the stuff that we can safely infer.

1. The Dragon Type is made up of a lot of high HP basics and stage 2’s.  We kind of already knew this since the Dragon Pokemon that were previously scattered into other groups had about the same HP.  But, with a lot of stage 2’s having like 140 and 150 HP, we can assume that the Dragon type will have a lot of tanks in it.
2. Dragon Pokemon are weak to themselves.  We are not sure which types will be weak and resistance to the dragon type, we only know that so far they are weak to themselves.  It is very hard to say if this has any impact on the format.  One thing that comes to mind is that if you have a Dragon deck already, like Hydreigon, you can put a Dragon type Hydreigon in there to give yourself a better match-up against fighting types like Donphan Prime.  Having Dragon type Pokemon weak to other Dragon Type could be good if we get one really good Dragon Type from a future set.  Right now there doesn’t seem to be a really good Dragon Pokemon, but, if there was a good Dragon Pokemon it would be very hard to counter it if you needed to run a separate Pokemon to hit for weakness.
3. Dragon Types have really weird energy requirements.  Every type right now has their own energy, water Pokemon usually have attacks that need water energy, so they run basic water energy in their decks.  But this is not so with Dragon types.  From the Dragon Selection scans, we know that energy requirements seem to be fairly random.  In previous sets, Haxorus was shown to be a Normal type and his energy requirements were all colorless.  But, in the Dragon Selection Mini-Set we are seeing that he needs Fighting and Metal energies to attack.  In the game he is not a dual type, only a Dragon, so I don’t know where they got Fighting and Metal from.  The same thing is true with Dragonite.  He is a Dragon/Flying Pokemon yet his new card in Dragon Selection requires Grass and Lightning energies.  Where those types come from is beyond me.  These weird energy requirements would make it hard for a player to use these cards in combination with previous cards of the same Pokemon.  One thing that we can almost say for sure is that there will probably be Dragon Energies, but these energies will probably not provide a unit of Dragon energy.  Instead, it will probably end up being a Special Energy that has a Rainbow Energy like effect while attached to a Dragon type.  I cannot confirm that, but it sure looks to be that way.  It would probably be better for Dragon Types to just have their own energy requirements and their own energy, but this was isn’t terrible.

Those are some things that stand out to me about these cards from Dragon Selection.  I assume that newer cards will follow these same principles and have the same type of energy requirements, but of course I don’t know for sure.  To give a little closer look at what exactly was in Dragon Selection, let’s do a couple card reviews from the set.

 Dragon Selection Card Review #1-Salamance

Description-The only card from this set that I could see getting some decent play is Salamance,  Salamance has 140 HP, a 2 retreat cost, and the Dragon weakness.  It has an Ability called “Lofty Wind.”  This Ability lets you force your opponent discard cards from his or her hand until they have 4 cards left in their hand. It also has the “Tear Through” attack that does 90 Damage for RWCC.  This attack does 90 damage and isn’t effected by any effects on the defending Pokemon.

Analysis– The main thing about this card is the Ability, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s start with the basics.  140 HP is good, not that great with the EX’s walking around and doing that much in their sleep, but 140 HP is about as good as it gets  for Stage 2’s.  It is too early to say whether a Dragon weakness is good or bad, but I would guess that it is pretty good.  The retreat is also pretty bad, but not terrible.  The attack is probably something you would never use, it just requires too much energy for not enough damage.  But, the Ability here is awesome.  We must keep in mind that we only have a Japanese translation of this card, these translations are usually fairly accurate representations of what the card will be like, but it is not always word for word correct.  If the Ability stays the way it is worded now, you would be able to use the Ability on the bench, which would be awesome.  If you could use this guy as a bench sitter and have him used for disruption, it would be pretty cool, if you would need to make him an attacker, it would kind of cramp your style.  But, we will assume that the wording of the translation is correct and you don’t need to be active to use “Lofty Wind.” 

The ability to have hand disruption is pretty darn good.  It is really good in this format, since your opponent don’t have any hand refresh Pokemon on the bench that he can rely on.  Even though your opponent gets to choose what cards he has left in his hand, it would still be very disruptive to lose anything from your hand.  Sure, your opponent can just use a hand refresh supporter next turn, but you can just use “Lofty Wind” next turn, eventually he/she will run out of supporters, the question is will the game be over by the time he/she does? 

 Although the Ability will not necessarily win you the game, it will cost your opponent a lot of good resources.  A lot of times games come down to if your opponent has 1 Junk Arm in his hand, well, now your opponent will be a lot less likely to have that Junk Arm.  It is not a format breaking Ability, but it could be good enough to build a deck around.  I like Hand Disruption, and this is probably one of the better hand-disruptors that have came in quite a while.  Of course, Weavile UD is a great pairing for this card.  Or, maybe it would work in a deck with Vileplume in it as a tech.

Dragon Selection Card #2- Haxorus

Description– Haxorus is not a great card from this set, but it is probably the second best Dragon Pokemon.  This kind of tells you how poor this Mini-Set is right now.  Like Salamance, Haxorus has 140 HP, a Dragon Weakness, but Haxorus has a 3 retreat cost.  For CC, “Axe Wallop”, does 60 damage, or 120 damage if it is attacking a Colorless Pokemon.  Its second attack, “Dragon Pulse”, costs FMCC and does 100 damage and mills one card from your own deck.

Analysis– As I said before, 140 HP isn’t bad.  There are some things against it, but its not bad.  The 3 retreat cost is not good, but you will probably need to use him as a main attacker.  “Axe Wallop” is  a really cool attack.  DCE for 60 isn’t bad.  But, if you plan on going up against Colorless Pokemon, 120 damage for CC is really really good.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of Colorless Pokemon being used right now, hitting Psychic Pokemon for 120 would be better, but as it sits, “Axe Wallop” is not bad. Dragon Pulse is not that good.  Doing only 100 damage is not that great, and if you add the 4 energies required to do it, it is really not that great.

“Axe Wallop” seems to be the only good attack here.  “Dragon Pulse” is just too slow and doesn’t hit hard enough.  Hitting “Axe Wallop” will be good enough to take out some good Pokemon like Smeargle and Druddigon.  But, I do not see this Pokemon being used unless Colorless Pokemon start becoming more popular.

Conclusion

Well, that is all I can say about Dragon Selection.  It is not a great set, but I don’t think it was intended to be.  It was just intended to be a set that gets some popularity by having the new Dragon types as a gimmick.  It does give us a cool look into a future game mechanic.  It looks like the Dragon Pokemon will be the next big mechanic since the EX Pokemon, and they will be very popular.  Even though Dragon Selection did not give us a lot of cool Pokemon, that does not mean that the Dragon Pokemon will not be playable in the near future.  Look for them to come to the U.S. somewhere near the Fall of this year.  Please take some time to comment on if you are excited to see some more Dragon Pokemon, and if you think they will make an impact.  

I usually end the articles by saying. “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.”  But, this time I have to end by saying this:

Haha, I put Noozles pictures in this article for no reason! 

 

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Dragon Selection, Dragons Pokemon TCG, Haxorus Dragon Selection, Salamance Dragon Selection, The Dragon Type Pokemon