The Pokemon Card Garage : Episode 1

Hello Poke Friends,

Whenever the Pokemon Company prints a new set, there are always cards that will never have the chance of seeing the top-cut. They are either too weak, or just take too long to power-up, therefore their dreams of ever being a contender in the meta-game are shattered, and remain in most player’s closets or binders just begging to be traded away. However, the major problem with each new set is that over the years there hasn’t just been one or two bad cards—there have been hundreds of terrible cars that are completely worthless.

But I am here to help put and end to that: I am here to make those useless cards playable!

The purpose of my series, The Pokemon Card Garage, is to examine, and improve past and present Pokemon cards that are considered unplayable to better our card game by giving us, the Pokemon TCG community, a much more good selection of Pokemon cards to choose from, and a incentive to play with these particular cards that I will fix-up. Additionally, I truly hope that my series is read by someone in the Pokemon Company, and helps them with their research and development process when creating future Pokemon cards, thus putting an end to the mistakes that the Pokemon Company has been making for years.

Before I start, I wanted to give you a bit of information about my Pokemon tournament experiences. I did not want to come off as another babbling person here on the forms ranting and not making any sense. Instead, a veteran player who knows what he is talking about through his years of experience.

I have been competing in the Pokemon TCG since the base set. I am a (7) seven-time City Champion, (3)three-time State Champion, (3)three-time Regional Champion, (3)three-time Gym Challenge Champion, (6)six-time Battle Road Champion, (11)eleven-time New York City Pokemon league tournament Champion, I placed 4^th at the 2005 National Championships, I participated in worlds in 2004,2005,2006, earned over $7000 in scholarships, and earned over $3000 in booster boxes and gaming consoles from winning Pokemon TCG tournaments.

Without further ado, episode 1!

Excadrill (Emerging Powers, 56/98)

When you first take a look at the newly released Excadriill from Emerging Powers, the first thing that your eyes look at is this beasts whopping (3) Energy attack cost for Drill Run. Sure, Excadriill has an awesome effect of discarding your opponent’s energy, and combined with Crush Hammer will have your opponents losing valuable Energy cards every turn, but for (3) energy and only 110 HP, let’s be honest with ourselves: by the time you are done powering-up Excadriill, your big bad stage-1 is probably ready to see that discard pile in the sky (or the lower left corner of your play-mat). Sadly, this Excadriill won’t be winning any tournaments soon—and most players will look for others cards to play with.

So let’s fix this guy up: let’s make Excadriill a contender in our format!

First things first, I am going to start with Excadriill’s second attack, Drill Run. In order to make him a playable card--and a fair one--I am going to reduce his Energy requirements to only (2) Fighting Energy, Drill Run will now only do (60) damage, and Drill Run will still have the great effect of discarding an energy card. By making these changes, Excadriill has been drastically improved: from a slow, bulky Pokemon, to a fast Stage-one Pokemon who now is centered on a deck concept of discarding Energy. Also, his low damage output makes him balanced by not being able to “one-shot” most Pokemon on his own, but instead, centered on disruption as his defining characteristic. Excadriill, like many stage-one Pokemon will make use of winning the coin toss and hitting quickly, but his effect of discarding Energy cards still puts the game in reach by slowing down your opponent; granted your first coin flip is not in your favor.

Now onto Excadriill’s first attack. Metal Claw was added for when our stage-one mole had a (3) Energy cost for Drill Run. The purpose of this was to be able to do some damage while you power Excadriill up for Drill Run. Clearly the most important aspect of Excadrill is his second attack. I am going to leave the Energy cost for Metal Claw untouched; however, I am going to increase the damage output to (40). This way if the Excadrill player loses the coin flip, his or her active Drillbur has hopes of evolving into a damaged Excadrill on turn two of his or her turn that can still do some damage and possibly avoid knock out on turn three of your opponents turn—but that’s just wishful thinking.

The HP of Excadriill really should not exceed (120), so his maximum HP will be (120). I believe by giving Excadriill (130) HP, most players would put him on the level of most stage-two or legendary Pokemon, plus there has to be some flaw in every card for the sake of a balanced meta-game. Nevertheless, (10) more HP gives him some more of a chance with a possible Defender against Reshiram in our format. Again, the whole idea is to pair Excadriill with Trainers to make him a bit better.

Excadriill’s retreat cost, weakness and resistance will remain the same. I could not find any issues with this. On the other hand, if I were to lower Excadriill’s retreat cost to just (1), then I would have kept his HP at (110) making him a possible hit-and-run Pokemon and being very prize efficient avoiding knock out in that sense. Also, keeping the weakness to Water types makes the deck incredibly weak to all Water decks. Since I believe Excadriill would ideally be paired with Donphan Prime as a fast Stage-one deck with an option of manipulation, the shared weakness to Water can give an incentive to players to create Water based decks granted this style of Excadriill and Donphan became very popular.

From a sluggish, unwieldy Pokemon with a (3) energy attack cost to a now fast and furious stage one Pokemon, I made Excadriill into a competitor in our format. Excadriill’s (2) Energy attack cost for Drill Run makes him quicker to attack offering players a speedy choice for Energy exploitation with a good damaged output, and increase in damage from metal claw gives the players more otion to deal damage early in the game, a (10) HP boost gives Excadriill some more hope against Reshiram, and the decision to not change Excadriill’s retreat cost, weakness and resistance still makes Excadriill a balanced card. If these changes were applied to our good friend, Excadriill, surley he would see some more play in the 2011-2012 Pokemon tournament season.

Thank you for reading!

--Frankie Durso--