deckmaster
Active Member
Hello Poké Friends!
Whenever the Pokémon 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, thus their dreams of ever being a contender in the metagame are shattered, and remain in most player's closets or binders just begging to be traded away. Heck, some cards are so terrible—that they cannot even be traded!
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 Pokémon Card Garage, is to examine past and present Pokémon cards that cannot contend in our current metagame, and give the card a complete overhaul. Tuning up these specific cards with my adjustments will help improve the chosen card and give us, the Pokémon TCG community, a much more diverse selection of good Pokémon cards to choose from when building new deck ideas. Furthermore, I truly hope my series is read by someone from the Pokémon Company as I sincerely want a card game format with lots of competitive deck choices to make, and where every card can hold its own and have the potential to win a ranked tournament.
A bit about myself: My name is Frankie Durso, I reside in New York City, and I have been playing the Pokémon TCG ever since the Base set. I love the Pokémon TCG and I will continue to play this game unless it becomes an unbalanced card game. I have made loads of friends from playing this game, and would love to make more new friends. As far as I am concerned, Pokémon TCG is the best TCG currently on the market.
My tournament credentials:
So without further ado, Episode 1!
First things first, I am going to start with Excadrill’s second attack, Drill Run. In order to make Excadrill a playable card—and a fair one—I am going to reduce his Energy requirements to only (2) Fighting Energy. Now, Drill Run will only do (50) damage but Drill Run will still have the great effect of discarding an Energy card. To further enhance Drill Run, the player can play Energy manipulation cards, such as, Crushing Hammer and Lost Remover. Excadrill’s low damage output using Drill Run makes him balanced by not being able to “one-shot” most Pokémon on his own, but instead, Excadrill is centered on fast disruption as his defining characteristic. Excadriill, like many stage-one Pokémon, will make use of winning the opening game coin toss and hitting aggressively, but his effect of discarding Energy cards for only (2) Fighting Energy still puts the game in reach by slowing down your opponent; granted you lose the opening game coin flip and your coin flips are in your favor with Crushing Hammer. By making these changes, Excadrill has been drastically improved: from a slow, bulky Pokémon, to a fast, strong Stage-one Pokémon who now is centered on a deck concept of discarding Energy.
Next, Excadrill’s Metal Claw attack will be fine tuned. 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 Excadrill up for Drill Run. The most important aspect of Excadrill is his second attack. Nonetheless, and for the purpose of being a much more useful card, I am going to leave the Energy cost for Metal Claw untouched. However, I am going to increase the damage output to (40). That way if the Excadrill player loses the opening game coin flip, his or her active Drillbur has hopes of evolving into a damaged Excadrill on turn two of his or her turn. This allows the player to still do some damage and weaken their opponent’s active Pokémon and slowing the pace of the game. More importantly, the (1) Energy cost for Metal Claw and (40) damaging blow offers the user the potential to dish out damage while not paying the additional Energy cost for Drill Run. As a result, Excadrill now has similar qualities to Donphan Prime such as being an Energy efficient, fast hitting monster—and look how popular that idea is in our current format.
It was challenging enough to decided on giving Excadrill’s Metal Claw attack either a (40) or (50) damage output because Excadriill paired with Donphan Prime would have much less of a disadvantage as opposed to other decks when the game starts—both Pokemon hit for good damage very quickly, and Excadrill can now manipulate Energy rather swiftly.
The hit points (HP) of Excadrill should not exceed (120) because Drill Run has been enhanced for our format, so Excadrill’s maximum HP will be (120). I believe by giving Excadrill (120) HP puts him in reasonable range for being knocked out, and still not much of a burden to most opponents struggling to maintain Energy cards on their Pokémon. Nevertheless, (10) more HP gives Excadrill more of a chance with a possible Defender against many of the heavy hitting Pokémon in our current format ( Example: Magnezone Prime, Reshiram, etc). Again, the whole idea is to pair Excadrill with Trainers/Items to make him a bit better.
Excadrill’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 Excadrill’s retreat cost to just (1), then I would have kept his HP at (110) making him a possible hit-and-run Pokémon 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 Excadrill would ideally be paired with Donphan Prime as a fast Stage-one deck with an option of manipulation, the shared weakness to Water types 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 Pokémon with a (3) Energy attack cost to a now fast and furious Stage one Pokémon, I made Excadrill into a competitor in our format. Excadrill’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 an increase in damage output using Metal Claw gives the player more options to deal damage early in the game. Furthermore, a (10) HP boost gives Excadrill some hope against popular attackers like Magnezone Prime, Reshiram, etc, and the decision to not change Excadrill’s retreat cost, weakness and resistance still makes Excadriill a balanced card. If these changes were applied to our good friend Excadrill, surely he would see some more play in the 2011-2012 Pokémon tournament season.
--Frankie Durso--
DarkStar20
Baby mario
Jjkkl
Whenever the Pokémon 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, thus their dreams of ever being a contender in the metagame are shattered, and remain in most player's closets or binders just begging to be traded away. Heck, some cards are so terrible—that they cannot even be traded!
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 Pokémon Card Garage, is to examine past and present Pokémon cards that cannot contend in our current metagame, and give the card a complete overhaul. Tuning up these specific cards with my adjustments will help improve the chosen card and give us, the Pokémon TCG community, a much more diverse selection of good Pokémon cards to choose from when building new deck ideas. Furthermore, I truly hope my series is read by someone from the Pokémon Company as I sincerely want a card game format with lots of competitive deck choices to make, and where every card can hold its own and have the potential to win a ranked tournament.
A bit about myself: My name is Frankie Durso, I reside in New York City, and I have been playing the Pokémon TCG ever since the Base set. I love the Pokémon TCG and I will continue to play this game unless it becomes an unbalanced card game. I have made loads of friends from playing this game, and would love to make more new friends. As far as I am concerned, Pokémon TCG is the best TCG currently on the market.
My tournament credentials:
- 7 time City Champion
- 4 time State Champion
- 3 time Regional Champion
- 3 time Gym Challenge Champion
- 5 time Battle Road Champion
- 11 time New York City Pokémon league Champion
- placed 4th at the 2005 National Championships
- participated in worlds for 2004, 2005, and 2006
- earned over $7,000 in scholarships
- earned over $3,000 in booster boxes and portable gaming consoles from winning Pokémon TCG tournaments.
So without further ado, Episode 1!
Episode 1: Excadrill (Emerging Powers, 56/98)
[gal=52293]Excadrill[/gal]
When you first take a look at the newly released Excadrill from Emerging Powers, the first thing that your eyes look at is this beasts whopping (3) Energy attack cost for Drill Run. Sure, Excadrill has an awesome effect of discarding your opponent’s Energy without flipping a coin, and combined with Crushing 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 Excadrill, 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 Excadrill a contender in our format!
First things first, I am going to start with Excadrill’s second attack, Drill Run. In order to make Excadrill a playable card—and a fair one—I am going to reduce his Energy requirements to only (2) Fighting Energy. Now, Drill Run will only do (50) damage but Drill Run will still have the great effect of discarding an Energy card. To further enhance Drill Run, the player can play Energy manipulation cards, such as, Crushing Hammer and Lost Remover. Excadrill’s low damage output using Drill Run makes him balanced by not being able to “one-shot” most Pokémon on his own, but instead, Excadrill is centered on fast disruption as his defining characteristic. Excadriill, like many stage-one Pokémon, will make use of winning the opening game coin toss and hitting aggressively, but his effect of discarding Energy cards for only (2) Fighting Energy still puts the game in reach by slowing down your opponent; granted you lose the opening game coin flip and your coin flips are in your favor with Crushing Hammer. By making these changes, Excadrill has been drastically improved: from a slow, bulky Pokémon, to a fast, strong Stage-one Pokémon who now is centered on a deck concept of discarding Energy.
Next, Excadrill’s Metal Claw attack will be fine tuned. 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 Excadrill up for Drill Run. The most important aspect of Excadrill is his second attack. Nonetheless, and for the purpose of being a much more useful card, I am going to leave the Energy cost for Metal Claw untouched. However, I am going to increase the damage output to (40). That way if the Excadrill player loses the opening game coin flip, his or her active Drillbur has hopes of evolving into a damaged Excadrill on turn two of his or her turn. This allows the player to still do some damage and weaken their opponent’s active Pokémon and slowing the pace of the game. More importantly, the (1) Energy cost for Metal Claw and (40) damaging blow offers the user the potential to dish out damage while not paying the additional Energy cost for Drill Run. As a result, Excadrill now has similar qualities to Donphan Prime such as being an Energy efficient, fast hitting monster—and look how popular that idea is in our current format.
It was challenging enough to decided on giving Excadrill’s Metal Claw attack either a (40) or (50) damage output because Excadriill paired with Donphan Prime would have much less of a disadvantage as opposed to other decks when the game starts—both Pokemon hit for good damage very quickly, and Excadrill can now manipulate Energy rather swiftly.
The hit points (HP) of Excadrill should not exceed (120) because Drill Run has been enhanced for our format, so Excadrill’s maximum HP will be (120). I believe by giving Excadrill (120) HP puts him in reasonable range for being knocked out, and still not much of a burden to most opponents struggling to maintain Energy cards on their Pokémon. Nevertheless, (10) more HP gives Excadrill more of a chance with a possible Defender against many of the heavy hitting Pokémon in our current format ( Example: Magnezone Prime, Reshiram, etc). Again, the whole idea is to pair Excadrill with Trainers/Items to make him a bit better.
Excadrill’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 Excadrill’s retreat cost to just (1), then I would have kept his HP at (110) making him a possible hit-and-run Pokémon 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 Excadrill would ideally be paired with Donphan Prime as a fast Stage-one deck with an option of manipulation, the shared weakness to Water types 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 Pokémon with a (3) Energy attack cost to a now fast and furious Stage one Pokémon, I made Excadrill into a competitor in our format. Excadrill’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 an increase in damage output using Metal Claw gives the player more options to deal damage early in the game. Furthermore, a (10) HP boost gives Excadrill some hope against popular attackers like Magnezone Prime, Reshiram, etc, and the decision to not change Excadrill’s retreat cost, weakness and resistance still makes Excadriill a balanced card. If these changes were applied to our good friend Excadrill, surely he would see some more play in the 2011-2012 Pokémon tournament season.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more episodes of The Pokemon Card Garage!
--Frankie Durso--
Special Thanks to:
MyPokemonCard.com
PokePopMyPokemonCard.com
DarkStar20
Baby mario
Jjkkl
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