Today we look at
Sawk, who seems to be the successor of
Base Set Hitmonchan and rival to set-mate
Throh. The comparison is quite natural:
Sawk is also a Basic Fighting Pokemon that doesn't Evolve as are
Throh and
Hitmonchan.
Hitmonchan does have a "pre-Evolution" in the form of
Tyrogue, but didn't when first released. What you saw was what you got.
Sawk one ups that
Hitmonchan by having 20 more HP, clocking in at an impressive 90.
Throh has them both beat with 100 HP, though.All three cards are weak to Psychic Pokemon, taking double damage from them. None of them have any Resistance, which irks. Finishing off the stats,
Sawk again scores the advantage by having a single Energy Retreat Cost compared to
Hitmonchan needing two Energy, and this time
Throh fares worse needing a full three Energy to Retreat.
Moving on, we see all have two attacks and nothing else.
Sawk and
Hitmonchan tie, each being able to do 20 damage for
fighting
.
Throh, as one would expect given my review yesterday, falls short because his first attack is just too expensive, requiring another Energy. That means
Sawk (and
Hitmonchan for that matter) can attack twice by the time
Throh attacks once, unless your deck has Energy acceleration, a Technical Machine, etc. Even if a deck does,
Sawk would just then be able to use its first attack sooner. For the second attack,
Sawk does a solid 40 points of damage for
fighting::fighting
. Both Base Set
Hitmonchan and
Throh need a Colorless Energy on top of that for their big attacks.
Hitmonchan falls flat since he only swings for 40 points of damage.
Throh can do a massive 80 points of damage and ignore Weakness, but again needs another Energy invested in order to do that. It is pretty clear that the old Base Set
Hitmonchan has been outclassed by
Sawk, and since that
Hitmonchan was re-released in
Platinum, I felt it worth drawing the comparison. What about
Throh?
I wasted far, far too much time carefully crafting a long argument before realizing it shouldn't be needed. Anyone who disagrees values the limited Bench disruption or big damage/ability to ignore Resistance of
Throh far more than I do. I can see it being useful, but not more useful than quick, cheap damage on a solid body. In either case, I would point out that
Sudowoodo, who will still be legal after the rotation, has them both beat. It is another big Fighting Pokemon whose first attack does 20 damage per Energy attached, allowing that first attack to match both attacks of
Sawk. Unless you can build a deck that can keep a big, basic Fighting Pokemon alive and can't afford to have it change out to something else for big attacks,
Sawk beats
Throh, and
Sudowoodo beats them both.
Oh, and
Sawk is great for Limited play as long as you can afford to run
Fighting Energy: you wouldn't need a lot but since it can't use any other type even a single
Sawk would need you to run about five or risk it being dead weight quite often. Note that if you are running multiple copies of it or just several Fighting-Type Pokemon and need to make
Fighting Energy your primary or at least major secondary Energy type, then that not only doesn't matter but its Energy needs become a plus.
Ratings
Modified (Current): 3/10
Modified (HGSS-On): 6/10
Limited: 8.5/10
