Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

2011-07-18 TM Ambipom 013

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waynegg

waynegg

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[gal=51105]2011-07-18 TM Ambipom 013[/gal]​
 
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5.5/10
It has pretty bad weakness and hp, tail spank is also not impressive.
The real deal here is Astonish, dealing a mediocre 20 damage for a dce. However, you then randomly select two of your opponent's cards and have them put back in their deck. It's not a walk in the park to put them in a full lock, but if you manage to do it, you definitly have the win.

EDIT: FIRST EAT IT
 
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9/10
This crazy little monkey got me all the way to 6th place at Canadian Nats, I would feel terrible if i didn't boost it here. Astonish is easily the best disruption attack in the game, puts a lot of people in a hard lockdown. 60 is enough to clean up the game, once your opponent is drawing dead. 2 wonderful attacks for a single DCE, I call that amazing.
 
I'm sorry but I've tested this card in Yanmega/Magnezone and it's glorious. Add DCE and judge then Magnetic Draw and Drop your opponent to two (with PP possibly KO a baby). From my experience it is exceptionally difficult for an opponent to recover from a two card hand. Also, he's a great late game RDL threat since discarding two is easy late game and with a PP you can OHKO an RDL.

Still, you shuffle those cards back in and he only has 80 HP while having a very bad weakness in this format.

7/10
 
Today's CotD was Ambipom from TM...eh, I heard somewhere you could frustrate and annoy your opponent with the right support, but I personally think it's a bit too gimmicky to work on a regular basis. Something about Canadians...anyways, statwise 80 HP is a bit underpowered from the average 90 for a Stage 1, x2 Weakness to :fighting: hurts, no Resistance is common, and :colorless: to Retreat is cheap. Astonish is ok for :colorless::colorless: (basically a DCE), dealing a weak 20, but forcing 2 cards randomly out of your opponent's hand, a nice effect when combined with Slowking and Weavile and other like-minded hand denial cards to basically control and force your opponent to a standstill. Tail Spank is your attack option, 60 for :colorless::colorless: normally isn't bad, but you have to discard 2 cards to make it work, which may or may not be good for you (usually not).

Modified - 6/10 (Eh, if it works it works, I just don't see it working all the time as hand denial/manipulation is pretty tricky to do all the time right)
Limited - 7/10 (Splashable, ok attacks)
Unlimited - 1/10 (No use here, weak)
 
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I used this card at US Nats. I astonished people when I went 4-2 on day 1 of Nats. 3 of those 4 wins were donks, one with a Sneasel on T1, one with a Tyrogue on T3, and one with this card on T2. I then ended 5-4 after day 2.

Normally Astonish only takes 1 card from your opponent. This card takes 2, making it an extreme annoyance to your opponent. When you only got 1 card, the opponent usually had another way to get that card back. When you pick two cards, you can get the key card and the back-up card that would have been used to get the key card back. So, the Basic Pokemon and a Pokemon Collector or Communication. You can pick out a Rare Candy and the evolution card to go with it, or even two energy cards.

Tail Spank is a great donk attack. If the opponent has a lone active and cannot get a basic by T2, they are looking at 60 damage to their only active. Yes, Donphan does the same thing, but Ambipom has less to worry about because so few things are Colorless resistant and Aipom's Imitate attack assists you in drawing cards that you need While Phanpy just sits there and looks cute.

Fighting Weakness is a real drag. Astonish's 20 damage makes it very ineffective against Donphan. 80 HP makes it fragile. It needs a supporting pokemon that locks up the opponent so they cannot fight back in order to stay active.
 
A great card and it has grown on me ever since Canadian nats.

The ability to do decent damage or disrupt for 2 energies is amazing combined with the disruptive PartyLock (Weavile/Slowking) engine.

I give it a 7/10. I love it a lot though the downsides is that Astonish puts cards back in the deck instead of discarding them and the weakness/low HP is meh...
 
5/10

Not too impressive HP-wise for a stage 1 in my eyes. x2 weakness to fighting will barely get you by as a basic in the current metagame. Astonish is definitely useful, but the other attack as far as desperation knockouts go, limits your values as well. Kind of counters the whole concept of taking advantage of your opponent to be KO'd earlier than anticipated or destroy yourself in the long run.
 
I'm surprised how much people are overlooking how powerful this card is with Judge in the format. It will get even better in 6 months time when N is released.
 
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