Absol G is a card that teases you with being "so close". It is a Darkness-Type Pokémon, allowing it to increase its damage with the Special Energy version of Darkness Energy, and a Basic Pokémon, which makes it easy to fit into your deck, to search from your deck, and to drop into play. As a Pokémon G, it has access to some specialty support cards, likewise it is also a Pokémon SP giving it access to even more support. For a Basic that can't Evolve, 70 HP is solid: it will usually take your Weakness or a deck's main attacker to drop Absol G in one shot. Since it has the option to Level-Up, the HP is definitely reasonable, but not quite "good". Weakness is a concern, but with the damage yields common to this format only occasionally a true problem. In general, you are only going to worry about it when facing a Fighting-Type deck with a slow start (so something like a Phanpy or Machop) is attacking, or when Toxicroak G (Promo version) comes up for a revenge KO. Sure, it will save your average Fighting focused deck a PlusPower, but ultimately it is mostly an inconvenience.
Absol G is blessed with Resistance 
sychic:-20. I am always happy to see Resistance, as it feels so lazy when it gets left out. Unfortunately like the Weakness, it just isn't a big deal based on the format. Many Psychic Pokémon don't do straight damage to begin with, but rely on alternate strategies like placing damage counters. Then there is the fact that while Psychic Pokémon are incredibly common right now, it is as a TecH piece of draw power; if it isn't meant to be the main attacker, Resistance to it is a slight bonus that only matters when your opponent is already in a desperate situation. Still better than having none, of course.
The single Energy Retreat Cost is good: you can simply pay it if you have to or run something to reduce it or bypass it completely. All in all, these are quite promising stats for a Pokémon to have: even the name is an advantage!
Absol G enjoys access to the infamous Faint Attack, popularized long ago by Neo Genesis Murkrow. Without any other built in effects to support it, here it remains an occasionally useful sniping attack or method of bypassing protective elements: 20 points of damage to one of your opponent's Pokémon, regardless of Weakness, Resistance, or other effects on the Defending Pokémon. Since it doesn't ignore effects on your own Pokémon, a card that alters your own damage will at least still work against the Defending Pokémon, namely the traditional Special Energy version of Darkness Energy. All in all useful but it won't make the card.
The main attack is Doom News. The good news is that it can use Double Colorless Energy or Energy Gain to speed it up. It does no direct damage. This seems a bit of a waste for a Darkness-Type Pokémon: Faint Attack isn't a good use for Special Energy Darkness Energy either, costing you the major benefit of being a Darkness-Type. A minor quibble, but one that needs to be noted. Further more, the attack returns all Energy cards attached to Absol G to hand, making Energy Gain a better option than Double Colorless Energy. Most importantly, the attack places an "effect" on the Defending Pokémon. That is an ill omen: it is far to easy to shed such effects in Pokémon. Simply Benching, Leveling Up, or Evolving said Pokémon will remove the effect of Doom News. The actual effect of Doom News would otherwise be impressive: the Defending Pokémon is Knocked Out at the end of your opponent's next turn. It can still be a nice threat, but unless your opponent has heavily invested in his or her Defending Pokémon, you'd probably have been better off just doing a good helping of damage. Even with shortcuts, you gave up two Energy attachments. The base requirements of the attack are enough to justify hitting for at least 60 points of damage, so with the bouncing of your own Energy I'd expect to do at least 80 points of damage. About the only consolation I can see is that if your opponent KOs Absol G, the effect doesn't appear to go away.
So why would you use this card? Well, hitting the Bench and having an almost guaranteed KO is a nice option to have, but SP decks already have Crobat G for sniping purposes, and while that is a single damage counter it is also a coming-into-play Poké-Power. With the right Trainer lock strategy, you might be able to build a deck around Doom News. You'd have to either completely shut down the other cards in hand so they couldn't manually Retreat, Evolve, or Level Up or wait out those last two options, would need some healing or a way to tough out the hits they would score, and you'd want Leafeon Lv.X for the Energy acceleration needed to pull the attack off each turn. Somehow, I doubt that an Absol G/Leafeon Lv.X/Vileplume deck is quite worth it, though it does sound oddly fun.
So I guess that leaves Absol G Lv.X. The good news is that you'll get an extra 30 HP from Leveling Up, an interesting Poké-Power, and a good attack, while maintaining the same bottom stats. The Poké-Power, Darkness Send, is a coming-into-play Poké-Power that lets you toss three coins, and send a number of cards from the top of your opponent's deck equal to the number of "heads" results to the Lost Zone. Right now that is mostly a fear tactic, since you might remove something good and it is gone the rest of the game (unlike the discard pile). The Darkness Slugger attack finally gives a good, cost effective way for Absol G (at least when Level-Up) to attack for damage. So, Special Energy Darkness Energy is back on? If you just use Energy Gain as well, Absol G Lv.X can hit for 40 damage for one of said Energy, or 70 if you discard a card from your own hand. With that, this really might be a fun deck to try.
When we get Lost World (last I knew it was still supposed to be coming out) then you'll have the potential of lining up an alternate win condition (sending six of your opponent's Pokémon to the Lost Zone). This isn't the most reliable technique, but because this is a Pokémon SP and a Level-Up card of a Basic Pokémon, you can use Poké Turn to spam it. With the right build, namely one with some form of built in draw power, you could keep two
Absol G and two
Absol G Lv.X going round and round long enough to mill a significant hunk of your opponent's deck into the Lost Zone, then drop
Lost World for game. It requires
a lot of cards, though, and most of them would be Trainers. This forces it to be the deck's focus and many would probably prefer
Mewgar decks if they are trying to win with
Lost World.
In Limited play, I'd go for
Absol G. The nature of Limited play results in a lowered average HP, making
Absol G effectively beefier. There are even a few :dark: weak cards in this set. Your Weakness will be more of an issue, since there are a decent amount of Fighting-Type
Pokémon that look good for Limited, and most are Commons and Uncommons. There are a similar amount of Psychic Pokémon, so sychic: Resistance should likewise be more useful. Retreating, especially to save an almost KOed Pokémon is an important part of Limited play, so not only will you enjoy having a low Retreat Cost on Absol G, but Faint Attack will prove incredibly important. Doom News will even come in handy periodically, usually as your last attack before your opponent KOs
Absol G, or simply as a "thread" by having
Absol G on your Bench with two Energy.
Ratings
Modified: 6/10
Limited: 710
