Crobat (
BW: Plasma Storm 55/135) is a card that received that weird amalgam of optimistic hype and pessimistic dismissal; did it warrant either?
Stats
Miscellaneous: Crobat is a Team Plasma affiliated card. This gives it access to their support, but most of what we have of it either isn't especially good or isn't really restricted to actual Team Plasma cards. There currently isn't another
Crobat at all in the format, so I won't reference it as
Crobat [Plasma].
Type: Crobat is a Psychic-Type Pokémon; this allows it to tap one of the few pieces of actual Type support in the game right now,
Gardevoir (
BW: Next Destinies 57/99;
BW: Dark Explorers 109/108), which causes basic
Psychic Energy cards to provide
sychic:
sychic: instead of
sychic: when attached to Psychic-Type Pokémon. Note that I didn't say this would be a good combo for the card, just pointing out it exists when most Type support we have actually supports the Energy Type and not the Pokémon Type.
Psychic Weakness is a handy thing to hit, but getting less and less common.
Mewtwo EX (
BW: Next Destinies 54/99, 98/99;
BW Promos BW45) seems to finally be seeing less play in the top, competitive decks, though only because enough similarly powerful cards have been released. To be clear:
Mewtwo EX isn't really any weaker, it just has more company at the top. It will still be the main form of Weakness encountered, because the promo version makes it still the most available, effective counter for itself and several other heavy hitters. This also makes other cards with Psychic Weakness scarce.
Psychic Resistance is a definite presence; it is unlikely to ruin a card as it can often be played around, and there are really only two likely sources:
Darkrai EX (
BW: Dark Explorers 63/108, 107/108;
BW Promos BW46) and... one whole deck. Plasma Steel decks, built around
Klinklang (
BW: Plasma Storm 90/135) are the most likely (and often only other) source of Psychic Resistance you will encounter.
Darkrai EX can usually be played around as it isn't often accompanied by other Resistant cards. Plasma Steel decks are almost always going to contain only Resistant cards.
While the Type support is likely a bust and you basically have two major sources of Resistance versus one, Resistance is so inferior to Weakness I would still call this favorable, and if I am wrong it should at worst be "even".
Stage: Here is what will likely make or break this card; it is a Stage 2 Pokémon in a format dominated by Basic Pokémon. The Evolutions that see play are almost all Bench sitters that are merely backing up big, Basic Pokémon (which are often Pokémon-EX). This isn't really a surprise as Pokémon Evolution, an iconic mechanic for the franchise as a whole, isn't well balanced in the TCG. Make Evolutions "better" than non-Evolving Basic Pokémon, you tend to crowd out said Basic Pokémon. Obviously when you make the Basic Pokémon stronger, that doesn't work. Making them even while making the process of Evolution generate advantage to compensate for taking more time and cards seems like the answer, but few cards do that.
Hit Points: 130 HP is small, and really is acting "smaller" now that
Hypnotoxic Laser and
Virbank City Gym are becoming a common sight. Several decks could already score a OHKO; the key was that the options usually weren't viewed as worthwhile because they only bumped the damage up enough to do that.
Darkrai EX, for example, used to need four
PlusPower (which I never saw in a competitive list) or a
Dark Claw and two
PlusPower (which I don't recall seeing in a proven list, but at least tried myself), and would completely use up those
PlusPower. It just wasn't worth it with all the matches where you needed to hit 140+ for a OHKO, and where 90 (or 110) was still good enough for a 2HKO.
Now, again using
Darkrai EX as the example,
Hypnotoxic Laser and
Virbank City Gym at least would force a
Crobat that had just received a Night Spear to ditch the Poison damage, and if
Dark Claw was included (so far, that seems to be working well for
Darkrai EX decks), they just score the OHKO against Pokémon that used to be safe, from 100 HPto 140... and that is before factoring in that excellent 30 points of Bench damage Night Spear uses to set-up easy 2HKOs. Definitely a draw back for the card; even the more commonly seen 140 isn't really 'good' so much as the standard for Stage 2 Pokémon that have seen successful play.
Weakness: Lightning Weakness isn't great, but it is definitely not the worst thing to have right now. The main reason for this is that the two Lightning-Type decks I see succeeding are focused on
Lightning Energy and not hitting with Lightning-Type Pokémon. Of course, thanks to Plasma Steel protecting Metal-Type Pokémon from receiving damage from Pokémon-EX, you might see a formerly abandoned big, Basic Lightning-Type attacker added in for metagaming purposes. The HP does ensure that such attackers score a OHKO.
Resistance: I am pleased to say that this card has Fighting Resistance. It isn't going to help a lot, but it is definitely better than the complete lack of Resistance most Pokémon get stuck with. In fact, as no Resistance is the norm this is sort of like "extra credit" that can cover up other deficiencies. Just remember that with the HP, something like
Landorus EX (
BW: Boundaries Crossed 89/149, 144/149) can still score a OHKO.
Retreat: Crobat enjoys a perfect free Retreat score. You can't do better, and in a Poison happy format, this could prove useful. Similarly, an opponent can't hope to strand it through conventional means; your actual capacity to manually retreat must be blocked. Even the odd effect that raises a cards Retreat has to hope for low Energy or else it won't really hurt a deck. The trick is surviving long enough to retreat, which the HP may not allow.
Effects
Ability: Night Sight allows you to draw a card. This isn't brilliant, but it is almost always useful unless you fear decking out... and even then it at least is more likely to be useful than any other form of draw power barring something odd like using
N or
Colress with a large hand to replenish your deck. So for almost all practical moments, useful but not overly good. Fortunately, it does stack. Swarming a Stage 2 is hard, but an extra two to four cards per turn runs from good to great, at least is the Stage 2 is otherwise worthwhile.
Attack: For
psychic::colorless::colorless
Crobat attacks with Ultra Toxic Fang for a flat out bad 40 points of damage. All is not lost because you not only Poison the Defending Pokémon, but you "severely" Poison it; Ultra Toxic Fang creates a Poison condition that places four damage counters on the Pokémon between turns. That means you score approximately 80 points of damage for three Energy, with a chance of 120 in the unlikely event your opponent can't shake the Poison. The attack is even open to all forms of Energy acceleration I can think off, barring
Dark Patch and those that can't target a Pokémon other than the source of the effect.
Synergy: The effects do not have the best synergy. Night Sight is generically useful, especially in a vacuum and not the actual metagame, as is Ultra Toxic Fang. They don't have anything beyond "extra draw power is good!" going for them, and Ultra Toxic Fang doesn't seem like a strong enough (or inexpensive enough) attack to get away with on a Stage 2 Pokémon, especially one with only 130 HP.
Usage
Card Family: First, the Team Plasma cards that can directly combo with
Crobat are
Colress Machine and its target,
Plasma Energy; two of them and a manual Energy attachment from hand can ready Ultra Toxic Fang in a single turn. Unfortunately, there is some clash here; Night Sight is pure, simple draw power... and every card drawn risks removing a
Plasma Energy from the deck where
Colress Machine can accelerate it. Minor, but important as needing to use two copies (for readying in a single turn) already hurts.
No other Team Plasma cards combo as a direct result of
Crobat being a Team Plasma card, so let us move onto the rest of the Evolution line. There are two versions of
Zubat to consider: both are Psychic-Type Basic Pokémon with Lightning Weakness, Fighting Resistance, and a single Energy Retreat cost.
BW: Plasma Storm 52/135 has 50 HP and only one attack: for
colorless
it hits for 10 points of damage and heals 10 from itself. Healing can extend its life, but not much given its HP makes it a probable OHKO.
BW: Plasma Storm 53/135 has only 40 HP, an Ability, and an attack. The Ability grants it a free Retreat when it has no Energy attached, while the attack only does 20 for
psychic::colorless
giving you extra reason not to drop Energy on this
Zubat. The free Retreat is nice for getting it out of the way if you open with it, but the 40 HP makes it a very, very easy donk... especially in light of
Hypnotoxic Laser and
Virbank City Gym being so common. As such I would use
BW: Plasma Storm 52/135 because the 10 HP is just a little more likely to survive. Still, on paper they look close enough that experimentation is probably in order.
Only one
Golbat (
BW: Plasma Storm 54/135) exists and... you are only including it if you can't stand relying solely on
Rare Candy. It is a Stage 1 Psychic-Type with the same Lightning Weakness and Fighting Resistance, and manageable single Energy Retreat cost, but only 80 HP and an attack that does 20 for
psychic::colorless
while healing 20 points of damage from itself. Healing only works when you've got good HP, and this card doesn't. The only real upside is that at least it is small enough to work with
Level Ball, if you have reason to run it.
Colress Machine and
Plasma Energy may be some help, but the lower Stages are deadweight.
Unlimited: This format has ample draw power Trainer, specifically old-school "normal" Trainers that were retroactively classified as "Items" with the adoption of that terminology. As a Stage 2, today's card is unlikely to work into speedier decks that win first turn or Trainer lock decks that shut off even their own access, even with access to
Broken Time-Space.
The final nail in the coffin is that Night Sight only benefits from being unaffected by older card effects that work on Pokémon Powers/Poké-Bodies/Poké-Powers; there are similar draw effects on Basic or Stage 1 Pokémon that could be considered... even older, non-Ability versions of Night Sight on
Noctowl (
HeartGold/SoulSilver 8/123), though with weaker Stats than today's card.
Modified: This card suffers for being awkward as an attacker and a Bench-sitter. If you plan on using it, I would lean towards the latter; a steady draw supply can make certain riskier Supporters and Trainers pay off. There are enough other Psychic-Type Team Plasma Pokémon that a deck built around them is a possibility as well, though I can't say it would be overly good... yet.
The big clash is that this format is already seeing heavy Poison due to
Hypnotoxic Laser and
Virbank City Gym. While you cannot play a card when it would have no actual effect, if you would Poison something over again (or re-inflict any Special Condition), the newer replaces the older. This means you can't use
Hypnotoxic Laser to up damage, and if you did have the (base) multi-counter Poison effect from Ultra Toxic Fang and the Defending Pokémon survived but couldn't shake it to your next turn, you might erase it.
The small plus is that
Virbank City Gym adds two damage counters to the base amount of counter placement by Poison; if it is in play, Ultra Toxic Fang places six damage counters between turns; if you strand a 140 HP Stage 2 up front (good luck with that), it would survive to your opponent's turn but be KOed right before your own. That won't be easy and as a whole you really need that effective 100 points of damage per turn, so it is probably a requirement for the deck; the real bonus is right now your opponent's are apt to supply it for you.
Limited: If you get even a 1-1-1 line, play it unless you get something better (e.g. big Basic Pokémon worth running with 39 Energy). Odds are low you will get it out, but if you do the extra draw power is nice as is having a free Retreating Pokémon. If you can work in some basic
Psychic Energy so you can attack, even better.
Future: This becomes a little less of a stretch when we get more Team Plasma Support; those extra draws can be turned into a lot of nifty things, and we will get some new non-/low-draw power Supporters that will be a lot more useful when backed by Night Sight.
Ratings
Unlimited: 1/10
Modified: 4.5/10
Limited: 9.5/10
Summary
I want to like
Crobat, but it is slow to set-up and it isn't very durable, at least relative to the rest of the format. You have to work hard to get it out, so you can't rely too heavily on Night Sight for draw power; it has to be a "bonus" to the rest of the deck's functionality. Ultra Toxic Fang is hurt by being in a format where everyone already has to be ready to counter Poison. Maybe this card will be worth it in the future, but I don't believe it is right now.
