Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

MD Hippowdon...hot or not?

M

mrdraz07

New Member
I'm a sucker for flipping coins to add to base damage, so I really think I like this new Hippowdon. For those who don't know the card...the translation is on Pokebeach under the Entry Pack spoiler list, but it is here as well.

Hippowdon - 100 HP Stage 1

[.]Sand Suction - 20
Attach a F energy card from your discard pile to Hippowdon

[FFC] Sand Impact - 50+
Flip a coin for each F energy attached to Hippowdon. This attack does 50 damage + 20 more for each heads.

Weak: W +20
Resist:
Retreat: 3

That second attack just makes me so happy. For the bargain price of 3 energy, you get a guaranteed 50 (meh) but you add 20 for each heads, for a possible 110 for 3! And it says "energy," not "energy cards," so you get to flip 2 coins for DRE (which helps overcome the -10) and 3 for Scramble. Very abusable!

As for a deck for this beast, I had 2 ideas. One seems pretty obvious, and that is Togekiss. It's fairly easy to get 3 or 4 energy on this guy with Kiss.

The second (and more intriguing) is to work with Swampert/ex and Lunasol. Hippowdon's first attack allows you to get energy out of the discard, so why not run Mentor, Felicity's and TVR to help use it? Also, Swampert ex can get non-basic energy out of the discard with his power, but using it ends your turn. So why not run Holon Circle to try and confuse your opponent? This also gives the deck some late game staying power with Swampert's power by being able to move some of the energy from an old Hippowdon to a new one, or even a Swampert...after all, both of them use DRE quite well!

What do you guys think? Keep in mind I have no list for this deck yet, nor will I make any predictions about how well it will do in the format, so please keep an open and positive mind when thinking about this deck *coughunlikePrize_cardcough*.
 
I think it is really good. Maybe it won't change the format, but i will definetly be using this card at some point. The fact that you do 20 for 0 energy gets me going, along with the fact that you get to attach, and for 3 you are guarrenteed 50 with a possible high amount of damage, maybe Hippowdon/ Chomp Lv.X (k, maybe not, but it sounds good to me)
 
The only problem is its too luck reliant which is bad otherwise this card is very good. I think this card is really fun but not competitive.
 
If I'm going to flip coins for damage I'd rather run PorygonZ who is the best flip-based attacker in the game.
 
ryanvergel said:
If I'm going to flip coins for damage I'd rather run PorygonZ who is the best flip-based attacker in the game.
Click to expand...

1. Z only flips 3 coins; Hippo flips at least 3.
2. It's possible that Z will possibly do 0 damage. Hippo will be doing 50 minimum. If all three are heads, Z only does 10 more damage than Hippo (not counting weakness).
3. Z is a stage 2 with a bad weakness and below average HP for it's stage, whereas Hippo has slightly above average HP for its stage and an OK weakness.
 
mrdraz07 said:
1. Z only flips 3 coins; Hippo flips at least 3.
2. It's possible that Z will possibly do 0 damage. Hippo will be doing 50 minimum. If all three are heads, Z only does 10 more damage than Hippo (not counting weakness).
3. Z is a stage 2 with a bad weakness and below average HP for it's stage, whereas Hippo has slightly above average HP for its stage and an OK weakness.
Click to expand...

Z has an amazing, supporting stage 1 that allows you to setup faster than most other decks.
Z can abuse Lake Boundary
Z is more consistent at dishing out bigger damage via Lake Boundary
Z can abuse the Scottaway engine
Z is energy efficient and can easily attack
Yeah, I still think Z is better.
bad weakness, but overall its still good.

Hippo is decent also, but I just dont see it as competitive.
 
I don't see Z as competitive either. All 3 ppl that I saw play it at states had losing records. Why? COIN FLIPS. In theory it's awesome, but in practice the coin flips just ruin it.
 
Yeah man, exactly. With 3 energy attached, you'll be doing an average of 80 for 3 (3x20=60/2=30+50=80). That's not really that great. Coin flips for damage is almost never good. Even if you get average coin flips and do ~80 a turn, you'll miss crucial KOs when you need to do 90 and only do 70 because you flip 1 for 3. It's just too easy to get a bad string of flips or get unlucky occurences of lots of tails.

Neither pokemon are competitive. Porygon has so many benefit, but even despite huge average damage potential, and a great stage 1/basic, cheap attack, and type-changing it still isn't viable right now because it doesn't have that stability.

The lvl X might prove to make Porygon into something very strong and compensate for it's flips, but right now his type is just unlucky and his attacks aren't consistent enough.
 
It is an okay card and can become fantastic with Togekiss, personally I think it is a good one, the only thing is that like mentioned before it's flip dependand, with a bad day you could have 50 damage with 4/5 fighting energies attached to it. If it would have like it's basic pokemon a sleep attack it would be very usefull because the chance would be bigger that it wouldn't get attacked.

If you want to use togekiss I Would still prefer ho-oh(many forms) or latios. Basics are easy to get due to roseanne's.

Cheers,
 
ryanvergel said:
Yeah man, exactly. With 3 energy attached, you'll be doing an average of 80 for 3 (3x20=60/2=30+50=80). That's not really that great. Coin flips for damage is almost never good. Even if you get average coin flips and do ~80 a turn, you'll miss crucial KOs when you need to do 90 and only do 70 because you flip 1 for 3. It's just too easy to get a bad string of flips or get unlucky occurences of lots of tails.
Click to expand...

But one thing you're missing is the fact that Hippo can add more flips than just 3...and it abuses Scramble and DRE like no other.

And comparing it to Z is the wrong comparison completely. The idea behind Swampert and the ex in the deck is that you can discard a bunch of Scrambles and DREs and then reattach them with the ex's power (usually with a Holon Circle in play). With that in mind, flipping 7 coins isn't unlikely. That's more than 2 times the coins that Z would flip. I see this deck working more like that FRLG-era Eggsplosion deck rather than like Z.
 
The damage potential for each energy you add is only +10 (20x1/2=10). That is bad. Why not just use DRE/scramble on a magmortar (another stage 1 but with more HP) and have much better damage output?

He has a poor energy:damage ratio, AND his ratio is flippy- making it even worse.
 
Exeggutor MT has a similar attack and isn't used that often. It does no 50 base damage and only counts basic energy, but it can attack for 1 energy, adds up the defending Pokémon's energy, can be combined with Sceptile and has another very useful attack.

Magnezone DP does +10 for each Metal energy, which is - on average - the same. It's not seen in the metagame either.

Hippowdon is a decent card but nothing special.

Porygon-Z does 80 per heads btw, with Lake Boundary in play. So even if only one of three coins is heads (87,5% of the cases for 1+ heads), Porygon-Z does better damage than Hippowdon.
 
Exeggutor and Magnezone are both weak to Mag. Eggs isn't played because Sceptile is too fragile, and Magnezone...I think it hasn't really been played just cuz of Mag. And it's a stage 2 that doesn't really do much damage.

And Z...you need the LB in play, and you have to be able to use Conversion to get to that damage. Hippo's attack isn't effected by Plox.

The main reason that I like Hippowdon is that if you do choose to run it with Swampert, you have a way of keeping all that energy on the table or getting it back.
 
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