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Issue #49-Jungle/Base Set 2: Clefable
Alright, alright. Every Analyst that I've written so far has somewhere included the phrase "This cards destroys Clefable." In fact, you might even have the impression that I don't like Clefable much. But you'd be wrong. I love Clefable. He's got a lot going for him, and there's a reason that Clefable is one of the top three decks in today's Standard environment. Anyway, I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Here're the stats.
Clefable: Stage 1 Pokemon : 70 HP : Colorless
Evolves into: Nothing
C: Metronome: Choose 1 of the Defending Pokemon's attacks. Metronome copies that attack except for its Energy costs and anything else required in order to use that attack, such as discarding Energy cards. (No matter what type the Defending Pokemon is, Clefable's type is still Colorless.)
CC: Minimize: All damage done by attacks to Clefable during your opponent's next turn is reduced by 20 (after applying Weakness and Resistance).
Weakness:  , Resistance:  , Retreat: 
It's pretty easy to see how Metronome could be applied in a lot of different situations. For a single energy, you can copy any attack that the Defending has, assuming that there isn't a Baby Rule or anything to get through. This is positive in that you can use high-energy cost attacks like Special Punch, Trample, Electroburn, and many others for just a single energy, but it has a simple drawback: some Pokemon that see a lot of play just don't have good attacks. There are very few times when you'll ever wish that you could Metronome an Eeeeeeek, a Smash Punch, a Riptide, or any of the attacks that could conceivably come out of any of the multitudes of different types of Slowpoke. Of course, there are even worse situations, but I'll get into those later. For now, let's explore the shiny happy side of Clefable, by examining what should run in fear at the very site of him, shall we?
Oh wait…forgot about Minimize. Well, I probably did that because it's such a forgettable move. This is basically like Chansey's Scrunch, except it works all the time, and it sucks. Sorry to say it ladies and gentlemen, but there is only one word to describe the attack accurately, and that is "sucks". Minimize is basically the pinnacle of suckiness. The only reason you'd ever want to use it is if you're going up against, say, an Elekid or Discovery Igglybuff, or something else which you simply can not Metronome. And even then, since this is Standard, they'll probably just Gust the Clefable out and grab something else anyways. -_-
Anyway, on with the show...
Rocket's Zapdos: Oooh boy. Originally, this and Sneasel were the two cards that made Clefable viable. Rocket's Zapdos needs four energy to attack, and will do 30 damage to itself or 10 with a metal due to its use of electric energy. Clefable performs the move for one energy, doesn't take any damage because you probably won't be using an electric to pay the one energy cost, and if the Zap doesn't have a metal or you have a Pluspower, the Zap goes down in one hit. I think that might actually be the definition of sweet…
Sneasel: If you can get a heavy amount of Energy Removal into your deck (which shouldn't be hard, due to the ridiculously low energy requirements of a Clefable deck) and you're able to use it effectively to keep Sneasel un-armed, then the one-colorless-Beat-ups really start to add up. Given, you still need to get three out of six heads to smack a fresh Sneasel to death in a single hit, but with 4 ERs and 3-4 SERs (to take care of the larger targets so you don't have to use your regular ERs on them), as well as 3-4 Item Finder, you should be able to make sure that Sneasel doesn't have more than a single energy attached.
Murkrow: Same strategy as Sneasel: ER the heck out of Murkrow, just doing anything to keep it from using Feint Attack. Mean Look it the first turn with Metronome, and then go to down pinging the bench with Feint Attack. Beware though that if the opponent drops a Sprout Tower and succeeds in maintaining the minimum two energy, it's going to be you taking the hits instead. And you WILL be screwed, especially if you can't drop a counter gym due to Slowkings.
Slowkings: We all know that the most entertaining way to beat a Slowking deck is to gust in its Slowkings and lock them for a while, allowing your Pokemon to do things like Feint Attack, Group Therapy, or heck, just go for a walk as the Slowking player Item Finds and Comp Searches like mad to get a Switch or a Balloon Berry. But until that happens, what's better than a stranded Slowking? Why, a stranded Slowking that can't use Mind Games because it's been confused! So Metronome Slowking's Mind Blast, and on a heads that King'll be confused. There's no chance in hell that a Slowking player is actually going to have three extra energy to attempt to retreat Slowking, so from here he's either going to have to use Full Heal, Full Heal Energy, or Miracle Berry. And that's not going to happen either. You've got two tries at getting the confusion to stick, since a third hit will KO the Slowking, and that would probably be counter-productive. The opponent COULD attach a Darkness to Slowking, KOing their own Slowking to get it out of the way, but hey, you can always ER that too. :D
Wigglytuff: Wiggly used to be the fastest card around. What's faster? Clefable. Since Wiggly relies on three energies (we'll count that as two turns' worth of energy because he can use DCE) to perform Do The Wave, and doesn't have any damage-dealing one-energy attack like Sneasel and his Fury Swipes, he's easy to keep in a state of energy-deprivation. Also, Wigglytuff is probably the one deck that you can rely on NOT playing Sprout Tower.
Suicune (Holo): The official ruling is that Metronome can copy Aurora Wave, but you only get the base damage: no shot at sleep or paralysis. However, since 30 damage is still pretty good to a 70-HP Pokemon, and Suicune needs three water energy to attack, it's really easy to manage a Suicune deck if you're playing Clefable with lots of energy denial. And I seriously think that Suicune'll be making a showing soon in Standard.
Blastoise: Again, the 'Stoise needs three energy to do its base amount of damage on Hydro Pump, whereas the Clefable needs only one to copy it. Now of course, the Blastoise can rain dance enough energy to himself to do 60 damage instead of 40, but this still won't take out a Clefable in one hit. Not quite as bad as Suicune, but it'll still get whomped.
So, Clefable rocks quite a bit in Standard. It can take on most everything in a SneaselKingKrow deck, and can do away with Wigglytuff with relative ease. The standard set up for the deck also takes a huge advantage of the low energy requirements, running large amounts of ER and SER, 4 Recycle, and usually running equally low-energy Pokes such as Gligar (to protect from the fighting weakness), Cleffa, and a small menagerie of others. But Clefable isn't all ups: it has some downs. And when it faces one of its "downs"... Uhh, it ain't pretty. ;D
Chansey: In most Steel Chansey decks you're running Elekid, Cleffa, Chansey, and maybe Pichu. This means that Clefable can Metronome one of four things: Eeeeeeek if the opponent gets through the Baby Rule, Zzzap, which won't hurt the Steel Chansey player at all unless he's so stupid as to drop Elekids and Pichus into play at the same time, Scrunch which might buy some time but isn't worth it, and Double-edge, which Chansey will survive and Clefable won't. So unless you're running Gligar and know how to use them, your happy little Clefable deck is probably in a bad way.
Feraligatr: You don't see this too often in Standard, but you see it enough to be of note. Again, this is a deck type, which, like Chansey, Basically has only one major attacker and nothing to Metronome. Sure, the opponent could Metronome Riptide, but that would only do 10 damage. Water just isn't played with Clefable, and even if it were to be played with it, a Clefable deck would not have that much water in it anyway due to its traditionally low energy count.
Tyrogue: The Tyrogue flips once to deal 60 damage to Clefable. The Clefable flips twice to deal 30. Now, granted the Clefable won't die every time it takes 60 damage and the Tyrogue WILL, but the odds and the advantage of maneuverability are just not on Clefable's side in this one.
Gligar: Again, Clefable's fighting weakness here shows quite glaringly. The Gligar Slashes for 40 damage, and the Clefable Slashes for only 20. The Gligar can also swoop out at any time and be replaced by back up due to its free retreat without losing any of his oomph. If Clefable tries that, he'd better have another Clefable ready to go. Or better yet, a Gligar. ;D
Cleffa: Cleffa can Eeeeeeek freely, and if he's your active it's probably because you WANT to be Eeeeeeeking. The Clefable however, has to flip to use Metronome successfully since Cleffa's a Baby, and if your active is Clefable, you'd probably rather be racking up KOs than sitting around trying over and over at a fifty/fifty chance to get a new hand. Frustrating.
So there ya' have it. The good and the bad of Clefable. When he's good, he's really good. When he's middle of the road, he's ok. When he's bad, he's a HUGE liability. But if your area sees a lot of Sneasel and Rocket's Zap, Clefable is THE number one answer. Played with 4 ER, 4 SER, 3-4 Item Finder, a standard drawing mix of trainers, and some Gligar cover his weakness to fighting, Clefable is an awesomely powerful card in Standard.
The new bird Pokemon soooo evolve from Togetic,
-Gloom
Note to Modified Players: Sorry guys, this is another one of those cards that you can't use. : (
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