Neo Revelation: Suicune (Holo)

I flat-out love this card.  This single little piece of paper has caused more problems and ruling quandaries than Ditto and Metal Energy combined.  And it’s not that I’m out to make the lives of the Master Trainers into a living hell, but a lot of the rulings on Suicune’s Crystal Body Pokemon Power have received a lot of heat for being “nonsensical”, or simply broken.  Though I can see the general logic behind the rulings made thus far, the critics are right in saying that in some ways Suicune is very, very overpowering due to some of the decisions made about wording interpretation (for the record, my heart goes out to anyone who had to try to interpret this card: the translation is mega-ambiguous.  Poor MTs *sniff*).  But unlike most broken cards, Suicune takes a little bit of creativity and ingenuity to see its true advantages.  And I for one have absolutely no problem with that.  Here are the stats:

Suicune: Basic Pokemon : 70 HP : Water

Evolves into: Nothing
 
 

Pokemon Power: Crystal Body:  Prevent all effects of your opponent’s attacks, other than damage done to Suicune.  This power stops working while Suicune is Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed.

WWW: Aurora Wave: 30: Flip 2 coins.  If both are heads, the Defending Pokemon is now Paralyzed.  If only 1 is heads, the Defending Pokemon is now Asleep.
 
 

Weakness: , Resistance: None, Retreat: 

Very, very interesting.  I’ll get Aurora Wave out of the way first, since it’ll be a bit easier to discuss comprehensively than Crystal Body.  Aurora Wave is a very, very nice attack.  If you can build up three water on Suicune (and manage to keep it there)
there’s a pretty good chance that it’ll be sticking around for a while thanks to the stat effects it’ll be dishing out.  You’ve basically got a twenty five per cent chance of doing nothing, an equal chance of causing paralysis, and a fifty per cent chance of causing sleep (which will also require a flip of non-awakening at the end of your turn).  Not bad.  The hard part’ll be keeping the energy on Suicune while it’s attacking.
 
Crystal Body.  Man this thing makes me cringe.  The gist of the rulings thus far is that damage printed to the right of the attack’s text is done normally, as well as self-damage, costs of the attack, chances at additional damage (like Steelix’s Tail Crush, and its flip for 20 additional damage), and coin flips to determine regular damage (such as Sneasel’s flipping of coins, and then dealing 20 damage times the number of heads).  What is PREVENTED by this power are effects such as removal of attached cards from Suicune (such as energy or tools), the targeting of Pokemon other than Suicune (assuming that Suicune is the active), status effects, and any additional effects of attacks (for instance, Amnesia would do absolutely nothing to a Holo Suicune.)  Because of this general ruling, it’s created a lot of subsidiary rulings on a single-card level that are…  uhh… fun?  Here are a few things that Suicune has “fun” dealing with.
 
Murkrow:  Mean Look now does nothing, since it does not deal damage and Suicune can’t be affected by any other components of an attack.  Feint Attack is now quite horrible: one dark and one colourless now does 20 damage to Suicune.  Since the selection of “any of your opponent’s Pokemon” is ruled as happening before damage occurs if you invoke that option of the attack (as opposed to just dealing the 20 damage to Suicune), and since the invocation of that part of the card’s wording is blocked by Suicune’s Crystal Body, the process of... 

1- Declare Intent To Feint Attack
2- Select Target 
3- Deal Damage To Target 

...is interrupted in the second phase.  Selection cannot take place, and therefore damage to the bench is eliminated from the process.  So instead, the process looks like this: 

1- Declare Intent To Feint Attack 
2- Deal Damage To Target

Where “Target” is defaulted to Suicune.  So if you have a Suicune as an active, Feint Attack is now totally nerfed.  Cool.  :D
 
Pichu:  Pichu’s Zzzap attack encounters a similar problem to Murkrow’s.  The attack process for Zzzap looks like this: “Declare Intent To Zzzap, Zzzap Checks All  Pokemon In Play For Powers, Zzzap Deals 20 Damage To All Pokemon Who Checked Yes In Previous Phase.”  But of course, Suicune cuts off the process at the second step, since checking if Suicune has a Pokemon Power as part of an attack is NOT damage inflicting in and of itself.  So because the Suicune never gets flagged for possession of a Pokemon Power, it doesn’t appear on Pichu’s proverbial radar and thus doesn’t get pinged.  Not only is this nice because it prevents the damage to Suicune  when an opponent uses Zzzap, it also means that YOU can use Zzzap against your opponent with complete and total impunity.  Starting to see a coherent agenda forming?  If you don’t, it’ll all become clear in a moment.
 
Sneasel:  Tyrogue isn’t just annoying to Sneasel because it has a Baby Rule, its real annoyance emanates from the fact that it deals damage in multiples of 30, and Sneasel needs exactly 60 damage to kill it.  The multiple of 30 is annoying because a Gold Berry will not naturally go off on a fresh Sneasel that has suffered one Smash Punch unless you attach a Rainbow to it.  And in a generic SneaselKingKrow deck, you can’t afford to be wasting Special Energy drops each turn.  The same idea applies to Suicune: 30 damage is dealt for each attack.  However, where Tyrogue has the fifty-fifty Baby Rule to protect it, Suicune has its Paralysis and Sleep.  They’re not as psychologically significant as the Baby Rule, but on the other hand, Suicune won’t necessarily go down on the first hit to a Sneasel.  Very useful.
 
Rocket’s Zapdos:  This is more of a grey area, actually.  Yes, Suicune is weak to electric, and will take 40 from each Plasma that a Rocket’s Zap can get off at it.  On the other hand, the extra energy attachment from the discard that usually accompanies Plasma is now nullified.  The same thing goes for Neo Revelation Ampharos’ Attract Current attack.  This can be crippling to a person who plays this style of deck, simply because so many of these decks are built around having a large energy advantage for plenty of SERs, retreats, and similar needs.
 
Cleffa:  Oh!  This is another one of the reasons to LOVE, repeat LOVE, Suicune.  Is Eeeeeeek an attack?  Yeeeeees.  Does it deal damage?  Noooooo!  Is the shuffling of your old hand back into your deck and then drawing a new hand of seven cards prevented by Crystal Body?  Oh hell yeah!  So what does that mean, really?  Well, decks that rely on Cleffa to cycle through their deck and get out multiple evolutions in the early turns of the game (Typhlosion and Slowking, mainly) can now be halted in their tracks.  And on a very closely related note, I can’t help but hearken back to the days of the great Trapper Archetype.  The ability to leave your opponent with no cards in their hand, desperate for a top decked Oak, was an insane advantage.  But Cleffa destroyed it.  But…  Suicune destroys Cleffa!  Haha!  Scissors beat paper!  AHAHAHA!

*regains his composure*

Anyway, you might see what I’m getting at here.

And if you don’t, let me summarize: Suicune renders Cleffa useless, which is a must for most decks which rely on multiple evolutions in the early game.  Suicune also can’t be Mean Looked, and he can protect the bench from Feint Attack.  He deals damage in 30 HP quantities at a time, as well as being a great staller/pseudo-locker with his stat effects.  Beyond that, you can use Pichu with him and harm everything in play with a Power without causing a single scratch to the Suicune.  These make for a great Anti-SneaselKingKrow deck.

If Suicune Trapper doesn’t become a major Standard archetype in the next three months I am going to be really, really disappointed.  Hand destruction can ruin anything as long as it can prevent Eeeeeeek.  The fact that Suicune can’t deal 80 damage a turn like Sneasel is pretty much irrelevant.  A helpless opponent is a helpless opponent, whether you’re dealing large amounts of damage or just very slowly pecking them off the mortal coil.  
 
But that said, there are some things that Suicune has to watch out for.
 
Elekid:  Gah!  40 damage on a heads, from a Pokemon that uses no energy to do its damage.  Zzzap it quick, and you’ll be fine.  Let the little plug-head go on an un-rebuked bender, and you’re in very deep trouble.
 
Energy Removal:  The sad fact is that Suicune needs three water energy to attack.  This is quite the problem, since it’s relatively easy to keep a Pokemon with that type of energy consumption off of its feet for the entire game.  This is where a really effective use of The Rocket’s Trap, Impostor Oak’s Revenge, and Rocket’s Sneak Attack comes into play.  If you play your cards right (bad pun…), your Suicune should be able to weather a single ER or SER just fine.  If you play your cards poorly… well, get ready to sit and watch yourself very slowly lose.  It’s unfortunate that traditional trainer denial (Lass, Chaos Gym, and Slowking) just doesn’t fit into a Trapper Deck.  Lass is counter-productive: you want to be using your own trainers to keep your opponent in a state of submission, not to keep the both of you in a state of submission.  Chaos Gym is too freakin’ deadly if it works against you in this type of scenario.  Slowking is totally out because it opens up a huge hole that a Murkrow would take advantage of, as well as eating up seven or eight spaces in the deck.  But if you can run the Trapper cards properly, it shouldn’t be a huge problem.

 
Whew.  There it is.  One man’s take on what is potentially a very, very powerful and creative card.  And god help me, if a ruling on this sucker is changed I’m gonna start setting fire to public places.  

Trap is back!
-Gloom

Note to Modified Players:  Probably not that useful in Modified.  The non-holo one though is excellent, since it has free retreat and allows you to Double Gust with absolute impunity.  Expect this one to make a pretty big showing in Gatr decks and as random splashes in other archetypes at the upcoming Stadium Challenges.