Small detectoring work is always fun, and that's just what was presented to me and my fellow players at the Sandstorm prerelease. We opened packs, saw the new common Marill, and saw that some of ours had retreat costs, and some didn't. We quickly reached the decision that it was a printing error, and a mighty good one, too!
Did I mention that the other fun thing about prereleases is finding the insanely powerful cards for the first time? It's an awesome surprise to find that one of the set's bombs is a lowly common! For those of you unfamiliar with "The Marill":
Marill (W) 50 HP
(WC) Double Bubble 10x
- Flip 2 coins. This attack does 10 damage times the number of heads. If either of the coins is heads, the Defending Pokemon is now Paralyzed.
Weak: (L), Resist: ( ), Retreat: ( )/(C)
The most notable thing about this card is that it's the only Pokemon ever that can 75% Paralyze without the aid of Sabrina's ESP. Broken? Yes, but the two energy cost and 50 HP kind of weakens it a little bit. The question is: is it worth playing?
While I think this card will get looked at by lots of players, its quality for real competitiveness is low. First off, if you're going to base a deck around a utility, you need HP to back it up - something that Marill doesn't have. The biggest wrench in this plan, though, is Switch. The vast majority of decks play it (or Warp Point), or some measure of getting their Active out under someone else's steam. Status effects are not as uncommon as they used to be. Add to this the Lightning resistance which means that most parts of an Amphy deck can take it out in one shot, and you have a problem...
...but it's still a free-retreating, 75% Paralysis problem. :D While it may not be the *best* for tournament play, it could still make one heck of a casual play deck. It works beautifully with sandstorm's Azurill and Azumarill. Azurill can hunt out a free Trainer for you, and then next turn you use it to cycle your hand into a Marill, which removes all damage from it. Add another Energy that turn and you've got a 75% stall machine going turn 2! Build up Energy and then Max Bubbles to do acres of damage to your opponents. You could alternately try to build up a loop with this Azumarill and either of the ones that bounces to your hand. After returning a damaged Azumarill (and more importantly, 3 Water energy) to your hand, simply Drizzle (fo' shizzle! sorry, had to say it) it back out. This works with Blastoise in Unlimited, too. *Very* nicely.
Here's a rough sketch of how an Unlimited Marill dec might look like.
2x Azurill - SS
3x Marill - SS
3x Azumarill - SS
3x Squirtle - any
1x Wartortle - any
3x Blastoise - base
2x Cleffa - neo1
4x Professor Elm
2x Professor Oak
2x Copycat
2x Town Volunteers
3x Focus Band
1x Gold Berry
2x Pokemon Breeder
3x (board control - Gust, Switch, whatever)
(modify this however you want, this isn't a Trainer article! ;)
24x Water Energy
Basically, a good goal to shoot for is either Blastoise/Azumarill by turn 2 (from Marill) or by turn 3 (with Azurill). Marill can stall for you (with a Focus Band and its attack...imagine!) until you get the engine running, and then it's just a matter of keeping it going. You might want to consider more Energy retrieval trainers than what I put in, but you should be OK early- and mid-game with your plentiful amounts of Water energy. Be warned, however: your friends will quickly gate this deck for its Marills. ;D
Well, I hope that was briefly enlightening! Next week I'll look at a similar deck focus, but for something on the other side of the color spectrum - Gardevoir EX. Until then...may the bubbles be with you.
-pk
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