Discussion Give it to me straight: Will Frosmoth ever be viable?

Cramp_Discharger

Cramp_Discharger

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Of all the cards that dropped in SWSH, I was most hyped about Frosmoth. Yeah, Zacian V is pretty busted, but the throwback to Rain Dance decks had me really, really excited.

I've experimented with the card A LOT. I've paired up Frosmoth with virtually every standard water attacker you can think of, but much to my disappointment, Waterbox in general has been a massive disappointment. Despite managing occasional wins against top tier decks on PTCGO, Frosmoth-based builds have proven time and again to be too clunky. Even lists put together by well-known players/Poketubers have been pretty disappointing, and the card has made virtually no impression on the meta.

So, is this thing ever going to competitively viable? We have Capacious Bucket coming in Rebel Clash, which I'm excited for, but is that going to be enough? If it is, serious players are discussing it very, very little. It's a consistency boost for the deck, but I have my doubts that it's going to push it into a higher tier. Also, short of Milotic V, the new set features almost no worthwhile water attackers.

Tell it to me straight: Is Frosmoth going to be one of those cards whose potential is never fully realized?
 
Frosmoth is a huge maybe. The card is bust, but Water is a bad type and Standard has no universal Pokemon search outside of like, Comm.

Bucket is one of many things Frosmoth needs, and it doesn't help that Board rotates, leaving the deck with no pivot and less consistency than it even has now. We have 2 years worth of cards to get before Frosmoth rotates, and that's a long time to give it to be good. Something like an Ultra Ball reprint and something like Dark Cloak for Water mons and maybe a better/more efficient attacker than Lapras, and Frosmoth will have a reason to be played. I personally have high hopes for the card and picked up a bunch of Emerald Waters for the occasion. I plan to pick up shiny Frosmoths too while they're cheap
 
Oh, gotcha! I didn't even realize that card existed. I can see the synergy with air balloon, though I'm not sure how viable the combo is. Having to keep a stage 1 on the bench just for pivoting strikes me as kinda meh, though with Dawn Wings rotating out, too, this might see play.
 
The biggest issue it has is attaching and getting the energy to the active.

For example, NagQuag had more setup, but the energy control it had was silly. Similar to Weavile. Their strength was that they could move the energy around. They also generally had ways to cheat it to the field to maneouver it around. Frosmoth has the effect where you can attach to bench only... And usually your main attacking mon is in the active slot. This can be pretty awful to handle. You say Dawn Wings, I raise you an absol (And tool scrapper next set. time to find the water pivot).

The other big thing is that it limits to water only. So, no mew3 T2 Cross Division GX+ to wipe out a bench/use kingdra GX/dragonite GX to beatdown.

Sadly, I think its just missing its big thing. Maybe it would have worked with Keldeo EX, who knows... Its probably going to be that gem that sits in the binder, until just before its rotated and they bring a strong ally for it.
 
4x Switch and 4x Net will probably be standard for anyone running Jirachi once Escape Board rotates. There are other combos (someone mentioned Galarian Rapidash + U-Turn board elsewhere), but these combo-based pivots are just too cumbersome, IMO.
 
Been testing out bucket in Lapras VMAX. You'll love it. Lapras's biggest problem for me has always been being short of 1 or 2 energy for KO. Bucket no longer makes this a problem.

BUT I'll say this about Lapras VMAX in this current metagame is the versatility. It has a good matchup against ADP but a tough matchup against Mill. This metagame is not the best atm either. I think it'll get better once rotation happens because it'll have the same consistency cards and still just as powerful.

For Frosmoth as a card itself. Until they make better water energy acceleration, frosmoth will be the face of water decks going forward. I'm not losing faith, still going to hold onto my 4-4 line and testing it out in each metagame. Because it's never "bad" just some other things are more broken.
 
Another issue that I want to reiterate and elaborate on is Jirachi. You don't need Jirachi as a pivot since Balloon exists, but it brings both a pivot and consistency, and without Board in format, it's significantly worse. Net doesn't help because the entire point is digging for pieces to set up your board, and Net only works if you have it after all of your sequencing, which will be sometimes, but not always, like Board. And of course the reason I specify this for post rotation is because the card just isn't good pre-rotation.

As many decks can abuse Jirachi with Net, some of them really need Board. FireBox is a victim of Board rotating because it doesn't have the space or consistency to run Net like ADPZ is going to be able to. The difference between ADPZ and decks like Frosmoth or FireBox is that ADPZ is asking for much less the entire game, so it can find all of it, whereas these other decks are digging for outs to multiple Energy a turn, some kind of switching card to either get in or out of Jirachi, if not both, their attacker, their other support mons, and a way to follow up that same turn if they want to accelerate their board state or have to compensate after their entirely set up attacker gets KO'd.

I also completely agree that being limited to Water is the biggest issue with Frosmoth in itself (not necessarily building the deck). Water as an attacking type is really bad atm. Even having an attacker with Rush In would have been a huge difference. But it doesn't have Rush In, Superior Energy Retrieval, and the numbers you need to hit in Standard are way higher than Keldeo-EX had to back when Blastoise was legal. The attackers the type has to work with are okay, but they're one part of a bigger issue. Also having a consistent gust in format makes keeping Frosmoth on the field really hard, not to mention Dragapult is really good and a really hard autoloss for anything you'd be able to play right now.
 
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