Joltik Leads

Lanstar

The Cutest of Ladies
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This is such a strange thing that I completely overlooked - and it took over 1 month for me to notice this, when I played against an Xerneas Rainbow Toolbox deck. This little buggy, even though it doesn't have the notorious Night March attack, may have a curious niche as a lead around the start a match. The reasons:

1. If you go second, it might cause opponents to be cautious about playing their Shaymin-EX's or Remoraids that are vulnerable to getting sniped by its evolution, Galvantula - whether you play that card in your deck or not.
2. It has no retreat cost! :eek: This part I never saw at all until I actually witnessed it in a match. One can use a Max Elixir engine somewhat more successfully due to this major detail, without worrying about float stones and such. You can even Ninja Boy it to the start of the game as a way to switch out a stranded active Pokemon as well.

This sounds like a fun card to try crazy experiments with, and I might tech a couple of these in some of my decks to see how effective they could be... Maybe with, maybe without its evolution.

Maybe this is too crazy to work, though.
 
That is a really cute idea, and I think may be useful in Gardevoir decks that have space - if you run a Max Elixir engine to power up your Gardevoirs, you can just retreat the Joltik and Despair Ray it off after you've powered up.

The benefit over Talonflame in that sort of situation is that other Joltiks in your deck aren't dead after the opening turn, because you can just bench and Despair Ray them away.
 
I overlooked the exact same thing until I saw it in a match. But yeah, this is ANOTHER useful Joltik. I play a 2-1 line in Rainbow Road, and the thing is, if they do KO Joltik, it's usually through a Lysandre and they're not killing Xerneas, so yeah, I really like this card. But if I were playing Despair Ray(Which I'm not ATM, but I'm working on it), I'd either just play Mew, or play neither one of these. But all in all, I like this Joltik, and I think it could have potential in some decks.
 
If they go first vs Joltik start they won't have any trouble getting rid of it because you have to wait a turn to evolve which gives them time to sky return/kill it some other way.
 
If you want to leave a 30HP basic up front, be my guest. Yeah, you can Ninja Boy to it to retreat for free, but I'd rather just use Float Stones.
 
If they go first vs Joltik start they won't have any trouble getting rid of it because you have to wait a turn to evolve which gives them time to sky return/kill it some other way.

It's not like you'd leave it out on the active spot like that to be KO'd - you'd just retreat for free to a powered up attacker or wall before your turn ends. Well, unless you want it to get knocked out for some kind of Ace Trainer/Teammates tactic.
 
I think the joltik is not really the true reason this works so well, it's the free retreat on a non-ex basic Pokemon. Mew serves this purpose much better for one less deck space for most decks. In rainbow force, joltik is the better option for free retreat as dual types are superior for damage boost.
 
I'm pretty sure LightningCloud covered the real basic factor of this card. Its best in Rainbow Force decks simply because it evolves into Galvantula, which is both Grass and Lighting, so an extra type to work with. Any other instance, Float Stones ore Mew FCO or something is a better option. I wouldn't really go as far as to say include this in your decks as a free retreat option when so many others are better.
 
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