RattataJoey's Future Sight Article 4: Chandelure Red Collection [Readers Choice]

R

RattataJoey

Today I'll be answering my first request by reviewing Chandelure from Red Collection.

036.jpg

Chandelure – Psychic – HP130
Stage 2 – Evolves from Lampent

Ability: Cursed Shadow
Place 3 damage counters on your opponent’s Pokemon in any way you like. You can use this Ability 1 time during your turn, it this Pokemon is your Active Pokemon.

[P][P][C] Ominous Lamp: 50 damage. The Defending Pokemon is now Burned and Confused.

Weakness: Darkness: (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

At first glance we see that Chandelure is a Stage 2 with 130Hp which is pretty standard for the current format, weakness to Dark is to be expected on a Ghost type. Now lets get to the interesting parts.

First is the Ability Cursed Shadow, which allows you to place 3 damage counters on any of your opponent's pokemon while Chandelure is active. This can be seen as 1 of 2 things: either you can see it as an upgraded version of Kingdra Primes Spray Splash, or as another version of Gengar Primes attack Cursed Droplets.
The real selling point for Cursed Shadow is its versatility as the counters can be placed in anyway you like to either weaken your opponent's Pokémon or the help secure a KnockOut, also with Chandelure dropping 3 counters you can guarantee a KnockOut against Baby Pokémon, as the Ability bypasses Sweet Sleeping Face and can hit the bench as well.

Secondly is his attack Ominous Lamp which for {P}{P}{C} Chandelure can hit the active for 50 damage then inflicts both Burn and Confusion. At first 50 for 3 energy looks pretty bad especially when compared to cards like Donphan and Kingdra, who can both hit 60 damage for 1 energy, but guaranteeing 2 status conditions makes the cost a lot more worthwhile.
Adding both Burn and Confusion can really cause a lot of problems for your opponent if they don't have a switch or a lot of low or free retreat Pokémon, as they could face up to 70 damage on your next turn. Even if they do manage to switch/retreat if they don't KnockOut Chandelure that turn you can create the same problem with your next attack.

Now how do we run Chandelure? Once again it's all a question for how each player wants to play him, I'll cover 2 methods of playing Chandelure:
Method 1 is with Trainer-lock, with Trainer-lock in place your opponent won't be able to play their trainer-items, which can greatly slow down their set-up, or play cards such as switch to get their confused Pokémon out of the active spot and will have to rely on manually retreating, which may be difficult with high retreat Pokémon like Donphan and Magnezone seeing play currently.

Method 2 is a speed variant pairing Chandelure with Gardevoir from Hail Blizzard.

028.jpg

Gardevoir – Psychic – HP110
Stage 1 – Evolves from Kirlia

Ability: Psycho Mirage
As long as this Pokemon is in play, each Basic Psychic Energy card attached to your Psychic-type Pokemon provides 2 units of Psychic energy. This effect can’t be stacked, regardless of how many Pokemon with this ability you have in play.

[P][P][C][C] Mind Shock: 60 damage. Don’t apply Weakness or Resistance for this attack’s damage.

Weakness: Psychic (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

Gardevoir's Ability Psycho Mirage makes any {P} energy attached to a {P} Pokémon provide 2{P} energy instead of 1, this means that Chandelures attack cost of {P}{P}{C} can now be read as {P}{C}. Which means you can free up more space in decks for consistency or techs. The energy bonus doesn't only help attacks but can be used to help retreating as well, both Chandelure and Gardevoir have a retreat cost of 2, but with Gardevoir's ability in play you can use 1 {P} energy to retreat both of them, which means cards such as catcher shouldn't pose a huge threat. 1 draw back that I feel deserves mention with Gardevoir is her Hp at 110 shes below the average for a Stage 2 and anything psychic can make easy work of her.

In closing I'm going to say that Chandelure isn't bad, he allows for damage spreading and can apply pressure by placing status conditions on the opposing active.
So what are your views on Chandelure? How would you play him? And do you think he has a future in the metagame?

Special Thanks to Lupercal1308 for requesting the card.

If anyone else would like a card reviewing feel free to get in touch either here or though my profile.

Signing off for now,
RattataJoey
 
I don't think trainer-lock or Gardevoir work at all with Chandelure. 2 Stage 2s is never speedy, and Chandelure doesn't gain as much from trainer-lock as other things, nor does it have a good enough attack to pair Gardevoir with. I think it needs Dodrio to lower its retreat so it can add 3 damage counters then flee to something with a better attack.
 
I think the best combo for this card is Vileplume/Reuniclus. Yeah, it's really clunky. But you don't necessarily always need Reuniclus set up, because they're going to be confused alot of the time, with Vileplume up.
 
Dark Void said:
I don't think trainer-lock or Gardevoir work at all with Chandelure. 2 Stage 2s is never speedy, and Chandelure doesn't gain as much from trainer-lock as other things, nor does it have a good enough attack to pair Gardevoir with. I think it needs Dodrio to lower its retreat so it can add 3 damage counters then flee to something with a better attack.
Click to expand...

I do see what you mean but to be honest I never liked the spread-retreat idea, mostly because to use it you'd need to either hit switch constantly to re-use the ability over and over or wait for something to be knocked out then spread the damage and retreat for a fresh attacker.
You could use a hit and run Pokémon such as Ferrothorn or Bisharp but then your letting Chandelure absorb damage and I'm not sure you'd want to run Max Potion just for him.

Also both variants run the same problem of requiring Dodrio for retreat and having a bench sitter like him with catcher around doesn't feel like a good idea, plus you have to set him up which might take away from setting up your field to actually attack.

minimidget94 said:
I think the best combo for this card is Vileplume/Reuniclus. Yeah, it's really clunky. But you don't necessarily always need Reuniclus set up, because they're going to be confused alot of the time, with Vileplume up.
Click to expand...

I'm liking the addition but just out of curiosity how would you remove the damage from the field? I'm assuming maybe using a Dragon and Seeker, as you would eventually run out of space to move damage to and leaving damage lying around does leave you open to snipers

Thank You for reading and for the feed back
 
Yeah you would use a Dragon and Seeker, and the damage in this deck is no worse than any other Vileplume/Reuniclus or Gothitelle/Reuniclus variant. Once it gets set up it's pretty unstoppable, except Zororark is extrememely annoying, being able to hit for weakness, plus inflicting two status conditons at once.
 
Maybe it could be used with Vanilluxe from HB/PD
018.jpg

Vanilluxe – Water – HP130
Stage 2 – Evolves from Vanillite

Ability: Slippery Soul
Switch your Active Pokemon with one of your Benched Pokemon. Then, the opponent switches his or her Active Pokemon with a Benched Pokemon. You can use this ability 1 time during your turn.

[W][C][C] Ice Crush: Does 60 damage plus an additional 10 damage times the number of Energy in the opponent’s Active Pokemon’s retreat cost.

Weakness: Steel (X2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2
If you have a free retreat attacker like Yanmega you can retreat it to Chandelure and use it's ability, then Vanilluxe to the bench to attack with Yanmega.

That's two stage 2's though...shouldn't be too hard with a Twins engine, and you won't need energy for Yanmega so you can conserve it for attacking with Vanilluxe/Chandelure/Random EX Pokémon.
 
sillykyle! said:
The problem is, Vaniluxe can easily just be dragged by catcher up and ko'd.
Click to expand...
Unless you add Vileplume. Lol. Sure we have 6 (if you are running 4 Chandulures and 2 Vaniluxes) stage 2s why not add 2 more. But I see this run more along the lines of Dodrio. If you have 3 or more on the bench.(With a Twin engine it should not be hard). You can throw around 9 damage Counters. Now I know what people are going to say that Dodrio is catcher bait. But the problem here is also the solution. If you use catcher bring up there main attacker confuse it and doing 50. And then deal 90 damage to one of there bench.
 
Right, because 3 stage 2s are going to be so easy to set up. Also, if you are using Yanmega as the free retreater, keep in mind Vileplume makes ther hand very large so you will have to run a lot of Judge and Copycat, and so far even the basic skeleton is looking extremely clunky. Then we realise we are adding 3 stage 3 lines for 30 damage when we could just be running Kingdra.
 
I have to agree with void on this one, 2 stage 2's is manageable if 1 is a key attacker and you use the right method to setup, but 3 is going to be a huge uphill struggle especially since 2 can't really attack and starting with there basic could be a real handicap.

The best way to make it work is to keep it as simple as possible, I mentioned both Gardevoir and Vileplume but I wouldn't plan on playing a hybrid version of the deck as it would be a huge hassle to setup.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top