Good morrow, ye olde subscribers – King Butler here to bestow upon you peasants the legend of the mighty Baxcalibur.
Since the dawn of the Pokemon TCG, we have been blessed with the Rain Dance mechanic, birthing a plethora of game-breaking archetypes planned around this support option. Placed in this scroll, I will recall tales of old format monsters who need no introduction. We will peer into my crystal ball for the future techs that could be included in this powerful archetype. Lastly will be the Holy Grail: my Baxcalibur shell with two ways to go about the beast. Enough medieval talk – lets begin to slay this dragon! (Hunter, you gotta be stopped.)
When the Pokemon TCG emerged in 1999, the first energy acceleration concept was the Rain Dance Ability given to our lovely starter Stage-2 evolution, Blastoise. This Ability stated that you could attach as many Water energy as you wanted per turn, as long as you weren’t affected by a Special Condition. This Ability was paired with various attackers like base-set Articuno and Snorlax to make big attacks against smaller-HP Pokemon like Hitmonchan and Electabuzz. To my knowledge, there weren’t too many tournaments in the beginning of base set, but since then, Rain Dance decks have been popular among old format deck builders as a staple in their collection.
The next Blastoise to be printed was Blastoise EX, gaining Hp from 100 to 150, then adding another prize for knocking it out. The 2006 Pokemon World Championship was taken down by a Blastoise variant affectionately known as LBS, standing for Lugia EX, Blastoise EX and Steelix EX. These three attackers pummeled the format with one-shot potential in Lugia EXs powerful 200-damage attack, bench sniping with Steelix’s Mudslide attack hitting for 100 damage on the bench, and Blastoise’s attack to KO the format’s most consistent deck, Flaridos.
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You must have a Stage 2 Membership or greater to see the rest of this post. If you don't have a Stage 2 account, you can Sign Up for one here.