COTD – 3rd August 2011 – Grumpig TM

Hey everybody, my Card of the Day today is going to be Grumpig from the HS: Triumphant expansion.

At first glance, Grumpig is a Stage 1 Psychic type with 90HP, two attacks and two retreat cost.

This Pokemon served as my main attacker all the way back at the Triumphant Pre-Releases whenever they were, focusing on it’s second attack ‘Bench Manipulation’. We all know that costly attacks that do crazy amounts of damage are the key to prereleases so this was the perfect candidate since I didn’t pull anything else remotely good.Bench Manipulation costs a Psychic and a Double Colourless for 40 damage, but that little ‘x’ symbol means the small print is the important part of this attack. What we have here is that you force your opponent to flip a coin for each benched Pokemon they have and for each tails, Grumpig’s attack does 40 damage. As you can imagine, with a full bench this thing can be pretty crazy if the flips don’t go the opponent’s way.

However, since it’s such a flippy attack, it isn’t going to be great for any kind of tournament meaning it should stay at the pre-releases as a deck.

Grumpig’s second attack was fairly interesting before Pokemon Abilities were introduced. ‘Psychic Lock’ costs just a Psychic energy and a Colourles and does 20 damage. The text below also states that the next turn, the opponent cannot play any PokePowers. This was a key element of the old Gardy/Gallade decks 2 formats ago and some people thought that this card would be really good. Alas, it just didn’t have the support that Gardy/Gallade had and didn’t make any kind of splash in last format, with things only getting worse for it when Abilities came along. Since this card was released before these were introduced, it isn’t going to be ably to block those, which are a huge part of the game right now.

So overall, Grumpig is a very interesting card that can hit for high damage if the coin flips go your way, but the cost is just too high. Psychic Lock would have been fun last format, but Abilities makes this attacks pretty much useless now in HGSS-On. I’m going to give it a 3/10 since it really doesn’t have a chance in the competitive world at all.

Artwork: I’ve decided to start talking about artwork in my COTDs since it’s a very important part of cards, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

I must admit, this style of art really isn’t one of my favourites and I think the background lets it down a bit. The Grumpig is looking very shifty and seems to have been caught doing something wrong, but where on earth is he? A field? Meadow? Swamp? The grass looks like an ill Tentacool’s tentacles and the trees seem to be a little on the small side.

However, since the Grumpig is actually pretty cool looking with it’s shifty appearance, I’m going to give the art a 4/10. I’ve seen better, but Grumpig is a pretty awesome looking Pokemon.

Thanks for reading today’s COTD and please do comment below what you think