COTD – 18th August 2011 – Donphan Prime HS

My choice for today’s Card of the Day is Donphan Prime from the HeartGold SoulSilver Base Set.

At first glance, Donphan is a Stage 1 Fighting type with 120HP, a single Poke Body and a single attack. So things are looking pretty average at the moment and that maximum four retreat cost is tipping it into the ‘bad’ pile by just looking at the main stats, but don’t be misled. This is one of the upcoming best cards in the format.

Donphan’s first attack, ‘Earthquake’ is one of the fastest and hardest hitting attacks in the game as it does 60 damage for just the one Fighting energy. The catch to this attack being so good is that you must put 10 damage onto each of your own benched Pokemon. Personally, I think this is a small price to pay for such a powerful attack and with Donphan being Stage 1, you can easily get it going as soon as turn two. Yeah, the damage does start to add up pretty quickly when used extensively, but careful playing will help you to keep it under control.

‘Exoskeleton’ is Donphan’s Poke Body and it’s actually one of the best of the ones still around. It simply states that any damage done to Donphan by attacks is reduced by 20. Effectively, this means that Donphan is sitting there at 140HP rather than the printed 120 since an attack from the opponent will have to cater for this extra damage being taken off. This makes Donphan into quite the tank and with OHKOs being the main focus of this format so far, it’s going to help you out in the prize exchange since only a few attacks can reach 140 damage in one go.

So why is Donphan so good? Well, in a format filled with top tier Electric Pokemon, this Pokemon is going to be able to do some serious damage. Pokemon like Magnezone, Zekrom and even Zoroark will suffer to an Earthquake, receiving a hefty amount of damage and with a PlusPower, Donphan can OHKO all of the Pokemon listed above. Where Donphan does struggle though, is against the most used Pokemon at the moment, Yanmega Prime. Since Yanmega is resistant to Fighting, Donphan will only be doing 40 damage and adding damage to its own, only for Yanmega to pick them off. This does cause trouble for Donphan players, but it usually isn’t ran by itself, making the use of it much more versatile.

The most common use for Donphan is in a deck called ‘Stage 1s’ which I’m sure most of you know about since Kyle ‘Pooka’ Sucevich took the deck to 2nd place at this year’s US National Championships and it also made the top 16 at Worlds 2011. By using Pokemon like Zoroark and Yanmega to support Donphan’s early damage output and weaknesses, you can use the deck to get around pretty much any Pokemon in the format. The deck is really fun to play and is highly competitive at the moment, it’s actually one of my choices to play at the moment and if you fancy giving it a whirl, then go over to The Testing Zone at PokeClass Extra above to get a skeleton list.

Two other decks have also featured Donphan which are Donphan/Dragons and the deck that came 2nd at Worlds 2011. Donphan and Dragons makes full use of the damage put onto the bench with Earthquake to power up Zekrom and/or Reshiram’s ‘Outrage’ attack, using either of them to hit for high amounts of damage against the opponent. This strategy was also implemented in Ross Cawthon’s Worlds deck, but this time he used Reuniclus and Vileplume to allow further control of where the damage went to not only control the opponent’s prize taking ability, but control his own damage output as well. Donphan is at the heart of both of these decks so it has proved to be quite the competitive Pokemon.

So overall, this Pokemon has a lot of potential in this format since it can hit hard and early and can take full advantage of bringing up weak Pokemon with Pokemon Reversal/Catcher, but it does suffer from double Water weakness which the likes of Kingdra and Samurott can have a field day with.

However, with that being said, Donphan is still going to be seen at the top tables for the next few months at least since other decks will take care of its weaknesses. I’m going to give it a very solid 8.5/10. This card has a lot of uses and will be one of the cards to beat next season.

Artwork: In terms of artwork, this card looks pretty nice. As with Magnezone from the previous Card of the Day, there isn’t much you can do with a pretty beefy elephant, but the simplicity of this one really does work. You simply have the camera zoomed right into Donphan’s face with him looking pretty aggressive and a traditional ‘Prime’ glimmer on his tusk. This straight forward artwork gives him quite the presence on the field and that beady little lets the opponent know that he’s here to do nothing but business. Overall, it’s a nice looking card and the artist has done what they can to make you think twice about messing with it. I’m going to score it at 7/10. A simple, yet effective design that gives a clear message about the Pokemon, but Donphan is pretty plain so this is probably the max score it could have received.

Thanks for reading today’s Card of the Day and please comment how you feel about the card below