COTD – 14th September 2011 – Crushing Hammer

Hi Everyone. You probably don’t know me but my name isn’t Dan (or Bob….or Ben….or Chris….and it might be Scott), and today I will be talking about “Crushing Hammer”, a card from our latest set, Emerging Powers, that is another addition to the list of “Coin Flip Item Cards”. So far we have quite a few of these kinds of cards, yet only a few have seen any competitive play. Probably the most well known of these cards was “Pokemon Reversal” which has seen play in most since the rotation in June.

It seems that for one of these cards to have any success, it must be able to provide a game changing effect that no other trainer, power, or ability can provide. If that is the case, there might be some hope for this card. Crushing Hammer requires you to flip a coin. If you get heads, you can choose an energy card on one of your opponents Pokemon and that energy gets discarded.

It’s the same as Energy Removal 2, which is a weaker version of Energy Removal. Now I won’t go into much detail since I didn’t really play Pokemon competitively when Energy Removal came out, but from what everyone seems to be saying about it, it was the first, and possibly the most broken, of all the broken cards we have.

The difference with this card is that you flip a coin to see if the effect occurs. This means it won’t do anything half the time you use it and as a result, you may have to spend a few more resources to get the effect to work.

One other problem it does have is that, since it requires a coin flip, it might make your deck unreliable. Suppose you have 4 Crushing Hammer in your deck, and you hope that at least 2 of them will work. Assuming you use all 4 of them, that will happen about 69% of the time. That probably isn’t reliable enough to do well in a big tournament, where being consistent matters most.

However, being able to discard your opponent’s energy could be worth the extra resources since it provides a unique effect (for trainers) that can be useful whenever you get it. In normal situations, discarding an energy card is a bit like having your opponent miss a turn. In the early game, that’s great as it slows down your opponent’s set up, and could help you catch up if you lost the opening flip. In the late game, it can force your opponent to make tougher choices as to where they attach their energy, which can work to your advantage. With a bit of luck, it has the power to stall an opponent for long enough to build a lead or make a comeback

Unfortunately, the card doesn’t really affect the most played Pokemon right now. Cards like Donphan, Cinccino and Zoroark can simply attach an energy card during the next turn and then keep on attacking, and Yanmega doesn’t even need to bother with this card, since it can attack for no energies anyway.

Then you have the Reshiram decks. Whether it’s Typhlosion, who can attach energy to Pokemon from the discard pile, or Emboar, who can use Energy Retrieval and then attach multiple energy anyway, this gigantic dragon always has some support to get around the card.

The only 2 popular Pokemon that I can think of just now that might have problems with this card are Magnezone (non Magneboar builds) and Zekrom (during the late game). Other then that, and despite the usefulness of the effect when you’re successful with it, it doesn’t seem like a card that will make a huge impact on the metagame.

Because of this, and the luck factor involved, I will give this card 5/10. It has potential in the future depending on which cards get released, but today, it isn’t likely to become a format changing card.

As for the artwork, there’s not a lot I can say about it. It’s pretty much a giant red hammer, which I guess sucks the energy out of Pokemon rather then turning them into pika-pancakes. I’m not a big judge on art, and it’s not as epic as a Prime or Legend card, but I guess I’ll give it 6/10 since it does seem to be shooting out lightning.

Speaking of lightning, one final card I will mention that goes well with Crushing Hammer is Ampharos Prime, whose poke body “Conductivity” can combine well with it. With an Ampharos or two, you get an extra kick when you discard an energy by forcing your opponent do damage to their pokemon while they try to catch up.

Thanks for reading,

by ScottyB0303

Please vote for how you think this card sits in competitive play below with the rating system