Steam Siege Galvantula - cotw 01SEP16

[Hands]

CARD OF THE WEEK

Galvantula
Set:Steam Siege #42/114​

Galvantula is an incredibly handy little card, thanks to a dual type that ensures it deals double damage to the vast majority of water Pokemon (which could spell a lot of trouble for the popular Greninja Break decks) and is very easy to set up and cheap to play.

It's first attack, Double Thread, is where it shines. Costing only one energy (a colourless at that) it gives you the ability to hit two benched Pokemon (the card has had a recent errata due to a translation error, which now specifies Double Thread only hits benched Pokemon) for a potential 120 damage between them due to weakness and resistance being in effect for the attack.

This is incredibly handy at ruining set ups that are going a little slowly. It'll one hit up to two Froakie and will leave Frogadier in a mess too. Due to the grass coverage it can really harm Regirock EXs that are running from the bench in any fighting deck. Having the colourless requirement also means it can be ran in any deck.

It's second attack, Electroweb, is a lot less impressive, but still acts as a semi useful trap. 30 Damage for one energy isn't horrible, and you can stop someone potentially saving their active pokemon if it's in a bad way.

The card isn't without problems though. It's relatively weak HP means it isn't going to last long against many staples in the meta, and it's weakness to fighting puts it at massive risk to Zygarde EX decks. It manages to grab a little ground back with the resistance to steel, which could see it starve off a one hit KO from some of the lesser Steel threats.

You could make use of Tangrowth (Steam Siege #2/114) alongside this card due to Galvantula's low retreat cost and Tangrowth's decent healing attack. That would allow you to hit the bench at least once, if not twice, switch with Tangrowth, heal up and then repeat.

 

[donavannj]

Lots of Switch and Escape Rope would be pretty useful with Tangrowth, but the real issue is how you're going to keep this thing alive for more than 2 turns against drastically more powerful Pokemon. Can anyone think of a way to keep this thing alive long enough to use Tangrowth to heal it?

 

[Hands]

You might be able to keep it going with Assault Vest if the enemy is running a DCE (which isn't uncommon at all) but really the fragility of Galvantula is what stops it being a tier 1 semi-staple. Really you need it out and hitting by turn 2 latest so that you can get hits on set ups and take hits from EXs still setting up (Zygarde EX's 1 Energy attack, Land's Pulse wouldn't be able to one hit Galvanutla so you could starve off one of those before the switch. Slowking (breakpoint) could also help by removing the defending Pokemon's energy from the safety of the bench

 

[donavannj]

You might be able to keep it going with Assault Vest if the enemy is running a DCE (which isn't uncommon at all) but really the fragility of Galvantula is what stops it being a tier 1 semi-staple. Really you need it out and hitting by turn 2 latest so that you can get hits on set ups and take hits from EXs still setting up (Zygarde EX's 1 Energy attack, Land's Pulse wouldn't be able to one hit Galvanutla so you could starve off one of those before the switch. Slowking (breakpoint) could also help by removing the defending Pokemon's energy from the safety of the bench

Definitely something worth a shot.

 

[Hands]

A lot of people just dismiss Galvantula like all the other new dual types (Except for Volcanion) but it's actually not a bad card once you've played a couple matches. Great job on this thread btw, I'd love to see another dual type next week!

Yeah it's super overlooked. I'll have a look at the other dual types, see if any strike me for COTW :)

 

[Hands]

Yeah, it's great. I'm actually trying to build a deck with it along with Steam Siege Ampharos and Celebi, it's the ultimate counter for Shaymin heavy decks!

That ampharos is so so good. You considered throwing Breakpoint Aegislash in?