Armaldo (Create-a-Card 04)

This month was a tiny bit of a surprise as far as the theme went. Ancient Pokémon meant that I had what I suspect is a rare opportunity to make an evolution card for the previous month's entry. I didn't want to pass that up, so instead of Kabutops like I was heavily considering, I made Armaldo instead, and I am 100% thrilled with the way it came out. This is the final evolution for the Anorith card I submitted in September's contest. I wanted to follow up on the idea of caring about there being grass energy cards in your discard pile and ended up coming to these attacks. Evidently it was all the right decisions, because with 47 points out of a possible 50, I soared to first place for November's Create-a-Card contest.

Super props to Kavross, who collaborated with me this time by providing the artwork and some feedback on the attacks. He thoroughly exceeded any expectations I had for the artwork and I am ecstatic to have been given the chance to work with him.

If you want to check out the other entries and read what the judges had to say about everything, check out the thread! [November 2019 CaC: Ancient Pokémon! (All Results Up!)]

Excerpt from the entry post:

I had a bit of a debate about what mon I wanted to use this time around. On one hand, I really wanted to do Kabutops, but on the other hand, Armaldo is also a fossil favorite of mine and I reckon it's not exactly common to be able to do Pokémon from the same evolution line back to back like this, so I thought it fitting to follow up on my Anorith card.

Just like any other entry I make with the Omnium Template, I've got my trademark bulleted list of things to keep in mind:

• The wording is SM or the latest syntax of a specific effect if no such effect exists in the SM era.
• The layout for the attack area is based off of the classic/Neo era. Following that, "Ability" is written in the same red text as the ability name.
  
• All Omnium cards are meant to be balanced for the 2010-2011 Standard Rotation, or slightly more broadly any set from Diamond & Pearl base set to Noble Victories.
  
• Fonts and placements should be pixel-perfect as they were made using my templates, which places all the fonts exactly where they should be.
• Restored Pokémon in Omnium are treated the same as regular Stage 1 Fossil Pokémon from blocks like Base Set and Sun & Moon. They are Stage 1 Pokémon in all but name and still evolve into Stage 2 Pokémon.

As a note on last month's entry since I've managed to procrastinate so long on typing up a response, I have come to agree that Dream World artwork isn't really making the cut for prevocons. I stuck with them for a while and maintained that that's just how it was done with Omnium, but while I was making a Charizard card and realizing how saturated Charmeleon's color is in the Dream World artwork, I realized that it wasn't going to work out, so I've switched to using Sugimori artwork for it (though for this one, Kavross actually did the prevocon and he seems to have the whole prevocon thing down). I did want to mention about the text placements, though, as I'm not really seeing the issues that were pointed out on last contest's entry. The text area on attacks is a bit wider compared to the look of classic-style cards, which was intentional as a way to ensure more can fit on the card before the text needs to be scaled down. I asked a few people about the spacing of things and no one had mentioned the attack width or the Pokédex entry spacing until the last CaC contest. For this month, I left it the same as last month (mainly because I'll have to redo a lot of cards if and when I do make that change), so if the judgment is still firm on that front, I'm prepared to take the deduction again.

Most of the card carries over from what was started with my entry for the previous CaC. It has the dual Grass/Fighting typing and is weak to water (because it doesn't make sense for Armaldo to be weak to Grass like they normally do in the TCG). No resistance, and the retreat cost is fairly standard for Armaldo, who usually has a retreat cost of 2 or 3. I would personally agree if anyone said the HP is a bit low for a Stage 2 Pokémon, but if you can keep the Ability activated, then that shouldn't really be a problem.

Speaking of the Ability, let's talk about Apex Armor. I was pretty happy with the way Anorith's interactions with Grass energy turned out, and this time around I wanted to do more with it. Since Anorith worked around keeping Grass energy out of the discard pile, Armaldo's gig is to reward you for it, and it rewards you big time if you can keep it up. It takes you to 170HP if you're finding ways to waste zero Energy, which is particularly bulky for a DPPt/HGSS era card - there were only 4 cards across the two blocks that had 170 HP or more, and they were Rhyperior LV.X LA 145, Wailord SV 47, Wailord GE 30, and Wailord TM 31. What's the justification for such a high HP cap here? Well, the caveat of this ability is that, in most situations, it only really matters on your opponent's turn, and if they have a means of sending Energy attached to your Pokémon to the discard pile, then it means it's more or less up to them whether you get to keep the ability or not. Plus, once a fully-energized Armaldo is Knocked Out, it may become pretty difficult to get all those Energy cards back out of the discard pile, making Armaldo a fairly early-game card, just like his previous evolution. As for the name of the ability, Armaldo and Anorith are based on Anomalocaris, which was the apex predator of its time in no small part because of its hard shell.

The second attack was one I wasn't sure if I was going to leave on, but ultimately I decided that it could be worth it to have a little bit of forgiveness built in to the card itself. Instead of just putting it back into your hand, though, I thought I'd work it out so it needed to have a little strategy involved instead, so when you use this attack, you're all but guaranteed to be sacrificing drawing into other cards that you might be trying to top-deck into. This certainly isn't something you'd want to use to try and recover from a losing a fully-energized Armaldo by any means.

And finally, there's Compound Jab, which again follows the theme for interacting with Grass energy. Specifically, you're getting big rewards for stacking your energy on Armaldo, which could be helped by Anorith's Thrive in Entropy. It can present a bit of risk, though, because the more you stack on to the one Armaldo, the less hope you will ever have for clearing the energy out of the discard pile to get the best mileage out of any other Armaldos. The damage is as high as it is because although Anorith technically has a way of collecting the energy needed to power it before evolving up to Armaldo, Thrive in Entropy doesn't actually accelerate your energy; it just keeps you from losing it if you're in a bind. So unless you have another source that actually can accelerate energy onto Armaldo, you're looking at something that can take quite some preparation in order to get it going. In most cases, when I see a four-energy attack cost that can't be paid in part with Double Colorless Energy, I expect it to be a good attack or it's just not worth the effort.

As a side note, the damage reduction for Compound Jab is calculated when your opponent attacks Armaldo on their turn. I think there is precedent in the official TCG that this would be the case, so clarification probably isn't needed, but I thought I'd drop that bit in there just in case the question did pop up. I did double check with my professor and he confirms that that's the ruling for these kinds of effects.

I've been trying to shy away from three-attack (or ability-and-two-attack) cards when I make fakes, but in some cases I have ideas I really want to fit all on one card and this is one of those cards. There are 109 cards in DPPt that use all three slots, though, so it shouldn't be a problem, especially on a Stage 2.

Basically, looked at as a whole, I see this card as a sort of early-game wall with some potential for good damage as a reward for not getting knocked out and being efficient, but also a more or less intrinsic mechanic that it's really hard for another of the same card to be nearly as good a wall once the first one comes down, assuming you took the time to attach energy to the first one.

----------

Armaldo – Fighting/Grass – HP120
Stage 2 - Evolves from Anorith
This Pokémon is both [F][G] type.

Ability: Apex Armor
As long as there are no [G] Energy cards in your discard pile, this Pokémon gets +50 HP.

[G] Reclaim
Put a [G] Energy card from your discard pile on top of your deck.

[G][G][G][G] Compound Jab 100
During your opponent's next turn, this Pokémon takes 10 less damage from attacks for each [G] Energy attached to this Pokémon (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

Weakness: Water +30
Resistance: None
Retreat: [C][C]
#348 Plate Pokémon HT: 4' 11" WT: 150.4 lbs.
FireRed & LeafGreen: Protected by a hard shell, its body is very sturdy. It skewers prey with its claws to feed.

Illus. Kavross - ©2019 Pokémon/CardPone - CaC 04

• The Armaldo artwork is a custom piece made just for this card by Kavross, because he rocks.
• Everything else, except for the fonts, the Create-a-Card symbol, and Anorith prevocon, are by me.
• This card's Pokédex entry comes from Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen.

Cards Referenced for proper wording and balancing:

• Armaldo LA 18 (2 retreat cost and kinda sorta for the damage, since it does get stronger after the first use. And also kinda sorta as a loose reference for the damage reduction on the second attack.)

Apex Armor:

• Bodybuilding Dumbbells BUS 113 ("...gets +X HP")
• It was hard to find references for this kind of effect. From what I can tell, most cases of "As long as" show up before a check to see if the pokemon is active or on your bench, with the exceptions in SM being Omastar TEU 76, the Unit Energy Kecleons, and Tyrantrum FLI 69, but I still went with "As long as" as opposed to "If" because to me it seems like an effect that's continuous as long as your discard pile is free of Grass Energy whereas, from what I can tell, anytime "If" is used in an ability, it's a one-time check to see if the conditions of the ability are checked when you activate it. Exceptions being Squirtle TEU 22, Alolan Vulpix LOT 53, Mesprit FLI 42, Lunatone BUS 68, and maybe some others I might have missed. Either way, I don't think it's a hard rule that this kind of effect is always one wording or the other. "As long as" just sounds more right to me.

Reclaim:

• Florges FLI 86 ("put a ... from your discard pile on top of your deck.")

Compound Jab

• Cloyster SUM 34 ("During your opponent's next turn, this Pokémon takes 20 less damage from attacks (after applying Weakness and Resistance).")
• Alolan Golem GRI 42 ("...for each [X] Energy attached to this Pokémon." This was the best reference I could find for this kind of effect.)