Far from being dusty and forgotten relics, Fossil Pokémon tend to be quite popular, just ask the Kabuto King. Despite this, they’re often not competitively viable in the Pokémon TCG. They need to evolve an additional time from a fossil trainer card, making them cumbersome to play, and their initial vulnerable forms can also easily be knocked out by attacks that hit the bench. The upcoming Pitch Black expansion is making an attempt to dust fossils off, and make them more powerful.
In a recent preview article, published on the official Pokémon website, several new fossil support cards were shown off in English for the first time: Fossil Quarry and Relicanth. Fossils have never been the best Pokémon cards, so do these two new additions do enough to turn the tide?
Fossil Quarry provides a useful searching effect, grabbing two cards with ‘antique’ in their name and slotting them directly onto your bench. All contemporary fossil cards have ‘antique’ in their name, so this stadium can help you assemble your team. This effect is symmetrical so, in the unlikely event that you find yourself in a fossil mirror match, your opponent will also be able to get their fossils out. While Fossil Quarry does help with your consistency, there are no shortage of impactful searching effects in the Pokémon TCG, and this stadium does nothing to protect the fossils that it calls out.
Relicanth also doesn’t do enough to reverse the fortune of fossils. This 100hp basic Pokémon possesses only a single attack. Fossil Beatdown deals 10 damage, plus an additional 30 for every Pokémon with ‘antique’ in its name on your bench. While the ability to deal a maximum of 160 damage for only a single energy card is undeniably pretty sweet, the cost of needing to have a bench full of fossils to reach that benchmark can’t be easily swept aside, particularly because the attack loses power when those fossils evolve into actual usable Pokémon.
As well as Relicanth and Fossil Quarry, the Japanese Abyss Eye expansion features cards for Bastiodon and Rampardos ex. These two fossil Pokémon from Sinnoh will be releasing in English in Pitch Black.
What are your views? Have I been too harsh to Relicanth, or do these cards deserve to remain buried in the ground, never seeing the light of day? Share your perspective in the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
