A new set has arrived in Pokémon TCG Pocket that has flipped the meta on its head, and while there are a bunch of powerful cards that can decimate your opponent, there are also troll cards to cause immense frustration.
Troll cards may not shine in their ability to deal damage but instead thrive on making the situation awkward for your opponent, opening the door for you to capitalize, and a new card from the Space-Time Smackdown set has got players talking.
A Reddit thread around Bastiodon’s arrival in Pokémon TCG Pocket caused quite a stir, with the post dubbing the metal-type Pokémon an “absolute unit” due to its Guarded Grill ability—which attracted over 6,400 upvotes and over 370 comments.
The Guarded Grill ability reduces an opponent’s attack by 100 if you successfully land a heads from a coin flip, which completely negates the majority of attacks from non-ex Pokémon in the game and can even leave attacks from ex Pokémon doing nothing more than a whimper.
One player in the comments suggested utilizing Hypno alongside Bastiodon to put the opponent to sleep, which would then require them to land a heads to be able to attack before you then flip a coin to see if they can attack you—which another player described as “DnD all over again.”
Others pointed out that this ability makes Bastiodon one of the few Pokémon who can survive Charizard ex’s Crimson Storm attack, which deals 200 damage, although some aspects hold Bastiodon back, as it is a Stage Two Pokémon off a Fossil, making it hard to get into the field, and it has a retreat cost. In fairness, though, once Bastiodon is in play, you can probably neglect retreating altogether.
You can make Bastiodon even more frustrating by providing regular heals to it, particularly with Shaymin and Butterfree, who can heal on every turn, topping it off with Trainer cards like Potion to keep your beloved beast alive.
With luck on your side, Bastiodon can truly be an absolute unit in Pokémon TCG Pocket but you will have to pray to Arceus to get the Shield Fossil in an early hand, as well as regularly landing heads on a coin flip, otherwise you might struggle to get going.
