Does this figure stand a chance?

This time on Duel Figure Review we’re going to look at figure ID-387, the Toxic Lizard Pokémon, Salazzle. This poison/fire type is a rarity R figure with an MP of 2 and the unique ability, Speed Booster. Speed Booster ups Salazzle’s MP to 3 if it evolves from Salandit while in battle. It has two miss tiles, one size 8 and one size 4, and two size 24 one star purple attacks. The first purple attack is Toxic, which makes the foe noxious. This is different from regular poison as instead of reducing attack power by 20, it reduces the attack power by 40, making it much more deadly. The other purple attack Salazzle gets is Clinging Gas. This poisons the foe and adds a clinging gas marker to one opposing figure within two steps of Salazzle. The clinging gas marker nullifies a Pokémon’s ability if that ability reduces attack power. Salazzle gets one white attack, Venoshock. It is a size 36 tile and has 100 power. However, it can deal up to 200 damage if the battle opponent is poisoned or noxious, making those purple attacks more valuable. In addition, Salazzle gets access to two Z-Moves. The first is Acid Downpour at power 200. It makes all opposing Pokémon on the field spin. Those that spin White Attacks become Poisoned. The second is Inferno Overdrive, also at power 200. The battle opponent and the Pokémon in a straight line directly behind it become burned if the Z-Move lands.
Salazzle is a very useful figure to act as a counter for attack reduction decks. Both it and Salandit get access to Clinging Gas, making them popular counters to Pokémon like Swablu or Lunala, both of which have abilities that reduce the opponent’s attack power by a certain amount. In addition, Salazzle’s ability incentivizes trying to go for the evolution as well, which makes using Salandit even more popular since it also has a large Clinging Gas tile than Salazzle does. Venoshock is also very useful, since while its 100 base power is nothing special when compared to one MP 2 fire types like Charizard, the fact that it can double in power after an opponent is poisoned or becomes noxious is very useful, especially when going against Pokémon like Metagross that have such high attack powers. If Salandit does manage to evolve as well, not only does it increase Venoshock’s base power to 110, but it also increases both of Salazzle’s purple attacks to 2 stars instead of the usual 1 star.
That said, Salazzle has decreased in popularity since its initial release. While Lunala, Marshadow, and Sableye are still very powerful attack decreasing mons, they all have effective counters against Salazzle that make it hard to get Clinging Gas to land. Marshadow and Sableye both have gold attacks, which will outspeed Salazzle’s purple attacks every time, and since more than half of Salazzle’s dial is made up with purple attacks, it leaves it extremely vulnerable to these gold attacks. Salandit is also a similar gas, but even worse its white attack only has a power of 50, making it hard to evolve and make us of Salazzle’s ability as well. Lunala also poses a major problem since Salazzle’s purple attacks are only one star priority, meaning a move like Moongeist Beam, which is a two star purple attack, would be able to dispose of Salazzle quickly. Thus, while it is a great setup, Salazzle could benefit from having its purple attacks being of a higher priority from the start, so that way if an evolution was possible, it could boost them to three or four star priority, which would allow it to at least outpace Pokémon like Lunala that Salazzle is specifically built to counter.
All in all, Salazzle is a fun figure to use, but as the updates have continued to come out, it has unfortunately just been outpaced due to its lack of fire power and priority. If you’re willing to build a deck around it, Salazzle could certainly be useful, but you’re better off looking at another Pokémon for a slot on your team like Gengar or Solgaleo who also work as effective counters.
The post Duel Figure Review: Salazzle appeared first on Pokémon Crossroads.


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