Art by Kanako Eo
This week we are going to look at a card that has gotten a lot of talk. It is a well known card to Pokemon players if they remember the days of Pokemon Gold and Silver. It has Rollout into our hearts and Stomped fear into our minds. It will then Milk Drink our tears as we watch our Pokemon faint one after another. It is trying to Attract players to be used in matches. This card was introduced in Flashfire but it isn’t trying to start a fire. We featured a deck using this card and now we are going to feature the card: Miltank!
Miltank is a Normal Basic Pokemon with 100 HP. It has two attacks where one attack does 60 damage for three energy. The attack that we are going to focus on is Powerful Friends. Miltank’s Powerful Friends cost a single energy and does 10 base damage. If there is a Stage 2 Pokemon on the bench then this attack can do 70 more damage. That is a lot of damage for a single energy.
The question now becomes which Stage 2 Pokemon to use with Miltank. There are several choices to pick from. If you want to be the first person to attack then you want to run the Butterfree line from Flashfire. Caterpie and Metapod both have the ability Adaptive Evolution which allow it to be evolved on the first turn or when it is played. This means you can get a Butterfree on the field on your first turn. Place an energy and Miltank to surprise your opponent with an early 80 damage attack.
Another possible partner could be Empoleon. It isn’t as fast to set up compare to Butterfree but these two Pokemon can work off each other to get the knockouts . One of these Pokemon can be used to soften up the active Pokemon while the other can go in for the finishing blow. Some switching between the two can be done to where the most valuable attacker can be used for later. After all, Empoleon will be doing the heavy hitting while Miltank will be used to finish off a Pokemon or simply go in for early game hits.
Lastly, Greninja is another Pokemon that Miltank likes to pair up with. Miltank simply needs one energy to attack which means you will have a surplus of energy in your deck. That is when you use Greninja’s Water Shuriken to discard a Water energy to drop three damage counters on your opponent’s Pokemon. Set up three Greninja on the bench and you could be throwing nine damage counters and then hit for 80 damage to knock out those 170 HP EX Pokemon.
There are some drawbacks to using Miltank. The first one you may notice is that Miltank alone won’t be winning matches. It will only does 80 damage and 100 if you attach a Muscle Band. You may be able to knock out an EX Pokemon early game in two turns this way. The problem will come up when your opponent is able to set up Pokemon that can knock out Miltank with a single attack and you are not able to set up or bring up a fresh Miltank fast enough to respond. Yveltal can easily knock out Miltank due to how easy it can do 100 damage. Butterfree and Greninja are not the best backup attackers so once all your Miltanks go out to pasture then you will be struggling to counterattack.
That being said, it may be best to put in two different Stage 3 attackers. That way Miltank can be the quick and easier attacker while you can attack with other easy-to-set up Stage 3 attackers that can pick up the slack. Refer back to last week’s Feature Match from FizzyStardust which featured Miltank with Greninja and Kingdra.
Next week will be US Nationals so get your decks ready! Will Miltank be part of your deck? Either way, good luck and aim for the top cut!
