There is a clash coming and plenty of things to worry about. You may not see many big waves coming from this battle but there could be some ground shaking.
This week on TCG Jump we are going to feature a card that could provide some erupting plays for some cards that were previously put aside. If you want a supporting card that can set fire to a match then you may want to take a look at this card. This week’s card can really make the ground rise and make flames roar. There could be a draft from this Pokemon but it will burn the battle if you can play it right. This week we will take a look into a card from Double Crisis as we feature Team Magma’s Camerupt!
Team Magma’s Camerupt is a Stage One Pokemon that can only evolve from Team Magma’s Numel. It has 110 HP with a weakness to Water type Pokemon and a massive three energy retreat cost. It has an ability call Burning Draft which allows you to attach a Fire or Fighting energy from your discard on to Team Magma’s Camerupt once per turn. Team Magma’s Camerupt has an attack call Flame Ball which does 60 damage and requires you to move one energy attached to Team Magma’s Camerupt to one of your benched Pokemon.
Before getting into the pros, lets talk about Double Crisis. Double Crisis is a mini-set that focus on Team Magma and Team Aqua. It has less then 30 cards in it and introduced the Team Magma and Team Aqua engine to this generation. The set isn’t especially strong but what it does have cards with great art. Each card has beautiful art that features the villainous team hanging out with the Pokemon of the card. So there are several action filled pieces in here. This is quite the opposite compared to the original Team Magma and Team Aqua introduction set which heavily relied on 3D art. Double Crisis is such a beautiful set and would be perfect if you are a collector.
Now if you are wanting some battle ready cards that are going to hit hard then you will be lacking in the battle ready department. There is potential but you will need to work for it and Team Magma’s Camerupt is no exception.
Pros
Team Magma’s Camerupt has beautiful art! This is maybe one of my favorite cards from Double Crisis as it features the Magma Grunts and Magma’s Camerupt running away from an explosion. It is so cute to see the female Magma grunt hanging on to Magma’s Camerupt for dear life. The flavor text is pretty great too as it reflects what is going on in the art. All together, it really brings the card to life.
You will not be using Magma’s Camerupt for it’s attack. It could be used to move energy around but the cost to use the attack isn’t worth the damage output or secondary effect. Instead you want to use Magma’s Camerupt to accelerate energy from the discard by using it’s Burning Draft ability. This ability is similar to Bronzong where it could pull Steel energy from the discard to the bench. The difference is that Magma’s Camerupt can move Fire and Fighting energy from the discard which allows it to be used in decks using those energy types.
Cons
One of the biggest cons is the pro for Magma’s Camerupt. It can move Fire and Fighting energy from the discard but only onto itself. Magma’s Camerupt can only do it once per turn. The ‘once per turn’ thing is normal for Pokemon with abilities that accelerate energy from the discard. It is the fact that it only attaches the energy to Magma’s Camerupt. Now you need to find a way to move the energy off Magma’s Camerupt.
This is an effect from the original Team Magma’s Camerupt which had the Overheat ability. This ability was similar to Burning Draft except it could be used move any type of energy from the discard on to Team Magma’s Camerupt. In the Double Crisis’s set, they limited the energy to only Fire and Fighting but removed the 2 damage counter side effect of using the old Team Magma’s Camerupt’s Overheat ability. They should have also remove the part about only attaching energy to Team Magma’s Camerupt and instead allow it to be on any benched Team Magma Pokemon.
By doing this, a Team Magma deck could be much more viable in competitive play. You can use Magma’s Camerupt to attach energy to any benched Team Magma Pokemon and make Magma’s Camerupt an exclusive energy acceleration for the Magma engine.
Instead we have a huge con that keeps Camerupt from being a powerful card in the Team Magma arsenal.
How to Use It
Magma’s Camerupt can still be used despise these flaws. It is still an energy accelerator which means it could always be used to help power up other Pokemon.
If you want to keep things within Team Magma then you could play Magma’s Camerupt alongside Team Magma’s Claydol with the Magma Switch ability. This allows you move one energy from a Team Magma Pokemon to another Team Magma Pokemon. The only downside is that you can only use this ability once per turn which means you may want to have more then one Magma’s Claydol on the bench.
This may not be a bad thing seeing that you could be using Magma’s Camerupt’s Burning Draft ability to pull Fighting energy from the discard. You will then follow this by using Magma’s Claydol’s Magma Switch to move those energy to Team Magma’s Groudon EX. Team Magma’s Groudon EX just so happen to have the Power Saver ability which requires at least four Team Magma Pokemon in order to attack. I hope you can see why you need a few Magma’s Claydol and Magma’s Camerupt on the bench now.
This strategy is a bit clunky and could be difficult to pull off. You may want to drop the Magma’s Claydol and replace them with Energy Switch to get the energy off Magma’s Camerupt. This could run similar to Ho-oh EX where you move energy after using it’s Rebirth ability to another Pokemon.
Another way to use Magma’s Camerupt is to use it with another Camerupt. One that goes by the name of Camerupt EX.
Camerupt EX from Primal Clash has an attack called Explosive Jet which does 50 damage for every Fire energy you discard. The Fire energy that you discard could also be ones that are attached to your benched Pokemon.
So the idea is that you want to use Battle Compressor to get some Fire energy into your discard while you power up Camerupt EX and evolve your Magma’s Numel into Magma’s Camerupt. Then you want to use Burning Draft to attach the Fire energy that you discarded earlier on to your Magma’s Camerupt. Finally, once you have energy attached on to your Magma’s Camerupt and can use Camerupt EX’s Explosive Jet attack is when things can really blow up! If you can discard four Fire energy attached to your Magma’s Camerupt then you can knock out a normal EX Pokemon with Camerupt EX.
You can do a similar thing involving Magma’s Camerupt by replacing Camerupt EX with Team Magma’s Aggron. Magma’s Aggron discards Fighting energy instead and does 40 damage per Fighting energy that is discard. It also has a cheaper energy cost and can easily be put on the bench by using Maxie’s Trump Card.
Team Magma’s Camerupt isn’t the perfect card but it does open up some possibilities. It is an energy acceleration card that can be used to make some explosive plays and help make some earth shattering moves.
