Pokemon Card of the Day: Nidoking (Rising Rivals)

Today's Pokemon Card of the Day is Nidoking from Rising Rivals. This is a stage 2 Pokemon card with 130 hp which is pretty good for a stage 2 Pokemon card. It only has a +30 weakness to water type Pokemon and a -20 resistance to electric type Pokemon, this will really help with all the Luxray GL Lv. X cards being played right now. Nidoking also has a 2 colorless energy retreat cost which is below average for a retreat cost of a stage 2 Pokemon card, usually they are 3 colorless energy cards. Nidoking's Poke-Power is called Territoriality, this Poke-Power says that if your active Pokemon is attacked by the defending Pokemon, even if it is knocked out, put 2 damage counters on the attacking Pokemon. So even if you don't use Nidoking to attack at all, this Poke-Power is like a poisoning to a Pokemon that you can't prevent with trainer cards, the only way to stop this damage is to either knock out Nidoking or you have a Poke-Power on one of your cards to prevent Poke-Powers from taking affect. Nidoking has two attacking moves, the first is called Fling Away and this move does 60 hp damage for 3 colorless energy cards, right about average for 3 energy cards, however if your opponent has any benched Pokemon, which most opponents do, this attack only has a base damage of 30 hp, so this move would then do 30 damage to the active Pokemon and 30 damage to one of your opponent's benched Pokemon, whichever one you choose. Nidoking's second move is called Giga Horn and for only 4 energy cards, 3 colorless energy cards and 1 fighting energy card, Nidoking can do 100 hp damage, the only downfall to this attack is that before you can attack you have to flip two coins if both of them are tails this attack does nothing, so you have a 25% chance of not being able to attack that turn. But nevertheless 100 damage for 4 energy cards is very good and more than likely you will be able to attack every turn and you also won't have to discard any energy cards or anything. As far as strategy goes, as I was saying earlier, Nidoking's Poke-Power is reason enough to use this card in your deck, I would always use Giga Horn when attacking unless there is 50 hp or less on the defending Pokemon or the defending Pokemon is weak and your opponent is building up a strong Pokemon on their bench. If this situation happens I would use Fling Away that way you could do 30 damage to that powerful Pokemon on the bench and a total of 50 hp damage to the active Pokemon since you can do 30 damage from the move and 20 more damage if the defending Pokemon attacks you that turn. So thanks for reading my card of the day review and stay tuned for tomorrow's review of Altaria ex from EX Emerald.