Hippowdon -- Rising Rivals Pokemon Card Review

Pokemon Card Overview:
Today's Pokemon Card Review is of Hippowdon from the Rising Rivals set. This is a stage 1, fighting type Pokemon card with an hp of 110. It has a +20 weakness to water type Pokemon, a -20 resistance to electric type Pokemon, and a four colorless energy card retreat cost. Hippowdon's Poke-Body is called Sand Cover and this Poke-Body says that as long as Hippowdon is your active Pokemon put one damage counter on each of your opponent's Lv. X Pokemon between each turns. Besides the Poke-Body, Hippowdon has two moves, the first move is called Save Sand and for one colorless energy card, it does 20 damage plus 10 more damage for each energy card attached to Hippowdon, and before doing damage you may search your discard pile for one fighting energy card and attach it to Hippowdon. Hippowdon's second move is called Groundquake and this move takes 4 energy cards, 2 each of fighting and colorless, and does 80 damage plus 10 damage to each Pokemon in play that isn't evolved.

Pokemon Card Strategy:
So as far as strategy goes, this card should work well with Gastrodon West Sea that I reviewed a few days ago, you can first use Groundquake on this card then later in the game put in Gastrodon West Sea and use Muddy Sport from that card and be able to do damage to almost every Pokemon in play since most of your opponent's Pokemon should have damage on it from Groundquake. Just like Gastrodon West Sea, I would recommend keeping Hippowdon on your bench for awhile until you get a lot of energy on it, at least 3, then depending on how many energy cards you do have on it, will determine which of Hippowdon's two moves you can use. I would use this card in a spread damage type deck and within this deck I would try and use Groundquake as much as possible, just try to not have many unevolved Pokemon on your own bench.

Pokemon Card Rating:
I would give this card a 2 out of 5 rating, I like that Hippowdon can do spread damage but I don't like the fact it takes four energy cards to do that and with only 110 hp you'll have to hope you can set this card up on your bench first. And if you don't want to use Groundquake you can't even do that much damage with Save Sand, so I would just save this card for your storage box.

Tomorrow's Pokemon Card:
So thanks for reading today's Pokemon card review of Gastrodon from the Rising Rivals set, stay tuned for tomorrow's card review of Jolteon from the same set.