The reveals for Black Bolt & White Flare keep on coming as we approach its release date (July 18th). This time, the Pokemon Company International (TPCi) has decided to show us an upcoming set of Fossil Pokemon.
Carracosta Evolutionary Line:
Antique Cover Fossil
Ability: Protective Cover
Prevent all effects of attacks used by your opponent’s Pokémon done to this Pokémon.
Tirtouga
Ancient Debris: 30x damage. This attack does 30 damage for each Item card in your opponent's discard pile.
Surf: 80 damage.
Carracosta
Ability: Mighty Shell
Prevent all damage and effects done to this Pokémon by attacks from your opponent's Pokemon that have any Special Energy attached to them.
Bite Down: The Defending Pokemon can't retreat during your opponent's next turn
As a package, the Carracosta line suffers from a few design choices that currently make it untenable, at least in the competitive scene.
The most important issue that plagues all Fossil-focused decks in general is that Budew from Prismatic Evolutions exists. The little Plant-type just shuts down any Fossil-play full-stop the moment it makes its first attack.
Unless it’s knocked out, Budew will prevent a player from playing their Fossils, as well as the rest of their item roster.
As if that fact wasn't bad enough, Antique Cover Fossil doesn't do much outside of protecting itself from special effects. Unfortunately, this doesn’t translate to damage.
If a player can get it to evolve quickly to Tirtouga, its Ancient Debris ability does pretty decent damage for its energy cost. It may be reliant on the opponent chucking item cards into the discard pile, but this particular attack has no upper limit.
With how modern decks are designed, there’s a pretty good chance that Tirtouga could easily do at least 90 damage unless the opponent is actively holding back on using their items. From a single energy-costing skill, this makes Tirtouga surprisingly efficient.
Sadly, despite being the final evolution in the line, Carracosta appears to be a step down in terms of power.
Carracosta loses the damage potential that Tirtouga enjoyed in favor of denying any damage done to it if the opposing Pokemon has any special energy type attached to it.
On paper, this is an extremely useful ability to have. In practice, though, the story is a lot different. It is extremely difficult to bank your Pokemon’s ability on the off-chance your opponent is wholly reliant on using special energy cards.
Carracosta’s Bite Down has the potential to help finish off an enemy Pokemon, but this is easily circumvented with items. Ultimately, it doesn't seem that this line is going to go far in the standard format. In Gym Leader Challenge, however, this line could be surprisingly useful.
Archeops Evolutionary Line:
Antique Plume Fossil
Ability: Wing Protection
As long as this Pokémon is on your Bench, prevent all damage done to this Pokémon by attacks from your opponent's Pokémon.
Archen
Acrobatics: 30+ damage. Flip 2 coins. This attack does 30 more damage for each heads.
Archeops
Ability: Primal Wings
Once during your turn, if this Pokémon is in the Active Spot, you may choose 1 of your opponent's Evolved Pokemon and devolve it by putting the highest Stage Evolution card on it into your opponent's hand.
Rock Throw: 100 damage.
The Archeops evolutionary has an interesting design choice. The Antique Plume Fossil can protect itself better on the bench, making the race to its evolution a little easier at the start.
Archen has a bit of randomness for its attack due to its output relying on the coin outcome, but with a two energy cost, it has a good amount of range on its damage value.
The Archeops Pokemon itself is where eyebrows start to get raised. The ability to bounce an evolved Pokémon is a rare ability in and of itself. Paired up with Archeop’s 100 damage for 2 energy, and this Pokémon can handily assassinate any Stage 2 Pokémon.
Unfortunately for Archeops, its ability is fairly niche, and it doesn’t answer all the basic level ex Pokémon, and the huge bodies they sport, running around.
The Fossil Pokémon aren’t exactly going to shake up the meta in any meaningful way, but it does show that TPCi hasn’t forgotten the niche archetype.
Maybe in a future expansion, we may see a viable Fossil evolutionary line that can rival the likes of current competitive leaders.