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- cred: P.P.
533
- ↓ 0.50
- ꩜ 0.86
- ↑ 19.98
{C} → Swift : 10
This attack’s damage isn’t affected by Weakness, Resistance, Poké-Powers, Poké-Bodies, or any other effects on the Defending Pokémon.
{C}{C} → Rage : 10+
Does 10 damage plus 10 more damage for each damage counter on Cyndaquil.
illus. Ken Ikuji
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RotomAmiti
This card, alongside Chikorita, Totodile, and Togepi, debuted in Hidden Legends about half a year before Japan got them as McDonald’s promos in 2005. The remainder of that wave of promos would release as the Deoxys, Pichu, and Larvitar in Emerald.
Excluding Deoxys, which is an obvious video game tie-in, there’s a clear through-line between the other six cards: they’re 3D renders of popular unevolved Johto Pokémon. I’m curious as to why the cards were chosen to release when they did, though. Why were the starters and Togepi released so early? Were they created for the English game, for some reason? Chikorita and Totodile in particular wouldn’t get a new Bayleef and Croconaw to evolve into for well over a year, and the old e-Card ones would only be legal for a couple more months. Pichu worked great as an inclusion in Emerald thanks to the Raichu ex pack, but Larvitar sticks out as the only Pokémon in the main set absent from Hoenn’s Pokédex — why wasn’t it included in Hidden Legends with the rest? Was Larvitar’s card made later?
I’m posting this on Cyndaquil because he’s a cute little guy, and my favorite of the bunch. Somewhat notably, it doesn’t have the same problems as the others, as its whole evolution line was printed in Sandstorm.
Ambassador
They feel like a little bit of a puzzle.
· Pichu feels like a remnant of Sample Set, but I think it only *feels* that way.
· Cyndaquil excludes the simple explanation of “they might’ve been remnants of Sandstorm cards”.
· They aren’t compatible with the M-##-# numbers in EX TMvTA; M-01-# is Bulbasaur, M-03-# is Squirtle, and presumably there’d be at least one fire type (my guess is the EXD Charmander, which got reprinted in FRLG, was probably M-02-#), and that automatically conflicts out Chikorita, and I’m sure several more contradictions crop up.
· Their attacks are very straight-forward and boring. Nothing to necessarily incline you towards guessing whether they’re WOTC/PUSA or PCL designs either way.
These cards ended up coming out in Japan in January of 2005. A bit too late to be Pokémon Emerald tie-ins (Sept 2004), a bit too early to be Pokémon XD tie-ins (August 2005). There was a Gen 2-themed VG distribution campaign around the time, but it was only the three starters, with the others left out. Nothing else immediately springs to mind.
I still hold out hope that one day we’ll eventually see someone crack the code about what was going on with the weirdness of Sandstorm (and elements of Dragon, HL, and TMvTA by extension) and whether that circles back into Jamboree and/or anything else WOTC/PUSA worked on, but I feel like these are always going to just be weird promos that go unexplained because they won’t fit into any grander narrative.