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Quagsire (Dragon Majesty DRM 26)
Quagsire — 120 HP — [W]
Stage 1 — Evolves from Wooper
Ability: Wash Out
As often as you like during your turn (before your attack), you may move a [W] Energy from 1 of your Benched Pokémon to your Active Pokémon.
[C][C][C] Hydro Pump: 60+
This attack does 20 more damage times the amount of [W] Energy attached to this Pokémon.
weakness: [G]×2
resistance:
retreat: 2
Illus. Ken Sugimori
Dragon Majesty — 26/70 — Uncommon
This carefree Pokémon has an easy-going nature. While swimming, it always bumps into boat hulls.
Psykicked
You can see the power creep because in the HGSS era, this ability was printed on a Stage 2.
Otaku
The short answer is yes and no.
The slightly less short answer is that it isn’t quite that simple. We have so many other examples of power creep that it is a safe assumption, but an effect showing up on a lower Stage isn’t guaranteed power creep; you have to look at the total package and see how much being on a lower Stage improves the effect, plus see if the total package is stronger or not, relative to their respective metagames. All things said and done, however, you probably are correct. I just like to mind the details. XP
Psykicked
Just wanted to fact-check, so here we go. Both have fatal weaknesses (Quagsire has Golisopod-GX, while Blastoise has Zekrom), Blastoise has 10 more HP, snipes for 100 for WWCC, while Quagsire would not snipe, but do the same damage. However, Blastoise has to return two W energies from it back to your hand, while Quagsire does not, and quagsire has variable damage. Blastoise’s ability is stopped by Special Condition, and has one more Retreat than Quagsire. Considering Blastoise is a Stage 2 and Quagsire is a Stage 1, it’s safe to say Quagsire has completely outclassed it.
Otaku
As stated, I didn’t disagree with your conclusion, but was pointing out that it wasn’t as simple as “Stage 1 > Stage 2 so power creep.” Almost everything about Quagsire is better than Blastoise head-to-head… but these two cards didn’t release in the same set, the same generation, or even adjacent generations. Complete cardpools and metagames have to be considered, as well as errata and rule changes.
I don’t want this post to get too long, but if you really want to continue discussing this, let me know. ;)