- ↓ 0.10
- ꩜ 0.42
- ↑ 8.00
{C} → Yawn
The Defending Pokémon is now Asleep.
{W} → Splatter
Choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon. This attack does 10 damage to that Pokémon. This attack’s damage isn’t affected by Weakness or Resistance.
illus. Masakazu Fukuda · LV.11
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It lives in cold water, half burying itself in mud at the bottom to sleep.
Alec
Why Different Colour Belly??
Ambassador
Wooper’s stomach pattern was originally a purple/pinkish color for its Gold/Silver sprites, and it actually remained that way in-game until HGSS. However, TCG and official art were sort of conflicting – the initial Sugimori stock art had the belly pattern a dark blue, as did its initial N1 card. The TCG seems unable to make its mind up, flipping back and forth, until coloration became consistent across all these pillars with HGSS – Sugimori’s new artwork retains the dark blue of his original, the HGSS sprites introduce a new sprite coloration, and HGSS goes with a dark blue color and the cards never swap back.
Following up on Twylis’ thoughts on LA Gligar, I suspect the anime is probably what tipped the scales in one direction or the other – I don’t think the anime ever had Wooper’s stomach pattern colored anything other than dark blue.
LightYearLiam
Yeah, but none of those sprites, nor any TCG card, have a shade of purple that’s anywhere near as light as the color on this card.
Ambassador
I wouldn’t say that; rather, it’s just the way the lighting in this illustration was done. For example, I don’t think it’s too far off from Yukiko Baba’s N2 Wooper, where the color of the stomach pattern is matching the color of its gills – just like most of the in-game sprites already mentioned.
Though the reveal of its beta design points more towards axolotl, for a long time I assumed it was meant to be an olm. In either case, both feature external gills with vertical bands / colorations on their stomach that actually don’t really match the color of the gills, so you could make the argument that the change is objectively more faithful to its real-world inspiration, and the pink and/or indigo stomach coloration was a lasting relic of the way sprite coloration worked in GSC. (For me personally, while I’m conceptually ok with the redesign, I’m much more partial to lighter colored bands that match the gills; the aforementioned N2 Wooper was “the” Wooper for me.)
Twylis
Wooper is actually neither axolotl nor olm — it’s just a regular salamander larva (probably the Japanese giant salamander, if we wanted to get specific). Axolotls are weird since they’re basically salamander larva that are permanently neotenous; they only metamorphosize in response to hormone supplements in lab conditions. I was hoping Paldean Wooper would go a more axolotl-like route by retaining the larval features instead of becoming a Quagsire-like salamander, but Clodsire is still pleasant.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl#Neoteny
An olm would be especially unlikely source, since their defining features are their noodle shape and lack of visible eyes, neither of which Wooper displays. Incidentally, though, an olm is probably my most-wanted animal to get a pokemon rep. They’re lovely creatures and easily my favorite amphibian c:
Ignis
It is funny that this Wooper has a +20 weakness (and corresponding Quagsire +30) as opposed to a regular +10. My first thought was that it might have to do with the double weakness of its typing. However, similar cards (like Barboach or Rhyhorn) do not feature this.
On second thought, Growlithe from the same set has this as well…
Third thought: it is very inconsistent, eg. Magmar from this set has +20, while Electabuzz DP has +10.
Anyone guessing the logic?
Ambassador
I’ve always assumed it’s something to do with their HP;
· MT Magmar, SW Magmar, and SV Magmar all have 70 HP and +20 Weakness.
· SW Growlithe and RR Growlithe have 70 HP and a +20 Weakness, and SV Growlithe has 60 HP and a +10 Weakness.
· Wooper has 60 HP and a +20 Weakness, so it might seem unfair – “shouldn’t it be +10 like SV Growlithe?” – but it’s the first Wooper card printed with 60 HP; i.e., I read the extra Weakness as being punished for HP creep. You will readily find examples that seem to contradict this – Magmar’s 70 HP is pretty consistent with past cards, why the +20 Weakness? Well, take a look at its Retreat Cost, it’s being balanced out in other ways. – but it’s more likely a consequence of the card’s overall design rather than necessarily being any logic based on its video game typing.
Now, for certain cards decided they wanted to showcase the fact a Pokémon has a x4 Weakness to a type and then designed the card around that idea – i.e. give it the extra TCG Weakness and buff the HP and so forth to accommodate it – and from the end user’s PoV it’d be impossible to tell which direction that causal relationship went for that incidental card, but there is no overall trend. (This is just like how a card’s Retreat Cost does not truly correlate to in-game speed; some cards come out that are incidentally designed around the idea of the Pokémon having a low retreat c/o high in-game speed, but there is no overall trend to be observed to suggest PCL dogmatically adheres to this idea as a rule whatsoever.)
Ambassador
I’ve actually got it a bit backwards on Magmar. Its +20 Weakness isn’t being *offset* by its Retreat cost, since {C}{C} is relatively high for it, so that doesn’t really explain it. There are other factors to consider when trying to explain these three components of the card, and SW Wooper isn’t the right comment section for it so I’ll cut myself off here, but the better explanation seems to be that MT and SW Magmar having 70 HP, +20 Weakness, and {C}{C} Retreat is pretty in line with a Stage 1 Pokémon, which those cards can de facto end up as.