What’s up everyone and welcome to the Pokemon TCG Overview. For today’s episode we got Feraligatr the water starter from Johto, certainly a favourite for many people. While I have other water starter favourites these days I’m inclined to include myself in the lovers of the Totodile line because while I like the Pokemon very much today I used to love it even more back in its fresher days. Right of the bat I’m gonna say Feraligatr has had successful cards with powerful attacks and effects but let’s look at the evolutionary line first.
Immediately you can see that the first Totodile with 40 HP in Neo Genesis gets Rage as an attack so you have the Memory Berry strategy which isn’t a bad thing. This strategy can also be used with ex Hidden Legends and ex Dragon Frontiers Totodiles. In a similar vein to Geodude the lines in Wizards of the Coast were weak to grass with Expedition being the first set to change things up despite being a non ex set. After that he was mostly weak to lightning even though they made the switch to grass in HGSS base set and then Phantom Forces but the Call of Legends Totodile was weak to lightning again.
Totodile Cards from the Wizards Era
Totodile has a few promos too including 3 Japanese exclusive ones; 1 from a Half Deck, a MacDonald’s promo and a Movie Commemoration promo from 2009. This is not including anything in the unnumbered series or other Japanese promos that I am unaware of.
Croconaw gets a Half Deck Japanese exclusive print and a promo from the Pokemon Card Trainers Magazine, Japan only. Neo Destiny also evolves Totodile into Dark Croconaw and yes there’s also a Dark Feraligatr too so you can see this Pokemon is already having card variations. All of the Totodile and Croconaw cards never had any poke bodies-powers or abilities so far excluding Croconaw from Mysterious Treasures. Its power Evolutionary Vitality is very useful for giving you a chance to grab free energies from the top of your deck and you’ll see why if you don’t already know. No matter what though not a bad effect to have.
Japanese Exclusive Cards
And now finally to the main boss. There isn’t really any Feraligatr print that didn’t come to the west in some print or another so he doesn’t have any exclusive Japanese promos to my knowledge. Feraligatr didn’t waste any time being good as soon as he was introduced in Neo Genesis. While he wasn’t at his finest until a rotation removed a lot of broken older cards his 1st prints, especially the second one were good. The 1st card had 100 HP which wasn’t completely terrible but it certainly wasn’t the peak of good. Berserk was a power that would either completely screw you up or your opponent discarding 5 cards from the top of the deck on a coin flip. Same with Chomp, it had the potential for very high damage back then based on coin flips. Overall this is a high risk high reward card and while not the best it could definitely put the pressure on if luck was on your side.
The real killer from Neo Genesis, the second Feraligatr was the top meta threat. For starters it has 120 HP which was the best you could ask for back then for a stage 2 pokemon. It shares the same bad 3 retreat cost with the other Feraligatr but the power of this card is more than worth it. With its power Downpour you could discard as many water energy from your hand to the discard pile. Why would you want to do that? Well Riptide did 10 more for each energy there giving this attack a limitless damage output, especially for back then. The energies went back to the deck then, but you can see there’s some synergy with the first Feraligatr too. With such a strong attack Feraligatr decks were the deck to beat in its period making this the most successful Feraligatr card even though we barely started covering him.
Obviously other Feraligatr cards aren’t going to live up to his level and Dark Feraligatr is a good example. Really the only great thing about him is the Scare poke power. Being able to stop Cleffa and other baby pokemon back then is an impressive effect to have but the rest of the card is underwhelming. 80 HP is incredibly low not even redeemed slightly by having a better retreat cost; it has the same bad one the other 2 have and Crushing Blow is a very average attack. Not a very good card despite having potential. Maybe if it had a little more HP and/or 1 or free retreat cost but alas it didn’t happen.
Expedition brought 2 Feraligatrs again with only the one with 120 HP being average. Major Tsunami was basically a Warp Point or Escape Rope and that can always be useful sometimes but the attack was decent at best. The second one is so bad I don’t even need to mention anything.
The ex series gave us 3 Feraligatrs including a Feraligatr ex and all 3 cards are good in their own right. Unseen Forces Feraligatr has great HP, a great poke-body that can reduce damage to all of your pokemon if Feraligatr is active, decent retreat cost and great attacks. Pull Away does solid damage considering the energy cost and strong potential hand disruption and Tonnage gives a fair exchange of adding 30 damage if you do 30 damage to yourself. 80 damage for 3 is very good back then and if you were clever enough you can score some good Kos with this attack. Cool art and good card.
Feraligatr ex from the same set is also an excellent card. 150 HP is alright for an ex and he’s lucky enough not to have a double weakness. Most importantly he has a powerful body and fantastic attacks. Shutting down both powers and bodies from all pokemon excluding exs is very powerful and he could freeze up entire decks if they didn’t have an out. Tsunami and Sore Spot are easy to use, do great damage and synergize with each other as well.
Dragon Frontiers Feraligatr is cool not only because he’s the exception in the family being lightning type but because it can function on its own and as a support pokemon. Its stats are good, matching the one from Unseen Forces but functions offensively as opposed to his other brother. Battle Aura gives it and all Delta Species pokemon 10 more damage and this body works from the bench too so it can stack, meaning more additional damage the more of these same guys you have out. Sharp Fang does great damage combined with one or better yet multiple Battle Auras and Drag Off’s pulling effect is good. All 3 prints from this era can compete on a good level but because Feraligatr ex’s body is so inclusive and easy to use I have to say he’s the baddest of the 3.
D/P however, didn’t spread the love on Feraligatr this time because out of the 3 only the obvious one is great. Mysterious Treasures Feraligatr not only is a step back but out of all the Johto starters that got represented with a print in this set is actually the worst of the 3 in my opinion. 130 Hp is good but the attacks are so mediocre. Energy Cyclone is hard to use and Breaking Tail’s discarding effect is too weak to compensate for the average damage. If it discarded 2 cards then maybe he could have a better role as a disruptor; but as he is he’s not a very good card. The plain Feraligatr from HGSS is just there to be there, it’s Feraligatr Prime that’s the powerhouse here.
The infamous, continuous and almost unfair Rain Dance ability first seen on the original Blastoise is so good, Blastoise was the only stage 2 strategy that could somewhat compete against Haymaker decks back in the day and for good reason. It’s too good even though it’s limited to water pokemon. Feraligatr also gets this effect on this print and this is one of the best Feraligatr cards out there. Hydro Crunch while not as good as it could have been is still a good attack and because of Rain Dance the cost isn’t that bad. 140 HP is also top notch, the only problem this card had in the beginning is the difficulty of getting the energies in your hand. Both of the HGSS Feraligatrs the lame one and good one got reprinted in Call of Legends and in a tin respectively.
5th gen had no Feraligatr cards which leads us to the last one from Phantom Forces. Like I mentioned with Golem because of Rare Candy’s errata, the impact of big basic pokemon and other types of disruption evolution pokemon were not good enough to cut it no matter how good they looked on paper. This one has good HP, a luck based attack that’s decent at best and a costly attack that can do 160 damage for 4 energy if you have a little set up. The best partner I can think of for this card would be the Crobat family from the same set but it’s too much set up and inconvenience compared to other decks. He also rotated out too, so trying him in the expanded format is even worse with all the better strategies there.
And that’s all the Feraligatrs we have so far! For the most part most Feraligatr cards have been good or great and even the bad ones aren’t as bad as other crap cards. He was king having a format named after him, all 3 ex series cards are good and Rain Dance Feraligatr is a gateway for many good water type attackers. He’s been out of the spotlight for quite some time now but his rich past success can’t be denied. He’s honestly viable in most formats he’s been in. I wanna thank you guys for reading and I hope you enjoyed this overview. Leave a comment for a pokemon you’d like to see and there’s a slight chance I’ll listen. What’s up.
Originally written in 2017
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