Out of all the card requests here, promo Floatzel is the most demanded. On paper this card’s very interesting, so let’s talk about it. With 100 HP, Attack the Wound deals 10 damage initially, but will spike up to 70 if the target is already damaged. For just one energy. Players were initially quite hyped for the new Floatzel, as it mirrors Weavile EX, a pokemon that has found competitive success. While both these pokemon are indeed very similar, context matters. Weavile gets to pair with Darkrai, who deals damage to the active pokemon without attacking it. With Dawn in the mix, you can potentially enable Weavile to hit for 70 on your very first attack. Floatzel is a water type. There is no Darkrai to pair him with, barring cards like Druddigon and Rocky Helmet, there is no way for you to damage a pokemon without attacking first. This matters because while 70 damage for 1 energy is insane, the attack that you’ll need to damage prior will be considerably weaker, and thus Floatzel is balanced. 100 HP is also on the low end of the spectrum for a stage 1 evolution, Floatzel will succumb to Darkrai’s Dark Prism after a nightmare aura ping. Spiritomb seems like an ideal partner, but in my experience the overall damage output from combining these 2 is a bit too low. While Glaceon could work with Floatzel, it being a stage 1 evolution means you can’t start chipping away at your opponent turn 1. So all in all, Floatzel is indeed extremely promising, but in my opinion we’ve yet to have a card that can enable his full potential.

Floatzel is still pretty solid though, so I decided to have him play the role of a fast support attacker backing up a heavy hitter that can one shot an EX Pokemon while damaging the back row as well.

Today’s deck combines Floatzel with Palkia, in a deck aiming to build up a Dimensional Storm to net us that big kill, and resort to Floatzel as a way to clean things up in the end game. Palkia’s Dimensional Storm doesn’t just smash something for 150 damage, it also deals 20 to every other pokemon in the bench. With a full set of Cyrus we can hunt down an injured pokemon and bring it down for that last point. While Giant Cape is important to surpass certain damage thresholds, we run one copy of it alongside a full set of Rocky Helmet, which is the only way we can damage an opponent’s pokemon without attacking it first, threatening a powerful retaliation from Floatzel the same way Weavile does.

Manaphy is our fifth basic pokemon, allowing us to go for the classic ramp onto Palkia play, but we don’t go with a full set as Manaphy’s value deteriorates faster with this pokemon combination than in other, more energy hungry decks. Since we run a total of 7 pokemon, Pokemon Communication is the perfect way for us to enhance our consistency, making sure we manage to find Buizel, Floatzel AND Palkia in all of our games.

This is what I believe to be the best way to play Floatzel as of now, while the decks power level may not quite reach that of the strongest meta decks, it can certainly compete. And the moment water types get a reliable tool to chip away at pokemon without attacking, Floatzel stocks will go way up.