#dark golbat

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Pokemon Card of the Day #2583: Dark Golbat (Team Rocket)

Dark Golbat was mostly ignored when it was actually in the active main format. Evolving to a 50 HP Stage 1 to deal 10 damage to the Bench and a Pokemon for 20 for 2 Energy didn’t look as good when everyone was focused on swinging away with Basic Pokemon and Wigglytuff. It was only more recently, and in slower formats like in Prop 15/3 and Rocket-On with a Slowking errata, where Dark Golbat actually found a role. Not every deck could make use of it, but attacks could combo with 10 damage and Baby Pokemon later on, as well as a new Evolution, could really boost how useful it was.

The stats were very awkward here. 50 HP was extremely low for a Stage 1, and Dark Golbat could be easy to KO if someone could actually set up against it. The Psychic Weakness gave an opening to Mewtwo as well, which was also one of the easier Pokemon to set up. There was good news down here, at least. A Fighting Resistance was nice to help with Hitmonchan and even Giovanni’s Machamp and Tyrogue to some extent, while being able to retreat for free meant it wasn’t something that could be forced up front to do nothing outside of a Murkrow target. Murkrow wasn’t even that effective against decks using Dark Golbat due to all the Bench damage those aimed for either.

Sneak Attack wasn’t very impressive on its own, but did set up for some notable combos. When playing Dark Golbat from your hand, you could choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokemon and do 10 damage to it. Weakness and Resistance was applied, which basically meant that you did nothing to Steelix. This was just putting an Evolved Pokemon in play once for minor damage, and yet it had its spot. In Rocket-On (and Base-Neo somewhat), Dark Crobat was also available. Dark Golbat followed by a separate line evolving to Dark Crobat added up to a KO on a Benched Baby Pokemon, and using Cleffa as a target was really powerful. Such a thing did need Super Scoop Up to work well, and that meant only seeing use if Slowking got an errata. The tournaments under Wizards of the Coast used misprinted Slowking, not giving good openings for this. People today tend to play as they were originally printed in Japan instead, and without Slowking blocking Trainers all over the place it could be very potent.

Flitter was 20 damage to a Pokemon, with no Weakness and Resistance applied, for 2 Grass Energy. Not too strong by any means, but at least it could hit the Bench. This could deal with a heavily weakened Pokemon or a Baby that had taken any damage at all. There were a few moments where it could be useful, such as if you couldn’t get another Dark Golbat in play and you hit a heads on the previous turn with Sabrina’s Kadabra’s Life Drain.

Dark Golbat was only for specific decks, but those decks that could really get damage on the Bench or commonly got Pokemon to 10 damage without getting a KO loved that last hit. The downside was a low HP Pokemon that wasn’t very strong, meaning that you couldn’t just toss it in with literally anything and have it work well. It was that peak with Dark Golbat and Dark Crobat both being available together where it was best, giving a great anti-Cleffa measure. In that way, Dark Golbat was a surprisingly good card.

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