So I'm taking up the old COTW in the form of Featured Card, otherwise known as "I like this cool card can we talk about it". It has no "week" at the end of it so I can post more than one in quick succession. :P
Anyway:
Isn't this a neat little Pokemon card.
Attacking wise, it's got a 20 plus some change attack for a deece. Pretty bad, with a flip you can kill a Garchomp with two a Garchomp Lv. X, but the tradeoff is that Chomp can kill you, Luxray oneshots you (and being the most common SP, that sucks), and generally this can't do much offensively or defensively. But you're not using this to attack, you're using it for the retreat body.
Dodrio's body reduces Retreat by 2. That's kinda cool! There's a few little things about the body and how it's worded that make it particularly useful. It is a stackable body. If you have 2 Dodrio, everything retreats for free. Also notable is many differences from cousin
Flygon RR. While Flygon RR requires you to buff it with energy to make things retreat for free, Dodrio does that right off the bat. Flygon is also a Stage 2, which is a lot harder to get going than a Stage 1 like Dodrio. However, Flygon actually has a hint of offense to him and retreats himself for free, so it's not a simple case of being outclassed. When deciding Dodrio versus Flygon, it mainly comes down to whether or not you want a "pure tech" like Uxie or a "tech attacker" the way Luxray is in most SP decks. If you need another offensive Pokemon and want to mitigate a ridiculous Retreat cost at the cost of some setup and tutor time, Flygon is the way to go. If you want a quick and dirty Retreat body to speed your game up a little bit at the cost of bench space, Dodrio's your card.
In conclusion, Dodrio opens up the free retreat body game and makes people consider that there are a few more options than simply "Flygon or Bust". Particularly, now decks with only one evolution, like Donphan Prime, can take advantage of a retreat body.
