History of Magmortar in the TCG Pokemon Trading Card Game Overview!

Hello everyone and welcome to another Pokemon TCG Overview. This one is pretty interesting since I’m covering Magmortar. It’s interesting because while Magmortar is the final form of the line and a 4th generation pokemon Magmar has been around much longer, from the beginning in fact making this feel like a Magmar instalment more. After all, there are more Magmar cards in existence. But first we have to cover Magby!

That’s right an even more basic pokemon than a normal basic, a baby pokemon. Magmar is one of the few pokemon that got introduced as a pokemon without any forms and got a pre-evolution and an evolution later on. The baby pokemon debuted in Neo Genesis along with the original and one of the strongest Magbys for sure. In the debuting generation of this concept baby pokemon had an effect that wasn’t a power or a body similar to ancient traits we’ve had recently in the ORAS set trilogy. A chance effect that needed your opponent to flip a coin and get heads for an attack to pass. All of the bay pokemon had this effect and as you can imagine, while random was very powerful. Magby’s attack is also powerful negating all powers while doing 10 damage Secret Wonders Gardevoir style, only in this case it was before bodies and powers had a split making this so absolute negating everything.

Starting with the 3rd generation baby pokemon had the Baby Evolution poke-power pretty much only serving to give the evolved form more benefits if you went to the trouble of playing the baby pokemon with them. The HGSS sets were an exception giving baby pokemon the Sweet Sleeping face body and costless attacks that put them to sleep as a side effect. Essentially this somewhat brought back the baby rule from the original babies for old time’s sake. Weakened, but still strong.

Magby from ex Team Rocket is also pretty fly letting you use a supporter you played as an attack, good support stuff. I also want to mention Magby from Legend Maker requiring a specific stadium “Full Flame” to inflict burn with its attack. It’s not good like other Magbys but it’s a rare specific condition of an effect. The Chikorita Side Deck does have a Japanese exclusive Magby but besides that only 8 Magby cards have been released counting this one and the Call of Legends reprint of the Triumphant one.

When it comes to Magmar, it’s been one of the basic pokemon that didn’t evolve in Base Set but were stronger than the basic pokemon that can still evolve in the same category as Hitmonchan, Electabuzz etc. That said the original Base Set print ha d a lot of drawbacks compared to those pokemon with a similar concept. It had a lot less HP and was much slower to attack. 2 for 30 is cool for back then but Hitmonchan was gonna be at 40 since it could start attacking turn 1, same for Electabuzz with additional bonuses. The improved version in Evolutions is also ass sadly.

The Squirtle Half Deck was the first Magmar we didn’t get with the other one being released in “Everyone’s Exciting Battle” another Japanese only set. Japan also has an alternate art print of the Mysterious Treasures Magmar in the Bastiodon The Defender Half Deck and a holo promo version of the Secret Wonders Magmar. The one in Extended Sheet 3 was the only card we got as a Wizards of the Coast promo.

Blaine’s Magmar and Karen’s Magmar are the owner’s versions Magmar got and Karen’s Magmar is also a Japanese exclusive being from the VS set. I haven’t the vaguest idea why she has a Magmar, but then again I don’t know everything about the anime and mangas. Other than that all the other Magmar cards aren’t worth mentioning being pretty s**t if not average and got pretty irrelevant when Magmortar started getting cards and Magmar was like another basic pokemon now, maybe with just a little more HP.

Magmar is one of the blessed pokemon to get an ex version in the original ex era; cursed would be more appropriate in this era because Magmar ex has got to be one of the s**ttiest ex pokemon from that era hands down. Shame since it looks cool enough. Basically Smokescreen is done by non ex Magmar from f***ing Fossil and should have done at least 50 with burn.

Our main focus Magmortar doesn’t even have half as many prints as Magmar but nevertheless has had much better cards either way. Magmortar debuted in Mysterious Treasures, the 2nd Diamond and Pearl set and was one of the cooler pokemon in that set when I was a 13 year old kid. The art was cool, it was featured on booster pack art, it was just cool. 100 HP for a stage 1 is fine, the retreat isn’t attractive at all at 3 but this was a solid pokemon for sure. Smoke Bomb is an average attack but Flame Drum was certainly strong for that time.

Possibly the biggest reason this card was good however, was the presence of another card from the same set Magmortar Lv. X. Magmortar Lv. X was one of the few and earliest Lv. X cards and Magmortar was a lucky pokemon in that regard. See, unlike ex pokemon from any era, primes and GX pokemon, Lv. X cards were very few in the earlier sets and rarer. Even the sets that had more in number, Lv. X cards ultimately did not distribute as many total cards as much as other special pokemon cards in other eras. Up to Mysterious Treasures there were only 6 Lv. X pokemon and f**k, Secret Wonders introduced only 2 next, not even 3. With Honchcrow Lv. X not being that good Magmortar and the other few pokemon with Lv. X cards had a significant advantage. In this case it gets a good 30 HP improvement, the retreat is the same, weakness is times 2 but it gets a good power and strong attack.

You need Magby under it to dodge the cost but that isn’t a very difficult condition to meet and besides, the important thing is that you don’t discard energies from Magmortar but from the hand. Straight 80 for 3 was as good as you could get for a conventional attack. It synergized with Infernape Lv. X, Blaziken and Typhlosion which accelerated fire energy from the discard pile. It also got released as an alternate art holo from the Great Encounters blisters.

Torrid Wave let’s you instantly burn your opponent every turn if you’re active and deals 30 instead of 20 between turns. Flame Buster is a snipe for 100 with the cost of discarding 2 energies and not being able to use Flame Buster next turn. With a few switching cards you can easily bypass this effect and either way it’s a strong attack to have as an option.

Magmortar got another card almost immediately in the next set, Secret Wonders and comes as a rare holo from the Lavaflow Theme Deck for that set. No matter how I look at it this card is straight up superior than the Mysterious Treasures print. It gets 10 more HP while sharing the same bottom stats and real talk 110 HP is fantastic on a stage 1 like this back then. Flame Blast is going to do 20 damage times the number of fire energy on this pokemon so with 4 energies it can do 80 damage like the other one. While that’s one more energy you don’t have any conditions and the benefit of this attack is you can use it as soon as possible while gradually getting stronger. With Magmortar’s poke-body you even have an additional incentive as it heals 20 damage every time you attach a fire energy from your hand.

Fireball Bazooka will do 80 damage for 3 for a conventional attack if you factor in the spread bench damage. Flame Blast’s unlimited damage output is the important part though, since with the fire starters I mentioned before you can power it up as you see fit. This particular Magmortar along with the Lv. X were some of the only pokemon that were strong enough to compete with GardiGallade at the height of its dominance. Excellent pokemon overall, in my opinion this card stands the time better when the stronger sets in that era came out.

Magmortar wouldn’t get another card till Supreme Victors a pretty long time at the end of the D/P/P sets. At this point though the standards for a good cards had risen drastically thanks to SP pokemon f***ing up everything and on top of that this Magmortar card didn’t really improve much upon the previous ones. 110 HP is still pretty nice and it had one less retreat cost but the attacks and power didn’t quite do it. The best thing though is definitely the power, when you evolve into this card you burn and confuse the opponent; the exact slick ability cool ol’ Flareon ex had. Of course there were a billion ways to play around this effect but it’s still good enough. Fire Arrow isn’t really gonna do it being a 2 for 30 snipe and 60 for 3 was mostly lacklustre at that time too. F**k, even Espeon’s attack from Majestic Dawn is better letting you move a DCE not just a fire energy. It’s a mostly mediocre card unfortunately.

Those are all the Magmortar cards motha f**ka! Unlike other newer pokemon like Garchomp, Magmortar hasn’t accomplished that much, but it definitely got more love than a lot of other pokemon. Having a Lv. X card from the 2nd D/P set prestigious enough if you ask me and Magmar got an ex t….. well, that’s pretty s**t okay, but hey! Magmortar had a deck that could go toe to toe with GardiGallade when it was the absolute deck of the format and it’s one of the cooler fire type pokemon if everything else fails. Thank you guys for reading and I hope you enjoyed this piece on a pokemon line with such an interesting history. See you next time!

Originally Written in 2018

Magmar from Fossil fixed things quickly giving it as much HP, attacks that could match the Haymaker original duo and a better retreat. Naturally being an OG fire pokemon from gen 1 it gets some promos and special cards, some we got and some we didn’t.

Not long after the HGSS came about and Magmortar definitely got represented there too, getting 2 cards from those few sets. 3 if we include the Call of Legends reprint. The first one came in Unleashed and was the one that got reprinted in Call of Legends with alternate art of course. Same stats as the Supreme Victors one and while it has stronger attacks they’re harder to pull off too. Hard Crush discards the 3 top cards of your deck and will do 50 for each energy. The first thing that comes to my mind is Delcatty but it’s not even all that with that. It can definitely be usable though. Mantle Bazooka is 100 for 4 with a double fire energy discard; good enough attack, you can pair it with Typhlosion Prime too but I can’t help but think there were better partners for it.

Seeing as how God awful Magmortar from Triumphant is the Unleashed print is like gold. Not only does it have less HP but s**t attacks to go with that. Top Burner is one of the worst deck out attacks I’ve seen. You discard a card from the opponent’s deck times the number of fire energies on this dude but if you flip tails you lose all of them too. Yeah, you can use Typhlosion Prime and try and deck out your opponent but if you’re going to go to such trouble, you might as well use a proper attacker with all the fire energies you’ll probably lose. Burst Punch doesn’t do s**t. That is all.

So those are the Magmortars in 4th gen where it debuted. Magmortar’s original art from Dragons Exalted got censored, after a very long time of something like this happening, The Pokemon Company International thought it was too much for Magmortar to point in the direction it did. Sigh… F***ing…. I don’t have s**t to say. When it comes to how good the card is 120 HP is solid enough, Magmortar never really had problems with its HP, retreat is big again and has average attacks. Doing 1 for 40 and reducing damage if your opponent doesn’t play around the effect is alright but it wasn’t gonna do it at this point.

Big ass EX pokemon were at their height of the game battling it out like dinosaurs; with an attack like this Magmortar wasn’t even worth the look of these pokemon. Same with Flamethrower. It was just too average at this point.

Magmortar saw a Japanese exclusive promo next we didn’t get from “Everyone’s Exciting Battle” to go with Magmar. It does indeed go with it being bad as well. Now, Magmortar from Furious Fists is pretty interesting. They made this card to be at its best when working with Electivire and vice-versa. These pokemon have always been connected in various ways in games since the red and blue days so it’s not as surprising as making Bidoof cards work with Dragonite or some s**t, but it was still a first for them. Flame Charge is a good attack doing 30 for 1 and accelerating fire energy from the deck to Magmortar.

Was it really enough? Probably not but it’s there. The Electivire part comes in Twin Bursts, this attack will do a pathetic 80 for 4 but an impressive 160 if Electivire was on the bench. With a Muscle Band on you clearly get one-hit knock outs on EX pokemon back then but it won’t be as cool as it looks on the art of the card. At least it’s something with some potential; could get the dinosaurs attention if nothing else.

The last Magmortar is definitely the best out of the newer ones, our latest one from the latest set Ultra Prism. It has 10 more HP and can give more offensive pressure. Anything that attacks this card while active is going to be burned and burn is improved nowadays so 20 free damage is nice. Fire Blaster will do 160 for 3 if you discard 2 energy and it’s great because you have the option to do 80 if you wish to. If we get any good way to accelerate fire energy, from the discard pile particularly this card is a pretty nice pokemon to take advantage of that.