Hello, and welcome to the end of the week of
disappointing SV cards, which ends with yet another one
in the form of Butterfree FB. You'll find out why soon
enough. Anyway, onto the basics of the card, and it has
90 HP, which is about average for an SP Pokémon. x2 Fire
Weakness is rather bad at the moment in this format due
to Infernape 4 and it's Lv.X (RR) and Blaziken FB and
it's Lv.X (SV) both being rather popular. -20 Resistance
is quite nice really, but the more popular Fighting
Pokémon around at the moment (Claydol (GE) aside since
he never attacks unless someone is clinically insane) is
still Machamp (SF), at which point you need to Guard (Unown
G (GE)) Butterfree FB to have any hope of being able to
use the Resistance. 1 Retreat Cost for a light, Flying
Bug seems a little high really. In the grander scheme of
things, 1 Retreat Cost is indeed very reasonable, but it
just doesn't seem right for Butterfree FB. Finally, it's
an SP Pokémon, so obviously has access to all that
beautiful support that all SP's do, which does help the
card a bit.
Abilities now, and I'll start with Compound Eyes, it's
Poké-Body, which if you opponent's Active Pokémon has a
Poké-Body, then Butterfree FB's attacks deal 30 more
damage to them. Not bad, and potentially quite helpful
since there are rather alot of Pokémon in the metagame
with Poké-Bodies, however, it's just that most of them
are techs, and thus bench-sitters for the most part, and
thus you maybe won't be able to to use Compound Eyes for
the most part. Flygon (RR) is an obvious exception to
this rule, but there are few others.
It's single attack would benefit greatly from Compound
Eyes, thus it's just a shame that it won't happen that
often. Select Powder costs GCC (read: GC and Energy
Gain) for 30 damage. Not a good start. It does get
slightly better with the effect, where you can choose
between Burn and Poison and inflict that Special
Condition upon the Defending Pokémon. Not bad, but it's
too easy to get rid of Special Conditions at the moment,
making this effect near pointless.
Combos? Well, it could just be me, but I'm not sure I
can find any use for this card at all. It's a slightly
counter to Flygon I suppose, being able to 2HKO it with
Poison, be it normal or Lv.X version, but there are
better counters than Butterfree FB for that.
Counters? Well, as soon as everyone realises that this
card has no use at all, because then it will be filled
away, with the rest of the junk rares from SV, into
people's shoeboxes. Machamp (SF)'s prevalence in this
format as well doesn't help, nor the ample number of
decks that use a Fire typed main attacker. In fact,
anything this card could even be considered for (Poké-Body
hurter, Flygon counter, Special Conditioner) are all
done alot better by other cards
Ratings:
Modified: So, it has half decent basics, with it's
Weakness hampering the card, and it's abilities really
not allowing to do anything at all, and anything it can
do are done alot better by other cards. So yeah, I don't
like this card, and I don't think anyone does really.
Well, no one who never attacks with Claydol (GE) at
least. 1/5
Limited: Better here. GCC is very expensive for an
attack, but there are a couple of plus points. Firstly,
the Special Conditions are helpful, and since there are
less ways of inflicting them here, it's worth including
just so you can inflict at least 1 during the
tournament. Also, people may tend towards playing Poké-Bodies
due to their helpfulness, thus Compound Eyes will
probably be used more here than it would in Modified.
Fire Pokémon are still annoying, but it's not that bad
here. 2.75/5
Meganium45
OK, after a week of confusing cards, we get the MOST
confusing card of all…Butterfree FB
Basic with top Stats of 90 HP, double weakness to fire,
resistant to fighting, 1 retreat cost.
The weakness to fire made most of us run screaming away,
but with the Advent of Arceus coming, and the
strengthening of water, this thing might be a “sleeper”.
A body, that cannot be shut off by Dialga, that adds 30
damage to defending Pokemon with a Pokebody.
Then a 3 energy (2 with gain) attack that does 30 damage
and either burns or poisons the defending Pokemon (your
choice).
So many combos with this…like Magmortar, Heatran, and
others…could be a “weird” fit into a fire
deck…resistance to water would have made it PERFECT.
Ratings…
Modified…2.5/5 Not great at this time…but I am watching.
Limited…2/5 Don’t like this one here. Much better
options in this set, and ironically, too much fire!
See you tomorrow afternoon at B&B in Eureka, and then
Sunday at Ogre’s in St. Louis City!!!
Vince
Baby Mario Top 4 UK Nats
Butterfree FB Lv 50
Butterfree FB is an interesting little card. Its
Compound Eyes PokeBody increases the damage dealt by its
attacks by 30 if the defending Pokémon has any
PokeBodies. That’s certainly a nice boost, though how
often you will be able to use it is doubtful as Pokémon
that are used for their Bodies tend to sit on the bench,
rather than be active as an attacker. There are
exceptions though, so you may be able to get the effect
once in a while.
Of course, the usefulness of Compound Eyes is directly
related to the effectiveness of Butterfree FB’s attack.
For [G][C][C], Select Powder does 30 damage and gives
you a choice of inflicting Burn or Poison. Although not
a terrible attack, it does mean that Butterfree’s attack
maxes out at 60, which is somewhat less that ideal in
this format. Status Conditions are a nice bonus but,
unless you have a way to really abuse them (as Blaziken
FB LV X does with Burn), they are unlikely to make or
break a game.
With an X2 Weakness to Fire, Butterfree FB’s
survivability is questionable in this format. In the
end, its Body is too situational and its attack too
underpowered for it to see any competitive play.
Roserade GL remains the SP Grass tech of choice, and I
would run Turtwig GL over this too (especially if I was
expecting to face Kingdra!)
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (cute, but not very playable)
Limited: 2 (lots of Fire in the set, but Status
Conditions are better here)
Guy
Butterfree FB:
Greetings everyone! Friday's card of the day is
Butterfree FB. I'm sitting here, staring at Butterfree
FB, and trying to think of how this card could be
playable. Unfortunately, I'm not coming up with too much
yet. So lets take a look at it together and see what we
can figure out.
Butterfree FB is a basic with 90 hp, not bad/not great.
Butterfree FB's Poke-Body, Compound Eyes, may be its
best feature. Compound Eyes allows Butterfree FB's
attack to do 30 more damage (before applying weakness
and resistance) if your opponent's active pokemon has
any Poke-Bodies. (It's odd that the poke-body
actually reads, "each of Butterfree FB's
attacks does 30 more damage." As if Butterfree has more
than one attack.) Select Power (Butterfree FB's only
attack) requires 1 grass and 2 * energy to attack. This
attack does 30 damage, and gives you the choice of
either burning or poisoning the defending pokemon, which
is obviously useful. Double weakness to fire is not
helpful, -20 resistance to fighting is semi-helpful, and
one retreat cost is average.
Essentially, if the opponent has an active pokemon with
a Poke-Body, Select Powder does 60 damage with a
guaranteed poison or burn. So this gets you either 70
damage by the end of your turn with poison, or 80
damage by the end of your turn if they flip tails for
burn (best case scenario). But if your opponent's active
does not have any Poke-Bodies you are looking at 40 with
poison, and 50 with burn and a tails coin flip. To sum
it up, what does all this make Butterfree FB? Average.
Modified: 2/5 The definition of average- semi-useful in
certain situations, otherwise vulnerable.
Limited: 2.5/5 The ability to poison or burn and double
your attack power could be very helpful on a basic
pokemon in this format.
Codex_of_
Wisdom
The last card for the week: Butterfree FB LV. 50
Another SP, so it’s Basic. 90 HP is low, the x2 fire
weakness hurts, and the -20 fighting resistance does
little to boost the basic stats up.
One retreat is pretty good.
The abilities fall slightly better than the stats.
The Body lets you do 30 more damage if the opponent’s
active has a Body as well. Plain, simple, and lots of
Pokemon have Bodies, so it is sure to see use.
The attack costs a grass and double colorless for 30 (60
with Body) and choice of Burn or Poison. Pretty good,
overall, but not outstanding. Maybe a hit-and-run attack
with the lingering conditions.
Overall:
Modified – 3.5/5 I can see this being used as a
hit-and-run – build it up on the bench, send it out to
burn and poison, or if they send out something with a
Body. Just hope they don’t have a Charizard.
Limited – 3.5/5
And so I say “Bye-Bye, Butterfree” and sign off for the
week. Hopefully I’ll be back next week.
