Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Victini-EX/Victory
Piece
We end the week with a ‘two for the price of one’ review
of two cards that are so tied to each other that they
really need to be looked at together.
Victory Piece is an ACE SPEC which only has an effect
when attached to Victini-EX.
When it is, it states that Victini
can use its attacks regardless of the amount or Type of
Energy attached to it. The upshot of that slightly weird
wording is that Victini can
attack without Energy if it has a Victory Piece.
Pretty sweet, right? Of
course it is, but there are downsides to consider, the
most important of which is that running Victory Piece
means you cannot use any of the other ACE SPECs, so you
miss out on the consistency that Computer Search and
Dowsing Maching can bring,
as well as the surprise attacks that are possible with
Scramble Switch.
But let’s not get ahead of
ourselves, it would only be worth giving
Victini free attacks if
those attacks were actually good, so let’s pause a
moment to consider what Victini-EX
can do.
For a single Fire Energy, you get Turbo Energize, which
lets you search your deck for any two Basic Energy cards
and attach them to your Benched Pokémon any way you
like. There’s no denying that this is pretty good Energy
acceleration early game for those decks that need it.
Imagine being able to drop a Fire and a Lightning on a
Rayquaza-EX turn one,
setting you up for a 60-120 damage attack next turn
(more if you can get Eelektrik into play and some
Lightning in the discard). Or how about stacking
two Energy on a
Mewtwo-EX and then dropping a DCE next turn.
Would you need Victory Piece to use this attack? That’s
debateable. It’s cheap enough anyway, and you are more
likely to be able to get your hands on a Fire Energy to
use the attack than your single copy of the ACE SPEC.
Where you do
need Victory Piece is when you want to use Intensifying
Burn. For one Fire and two
Colourless (or nothing with the ACE SPEC) you get
a poor base damage of 50 . . . unless you are attacking
an EX, in which case you are swinging for 100. That kind
of damage on turn one against an EX is very good, but it
is only a two-hit KO and all it would take would be a
Tool Scrapper to ruin your day.
There are other downsides to
Victini-EX. The most important being the very low
110 HP which makes it an easy KO for
Darkrai-EX with Dark Claw,
Tornadus-EX with
Hypnotoxic
Laser, or
Keldeo-EX without any help
whatsoever. For obvious reasons, you don’t want to be
running multiples of this card in your deck – those two
Prize KOs could end your game very quickly – but if you
only use a single copy, your chances of getting it and
Victory Piece out early (when it is most effective) are
not great.
Intensifying Burn is a somewhat gimmicky attack that is
not that easy to exploit, while Turbo Energize doesn’t
really require the ACE SPEC if you run
Victini-EX in a deck with
Fire Energy. For these reasons, the only real
competitive niche I can see Victini-EX
finding is in a Rayquaza-EX
deck as an additional and preferably early game means of
acceleration. It would be a considerable risk, but it
might just pay off on occasions and seal a second turn
victory. Other than that, maybe it could be used in some
off-beat Fire deck . . . something like
Ninetales DRX/Mewtwo-EX
perhaps? I wouldn’t be shocked to see some players
giving it a try, but I would be very surprised indeed if
it became a common sight at tournaments.
Rating
Victini-EX
Modified: 2.5 (potential first turn acceleration, if you
like taking big risks)
Limited: 3 (still risky here, especially as you play
with 4 Prizes)
Victory Piece
Modified: 2 (not necessary unless you
really like
taking risks and want to use
Victini as an attacker)
Limited: 3 (Your chances of pulling this and
Victini in 6 packs are very
slim. If you do, you would play them)
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virusyosh |
Happy Friday, Pojo readers! The State and Provincial
Championships are upon us, so I hope that everyone is
ready Today we're reviewing a Pokemon-EX (and its ACE
SPEC) that may surprise some people at the upcoming
tournaments. First, I'll review Victini-EX, and then
Victory Piece.
Victini-EX is a Basic Fire Pokemon-EX. Fire-types are
really uncommon right now due to the prevalence of
Blastoise/Keldeo variants; these heavy-hitting Water
decks have really diminished Fire's overall power in the
current metagame. As a Pokemon-EX, Victini is going to
want to do something very impressive to justify the
opponent taking two Prizes. 110 HP is a bad start, being
the lowest HP value for a Pokemon-EX in our current
generation. Additionally, 110 HP is easily dealt with in
a format that hits incredibly hard. Water Weakness means
that Victini is little more than an annoyance to Keldeo-EX,
which can Secret Sword for the KO with only a single
Water Energy attached. Victini also has no Resistance,
as well as a Retreat Cost of 1, which is decent and
easily paid whenever you need to get Victini out of the
Active spot.
Victini-EX has two attacks. Turbo Energize searches your
deck for two basic Energy cards and attaches them to one
of your Benched Pokemon however you would like for a
single Fire Energy. Normally I'm not a huge fan of
attacks that only accelerate, however Turbo Energize
being able to search the deck and attach directly makes
me feel as if this attack could potentially work well as
a set-up Pokemon in some decks. Of course, Turbo
Energize does require a Fire Energy, so you'd be limited
to decks running that type or Blend GRPD.
Intensifying Burn is Victini's form of offense, starting
off at a terrible (for an EX) 50 damage for a Fire and
two Colorless, but dealing 50 more damage if the
Defending Pokemon is a Pokemon-EX. 50 damage for 3
Energy is pretty bad, but 100 damage for the same price
is actually decent, so you'll want to make sure that
Victini is opposing a Pokemon-EX to get the highest
damage output (though it won't OHKO much other than
Cobalion and Shaymin). I'm not super impressed with this
attack, so I'd probably just stick with using Victini as
a set-up Pokemon using Turbo Energize.
Of course, one cannot properly review Victini-EX without
a mention of its card-specific ACE SPEC, Victory Piece.
Victory Piece is a Pokemon Tool ACE SPEC (so if you run
it, you can't run things like Computer Search or
Scramble Switch). When attached to Victini-EX, you
ignore Victini's Energy requirements for using its
attacks. While 50 damage for three Energy is lackluster,
50-100 damage for free is actually quite good, so this
may be some of the reason as to why the card's damage
output was designed the way it was. Additionally, it's
important to note that running Victory Piece makes your
deck lose out on things like Computer Search, Dowsing
Machine, or Scramble Switch, all of which can be
important players in many decks. Therefore, if you
decide to run Victini, you should first figure out if
Victory Piece is worth your ACE SPEC slot: the answer
isn't as clear as one might think.
Modified: 2.75/5 Victini-EX doesn't look like very much
at first, but upon closer inspection, may have quite a
bit of Modified potential. Modified is a format all
about Energy acceleration, and Turbo Energize can work
in fast decks to quickly power up your Bench.
Intensifying Burn isn't too powerful at the outset, but
it works well against Metal-type Pokemon even if they
aren't Pokemon-EX (Klinklang, anyone?) and can be
devastating if they are. Both of these attacks are
potentially made better (and free) by Victini's specific
ACE SPEC, Victory Piece. Therefore, if you're building a
deck utilizing Fire Energy (or some Energy cards that
can produce it), Victini is worth a closer look, and
isn't nearly as bad as it looks upon first glance.
Limited: 3.5/5 Victini is an interesting card in Limited
play. 110 HP means that it isn't so untouchable compared
to other Pokemon-EX, and neither of its attacks are that
awe-inspiring, either. However, Energy acceleration wins
games, and Turbo Energize won't be an exception to this,
especially because it thins your deck as well.
Intensifying Burn is still very expensive for its cost
here, but works well if your opponent happens to have a
Cobalion-EX or something similar. Of course, if you
manage to pull the Victory Piece, even better. Of
course, one really needs to watch out for Victini's low
HP and Water Weakness - your opponent can very easily
take half of their Prizes off of the Victory Pokemon!
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