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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Flygon

- Furious Fists

Date Reviewed:
Oct. 3, 2014

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.17
Expanded: 1.90
Limited: 3.00

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst. 
3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Welcome back, in case you missed yesterday, today's card of the day is Flygon! He evolves from Vibrava (somehow) who evolves from Trapinch (somehow) and is Dragon/Ground! Here in the TCG, he's just Dragon, but that's been an interesting mix since its introduction, and Flygon has been featured before in terms of his Ability, Sand Slammer (the BCR version).

 

But that's not what we're talking about today. Today's Flygon works differently, but as I mentioned yesterday, he works in tandem with what Vibrava does with Energies. Vibrava adds them to the hand 2 at a time, and Flygon is meant to take off with them - literally! His first attack is Rainbow Shower, and it might as well have said, "Vomit your hand onto the field," because that's basically all it is. You get to attach as many Energies as you can onto Pokemon you've got. This can work well with Vibrava from before, but I imagine you'd rather pair it with something like Juniper/Sycamore or N, allowing you to draw a lot of cards and thus have a lot of Energy available!

 

This also helps Flygon charge up for his second attack, Sand Sweep. Since he's a Dragon-type, he can't really take advantage of the Fighting acceleration, and there's not a whole lot of Grass acceleration out there, but Flygon solves his own problem with his Rainbow Shower. And then he heals 30 damage from each of your Pokemon that has Energy on it while dealing 70 damage out to the opponent's Pokemon! Not too shabby, eh?

 

Still, Flygon is not without his disadvantages; aside from Stage 2 troubles, Flygon needs to first use his Rainbow Shower to even hope on getting out Sand Sweep, and even then I doubt he's sticking around terribly long to use it. In slower matches that don't involve gratuitous amounts of damage, Flygon can make a decent staller with the 30 points of recovery, but nowadays it's not gonna help him. Even recovering 30 damage from what may have once been an Active Pokemon isn't much; it's like the Resistance argument from Klefki, where having to deal 30 more damage isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it takes a Muscle Band and Hypnotoxic to catch up...but all it takes to catch up is Muscle Band and Hypnotoxic.

 

Luckily for Flygon, his Rainbow Shower only costs 1 Colorless, so he can still fit into a lot of decks that don't have much acceleration, and as long as Sycaper (Sycamore/Juniper) is around, Flygon can boost your guys quickly to be ready to take on anything. Maybe there's a super special deck that runs mostly Pokemon that don't require specific Energy for certain attacks like Flygon, Charizard-EX, and Seismitoad-EX, and you just splash a few of each Energy in to throw down with the Shower!

 

...well, not the Special Energies. There is a limit after all.

 

Rating

 

Standard: 2.5/5 (good Energy accelerator for decks lacking Blastoise, Blacksmith, or Landorus)

 

Expanded: 2/5 (ehhhh, I'd stick to another Energy accelerator honestly like Dark Patch or Eelektrik)

 

Limited: 3/5 (not bad personal Energy acceleration, but also the best Energy accelerator for any deck in this environment that isn't Fighting)

 

Arora Notealus: Hmm, I wonder what he and Hariyama in the back there are fighting over...come to think of it, that beach looks oddly familiar...

 

Weekend Thought: Any combos you can think of for a group of guys like these?


Otaku

Yesterday we looked at Vibrava (XY: Furious Fists 75/111), so it seems quite natural that we look at Flygon (XY: Furious Fists 76/111).  Being a Dragon-Type is still kind of “meh” as there isn’t much Weakness or Type support to exploit.  Being a Stage 2 is still a negative; it isn’t impossible but they need to be the best of their ilk to warrant competitive play right now.  130 HP isn’t promising but it isn’t a deal breaker while Fairy-Type Weakness is one of the easier ones to manage and no Resistance is regrettably not a very important trait anymore, so lacking it isn’t really a detriment.  Finishing off the Attributes is a Retreat Cost of one; this is easy to pay and handy, though of course a free Retreat Cost would have been significantly better.

 

Flygon has two attacks.  For [C] its Rainbow Shower attack allows you to attach as many Basic Energy cards from your hand to your Pokémon, and in any way you like.  This would have been mind-blowing even as a one-use-ever Ability, or as an attack on a Basic Pokémon, but on a Stage 2 it seems like a poor fit; sure you get to power up a lot of stuff all at once (if you have the Energy in hand to do so) but it has to be Basic Energy and Flygon is likely to either be OHKOed or near KOed… and as you need to put a lot of work into getting Flygon out quickly, having the basic Energy in hand you want to attach when you attack and having something worth attaching to in play, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for additional combos.

 

It has one other attack, Sand Sweep, which requires [GFC] and does 70 points of damage while healing 30 points of damage from each of your Pokémon with an Energy attached.  I am glad that it combos with its own attack, but the damage requires boosting (in a deck that will likely be desperate for space) get to the point where it 2HKOs Pokémon-EX, and while healing can be helpful, this is extremely niche.  After all, you need Energy attached to something for it to be healed, and then its just the equivalent of a Potion.

 

Either Trapinch (BW: Boundaries Crossed 83/149) or Trapinch (XY: Furious Fists 53/111) should be an adequate stepping stone that on extremely rare occasions might come in handy for their respective first attacks, while yesterday’s Vibrava seems a better fit than Vibrava (BW: Boundaries Crossed 98/149) though odds are you’ll want to use Rare Candy when at all possible.

 

For Standard, this might be okay for a fun deck; there are plenty of cards that can make use of massive amounts of Energy, even Basic Pokémon.  I don’t expect it to prove competitive, as your opponent is likely to take out whatever is more of an issue for you; Flygon or whatever you were powering up.  The turn it loses due to “set-up” time is quite precious.  It fares marginally better in Expanded; it gains access to things like Level Ball and Rayquaza-EX will likely be present as an attacker in this format.  In Limited play, it is probably worth running.  While not brilliant, each Stage has at least one attack that can use any Type of Energy, and the lower damage yield and decks with high basic Energy counts and using two to four Types of basic Energy really allow Rainbow Shower to shine.

 

Ratings

 

Standard: 1.75/5 - Attacking for Energy acceleration with a Stage 2 is expensive and slow, which ends up being self-defeating, at least this format.

 

Expanded: 1.8/5 - Slightly better due to the different card pool.

 

Limited: 3/5 - A slower format with lower damage output is just what Flygon needed.  Still, being a Stage 2 hurts it even here.

 

Summary:  Flygon (XY: Furious Fists 76/111) definitely does some interesting things, but not well enough to bother with it in competitive play.  Energy acceleration that requires attacking with with a bunch of basic Energy cards in hand isn’t going to speed up a lot of strategies.  If you like Flygon, you could use it in a fun deck, though Flygon (BW: Boundaries Crossed 99/149; BW Promos BW53) has seen some competitive play and still seems like quite the novel Pokémon.  Of course, both Flygon resemble some of its past TCG iterations.


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