Otaku |
Welcome to a new week of CotDs! This time we are
covering some promos before we dive into the next set.
Making things a little awkward the Standard Format
shifts to XY-On (technically XY: Kalos Starter
and later) September 1st, so if you are reading this as
soon as it goes up, there is less than 15 days left of
the BW: Boundaries Crossed through XY: Roaring
Skies iteration of the Standard Format remaining.
As such I’ll be talking about both then (post rotation)
and now (pre-rotation). While I’m of the caliber where
it is unlikely I’ll even find some rather minor insight
of which they haven’t already thought, the World
Championship is this weekend, starting the 21st
so we most definitely have one major event in this time
frame!
First up is Sceptile-EX (XY: Black Star Promos
XY53), not to be confused with the new
Sceptile (XY: Ancient Origins 7/98, 84/98):
unlike the latter, this promo is already Standard legal.
As a Grass-Type, right now it can enjoy hitting a few
key cards for Weakness (like Seismitoad-EX) while
not having to worry about Resistance. Grass-Type
support (both direct and indirect) already exists and
the only thing really worth mentioning is Virizion-EX,
which can work with a decent amount of non-Grass-Type
Pokémon as well. XY: Ancient Origins has some
new Grass-Type support coming and seeing it in action on
the PTCGO has me believing they will help up the Type’s
collective performance, and possibly some individual
ones as well. As a Pokémon-EX, Sceptile-EX
enjoys being a Basic Pokémon, and as a Basic Pokémon it
enjoys their inherent advantage of requiring the least
amount of time or resources to get into play. There are
few drawbacks to being a Basic Pokémon, mostly stuff
like Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106),
technically missing out on some support specifically
designed for Evolutions, while being a Pokémon-EX
carries the serious problem of giving up an additional
Prize when KOed, the often troublesome “counter cards”
that specifically cause problems for Pokémon-EX and the
seldom relevant inability to access certain supporting
cards that specifically exclude Pokémon-EX. XY:
Ancient Origins adds some new counter cards but
rotation cuts some of high performing current ones, so
this may be a wash or even in the favor of Pokémon-EX.
170 HP isn’t what it used to be; when Pokémon-EX were
new it was incredibly durable with the only real threat
being a great attacker exploiting Weakness. Now is
still good and quite likely to survive a hit but with
the caveat that said survival includes decks that don’t
focus on OHKOs or with incomplete (slow and/or difficult
to maintain) setups. If we factor those out then it is
merely “likely” to survive… and of course Weakness
changes that to “unlikely”: the main benefit here is
that the Fire-Type has been struggling for a while
outside of a few key cards like Flareon (BW:
Plasma Freeze 12/116)... and as that is Flareon
[Plasma] its going for OHKOs of similarly sized
Pokémon-EX even without Weakness. While the Fire-Type
isn’t getting a lot in XY: Ancient Origins it is
getting some and rotation will only cost the Type cards
like Flareon [Plasma] that often don’t care that
it is a Fire-Type so Fire-Type Weakness might become
dangerous or at least become “average” instead of being
“relatively safe” like it is right now. The lack of
Resistance is typical of most cards so we’ll move onto
the Retreat Cost of [C], not uncommon but the second
best possible and as such quite good; a single Energy
will often be easy to attach, discard and recover from
discarding, plus anything that lowers Retreat Costs by
even just [C] drops it to “free”.
Sceptile-EX
has two attacks, but no Ability or Ancient Trait. The
first (Agility) requires [G] to use and hits for 20
damage while requiring a coin flip: “tails” just means a
flat 20 damage while “heads” places a protective effect
on Sceptile-EX during your opponent’s next turn
that blocks both the damage and the effects of attacks
by your opponent’s Pokémon. The second (Strong Slash)
requires [GGG] to hit for 130, plus has the effect text
states Sceptile-EX can’t use it during your next
turn. There are ways around both effects; they reset if
Sceptile-EX goes to the Bench or (when relevant)
Evolves or leaves play. The protection offered by
Agility is not perfect; there are attacks that get
around it by ignoring all effects on the Defending
Pokémon or by attacking something on the Bench plus it
does nothing against non-attack effects. Agility can
buy time to build to Strong Slash, a natural bit of
synergy that something as simple as Muscle Band
kicks into 2HKO mode. If you go the classic Muscle
Band plus Virbank City Gym/Hypnotoxic
Laser route, you’ll be able to OHKO Pokémon with up
to 180 HP (330 HP if they are Grass Weak), barring their
own possible protective effects. Keldeo-EX plus
Float Stone provide an easy means of resetting
the limiting effect of Strong Slash.
As mentioned earlier, Sceptile-EX will soon have
competition from another version being released in
XY: Ancient Origins. It has the same attributes as
today’s card, with only the attacks being different… but
in a weird way they aren’t that different. For [G] it
can use “Sleep Poison” to hit for 10 damage and flip a
coin: “heads” means the opponent’s Active is now Asleep
and Poisoned. This is slightly worse protection because
Sleep can go away on its own between turns and also is
being inflicted through a coin flip, about three out of
four possible outcomes end with the opponent’s Active
waking before they even have to do anything. Protection
from Special Conditions is also more common that
protection from attack effects in general. For [GC] it
can use Unseen Claw for 60 damage, plus 70 if the
opposing Pokémon has been affected by a Special
Condition. Obviously in post-rotation Expanded
Hypnotoxic Laser makes that into a 130-for-two
attack… and Ariados (XY: Ancient Origins
6/98) has an Ability that Poisons all Active Pokémon (so
for both players) excluding Grass-Types. So for
Standard Format play as of September 1st, the XY:
Ancient Origins Sceptile seems to be the
clear winner. Why does that matter?
We also get M Sceptile-EX and Sceptile Spirit
Link in XY: Ancient Origins. The latter does
the usual thing of preventing Mega Evolution form ending
your turn, while the former is a Grass-Type Mega
Evolution (and thus still a Pokémon-EX) with 220 HP, an
Ancient Trait (θ Stop) that protects M Sceptile-EX
from the effects of your opponent’s Pokémon’s Abilities
and for [GC] uses the attack “Jagged Saber” to hit for
100 damage while giving you the option of
attaching “up to 2 [G] Energy cards from your hand to
your Benched Pokémon in any way you like.” which is
pretty spiffy even if basic Grass Energy are the
only Energy card available that counts as [G] Energy
when not attached to anything. Wait there is more! The
effect also states that “If you attached to a Pokémon in
this way, heal all damage from that Pokémon.” We… will
probably be reviewing this card soon, if you catch my
drift and as such its existence makes Sceptile-EX
better (both of them), but as one version is clearly
better than the other, it might reduce, cancel out or
even overwhelm the benefit as players will stick to the
better version.
So prior to rotation this actually looks like a solid
card you could actually build a deck around… but
remember most people making the top cut will be building
their decks around amazing cards. As such I would only
recommend it if you can accurately predict the metagame
will be so heavy on Grass Weakness that this will
clearly offset not using a more dominant strategy and
even then, one would expect Genesect-EX to be a
better choice. After the rotation, as I just stated in
the previous paragraph the then legal Sceptile (XY:
Ancient Origins 7/98, 84/98) should out perform it
unless your opponent is protected from Special
Conditions. As M Sceptile-EX provides badly
needed Energy acceleration (plus total healing of
damage) it will be the focus of the deck, however
its damage is 100 so just maybe for the deck protected
from Special Conditions where 130 HP would matter, you
can benefit from a lone copy of today’s Sceptile-EX
instead. The same would go for Expanded play under the
same circumstances: I don’t think anything from the
older expansions regained here adds anything to today’s
Sceptile-EX and while Expanded isn’t cutting any
sets, remember that XY: Ancient Origins won’t be
legal there until September 1st, just like in Standard.
For Limited Play it would be a good +39 candidate
except it is a promo so it can’t be used there.
Ratings
Standard (Pre-Rotation):
3/5
Standard (Post-Rotation):
3/5
Expanded (Pre-Rotation):
3/5
Expanded (Post-Rotation):
3/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
Sceptile-EX (XY: Black Star Promos XY53)
at this point probably seems like a horrible tease;
perhaps we ought to have reviewed it sooner. Before the
cards from XY: Ancient Origins become tournament
legal, there isn’t anything to make it seem especially
useful, but neither does it seem bad. After XY:
Ancient Origins joins Standard and Expanded play,
M Sceptile-EX will almost certainly give us a reason
to run Sceptile-EX, but that set also brings a
superior option to this promo, leaving a tiny niche that
just might barely earn today’s version one slot in decks
built around the other Sceptile-EX… which
I think is likely to keep it about as useful as it is
now, though some of that could be the appeal of being
able to lazily use the same score four times without
obsessing over exactly how the conflicting factors weigh
out.
|
aroramage |
Soooo looks like we're still
working the kinks out of our Ancient Origins
list......hey I have an idea! IT'S PROMO WEEK!!
Once again we have come to the
grand scale week of necessities as we review several
promos that are going to be legal for...well, a while at
least! Will any of them have an impact on the format?
Only one way to find out, and that's by taking a look at
them all, starting with...Sceptile-EX!!
Yep, starting off this week, we're
gonna take a look at the evolved starters from the Hoenn
Power Tins, which have been around since...June?! Dangit,
why didn't we review these
sooner-oh...right...promos...Well, water off the
Golduck's back now, so let's see what Sceptile-EX
brings! First off is Agility, a 1-for-20 hit with a
50/50 chance to prevent all effects of attacks done to
Sceptile-EX during the opponent's next turn. Agility-esque
effects have always been a bit too chancy for
competitive play, but at least he'll make for a solid
casual card.
His second attack isn't that
impressive though. Strong Slash does have great value at
3-for-130, but they all have to be Grass Energy -
something that once Virizion-EX leaves won't have much
acceleration to it anymore - and he can't use Strong
Slash on the next turn. It's just...too powerful!! IT'S
TOO STRONG!! Still, combined with Muscle Band, Strong
Slash and Agility have the potential to KO most any
Pokemon-EX, and if you land on that lucky heads on the
turn Agility is used, you might have a shot at a sweep!
Still, it's a bit too reliant on
that coin flip going your way to work out, but Sceptile-EX
at least could be fairly decent as a casual play. Too
bad he'll get replaced pretty soon though...I mean,
whaaaaaaaa, I didn't say anything!
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (there are just a few
better Pokemon-EX to run before Sceptile-EX, but hey,
he's not terrible!)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (with Virizion-EX
support, he could be more usable)
Limited: PROMOOOOOOOOOOOTION!!
Arora Notealus: It's nice to see
the starters getting there EX variants. Even having
Venusaur-EX and Blastoise-EX, bad as they are by today's
standards, were still really nice to have. And all of
these can Mega-Evolve, so once we get Mega forms for
them all, watch out!...well, maybe not, they do need
that Spirit Link card.
Next Time: Flaming feet of fury!!
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