Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#7 M Aggron EX
Normal Aggron is no
Miltotic when it comes to
looks, but the Mega version is just a mess really. So
many spikes and blades, I don’t see how he can even walk
around without causing severe injury to himself and
others.
This card, however, is decent. First thing to note is
that M Aggron has a Spirit
Link card, so your turn doesn’t have to end just to get
one of them into play. That makes all the difference,
really. He also comes with a huge 240 HP, which means
that even a Muscle-Banded Pyroar
can’t OHKO, despite hitting for Weakness. That
represents a substantial boost for Metal decks which
otherwise get taken apart by the fiery lion. Speaking of
Metal decks, they of course have
Bronzong PHF and his Metal Links Ability for some
very nice Energy acceleration . . . which is just as
well.
That’s because Megaton Slam requires a big four Energy
to use, though the fact that it’s DCE-compatible eases
the pain somewhat. For that cost, the base damage of 120
seems underwhelming, but you get a coin flip chance to
do another 120 damage if you
hit heads. Normally, I’m not a fan of flipping coins for
damage, but when it offers you a 50% chance of
a OHKO on almost every single
Pokémon in the game (there is one exception), including
Megas, then I’ll give it
serious consideration. Victory Star
Victini is a must-run with M
Aggron, obviously, as he pushes the odds up to
75% in your favour.
If you do hit tails with Megaton Slam, the real downside
is not doing the 240 damage, and having to wait another
turn for a KO. It does also mean that the attack hits
you own Bench for 20, but that could be managed with Mr
Mime PLF if you can find the Bench space. If you were
that worried you could try the new Fresh Water Set Item,
though I don’t think that’s necessary.
M Aggron is one of those
cards that I most likely wouldn’t play myself (there’s
enough chance in the game as it is), but would hate
playing against. If this thing gets set up, then it only
takes a reasonable amount of luck for M
Aggron to obliterate
whatever he is up against.
Rating
Modified: 3.5 (moderate risk, very high reward)
Expanded: 3 (I’d probably still prefer
Rayquaza EX)
Limited: 4.5 (if you are lucky enough to be able to run
it, I suggest you do . . . alongside 38 Energy)
|
aroramage |
LOOK OUT!! IT'S A GIANT STEEL MONSTROSITY WEIGHING IN AT
800 LBS AND IS A LITTLE OVER 7 FEET TALL!! It's also
really REALLY durable and loses its Rock-typing upon
Mega Evolving, so RUN AWAY FROM BOSSGODORA!!
...I mean, AGGRON!!
Hitting out number 7 slot is the Mega Evolution of
Aggron-EX, and as it is in the past, only really good
Mega Evolutions have been known to make the list. Of
course, this has expanded a bit more since Spirit Link
cards became a thing, and M Aggron-EX is no exception
with his own personal Aggron Spirit Link. Honestly, I'd
play with M Aggron-EX whether or not he had a Spirit
Link! That's just icing on the cake at this point!
That's all thanks to M Aggron-EX's BEAST of an attack!
Megaton Slam (MAN that's a good name) starts off with 4
Energy and dealing a whopping 120 damage, which while
it's hefty for a cost, it's easy enough to work with
Bronzong in order to stack Energy quickly. Oh, but it
gets better! There's a coin flip for this attack!
Now I know what you're thinking. "A coin flip? Being
good? Come on, what's the catch?" Alright, well let's
start with the tails side of it: it deals 20 damage to
your Benched Pokemon. I'm sure you can count the ways
that this can be prevented on a single hand, but yes,
Mr. Mime (PLF) and Mountain Ring (FUF) will stop this
damage no problem. So if you're worried about the
repercussions of the attack, just run a copy of those or
carry a Fresh Water Set to-pffftt, okay, no, that's a
bad card in anything but Limited, run the other two.
Alright, so tails isn't that bad, so what's heads'
effect?
IT DOUBLES THE DAMAGE.
...sorta. It actually tacks on another 120 damage - yes,
you are reading that right, ANOTHER 120 DAMAGE - onto
the attack. By itself, that's 240 damage to ANY Pokemon,
effectively KOing anything in sight! In other words, M
Aggron-EX has a 50/50 chance to just straight up DESTROY
ANYTHING IN ITS PATH!! Throw a little Fliptini in, and
you've got yourself a strange combination of elements
that leads to a monstrous behemoth that can deal severe
damage if not OHKO anything in the format!
...well except Wailord-EX, but Muscle Band or HTL will
fix that easy.
M Aggron-EX is a beast of a card and a testament to just
how far power creep has come in our little card game.
Would you have ever thought you could deal 240 damage
with a Pokemon WITHOUT manipulating Weakness back in
Base Set times? That'd be insane! And that's why M
Aggron-EX - though not a truly flawless being, he is
reliant on a coin flip after all - muscles his way into
resting at #7!
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (he's extremely powerful, with a 50/50
OHKO chance on anything! That's pretty ridiculous in its
own right!)
Expanded: 4/5 (SO MUCH POWER IN THE PALM OF MY
HAND...sometimes. Will probably be shunned in favor of
consistent Rayquaza-EX)
Limited: 5/5 (OH YEAH, you're running this if get Aggron-EX,
whether or not that Spirit Link is even with ya or not)
Arora Notealus: Mega Aggron is probably one of my
favorite Mega Evolutions to come out just in terms of
sheer raw power, but it's also the most curious
evolution since rather than changing, replacing, or
simply leaving the typing alone, it actually removes
one. It's weird but effective!
Next Time: "I got it!" "No I got it!" "I saw it first!"
"No I did!" "Wait, no..." "...we did it!"
|
Otaku |
Welcome to our Top 10 list for XY: Primal Clash!
If you’re jumping around in the list, note that I’m not
trying for a clever title for the list this time because
I’m not sure how to specifically describe the list this
time. As usual cards can’t be a reprint, but other than
that each reviewer had a lot of leeway over what
criteria to follow. A popular, powerful card worth
running maxed out in every deck should be the pinnacle
of picks… but (thankfully) we didn’t have 10 of those
this set. So it was our job to weigh the different
aspects of the cards, even though it is often like
comparing apples to oranges. I took into account how
strong a card was in general, how strong it was in a
particular deck (or decks) and how popular I expected it
to be (regardless of quality). That last bit is
important because sometimes a card sees disproportionate
play relative to how “good” it actually is: sometimes
people just run the Pokémon they like or what is easiest
to obtain, especially when its “new”. After realizing
my criteria... I ran out of time so I kind of had to
eyeball things. That might be why my picks didn’t
match-up very well to those of my fellow reviewers.
M Aggron-EX
(XY: Primal Clash 94/160, 154/160) is our subject
for today. This is a Metal-Type: XY: Phantom Forces
gave us some good direct and indirect Metal-Type support
and this set gives us Shield Energy (though I’ll
tell you now, I was disappointed by Shield Energy).
Metal-Types hit some Water-Types and all Fairy-Types
for double damage though they do have to mind Metal
Resistance on many XY-era Lightning-Types. All in all
this is very good, not that there was a choice in Type:
apparently in the video games Mega Evolving strips
Aggron of its Rock-Type nature, turning it into a pure
Steel-Type. The other obvious thing about this card is
that its a Mega Evolution; so all the downsides of being
a Pokémon-EX (worth two Prizes when KOed, targeted by
certain negative effects and excluded by certain
positive effects) plus the Mega Evolution rule that ends
your turn when you Evolve one of your Pokémon into one
which is why being a Mega Evolution is also a bad thing.
What about the improved HP, attacks, Ability and
(maybe) Ancient Trait? Nothing has all of those (yet)
and even if one does it just isn’t guaranteed. People
tend to forget that even among Basic Pokémon-EX, a lot
haven’t seen any significant success in competitive play
and most just a little; only a few reach the heights of
Mewtwo-EX, Yveltal-EX, etc. In fact some
are just plain bad, with HP scores scarcely larger than
their most recent “regular” counterpart; unless an
effect in the game cancels out one of the drawbacks I
just listed without a significant resource cost,
everything I mentioned is inherent to being a Pokémon-EX
Mega Evolution while all the good things are merely
probable but ultimately at the whim of the designers.
Fortunately, M Aggron-EX does get the HP boost;
its printed maximum HP score is 240, just 10 shy of the
new record set by Wailord-EX (released this set)
and 10 above the previous maximum set by some
older Mega Evolutions. There are still decks that can
score a OHKO, but its going to be really hard for the
average deck; the ones that can bring M Aggron-EX
down in one hit (or effectively in one attack) are
either combos like Gourgeist (XY 57/146)
using its Spirit Scream attack (drops both it and the
Defending Pokémon to 10 HP) after hitting the opponent
with a Hypnotoxic Laser (so that Poison scores
the KO between turns), huge attacks like you’d
find on either M Charizard-EX or from pumping up
a scalable attack like Evil Ball to extreme levels or by
exploiting Weakness. Fire Weakness isn’t as bad as it
could be - the Type enjoyed a brief flare-up in
popularity when XY: Flashfire was released but
that seems to have nearly burned out by now - but it
turns the often massive Fire-Type attacks that would
half-KO M Aggron-EX instead score a OHKO. Not
only will this allow all three versions of
Charizard-EX (yes, even the two “bad” ones) to score
OHKOs with their big ([RRCC] for cost) attack, out the
old standard of Reshiram (last printed as BW:
Legendary Treasures 28/113, 114/113 and
RC22/RC25 just to make things complicated): can use its
Blue Flare attack (costs [RRC] with a two [R] discard
cost) to hit for 120 before Weakness. Pyroar (XY:
Flashfire 20/106) does fall short, though.
Resistance is normally a small bonus, but with 240 HP it
becomes a lot more significant. Its a decent sized
bonus, and if Psychic-Type decks that relied on straight
damage was more significant, it’d be a big bonus.
Instead its going to make Mewtwo-EX and the few
other similar Psychic-Type attackers whiff on OHKOs and
maybe even on 2HKOs. Just remember that for
Psychic-Types, usually you expect something a little
“trickier” like the earlier referenced Gourgeist
or (relevant to competitive play) Crobat (XY:
Phantom Forces 33/119) that uses an Ability to place
damage counters. Most decks will just shift to a
non-Psychic-Type attacker. Similar to how the
Resistance is good but something your opponent will
usually work around, M Aggron-EX has an awful
Retreat Cost of [CCCC] but you’ll either be running
cards to reduce it, bypass manually retreating entirely
or the support needed for M Aggron-EX to endure
as an Active until it is KOed.
So all in all M Aggron-EX has solid stats; like
all other Mega Evolutions (excluding Primal Reversions)
the only other thing on this Pokémon is a single attack.
For [MMCC] M Aggron-EX brings Megaton Slam which
does 120 points of damage and gives you the option
to flip a coin: if “tails” you hit everything on your
own Bench for 20 points of damage while “heads” gives
you an extra 120 damage for a total of 240 to the
opponent’s Active Pokémon. So ignoring effects, only
Wailord-EX would survive on a “heads”. Of course
plenty of Pokémon have effects to reduce (or totally
block) damage, boost HP, etc. that mean a lot more cards
have a chance to survive. For four Energy, 120 is
actually a solid return and since the flip is optional,
you don’t have to risk hurting your Bench when hitting
small targets. When you take the risk and get “heads”,
it is of course awesome so overall, I’d say its at least
very good if not great, but I know the coin flip is
going to scare some players away, and not without
reason.
Before we move onto combos, let’s look at what we need
to use to get M Aggron-EX into play; Aggron-EX
and Aggron Spirit Link. In terms of attributes,
Aggron-EX is just like M Aggron-EX except
with 180 HP and being a Basic Pokémon-EX. That’s a
pretty solid foundation. Its first attack is Steel
Headbutt, which requires [MCC] and does 50 with a coin
flip for another 30 damage; 80 for three is solid but 50
or 80 is poor (though not abysmal). Its “big” attack is
Raging Hammer, which does 60 damage plus another 10 per
damage counter on Aggron-EX. This is also a poor
attack though it has some potential; if you had a better
attack to go with it, then once you’ve taken a hit or
two Raging Hammer can become a devastating final shot
before Aggron-EX falls. Having taken about 60
damage, it becomes a solid attack where the damage is
finally worth the Energy. With 120 to 170 it is
actually pretty potent. Steel Headbutt isn’t
particularly worth it though. Aggron Spirit Link
is why M Aggron-EX has a shot; having no choice
but to lose a turn anytime you Mega Evolve would have
torpedoed (or at least most) hope of getting a decent
return out of M Aggron-EX, but even though it
eats up the Pokémon Tool slot, once you avoid that
you’ve got good odds of keeping pace with your opponent
in terms of Prizes and decent odds of pulling ahead.
So how to run this card? I’d love to be creative but
its pretty obvious this needs Bronzong (XY:
Phantom Forces
61/1149, XY Promos XY21). You also probably
want Double Colorless Energy as that means less
copies of Bronzong in play still result in a
quickly readied M Aggron-EX, and having even a
simple, secondary form of acceleration can be a
lifesaver when Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) shows up and you can’t
discard its attached Pokémon Tool to deactivate
Garbotoxin. In addition to this, Victini (latest
printing BW: Legendary Treasures 23/113) gives
you the option of re-flipping your coin for any attack,
giving you a second chance at getting “heads” on Metagon
Slam. That will probably already fill your Bench but if
you can squeeze out another slot, also consider Mr.
Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze 47/116) to protect
your Bench or perhaps some of the Pokémon like
Reshiram that have Outrage to take advantage of
missed flips and some extra Type-matching.
There are some Trainers to consider as well. The
Stadium is probably going to be Steel Shelter to
prevent Special Conditions, though Silent Lab
(deals with Safeguard Pokémon; doesn’t mix with Mr.
Mime), Shrine of Memories (to access Raging
Hammer, since its no more expensive than Megaton Slam
but a lot more impressive when you’ve got 240 HP to soak
hits) and Mountain Ring (another way to protect
your Bench) are all options and remember… you can mix
and match Stadiums when reliability isn’t as important
as versatility. If your set-up allows you to keep up
the pressure while you reload (or Bench and re-promote
in the same turn), Max Potion becomes a very
unpleasant play for your opponent. Notice that manually
retreating is only an issue if you don’t have a spare
attacker ready to go for that turn: you’re discarding
four Energy to retreat that would have been discarded
for Max Potion anyway and at least half of which
you can re-attach with Bronzong. Trick Coin
(probably alongside Tool Retriever unless you’re
going to use it when Aggron Spirit Link is a no
show) and/or Float Stone and/or Hard Charm
seem like the best backup Pokémon Tools. Running all
three is almost certainly overkill, but having either a
non-Ability based means of manipulating your attack
flips (remember, doesn’t stack with Victini), a
means of retreating to the Bench for free, or soaking 20
damage to extend your massive HP even farther would be
automatic if not for said Spirit Link card.
For Energy, I already mentioned Double Colorless
Energy. If you don’t fancy Steel Shelter
then basic Grass Energy or Rainbow Energy
(and squeezing in a Virizion-EX) are likely in
order. Rainbow Energy won’t make sense in the
Bronzong build but maybe you can risk using this in
a Fairy Transfer deck thanks to it. So what about
Shield Energy? Not really thinking it is worth it;
Bronzong can’t attach it so its soaking 10 damage
to be incompatible with one of the key effects in the
deck and also being vulnerable to Enhanced Hammer
and Xerosic.
Ratings
Standard:
3.35/5 - Though I think its a deck that can be played
and should be played, relying on coin flips can be a
huge turn off in tournament play and more relevant, this
is just providing another attack option for Bronzong
decks, an option that doesn’t appear to be “superior”
but simply “different”.
Expanded:
3.5/5 - Heavy Ball can get Bronzong,
Bronzor (BW: Next Destinies 75/99), Aggron-EX
and M Aggron-EX. I value that. A lot.
Limited:
4.5/5 - Most of the time, if you pull Aggron-EX
and M Aggron-EX, you’re going to run both of
them. That being said, there are just enough [M] Energy
requirements as well as giving up a turn to Mega Evolve
(unless you’re really lucky and also get Aggron
Spirit Link) and the Bench damage likely being more
serious here that knock the score.
Summary:
M Aggron-EX is a card that I’ve had to take a
second look at. Then a third look. Even a fourth,
fifth and then I lost track of how many looks I’ve given
it. When I think I’ve got to rule it out as being too “flippy”
and/or resource intensive, I remember that if you can
build a deck to set-it up, you’re probably also building
a deck to shoot for a OHKO of a Pokémon-EX (they aren’t
exactly rare in competitive play). If you get “tails”
on the first attack, you’ll probably survive long enough
to finish it next turn and break even in Prizes. With
“heads”, you take a OHKO (and two Prizes) and thus gain
the chance to pull ahead. With the potential durability
of M Aggron-EX, that seems like it could actually
work.
This was my 10th place pick, though finishing in 7th
place seems at worst overly optimistic and could be spot
on.
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