aroramage |
Gen IV didn't just bring a load of
evos to older Pokemon - it also brought out a legion of
legendaries! A legendary legion, if you will! Probably
the weirdest of which is Heatran, a Fire/Steel
four-legged monstrosity that hangs around Stark
Mountain, so far the only Legendary which can be male or
female. The lore is that it's meant to represent the
planet's core...so apparently the core of the planet is
this thing. What a strange Pokemon.
Still, being derived from a
legendary has its benefits. For starters, Heatran is a
Basic with 130 HP, and his Steel typing means he can
work with Bronzong. In fact, he kinda has to, consider
the cheapest attack he's got is 3 Energy. Steel Drop
isn't that impressive, dealing only 40 damage most of
the time, though with a Stadium in play that goes up to
80. Makes a good way of getting rid of Fighting Stadium
and Virbank City Gym from your opponent so you don't
have to deal with them. Then you can finish them off
with Steam Blast for 130 damage and a discard!
It's interesting that what Steel
Drop lacks in power, Steam Blast more than makes up for
it, allowing Heatran to manage KOing a good chunk of
Pokemon-EX already over two turns and even moreso with
Muscle Band, but as is the most case with Pokemon like
this, he probably won't survive beyond that. Don't get
me wrong, he's a nice back-up attacker for Dialga-EX,
Cobalion-EX, and Aegislash-EX, but would I run him as a
headliner in a format that loves hitting 170-180 in one
turn? Only if I could KO with that Steam Blast at least,
cause Steel Drop's gonna take a lot of investment to do
ANYTHING of the sort.
Heatran's an interesting option. He
strikes me as a tech option to get rid of Stadiums and
finish off weakened EX, but aside from that, there's not
a whole lot I'd used him for. Then again, that's
probably all you really need from him!
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (rather niche in what
he can do, but that's still valuable, and he's not too
bad as back-up support)
Expanded: 3/5 (about the same, just
with more chances to get that Steel Drop to deal 80 with
more Stadiums around)
Limited: 3.5/5 (the big Stadium
here of course is Dimension Valley, and THAT'S a good
target to hit! That, and hitting for 130 damage is
really good)
Arora Notealus: I think it's really
silly that Heatran is weak to Fire. Again, designers not
accounting for his Fire-side when making a Steel-typed
card. Where's the variation! The last Steel-typed
Heatran at least was weak to Water, that actually makes
sense!
Weekend Thought: What's the most
promising card of this week? Or do you think there's a
card in this set that promises more? Or maybe you're
thinking of a card later on down the road? It's not much
further till we hit the new set (Feb 4!!), so get ready
for the clash!
|
Otaku |
So shall we end the week on a high or a low point? Lets
find out by making our way through our subject for
today: Heatran (XY: Phantom Forces
63/119)! It is a Metal-Type, which is pretty solid
right now; their direct and indirect Type support
doesn’t make the Type a powerhouse like say Fighting’s
does, but its there and it works with Steel Stadium
if you want to block (and even get rid of) Special
Conditions, Bronzong (XY: Phantom Forces
61/119; XY Black Star Promo XY21) for Energy
acceleration, Klinklang (BW: Plasma Storm
90/135) for protection from Pokémon-EX and some great
(and more than just simple) beatsticks like Aegislash-EX,
Cobalion (BW: Noble Victories 84/101,
100/101; BW: Legendary Treasures 91/113),
Cobalion-EX and Dialga-EX (XY: Phantom
Forces 62/119, 62/119). Heatran is a Basic
Pokémon as you would expect, and if you read ahead then
you know we are ultimately checking to see if it should
be joining the ranks of those beatsticks.
Its 130 HP isn’t guaranteed to survive a hit, but its
got decent odds (especially if the opponent has a
less-than-perfect set-up) and since it is not
Pokémon-EX that 130 is as good as we’ve ever seen on a
Basic card that was legal to play and lacking any
“special mechanics” (like being a Pokémon-EX). The
Weakness and Resistance are a lot more relevant than
they were for
yesterday’s pick
because since Heatran does have so much more HP;
a lot of Fire-Type attackers still hit hard enough that
they won’t benefit much (or at all) from Weakness, but
there are definition exceptions that happen to also be
the ones you’re most likely to face in the competitive
scene, like Pyroar (XY: Phantom Forces
20/106). The good news is that Resistance proves even
better the more HP you have; Psychic Resistance is still
mostly going to be a benefit against Mewtwo-EX as
it is still such a widely used (and available) attacker,
but it can irritate Night March players (especially ones
that rely on Mew-EX), Deoxys-EX players as
well as a few others. Just remember that a lot of the
ones I just named see play because of attacks that have
variable damage; Heatran is “resistant” to being
OHKOed by them, not immune to it. Finishing off the
rest of the cards attributes is the Retreat Cost of
[CCC]; this is very expensive and so unless you
desperately need to keep a Heatran from being
Active or actually need its attached Energy in the
discard pile, you’ll either need to resign yourself to
not retreating, use something to lower this cost
or bypass manually retreating entirely. In Expanded,
there is actually an upside to it: Heavy Ball
compatibility.
Heatran
has no Abilities, so what does it bring by way of
attacks? Neither are inexpensive, but the Energy costs
to build upon each other which is a useful bit of
synergy. For [MCC] it can use Steel Drop for 40 which
is… bad. The good news is that the attack has an easily
met condition to do 40+40 or 80 total points of damage;
there just needs to be a Stadium in play. The attack
doesn’t discard the Stadium either, so while such an
effect can be useful in this case it means that unless
your opponent runs few or no Stadiums and you for some
reason aren’t either, you really should be getting that
80 for three. Tempering my enthusiam for the attack is
the fact that 80 for three is about the going rate; 90
is preferred but 80 with either Muscle Band or
Silver Bangle still 2HKOs almost all Pokémon-EX and
even 170 HP specimens like Yveltal-EX and
Mewtwo-EX could be 2HKOed if you Steel Drop twice
and toss a Hypnotoxic Laser somewhere in the mix.
The card’s really big attack is Steam Blast for
[MMCC] and looking at the effect text it also requires
you discard an Energy attached to Heatran. Four
Energy really needs to yield at least 100 points of
damage and preferably 120. With the discard it needs to
yield at least 130 so its worth the effort of trying to
build it into a OHKO against Pokémon-EX and can score a
OHKO against most non-Pokémon-EX and… it actually hits
for 130 base damage! Woo-hoo! Given that its most
likely partner is Bronzong and the risk of even a
130 HP Pokémon being OHKOed, that Energy discard is a
pretty tame drawback.
So all in all, these aren’t great attacks - it isn’t
like it got Outrage for [CC] plus an attack with
manageable drawback for [MMC] good for 120 points of
damage - but they are above “average” and into “good”
territory. If your Heatran survives that long,
you’re in a solid position to 2HKO just about anything;
even without help that is 210 damage if you have a Steel
Drop lead into a Steam Blast… so with a little help even
Mega Evolutions are threatened with a 2HKO and most
everything else a OHKO. True, to actually OHKO your
typical Pokémon-EX that sees competitive play, you’ll
need to get to that 170-180 range. That can be done
with Hypnotoxic Laser, Muscle Band and
Virbank City Gym. You could also use Silver
Bangle but if you’re using it alongside several
Pokémon-EX (as I am) then there isn’t much of a point;
the extra 10 isn’t worth not working with said
Pokémon-EX you should also be running.
Another surprise; there are a lot of cards I postulate
about but this time, not only do I have what I’ve seen
accomplished by others or learned about second hand via
reports but I’ve been testing this on the PTCGO. I’m
not a good player; I think I’m about average or
perhaps a little below, especially when you
compare me to the competitive player base and not just
the general. So no, I can’t say that I won all my games
with it. I don’t think I lost more than usual or rather
than I would have with most of my other decks. I ran
into a lot more Seismitoad-EX and (in separate
decks) a lot more Pyroar. Still overall I
thought Heatran performed well; it was able to
OHKO cards like Donphan (BW: Plasma Storm
72/135) in a single hit if I could catch (or force) that
pugnacious pachyderm active. My build did include two
Double Colorless Energy - I don’t know if more
are normal or not - but this also made Heatran
useful when Garbodor
(BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) disables other Energy
acceleration.
There are no other regular Heatran so I think its
main competition are the Metal-Type beatsticks I
mentioned earlier, and as most of those are Pokémon-EX,
that mostly means Cobalion (reviewed in the past
here
and
here)
is its main rival for a place in the deck but as I don’t
find it necessary to run either maxed out, I am thinking
that the two can both fit. Cobalion has 10 less
HP (and yes, I found that to matter during my own play)
but its good at punishing Energy laden targets while
only having two Energy on itself with its Energy Press
attack, while Iron Breaker was good for making my
opponent burn extra resources to avoid an attack lock…
or actually getting a soft attack lock on the opponent.
Heatran was great for its raw power as a
non-Pokémon-EX, which I keep emphasizing because
obviously Aegislash-EX can do solid damage while
hiding behind its Ability, Cobalion-EX can hit
faster than any of the others (just needs [M]) and
discard Special Energy or for [MMC] hit for 100 without
worrying about protective effects on the Defending
Pokémon and Dialga-EX is better for a solid OHKO
plus also can sometimes score a very soft attack lock
against other Pokémon-EX.
There might even be some use for Heatran splashed
into off-Type decks so long as they also include Energy
acceleration that works with Heatran: Cobalion
is an even bigger rival for this role except when
you want reliable damage without risking (for example)
two Rainbow Energy in a Fairy Transfer deck. Cobalion
can hit a Metal Weak target (like say other Fairy-Types
in a mirror match) for 80 x 2 and at a cost of just
[MCC]. Add a Muscle Band in there and all
currently released Fairy-Types end up OHKOed… at least
without other protective effects. If you did have to
use Steam Blast, it lets you discard the Energy of your
choice so you just make sure its a basic Fairy-Type
Energy. At least, that’s my theory; I’ve never tried it
myself and given that Xerneas-EX is so Energy
hungry, Cobalion might still be the better
choice.
Ratings
Note:
Rated for specialized decks, primarily Bronzong.
Standard:
3.25/5 - This isn’t the kind of card you’re likely going
to splash into a lot of decks, but in a Bronzong
deck where it belongs, it does its job of being as big a
beatstick as you can have without it being a Pokémon-EX
and hitting hard enough to OHKO even a Donphan
without any buffs and OHKOing most of the other things
you’re likely to encounter when it is being boosted.
With Double Colorless Energy, it isn’t
completely helpless should Bronzong fail to show
or Abilities end up turned off.
Expanded:
3.25/5/5 - Same score, slightly different circumstances.
This falls into the “more competition, more support”
angle. It isn’t because of specific attackers returning
to the fold though: the competition are more attacking
decks in general while the additional support is of
course Heavy Ball and less obvious, Level Ball.
Level Ball can’t help Heatran directly
(use it for Bronzor and Bronzong) but it
is possible to build a Bronzong deck where every
target is Heavy Ball compatible. That cuts out
some of the deck’s mainstays so it might make things a
little too different, but Heavy Ball still helps
a little for the more traditional build.
Limited:
4.8/5 - This seems nearly good enough for its own +39
build. The main problem is you almost certainly won’t
pull the Stadiums to use Steel Drop, and that slows you
down so much that its 130 HP is likely getting
overwhelmed. Fortunately for any real deck, you just
need to make room for basic Metal Energy cards
then work this in. Even if Steel Drop only hits for 40,
that isn’t too bad thanks to the usual lower average HP
and damage output of this format, and Steam Blast is
quite likely to score multiple OHKOs before Heatran
goes down if it is built up on your Bench first.
Summary:
If “everyone” knew Heatran was a solid pick for
Bronzong decks when I was composing this list… I
didn’t. That is the ultimate point of this review; it
provides a foundation (at least in terms of attacks)
that can be built up for fantastic trades or if the
combo doesn’t work out, still be a decent attacker
regardless. With it, you don’t have to worry as much
about things like Safeguard or opposing decks that you
know will OHKO whatever attacks. Cobalion fills
this role as well, but I think there is room (and
need) for both in the deck.
Oh, and hopefully by the time you see this, the reviews
that I missed this week (because they were late) should
be up.
|
