aroramage |
Man, there's just no getting away
from these massive discard based attacks, is there? I
suppose there's some potential in a card like this
though.
Chandelure is an interesting
self-fueling beast of a card. His main attack, Past
Friends, starts out pretty lowly at only 2-for-10. It
does have the unique distinction of being able to
increase its damage, again based on the discard pile. In
this case, it's all about them Supporters, and for each
one, it increases Chandelure's damage by another 10.
Keep in mind though that that just means you have to be
running a LOT of Supporters to make this work - you need
at least 17 in the discard pile to one-shot Pokemon-EX,
24 to OHKO anything in the game, and most decks tend to
just hover around 12 Supporters on average (though there
are some that go upwards of 15-16, if Worlds is any
indication).
On the other hand, Chandelure does
offer Sinister Selection, an Ability that allows the
player to look at the top 2 cards of their deck, pick
one to add to their hand, and then send the other to the
discard pile. The obvious usage is to scry (heyyyyy,
Magic terms!) for a Supporter to toss into the discard
while adding a new card into the hand, thus speeding up
the fuel for Chandelure's attack. Between these two,
though, this ends up maybe putting in two Supporters
into the discard per turn - one for Sinister Selection,
if it's lucky, and one for your regular play for the
turn...if you've got one. There's a lot of chance-based
stuff in this particular set-up, and running multiples
of Chandelure, while helpful, may not always work out in
one's favor.
The other usage for Sinister
Selection, though, is to just fuel up the discard pile
for other reasons. Energy for anything like Volcanion's
Power Heater or other Pokemon for attacks like
Vespiquen's Bee Revenge or the Night March strategy that
loves this so. Needless to say, Chandelure has potency
in other builds, but it's a matter of whether they'd
want to run a Stage 2 just to toss stuff into the
discard. Course with Battle Compressor leaving our midst
with rotation (it will be missed), Chandelure's starting
to look like the only decent option to loading up the
discard.
...well, aside from Sycamore, but
you were running 3-4 of him anyway, weren't you?
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (Chandelure's got
potential, there's no question about that)
Expanded: 3/5 (but as his own
attacker, he suffers a lot)
Limited: 3.5/5 (but as support, he
can work out the deck-thinning option easily)
Arora Notealus: I like seeing cards
like Chandelure here, since they offer a lot of play
options that aren't just straight up damage. Sure,
damage is still the biggest priority, as it gets you the
win condition faster, but the vast number of ways to get
there makes it all the more exciting, don't you think?
Next Time: Jingle jangle dingle
dangle!
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Otaku |
Chandelure
(XY: Steam Siege 50/114) is our Thursday Card of
the Day. It is a Psychic Type, allowing it to hit
a good chunk of both the Fighting and the Psychic Type
for double damage thanks to Weakness, but meaning it has
to deal with Resistance against nearly all Darkness and
Metal Types. This sounds worse than it is; besides
the usual variation caused by what actually sees
competitive play, we must also consider that double
damage is far more potent than merely reducing it by 20,
as well as how the Psychic Type seems at least a little
more focused upon attack effects: placing damage
counters, inflicting Special Conditions, etc. I
know of no Type specific counters, however my usual
resource for quick review (pokepedia.net)
has not been updated for almost five months, so I have
to go off the top of my head. There is Type
specific support for Psychic Pokémon:
·
Dimension Valley,
a Stadium which shaves [C] off of the attack cost of
Psychic Types while in play.
·
The Stage 2 Gardevoir (BW: Next Destinies
57/99, BW: Dark Explorers 109/108), which has an
Ability (which does not stack) that causes basic
Psychic Energy cards to provide [PP] while
attached to Psychic Type Pokémon.
·
Mystery Energy,
a Special Energy that cannot be attached to anything
which is not a Psychic Type (or part Psychic for Dual
Types), and while attached to a Psychic Type it provides
[P] and reduces the Retreat Cost of that Pokémon by
[CC].
·
Wobbuffet
(XY: Phantom Forces 36/119; Generations
RC11/RC32) shuts down all Abilities in play, in the
discard pile, and in hand while Active except for
fellow Psychic Types.
All but Gardevoir has been proven in competitive
play more than once, and I keep meaning to give it a try
again now that Max Elixir provides a way to
accelerate basic Psychic Energy to the field.
All in all it’s a good Type, and countering it is (for
better or worse) about countering specific Psychic Types
such as through Weakness, outthinking or shutting down
their Abilities, etc.
Being a Stage 2 is not a good thing though.
It does not have to be so poor; the designers need to
stop creating so many Pokémon that hit hard and fast
before a Stage 2 can manually Evolve, as well as give
Evolving Basic and Stage 1 cards effects that either
help with general set up, those cards surviving long
enough to Evolve, and/or something to do with that
Evolution line’s specific setup. That is not
what the designers have been doing, so instead this ends
up being mechanically inferior to Basic, Stage 1
Pokémon, Mega Evolutions with a Spirit Link,
fellow Stage 2 Pokémon with a shortcut (other
than Rare Candy), and Pokémon which must Evolve
from Restored Pokémon (as a Stage Restored
Pokémon are on par with baseline Stage 2s). The
Psychic Type has no super-shortcut so even with Rare
Candy to skip the Stage 1 form or a Wally to
Evolve a turn early, it takes two turns to get
Chandelure into play, three doing it through
standard Evolution. It also takes at least three
cards for it to hit the field. Its 130 HP is high
enough this card is more likely to survive a hit than
not, but not by a comfortable margin. Darkness
Weakness is quite dangerous as there are multiple
strong, Darkness Type attackers; the 130 HP is often
going to act like approximately 70. The Fighting
Resistance is appreciated; though multiple Fighting
Types ignore Resistance or stack damage bonuses which
may overwhelm it, those are more resources for your
opponent to commit to the field and if he or she lacks
them or counts wrong, Chandelure has a better
chance of survival. The Retreat Cost of [CC] is
low enough you often can pay but high enough you’ll want
to avoid it.
Chandelure
has an Ability and an attack. The former is
“Sinister Selection”, allowing you to look at the top
two cards of your deck, then select one to add to your
hand while the other goes to your discard pile. In
short, this is a reusable Acro Bike each turn.
This must be used before you attack and is only allowed
once-per-turn, though if you have multiples in play each
may be used once. The latter is “Past Friends”,
which costs [PC] and does 10 damage plus another 10 per
Supporter in your discard pile. It will take a
lot of Supporters to get to useful damage levels,
but with the correct ones you could reach OHKO levels. Dimension
Valley can then shave the cost down to just [P],
leaving the difficult part as finding room for
additional Supporters, so you can afford to rapidly toss
them with the usual suspects (Battle Compressor,
Professor Sycamore, and Ultra Ball) and
hit OHKO levels with damage output. VS Seeker
allows you to reclaim and use any of those Supporters as
well, and as long as you don’t fail to play it that
Supporter right away, your damage output won’t even
diminish.
Chandelure
Evolves from Lampent Evolves from Litwick.
There are eight different Litwick available:
BW: Noble Victories 57/101, BW: Noble Victories
58/101, BW: Black Star Promos BW27, BW: Next
Destinies 18/99, BW: Plasma Storm 21/135,
BW: Plasma Freeze 14/116, XY: Phantom Forces
41/119, and XY: Steam Siege 48/114. There
are slightly fewer Lampent at six: BW: Noble
Victories 59/101, BW: Next Destinies 19/99,
BW: Plasma Storm 22/135, BW: Plasma Freeze
15/116, XY: Phantom Forces 42/119, and XY:
Steam Siege 49/114. At last we move onto the
four other options for Chandelure: BW: Noble
Victories 60/101 (reprinted as BW: Next Destinies
101/99), BW: Next Destinies 20/99, BW: Plasma
Freeze 16/116, and XY: Phantom Forces 43/119.
None of the BW-era reprints have XY-era reprints, so
only the XY-era versions are Standard legal. The
obsessive part of me wants to run through them
all, but I just can’t justify spending the time on it.
I will link to past reviews though. No Litwick
has been reviewed before, but somehow two Lampent
were reviewed:
BW: Noble Victories 59/101
and
BW: Plasma Storm 22/135.
All past Chandelure have been reviewed. BW:
Noble Victories 60/101 (and BW: Next Destinies
101/99) were covered
here
and
here.
We looked at BW: Next Destinies 20/99 two
different
times.
BW: Plasma Freeze 16/116 had its day
here
as a runner-up to that set’s top 10 list. XY:
Phantom Forces 43/119 is the only one aroramage and
myself
reviewed.
Litwick
(XY: Steam Siege 48/114) and Lampent (XY:
Phantom Forces 42/119) are the versions I believe
are relevant to today’s Chandelure, because I see
it as a potential way to salvage Night March decks after
Karen becomes a legal card. We’ve mentioned
Karen before; she is a Japanese promo that
shuffles all Pokémon in each player’s discard piles back
into their respective decks. She has been
confirmed in the newest Battle Arena Decks set, Keldeo
Vs Rayquaza. Imagine trying to refill your discard
pile after nearly all your deck thinning cards
are in the discard pile, and your Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) are on the field. Chandelure
(XY: Steam Siege 50/114) means one less
Lampent in the discard pile unless you use Rare
Candy but… that’s okay, you usually will be
able to use Rare Candy. The Litwick
I mentioned can attack to discard two cards of your
choice from your deck, while Chandelure has its
Ability to help get Night March back up and running. Or
as you probably already have some Psychic Energy
and Dimension Valley in your deck (at least the
latter), if you have most of your Supporters in the
discard pile, Chandelure can step in to push for
the last KO or two in lieu of your usual Night March
attackers. You could also just leave out Night
March, in which case replace Lampent (XY:
Phantom Forces 42/119) with Lampent (XY:
Steam Siege 49/114) due to its 80 HP and attack that
makes both players draw or discard until they have four
cards in hand. Run your deck very Supporter
heavy and chuck most to bring Past Friends up to full
power. Pretty out there, but maybe Magnezone
(BW: Plasma Storm 46/135) is a good partner even
though it is a second Stage 2; this allows you to use
two Supporters per turn so that your deck is effectively
less cluttered by them. So that is the best I can
think of for Chandelure in Standard and Expanded.
For Limited, so long as you get the rest of the line it
is a great pick. Don’t expect the attack to hit
particularly hard, but the Ability is of course amazing,
making it a useful Bench-sitter.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
3.8/5
Summary:
If you want crazy combo based powerhouses, Chandelure
may be your ‘mon. It has a nice Ability and an
okay attack, but I don’t think the current format is
friendly enough to it. What about post rotation?
Well it loses Dimension Valley in Standard, but
maybe it will be worth another look by then.
So pretty obvious Chandelure didn’t make my list,
and it barely made aroramage’s because Chandelure
only has two voting points. Now maybe I just
missed something. With M Audino-EX
having won Worlds (and that almost totally blindsiding
me), ol’ Otaku is ending this review with a huge grain
of salt, just in case.
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