aroramage |
So here's the thing with Houndoom-EX
- you're going to be using him to get M Houndoom-EX,
smash away at your opponent without a care in the world,
and then you're going to look at your Energy-less M
Houndoom-EX and you're going to think to yourself, "Man,
I really wish I had an Emboar right about now."
Houndoom-EX has a couple okay
attacks, yeah, what with the completely irrelevant
milling effect and the decent Energy acceleration that
his second attack gives. At the very least, he could be
used to push Energy onto a M Houndoom-EX. Unfortunately,
Houndoom-EX giving Energy to M Houndoom-EX is like a
poor man giving money to a rich man only to see that
rich man blow it all on something that costs much more
in the long run than it's worth, like gambling or
running for president.
Alright, I'm checking my topical
"Trump reference" off my list of "Things I Never Wanna
Talk About While Reviewing Card Games More Than Once".
Here's the thing about M Houndoom-EX:
he has 1 attack, Inferno Fang. It's basically a 2-for-80
strike, which for a Mega Evo, that's pitiful. I know
there are only so many M-EX in the game right now and
even fewer that have attacks that cost 2 Energy (which
is extremely cheap for them to have), but compared to
some of the other ones...it's no contest. To give you
guys an idea, the Pokemon in question are M Manectric-EX,
M Absol-EX, M Sceptile-EX, and none other than M Mewtwo-EX
(our #4 card on the Top 10 list).
Now let's compare all of these
attacks together:
1) M Manectric-EX's Turbo Bolt is
2-for-110 and charges up a Benched Pokemon with 2 basic
Energies
2) M Absol-EX's Diaster Wing is
also a 2-for-80, but it mills off the top card of the
opponent's deck and, if it's a Trainer card, does an
extra 80 damage
3) M Sceptile-EX's Jagged Saber
only does 2-for-100, but it also gives the option to
accelerate Grass Energy from the hand to a Bench sitter
AND heal off all the damage done to it
4) M Mewtwo-EX's Psychic Infinity
does 2-for-10 while adding on 30 more damage for every
Energy attached to both Active Pokemon, which is an
effect that has seen great abuse in the past
5) M Houndoom-EX's Inferno Fang is
2-for-80...but if you want it to do more, you have to
discard all Fire Energy attached to it to make it do 80
more damage
The only one of these that's
comparable to M Houndoom-EX is M Absol-EX - who, might I
remind you, is a PROMO card - and even then, M Absol-EX
has a better way of pulling off his effect! But now I
know what you're thinking - what about Burning Energy
from earlier in the week? Even just having 1 of those
makes the attack pay for itself, provided you can play
around it. And that's true, M Houndoom-EX is built
around using Burning Energy to discard then reattach
itself back on so he can hit for another 160 damage on
the next turn, but you've got to ask yourself is it
really worth it? Is it really worth spending all this
time and effort to make this guy more appealing than he
really is, when he's got as much access to things like
Burning Energy but also really wants Spirit Links and
Blacksmith to make him more than he seems to be? Is it
really worth making yourself vulnerable to some common
base threats like Giratina-EX or any Special Energy hate
just to be able to hope you'll hit it big and bounce
back from the brink of defeat? Or does it just cost you
too much of your time, too much effort, just to make
this one-trick pony work?
I think I might have gotten a
little off-track there, but my point is don't vote for
Donald Trump.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (without Burning
Energy or Blacksmith, M Houndoom-EX would be absolutely
terrible)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (so if you're
playing M Houndoom-EX, make sure you're playing with
everything you've got)
Limited: 4/5 (cause otherwise,
people are going to take advantage of that and blow
through you with ease)
Arora Notealus: All things
considered though, Mega Houndoom is freaking awesome to
look at it. Where regular Houndoom looks like a pet you
might have, Mega Houndoom looks like an actual
hellhound! And that's freaking amazing!! I love that the
Pokemon Company is looking at ways to revitalize older
Pokemon like this rather than just giving power to the
powerhouses to make them greater than great. I mean,
would you have believed it before Kangaskhan got a Mega
Evo that he'd be rated as an Uber tier threat? I don't
think so!
Next Time: OH BABY A TRIPLE
|
Otaku |
The compliment to
yesterday’s review,
today we look at M Houndoom-EX (XY:
BREAKthrough 22/162, 154/162). The downside of
a Type-themed week like this is you’re probably tired of
hearing things like how Fire-Types nearly all Grass- and
Metal-Type Pokémon for double damage thanks to Weakness
and have Blacksmith for a quick double attachment
of basic Fire Energy from the discard pile*
without having to deal with Weakness or explicitly
anti-Fire-Type cards. Being a Mega Evolution means
being a Pokémon-EX with some extra drawbacks. The
usual giving up of an extra Prize, inability to access
certain beneficial effects and being the target of
certain detrimental effects (Silver Bangle being
an example of both) of being a Pokémon-EX is joined by
needing extra deck space and taking an additional turn
to get into play like a Stage 1… and both of those are
joined by the truly Mega Evolution specific issues of
your turn ending due to Mega Evolution (unless you have
the correct Spirit Link equipped) and certain
cards that explicitly cause issues for Mega Evolutions
(like Faded Town). Unlike Pokémon-EX but
somewhat like Stage 1 Pokémon, there are a few cards
that benefit Mega Evolutions, like Mega Turbo.
Just to be clear though, Mega Evolutions do not
count as Stage 1 Pokémon for the purpose of card
effects.
M Houndoom-EX
sports 210 HP, a bit low for a Mega Evolution but still
high enough to be difficult for many decks to OHKO, with
the exceptions at the threshold for “OHKO deck”... apart
from Weakness. The good news is that at 210 HP,
you aren’t going to be an easy OHKO for the smaller
attacks and the biggest attacks are just going to score
pointless overkill, but there will be moments where this
will dramatically shrink the time and/or resources
needed for the KO. The lack of Resistance is still
the norm as I’ve been stating all week, and nearly every
time it has come up for the last how many years?
So yeah moving on we have a Retreat Cost of [C] which is
nice and low. While it still won’t hurt to have an
alternative to manually retreating in case of things
like Sleep or various attack effects, much of the time
one should be able to afford and manage the loss of a
single Energy.
M Houndoom-EX
has no Ancient Trait or Ability, simply a single attack
(Inferno Fang) for the low cost of [RR] and hitting for
80+ damage. In this case, the “plus” is an
additional 80 damage should you discard all [R] Energy
attached to M Houndoom-EX. [RR] is low enough
that Blacksmith covers it entirely and where
using a Burning Energy or two seems like at least
a plausible (if not good) choice. 160 damage is a bit
shy of what you’d need to OHKO typical Basic Pokémon-EX
attackers, relevant because that is what you’ll need to
keep up on Prizes most of the time. As you already
know even if skipped the review for Houndoom-EX,
you really want to use Houndoom Spirit Link to
Mega Evolve because the “your turn ends” clause of Mega
Evolution is usually a very bad thing… so you’ll either
need to supply the extra damage another way or
use a card to ditch your own Houndoom Spirit Link
Tool after you’re done with it so you can replace it
with Muscle Band. There are a few options,
but I’ll just name Tool Retriever as it is an
Item while also being both Standard and Expanded legal.
If your opponent manages to get out a Mega Evolution in
the face of your onslaught, most are going to be a pain
to OHKO while either scoring a OHKO or a 2HKO against
M Houndoom-EX. Increasing your effective
damage yield even further is possible, but clunky.
It may be more effective if you aren’t OHKOed
(especially if not using Burning Energy)
to just drop a Max Potion between turns to flush
away all damage taken before using Blacksmith to
immediately ready Inferno Fang.
That doesn’t sound like a bad deal, but M Houndoom-EX
only managed three top four finishes over the eight
weeks of City Championships in Standard and one more top
four finish in Expanded. I am seeing a few that
managed Top 8 finishes, but as I’m still going off of
the article at
The Charizard Lounge
I don’t have a handy count for that (or maybe I do but I
didn’t see it). I am seeing that Crobat (XY:
Phantom Forces 33/119) is showing up as a dance
partner for M Houndoom-EX, probably to make up
the difference between 160 damage and whatever is
required for an effective OHKO. I am also seeing
more Houndoom-EX decks, and the list draws a
distinction between Houndoom-EX decks and M
Houndoom-EX decks. Houndoom-EX variants that
were not labeled with M Houndoom-EX totalled 16
top four finishes over the eight weeks of City
Championships in Standard, though only one in Expanded.
Houndoom-EX is a Basic, Fire-Type with 170 HP,
the same Water Weakness and lack of Resistance, Ability
and Ancient Trait. It has a slightly worse Retreat
Cost of [CC] but two solid looking attacks: “Melting
Horn” for [R], which discards two cards from the top of
the opponent’s deck and “Grand Flame” for [RR], which
does 50 damage while attaching a basic Fire Energy
card** from your discard pile to one of your Benched
Pokémon.
I am not sure if it is the mill, the small but solid
shot while accelerating Energy or both, but it’s got at
least a small presence in the metagame that is much
bigger than that of M Houndoom-EX. Decks do
rip through themselves at incredible speed right now and
are tight on space, so losing the wrong cards can be
crippling, but some cards aren’t too hard to recycle and
others you want in the discard. Just 50
damage might seem bad but there are quite a few glass
cannon style attackers that it can put down (especially
with a Muscle Band added in). If you can
tank a hit, just like with M Houndoom-EX a Max
Potion plus Blacksmith has you ready to go,
but as Grand Flame attaches to the Bench, you also might
just use Super Scoop Up and a manually Energy
attachment. Did I mention the various approaches
aren’t mutually exclusive? Anything too big or
fast to handle with hit-and-heal tactics you can try to
deck out as well as vice versa. At least I
think; I’ve never even built the deck (let alone run
it) and while I’ve run into it on the PTCGO, it can be
hard to tell when wins and losses are due to skill in
playing, skill in deck building or luck… and I mean all
around. Hence looking at those tournament results
for which I lack details.
I don’t think that is the real challenge for M
Houndoom-EX, though. For all I know it’s a
common inclusion for Houndoom-EX decks I am
supposed to be well informed enough to know that without
it being spelled out in the names of winning decks but
the real hurdle is competition. Not just
the general competition one sees but Entei/Charizard-EX
decks. Yes folks, I let this one sneak up on me
but thankfully on the next-to-last review of our Fire
Week, I realized what I dismissed as (at best) a nice
rogue Fire-Type deck is kicking butt and taking names. Entei
(XY: Ancient Origins 15/98) is the main attacker,
though sometimes a single Entei (XY: Ancient
Origins 14/98) might be included as an alternate:
the winning list I Googled for just focused on the
former and ran a full four count. Charizard-EX (XY:
Flashfire 12/106) is included as an alternate
attacker. Both are used to do the same thing -
either bump up their damage to OHKO level or tank hits -
though they do it a little differently. Charizard-EX
just has the base damage and HP to build off of but is
worth two Prizes while Entei is taking advantage
of its Ancient Trait to double up on Pokémon Tools…
Tools that Charizard-EX also uses since against
various match-ups it either isn’t hit quite hard enough
or soaking damage quite well enough without one.
In short, just about everything a M Houndoom-EX
deck will accomplish, Entei/Charizard-EX
does and with your choice of plain Basic or Basic
Pokémon-EX as opposed to a Mega Evolution. Still
that deck has its own particular vulnerabilities (Startling
Megaphone) so there may still be a little room for
M Houndoom-EX.
So if you’ve got them handy or can get them for cheap,
M Houndoom-EX joins the list of decks to try for
Standard and/or Expanded. In Limited, odds are low
that you’ll get both Houndoom-EX and M
Houndoom-EX, but if you do go ahead and work them
into your deck unless you pull something else just as
good or better but that is less demanding (if as good)
or more demanding (if better) for Energy requirements.
As you’ll be discarding your Energies, odds are you’ll
have to run a mostly or mono-Fire deck as far as Energy
cards are concerned. You have the option of
building a more fleshed out Limited deck, or trying your
luck with a +39 build where Houndoom-EX is your
only Basic Pokémon, though Houndoom Spirit Link
is more important if you do.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
M Houndoom-EX seems to not care about whether it
is Expanded or Standard play but also hasn’t had as good
of a performance as some of its rivals. Still it
looks like a solid enough option, perhaps something you
would try if you want big Fire but with the less
commonly seen option.
*Technically if we had some Special Energy that counted
as [R] in the discard it would work on that but we don’t.
**Again, the effect works on any [R] Energy in the
discard pile but after all this time, the only Energy
card I know of that counts as [R] there basic Fire
Energy.
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