aroramage |
Now I know what you guys are
probably thinking: will I ever get tired of Star Wars?
The answer is no, but today we're talking about Xerneas!
...and looking at him, I've
suddenly realized why there's stuff like the Simis and
Parasect running around.
Alright, that's only really half of
the card, the Rainbow Force half of the card.
Unfortunately, that's also the cheaper attack, being 3
Energy for 10 damage with an effect of an additional 30
damage for each Type on your Bench. Now I know what
you're thinking - M Mewtwo-EX did the same thing, right?
Except no, because M Mewtwo-EX is cheaper, he doesn't
require specific Energy (which Xerneas does like his
Fairy Energy), and he doesn't need you to run 2-3 other
Types to be effective - unlike Xerneas here.
Fortunately, I believe Xerneas
makes up for this a bit in his second attack, Power
Creation. Okay, so it's 4-for-80, but if you healed
Xerneas at all this turn - and I do mean ANY amount - he
gets to deal ANOTHER 80 damage, effectively doubling the
damage he's doing already! Even a meager Rainbow Force
in a mono-Fairy deck can help KO a Pokemon-EX at that
point, and even if you don't heal Xerneas on your next
turn, Power Creation can still 2HKO most any Pokemon in
the game! Add on a Muscle Band, and you won't even need
to worry about it!
Unfortunately, Fairy decks don't
have a lot of Energy acceleration at the moment, which
is Xerneas' biggest constraint...or is it? Since you get
more damage off of Rainbow Force for every Type you have
on your Bench, and since he only technically requires 2
Fairy Energy for his attacks (Rainbow Force needing only
1, and Power Creation needing the 2nd), you could
actually run another form of Energy acceleration in the
deck - M Sceptile-EX anyone?
...okay, no, you can't heal off of
M Sceptile-EX AND attack with Xerneas' Power Creation in
the same turn, but his attack's effect is basically what
you're looking for! Bronzong can help, Blastoise or
Emboar in Expanded, as well as Eelektrik, or heck even
Magnezone would work! As long as you can get 2 Fairy
Energy on Xerneas...actually, come to think of it,
Xerneas (XY) actually HAS Geomancy, which accelerates
Fairy Energy!
And then suddenly Xerneas became a
really good back-up attacker in some decks. How bout
that?
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (while at first
glance it doesn't seem like he'd be that great, a look
around shows that, yeah, he actually could fit into a
wide variety of decks!)
Expanded: 3/5 (in fact, he even
benefits from being run in different decks, since he can
gain power from just having another Type on your Bench -
neat!)
Limited: 4.5/5 (and hey, in an
environment where you can easily get any number of
different Types...well, Xerneas starting to look a whole
lot scarier)
Arora Notealus: Now if only they
could just give fully-evolved Pokemon that aren't EX the
same treatment that they gave Xerneas and Yveltal here -
not too powerful, but just the right amount of strength
to be viably competitive in some form or another.
...then again, how would you know
what's rare at that point?
Next Time: And now for something
completely different: PSYCHIC SWORDMASTERS
|
Otaku |
Our penultimate review subject this week is Xerneas
(XY: BREAKthrough 107/162). It is a
Fairy-Type which means only XY-era Dragon-Types have to
worry about double damage (from Fairy Weakness), nothing
is Resistant, nothing currently targets the Type in a
negative way and the Type’s support is… awkward to
evaluate. The cards that directly reference the
Fairy-Type are so-so; either they are easy to play but
don’t offer much (Wonder Energy) or they offer a
lot but are really difficult to play, like Florges
(XY: BREAKthrough 103/162). The indirect
support does a bit better as Fairy Garden allows
anything with [Y] Energy to retreat for free,
Aromatisse (XY 93/146) to move [Y] Energy
around while it is in play and Slurpuff (XY:
Phantom Forces 69/119) with its small but reliable
draw power. The lack of easy power plays coupled
with only a select few competitive cards sporting Fairy
Weakness means that the Fairy-Type is not particularly
valuable to the card. Being a Basic Pokémon is in
no way ambiguous; this is the best Stage because not
only does it have the obvious advantages of being the
easiest to get into play while also requiring the fewest
resources, not only are there a few bits of Basic
Pokémon specific support, but it has a natural synergy
with many card effects that otherwise work for all
Types. There are some anti-Basic Pokémon effects
out there to worry about but the format is still largely
geared towards Basics.
120 HP is enough to stand a realistic chance of
surviving a hit outside of decks with an incomplete
set-up or using attacks for effects more than damage.
It isn’t super durable and 10 more HP would have been
greatly appreciated as 120 damage seems a bit more
common versus 130, even factoring in buffs. It
also means not taking advantage of how damage is always
in even 10 point increments and the Weakness mechanic; a
Metal-Type that hits for 60 damage scores a OHKO.
This isn’t terrible, but it will periodically matter as
even if there aren’t a lot of decks focused on
Metal-Type attackers, Bronzong (XY: Phantom
Forces 61/119) is still being used as Energy
acceleration for a variety of non-Metal-Types… but that
makes it easy for such decks to then include something
like Heatran (XY: Phantom Forces 63/119)
as a back-up attacker. Xerneas does enjoy
Resistance; being a 120 HP Basic with Darkness
Resistance is actually useful. On the unlikely
chance you can squeeze in a Klefki (XY:
Furious Fists 73/111) it can be incredibly
frustrating for the player using a powerhouse like
Yveltal-EX that is used to plowing through the
opposition. Then again if your opponent has a
second Type worth using as an attacker, Resistance goes
back to being a small bump and not a large hurdle to
overcome. The Retreat Cost of [CC] is neither a
small bump nor a large hurdle; it is low enough one
often can afford both to pay and recover from having
paid without too much effort, but enough effort is
required that if one prefers to have an alternative to
manually retreating at full price.
Xerneas
lacks either an Ancient Trait or Ability, but it does
have two attacks. For [YCC] it can use “Rainbow
Force” which does 10 damage plus 30 more for each
different Type of Pokémon on your Bench. It has
been ruled that a Pokémon with more than one Type has
each Type counted separately, so if you play such a card
you’ll get the damage bonus for any Types it puts into
play that are not already there. Not likely to do
you much good, but in Unlimited play you could use
Kecleon (PL: Rising Rivals 67/111) to
instantly get +270 damage as it counts as its “Colorful
Body” Poké-Body has it count as [G], [R], [W], [L], [P],
[F], [D], [M] and [C] simply by being in play!
Repeated Types don’t add more damage, so if I have
Golurk (XY: Ancient Origins 35/98) in play
alongside Gallade (XY: BREAKthrough
84/162) and Hoopa-EX, I am only getting +60
damage, just like I would if only Golurk was in
play or if Golurk was in play or if
Gallade and Hoopa-EX were each in play or
if Golurk and only one of the others were in
play. In Standard and Expanded, your damage will
be capped due to Bench space even if the rest of your
deck is working well. We currently have 11 Types,
but I think the best you can do is manage to get nine
Types onto your (Sky Field enhanced) Bench as
apart from Golurk everything else that alters
Type does so in a manner you won’t come out ahead in
terms of Bench space. As the attack specifically
only counts Types on your Bench, Xerneas doesn’t
boost itself so even with Sky Field, even with
Golurk, you can only manage another seven Types.
Of course that would be 280 damage, so that isn’t
exactly a tragedy. Even with a six Pokémon Bench,
so long as nothing is a repeat, you can score a sweet
190 damage for three Energy.
For [YYCC] Xerneas can attack with “Power
Creation”. If the condition in the attack’s text
isn’t satisfied, you end up with a very dissatisfying 80
damage: bad for four Energy! Said text states the
attack does 80+80 (or 160) damage if Xerneas was
healed this turn. If you can manage some healing,
this is actually a good, though not quite great.
Four Energy is still a steep investment and even though
you’re getting reasonably good damage from it, you’ll be
risking said Energy on a 120 HP Basic. Remember
how I brought up Yveltal-EX when discussing
Darkness Resistance? Four Energy attached to
Xerneas means Evil Ball hits for +80, Evil Ball
requires at least two Energy to use so that is another
40, while the Resistance just cancels out the base 20
damage Evil Ball does in the first place, still leaving
120 for the OHKO. You can’t heal “no damage” to
trigger the effect either; there are still deck builds
where this is a somewhat easy trick but every little
piece of the combo does count. Did I mention 160
damage falls 10 to 20 points shy of OHKOing the typical
Basic Pokémon? So Muscle Band or the like
would also be required.
There are other Xerneas a deck may wish to run as
well: XY 96/146 (also released as XY: Black
Star Promos XY05) and XY: Black Star Promos
XY31. Both are similar to today’s Xerneas;
same Type, Weakness, Resistance, Retreat Cost, lack of
Ancient Trait, lack of Ability, and with two attacks
(not the same attacks, of course!). They both have
10 more HP, and 130 is the most we’ve seen printed on a
Basic that isn’t a Pokémon-EX. XY 96/146 is well
known as was reviewed
here
as the ninth place finisher for the Top 10 cards of
XY. I wasn’t reviewing cards at the time and
all that is left is to comment on the attacks so…
“Geomancy” has been a huge thing for most Fairy-Type
decks actually doing something with Fairy Energy;
while the [Y] cost means you only come out a single
Energy ahead should Xerneas get KO'd after it
attacks, that 130 HP means it usually sticks around for
at least two attacks. “Rainbow Spear” needs [YYC] do do
100 damage and after that you still have to discard an
Energy attached to itself; this is acceptable mostly
because the rest of the card is good as it is at best an
average return for the attack’s Energy cost to use, but
discarding an Energy from Xerneas tends to run
counter to most decks that use it thanks to “Geomancy”.
This version has been and probably still should be the
go-to version of Xerneas unless a deck is
tailored around today’s.
XY: Black Star Promos
XY31 has the same Energy costs for its attacks as
today’s Xerneas but… well those attacks coupled
with time constraints are why you won’t find a review of
it and why it is so easy to forget it even exists.
The less expensive attack is “Aurora Gain” and for [YCC]
it does 50 damage while negating Weakness for the
Pokémon that used it during your opponent’s next turn.
Voiding your Weakness can be handy but doing it in this
manner does not offset an attack that hits about half as
hard as it ought to just to match the going rate.
“Light of Life” may be even more depressing; it costs
[YYCC] and does just 80 damage unless your opponent has
Yveltal in play, in which case the damage is +40.
I guess I should be grateful that the damage split
favors the base damage and that the text states that
Yveltal-EX counts for this, but 120 for four
before a applying a beneficial effect is a lot
closer to the going rate. As Yveltal and
especially Yveltal-EX have proven quite
formidable, Light of Life is far more useful than
several other Pokémon-specific counter-effects, but it
either needed to cost less Energy or hit about 30 points
harder. This promo-only version of Xerneas
isn’t competition for either of the versions released in
a set.
XY: BREAKthrough
107/162 has two uses because even though its attacks
require effort to hit hard, the infrastructure is
available to do just that with either attack. When
I first started bumping into Rainbow Force decks on the
PTCGO, I dismissed them as simply being Timmy or Johnny
bait, but they do pack a punch and the best builds end
up being consistent enough for a Spike to consider.
They did show up during City Championships (head on over
to
The Charizard Lounge
if you want details) but they weren’t a major presence,
just one of the many decks that managed a handful of top
four finishes in either Standard or Expanded play.
That actually could be the mark of a very dangerous
cards; the fine art of reading and riding the metagame
includes finding something strong enough to win but not
so strong that players will spend deck space or time
practicing just to counter it. It could also mean
that this is as good as it gets for Rainbow Force decks
as people tried to win City Championships with it and
the best result was a second place finish. The
biggest hurdle for the deck is keeping a large, diverse
Bench in play - I’ve seen the decks setup quickly and
reliably, but re-setting up after the opponent takes out
Sky Field is another matter - and dealing with
low Energy, high damage attackers that are
non-Pokémon-EX Basics (like in Night March).
You also might see one of these tucked into a more
traditional Fairy-Type deck focused on Aromatisse
and its Fairy-Transfer. Toolbox versions can have
a varied enough Bench to still get decent damage from
Rainbow Force, while most include Rainbow Energy
and some form of healing, which means a big Power
Creation blow is feasible. Not sure if this is
particularly effective and unfortunately this kind of
information requires more thorough decklists and not
just a “who won what with what” summary that I have
available. For Limited play, this is tempting
because of the HP and the attacks not being too
restrictive on Energy. You’ll need a source of [Y]
but even Power Creation only needs two of four Energy to
be Type specific; that isn’t bad here and as usual, HP
scores and damage outputs are lower here. By
necessity you will likely have a varied Bench as well.
Not seeing any nice, generic healing effects to buff
Power Creation, but again HP scores and damage output is
lower than in the Constructed formats, so 80 for four is
acceptable here.
Ratings
Standard:
3.15/5
Expanded:
3.15/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
I just told you that this card was the main attacker of
a deck that at least managed some top four finishes
during City Championships, I suggested it could be a big
deal if it remains good enough to be a threat but not
good enough to be the threat you can dedicate deck space
to countering, so shouldn’t I be scoring it a bit
higher? Even though it is the deck focus when it
is used, Xerneas is very dependent on
everything used alongside it. On its own, it
is pretty bad; with the right setup it is awesome.
As such I don’t score it highly like I would a big
hitter that is good on its own but great with proper
support.
Xerneas
didn’t make any of the personal Top 10 lists for XY:
BREAKthrough, let alone the final Top 10, but it at
least show up in some of the earlier versions of my own
Top 15, being cut in the final revision.
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