Otaku |
Welcome to a week
where we take a break. In fact, we’ll be looking
at four different BREAK Evolutions. Plus
one day really will be a day off. ;)
First up is
Empoleon BREAK (XY: Black Star Promos XY134).
As a Water Type it hits Weakness against nearly all Fire
Types and a some Fighting Types, but only has to deal
with Water Resistance on most BW-era Grass Types.
There are some anti-Water Type effects, but I’d probably
only worry about running into Parallel City… and
not for its anti-Water effect. The Water Type has
some very good and at least some of it will be a real
help. As a BREAK Evolution, Empoleon BREAK
only has to worry about general Evolution support (and
counters); I can recall no BREAK Evolution specific
effects. As Empoleon is a Stage 2, that
means Empoleon BREAK will act like the
non-existent “Stage 3”, which means a lot of time and
cards to get it to the field, even with shortcuts.
It also means that its HP is 170, 10 higher than any
current Stage 2 and on par with a Basic Pokémon-EX.
Less impressive due to the difference in resource
commitment, but still good as you’ll often be able to
take a hit (nothing is OHKO proof so don’t take that as
faint praise). Weakness, Resistance, and Retreat
Cost will come from whichever Empoleon you use,
as will any added effects, so we’ll just cover the
attack on Empoleon BREAK, called “Emperor’s
Command”. For [WC] it does 30 damage times the
number of Pokémon your opponent has in play, giving a
range of 30 to 180 (or 240 with Sky Field).
Good but not great. Similar attacks, like the one
on Zoroark (XY: BREAKthrough 91/162) work
well because it costs [CC] so you can easily power it up
in a single turn. All in all though Empoleon
BREAK has potential.
So to get
Empoleon BREAK into play, we need to use Empoleon.
We could put Empoleon into play directly via
Archie’s Ace in the Hole but we can also Evolve from
Prinplup or directly from Piplup via
Rare Candy. It is also possible a deck might
try both, getting out one Empoleon ASAP via the
Supporter and then Evolving some of the others normally
or with Rare Candy. So as is my way we’ll
look at Piplup, Prinplup and Empoleon.
For Piplup we have BW: Dark Explorers
27/108, BW: Legendary Treasures 33/113, BW:
Legendary Treasures RC6/RC25, and XY:
BREAKthrough 36/162 (reprinted as XY Trainer Kit:
Suicune Half Deck 16/30). BW: Dark Explorers
28/108, BW: Legendary Treasures 34/113, and
XY: BREAKthrough 37/162. Finally we’ve got the
following Empoleon: BW: Dark Explorers
29/108 (reprinted as BW: Plasma Freeze 117/116),
BW: Black Star Promos BW56, BW: Legendary
Treasures 35/113, and XY: BREAKthrough
38/162. All of these are Water Type Pokémon with
no Resistance or Ancient Trait. Everything but
Piplup (XY: BREAKthrough 36/162), Prinplup
(XY: BREAKthrough 37/162), and Empoleon (XY:
BREAKthrough 38/162) are Expanded only with
Lightning Weakness; those three are all Grass Weak and
legal in either Expanded or Standard.
All Piplup
has 60 HP with Retreat Cost [C] and no Ability. BW:
Dark Explorers 27/108 has the attack “Fury Attack”
for [W] to flip three coins good for 10 damage per
“heads”. It was reviewed
here
for… um… reasons? BW: Legendary Treasures 33/113
has “Water Splash” for [WC] to do 10 plus flip a coin;
if “heads” the attack does +20 damage (or 30 total). BW:
Legendary Treasures RC6/RC25 is the only version
with two attacks; first is “Charm” for [C] which reduces
the damage Piplup takes by 20 from attacks by the
Defending Pokémon during your opponent’s next turn,
while the second is “Peck” for [WC] to hit for a flat
20. XY: BREAKthrough 36/162 has “Wave Splash” to
do a vanilla 30 damage for [WC]. In Standard you
have no choice, but in Expanded I would go with BW:
Legendary Treasures RC6/RC25 as if you are attacking
with Piplup you probably could use something that
could (ever-so-slightly) improve your odds of survival.
Unless you expect significantly more Lightning than
Grass attackers, in which case stick with XY:
BREAKthrough 36/162.
All versions of our
Stage 1 form Prinplup lack Abilities. BW:
Dark Explorers 28/108 has 80 HP, Retreat Cost [CC],
and two attacks: the first is “Razor Wing” for [C] to do
20 while the second is a bigger version of Fury Attack,
still flipping three coins but this time requiring
[WCC] and doing 30 per “heads”. BW: Legendary
Treasures 34/113 has 90 HP, Retreat Cost [CC] again,
but only one attack, recycling Wave Splash but this time
it costs [WC] and does 20 with an extra 30 on a coin
flip. XY: BREAKthrough 37/162 has 80 HP but
Retreat Cost [C] for a change, and the attack “Ice Beam”
for [WC] to do 30 and (on a coin flip) inflict
Paralysis. In Expanded decide whether 90 HP or
Retreat Cost [C] is more important and whether Grass or
Lightning Weakness is a bigger liability. If you
think you’ll be able to meet the Energy costs often
enough to matter, Ice Beam seems much better than Wave
Splash; you’re still attacking out of desperation and a
chance your opponent can’t attack might buy you the time
you need. If Item lock wasn’t a real concern I’d
advise Rare Candy alone, but instead you’ll
probably need to run both.
At last we come to
the Stage 2 Empoleon, all of which have 140 HP,
Retreat Cost [CC], and either two attacks or an Ability
and one attack. BW: Dark Explorers 29/108 goes
with the latter, having “Diving Draw” (an Ability) and
“Attack Command” (…an attack). Diving Draw lets
you discard a card from hand to draw two from your deck
once per turn; not a lot on its own but handy, and in
multiples phenomenal. Attack Command requires [W]
and does 10 damage times the total number of Pokémon in
play; even if your opponent can run without a Bench your
own side of the field provides 10 to 60 damage (together
you can reach up to 160 with Sky Field and two
full Benches). It was reviewed
here
four years but opinions were mixed; this ended up being
one of the Stage 2 Pokémon that were sometimes a strong
deck in the format and other times not. Archie’s Ace
in the Hole gave it some new life (like many other
Stage 2 Water Types with Abilities) but I don’t recall
seeing it as much recently. Still it’s a good
card, just crowded out of competitive play or perhaps
just waiting to make a comeback. No really; it has
done that before though admittedly it required a
dramatic change (release of Archie’s Ace in the Hole)
to do it.
BW: Black Star
Promos
BW56 has two attacks. The first is Fury Attack yet
again and is a blend of the previous two (but in a
positive way): the [W] Energy cost of the Piplup
version with the 30 damage per heads of the Prinplup
version. Which still only makes for an okay
attack. “Cold Crush” requires [WCC] to do 70 damage,
and gives you the option to discard an Energy from
Empoleon itself to discard an Energy from your
opponent’s Active. Also an okay attack, but there
are easier ways to discard Energy (even on attackers),
so it too is merely “okay” and that does not cut it for
a Stage 2. This one never got reviewed though
we’ve certainly looked at less interesting or useful
cards. BW: Legendary Treasures 35/113 is the
second Empoleon with two attacks and this time
it’s “Surf” and “Emperor’s Strike”. For [WC] Surf
does 50 while for [WWC] Emperor's Strike does 70, with
another 60 if the Defending Pokémon has more HP than
Empoleon itself. In the review for it
here
Baby Mario nailed the big flaw with the card; even if
you could get it up and running without having a setup
that would serve you better with a different main
attacker, it is way too easy for Surf to drop something
to below where Emperor’s Strike would gain its bonus
damage, but be far from scoring a 2HKO. Finally we
have XY: BREAKthrough 38/162 with its Ability
“Dignified Fighter” and attack Hydrosplash. The
Ability is a form of Basic support, as it ups their
damage by 20 when they hit the opponent’s Active and
yes, it stacks. So why don’t we see it everywhere?
Well it’s on a Stage 2 and even with Archie’s Ace in
the Hole that is asking a lot. The attack has
a solid damage return as this time it’s 70 for [WC], but
if you’re shortcutting it in play you can’t afford to
power it up manually and there isn’t a good Energy
acceleration option in this case. We looked at
this one
here
and while it took 7th place in our Top 10 list for
XY: BREAKthrough and it didn’t live up to
expectations. Oops.
So which
Empoleon to use with Empoleon BREAK?
Well the real answer is the depressing (and far too
common) one: Empoleon BREAK probably isn’t worth
using. Why? Well I think you’ll need to
build your deck around an Empoleon because if
you’re just slipping a few Empoleon into a deck,
you probably won’t have room. Unlike when you’ve
got the BREAK Evolution of a Basic, you’re not dodging
any worthwhile Stage counters; Empoleon can
already attack Jolteon-EX through the protection
offered by its “Flash Ray” attack (for example).
So what about a deck built around Empoleon?
I haven’t seen one do well recently but yes, then a copy
is worth it just in case. You can almost count on
Emperor’s Command to get a solid hit, just because I
don’t expect a lot of opponent’s to drop their Bench low
enough to render the damage worthless. Most decks
won’t fill their Benches either though; it would mostly
be there for when your Empoleon is staring down
M Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 76/108,
XY: Roaring Skies 105/108) or other attackers
that want to keep a big Bench and are beefy. I
would look towards Empoleon (BW: Dark
Explorers 29/108) or Empoleon (XY:
BREAKthrough 38/162) to be the Empoleon worth
using, but I’ve got no good suggestions beyond that.
This wasn’t released in a way that you should be able to
use it for Limited play, but if it was and was in a set
that gave you a way to get it into play, it would be
worth running with a substantial enough Evolution line,
but not something upon which you would rely.
Ratings
Standard:
2.25/5
Expanded:
2.5/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
I was very excited about Empoleon BREAK because I
misread its attack; instead of your opponent’s Pokémon I
thought it counted all Pokémon in play. Still its
attack isn’t bad, it just isn’t enough to justify so
much investment (regardless of however you get
Empoleon BREAK into play). Now if something
changes to make an existing Empoleon good or a
new one that was a winner was released, then it would
prove better (but still not something to run heavily). Greninja
BREAK this isn’t.
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