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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

 Reuniclus

- Fates Collide

Date Reviewed:
June 13, 2016

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.25
Expanded: 2.25
Limited: 2.25

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Welcome back to another week of Fates Collide! Here we start off with probably one of the more interesting cards of the set, Reuniclus! This guy's been around before on different occasions doing different techniques, but is he ready to make a comeback? Let's find out! 

Similar to previous incarnations of the Pokemon, Reuniclus only has 90 HP and a Retreat Cost of 1, which while the RC is pretty good for a Stage 2...the 90 HP is rather low. The only other things to look at beyond all that are his Weakness to Psychics (unsurprisingly) and his one attack, Link Fusion. Now Link Fusion starts off as an uninteresting 2-for-10 hit, but once we hit the description, things take an interesting turn. 

The attack does, of course, increase the damage, but rather than by coin flip or some other more direct factor like damage counters, it checks your Bench for very specific Pokemon - the evolutionary family of Reuniclus! With a Solosis around, perhaps the easiest one to get out, the attack does 30 more damage, bringing the total to 40. With a Duosion, the damage is increased by 60, and if there's another Reuniclus on the Bench, the power goes up by another 90. 

Now having just one of these around isn't going to do much - the most you can get is another Reuniclus, which is expensive and resource-consuming for just 100 damage. But if you can vary the evolutions you put into play, Link Fusion becomes pretty powerful. Note that it's not checking for the number of Solosis or Duosion you have in play, just if there is one in play. So having a Solosis and a Duosion adds on 90 damage - the same amount as having a Reuniclus - to make 100 damage! Add on the Reuniclus, and you're dishing out enough damage to KO Pokemon-EX. Dimension Valley can also work well to take off the extra Energy cost on Link Fusion, making the attack anywhere from a 1-for-10 to a 1-for-190 hit, making it extremely cost-effective!  

On top of all of this, if you want to play the line-up, each of the cards in Fates Collide has a similar attack! Solosis only gains 30 more damage from Mini Link for another Solosis while Duosion can gain 30 and 60 damage for his Double Link, but they cost similarly to Link Fusion and are still good attacks to throw around while setting up Reuniclus! Reuniclus can be demanding for sure, and having an entire deck built around him is ultimately more beneficial than trying to throw a line-up in some other deck, but if it's built right and well-balanced, there's some potential for him to sweep through teams. 

...either that, or he'll at least be fun in casual play. 

Rating 

Standard: 2.5/5 (with a whole deck set up around him, Reuniclus has potential) 

Expanded: 2.5/5 (and with different copies to move around and test out, there's a lot more than just the Link Up deck to work with in Expanded) 

Limited: 3/5 (but keep in mind that 90 HP is not a lot in this game, meaning he could be out just as fast as he got in) 

Arora Notealus:  Reuniclus has always been one of the most interesting Pokemon I've ever seen. The whole family is based around cells or embryonic stages, giving it this strange eerie biological feel while also displaying that cutesy charm that some Pokemon have. But hey, at least it's not trying to take children into the underworld. 

Next Time: SEEL SEEL SEEL SEEL...wait...nope, sorry, not Seel, but...


Otaku

We begin this week with Reuniclus (XY: Fates Collide 35/124).  It is a Psychic Type, which is solid.  A good chunk of other Psychic Types as well as Fighting Types are Psychic Weak, and while it doesn’t have the most support available, among what it does have is Dimension Valley to shave [C] off of attack costs on Psychic Type Pokémon.  You will have to deal with Psychic Resistance though, and it is relatively abundant.  Almost all Darkness and Metal Type Pokémon enjoy Psychic Resistance and it is one of the most abundant forms of Resistance, but “No Resistance” is still far more common.  I am unaware of any specific anti-Psychic Type cards, though counters them via Weakness has proven effective often enough; again most are Psychic Weak, though some are Darkness or Lightning Weak and a select few have no Weakness.  Being a Stage 2 is definitely not solid; in fact it is one of the worst Stages to be in the game right now, and the Psychic Type doesn’t have any of the additional shortcuts that have helped some of the other Stage 2 cards compete.  Reuniclus has 90 HP, which makes it a fairly easy OHKO; decks with incomplete setups or not focused on doing damage to the opponent’s Active are your only real hope of avoiding it.  The Weakness compounds this issue; Psychic Types are one of those examples that might not be trying to hit for damage or have a slow(ish) start, but doubling the damage they do means you have to fear not only the ones that hit hard and fast, but nearly all of them.  No Resistance is typical and wouldn’t have amounted to much but right now this card feels like it needs all the survival help it can get.  The Retreat Cost of [C] is low and easy both to pay and to recover from the loss. 

Reuniclus has just one single attack, but it is a complicated one.  “Link Fusion” requires just [PC] and only 10 base damage, but its “10+” which means the effect is going to alter it, and how!  If Solosis is on your Bench (whether one or four), the attack does an extra 30 damage, better, but still not worth your time.  If Duosion is on your Bench, the attack does an extra 60 damage; two for 70 is nice but not so much on a Stage 2 with just 90 HP and no super-special-awesome shortcut to hit the field.  The last line states that if you have a Reuniclus on your Bench, the attack does an extra 90.  The real story though is what the attack does not say; there is no clause stating these effects are mutually exclusive, and official rulings have confirmed that is because they aren’t!  So if you have a Solosis, a Duosion, and a Reuniclus on your Bench and this Reuniclus (or something copying its attack) up front, it will do 10+30+60+90 damage, which totals 190!  Toss in a Dimension Valley and you can do it all for just [P], and just maybe we have something worth attempting; you’ll be losing either a Stage 2 or a Mew-EX (to copy the attack), but you’ll score a OHKO against nearly all Basic Pokémon-EX and even some Mega Evolutions!  With a few extra buffs, you can take out nearly everything. 

So are there any Solsis or Duosion worth running?  We’ve had quite a few even though this Pokémon was only introduced last generation.  For Solosis we have Black & White 55/114, BW: Noble Victories 50/101 (reprinted as BW: Legendary Treasures 73/113), BW: Plasma Blast 42/101, BW: Legendary Treasures 74/113, and XY: Fates Collide 33/124.  All are Basic, Psychic Type Pokémon with 30 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], and no Ability.  Black & White 55/114 can use “Cell Culture” to search your Bench for another Solosis and play it directly to your Bench.  For [PC] it can use “Roll Out” to do 20 damage; get used to seeing this attack.  BW: Noble Victories 50/101 can use Roll Out as well, this time for [C] and only doing 10.  BW: Plasma Blast 42/101 can use “Hide” for [P]; this has you flip a coin and if it is “heads” you prevent all effects of attacks (including damage!) done to Solosis (that is, itself).  BW: Legendary Treasures 74/113 can use “Nap” for [P] to heal 20 damage from itself or for [PC] it can use “Ram” to do 20 damage.  XY: Fates Collide 33/124 is the only Standard legal option, and it has the attack “Mini Link” for [PC], which does 10 damage plus another 30 if you have a Solosis on your Bench.  As you are likely desperate if attacking with this card, run BW: Plasma Blast 42/101 to try and survive unless you’re including something like Mew-EX and copying attacks, in which case XY: Fates Collide 33/124 may be the better choice. 

Moving onto Duosion we have Black & White 56/114, BW: Noble Victories 51/101 (reprinted as BW: Legendary Treasures 75/113), BW: Plasma Blast 43/101 and XY: Fates Collide 34/124.  No surprises here; all are Stage 1 Psychic Type Pokémon with 60 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], and no Ability.  Black & White 56/114 is the only one with two attacks: it can use “Recover” for [C] to discard an Energy attached to itself in order to heal all damage from itself, while for [PC] it does 30 damage via Roll Out again.  BW: Noble Victories 51/101 can simply use Roll Out for [C] to do 20 damage.  BW: Plasma Blast 43/101 can use “Focused Wish” for [PC]; the attack does 20 damage and has you flip a coin with “heads” being +20 damage while “tails” is just the base 20.  XY: Fates Collide 34/124 has “Double Link” for [PC], which does 10 damage plus 30 more if there is a Solosis on your Bench and plus 60 if there is a Duosion.  Just like on Reuniclus it stacks so with both you would do 100 damage.  It is also the version of Duosion would would use, where for better or worse at least it is a spare attacker.  Oddly enough though Black & White 56/114 was reviewed on its own here; I wouldn’t rate it any higher today and maybe a bit lower. 

There are four other Reuniclus to consider as well: Black & White 57/114 (reprinted as BW: Dragons Exalted 126/124), BW: Noble Victories 52/101 (reprinted as BW: Legendary Treasures 76/113), BW: Noble Victories 53/101, and BW: Plasma Blast 44/101.  All are Psychic Type Stage 2 Pokémon with Weakness [P], no Resistance, and Retreat Cost [CC].  All but BW: Plasma Blast 44/101 have 90 HP (it has 100).  Black & White 57/114 has the Ability “Damage Swap” which allows you to move around the damage counters on your side of the field, between your own Pokémon.  This is useful for certain triggered effects, but mostly so that you can toss all your damage onto something with a lot of HP and no Energy, then heal it all by using Max Potion.  For [PPP] it can use the attack “Psywave” to do 30 damage plus 10 more for each Energy attached to the opponent’s Active.  We looked at it here five years ago and I was far too generous.  Remember at the time Pokémon Catcher did not require a coin flip, acting as an Item version of Lysandre.  Plus you could attack first turn!  So in some ways it is better now, but in the end it is a great Ability hampered by being on such a fragile Bench-sitter in a format where Abilities or Items can easily be shut off (the latter being the chief means of exploiting the Ability). 

BW: Noble Victories 52/101 has the attack “Future Sight” for [C], allowing you to look at and rearrange the top five cards of your deck, as well as “Net Force” for [P] which does 40 damage times the amount of Reuniclus you have in play.  Net force looked promising but pretty soon 160 damage wouldn’t be enough because of the reasons given for the previous Reuniclus; perhaps if Damage Swap had been paired with Net Force, but probably not.  BW: Noble Victories 53/101 has “Dizzy Punch” for [P] and “Mind Bend” for [PCC]; the former has you flip two coins to do 30 per “heads” while the latter does 60 while Confusing the opponent’s Active… and likely player as why are you using this card?  I wasn’t there, but the rest of the staff reviewed it here and realized it was sorely lacking.  BW: Plasma Blast 44/101 knows “Barrier Attack” for [P], which does 30 damage to the opponent’s Active while reducing by 30 the damage it (the attacker) takes from attacks by your opponent’s Pokémon the next turn.  The reduction happens after Weakness is applied.  For [PCC] it can use “Telekinesis of Nobility” to do 70 damage while switching itself with one of your Benched Pokémon.  It sort of has the right idea; this way Reuniclus acts as a hit-and-run style attacker, hiding on the Bench.  The catch is that it doesn’t do it well enough to be worth the investment for it, especially as Pokémon Catcher (back then, pre-erratum) or Lysandre (in the present) can force it Active.  Baby Mario took a look at it here and was rather generous, but I probably would have been as well; hindsight makes things much clearer. 

So not all of the other Reuniclus are bad, as the original (Black & White 57/114), the older big-but-complicated-glass-cannon (BW: Noble Victories 52/101), and the hit-and-runner (BW: Plasma Blast 44/101) have some potential, but they don’t blend so well with today’s; XY: Fates Collide 35/124 doesn’t have the HP to take advantage of Damage Swap, and keeping four Reuniclus in play so that Net Force is dealing damage similar to Link Fusion seems daunting to say the least, while hit and run tactics require different support.  XY: Fates Collide 35/124 might have just enough damage output that if you can just stream them, intentionally staggering things so that you have one of each stage plus a spare Reuniclus on the Bench (or are in Expanded and attacking with Mew-EX, but it has better partners), the damage is great.  Dimension Valley makes it all work for just [P] as well.  Still, we aren’t much better than Net Force; instead of needing four Reuniclus and Solosis (with the risk of a Solosis or Reuniclus being Prized) it is reduced to needing four Solosis, at least one Duosion, preferably one Rare Candy so this goes off on your second turn, and then two Reuniclus.  That is easier, and the damage output is better, but it still doesn’t deliver enough for all it asks.  Build a deck around it if you like; focus on consistency cards.  There isn’t much more advice I can give as we are getting to the finer deck construction points where frankly, I’m lacking.  In Limited, it all depends on what you pull with it; a 1-1-1 line it’s horrible!  Link Fusion needs more of the line. 

Ratings 

Standard: 2/5 

Expanded: 2/5 

Limited: 1.5/5 

Summary: At a glance Reuniclus looks… confusing.  Once you realize the various damage add-ons stack, then for a moment it seems great, before the reality sets in; this is a Stage 2 that might be able to do 190 for a single Energy, but that still makes it a Stage 2.  The requirements to actually hit that number requires no Solosis be Prized, getting out two Stage 2 cards ASAP plus a Stage 1.  Enjoy it as a fun, gimmick deck in casual play, but don’t worry try it in tournaments, which includes in Limited play.


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