aroramage |
Remember Rough Skin? Remember Rocky
Helmet? Remember Rock Guard, that one ACE SPEC that no
one used that could deal a bunch of damage back? Well
technically, that last one is back, but only for a
limited time!!
Bursting Balloon is a very powerful
Tool that acts exactly like Rock Guard would - when the
Pokemon it's equipped to takes damage, it deals 60
damage back to the attacker, even if the Pokemon gets
KO'd. Now 60 damage is a huge chunk out of most
Pokemon's HP, so there needs to be some sort of catch to
keep people from running 4 of these all the time. I
mean, if something as powerful as Rock Guard was limited
to 1 per deck, why would Bursting Balloon not be run at
4?
Well one reason might be because
Bursting Balloon has another effect that discards it at
the end of your opponent's turn, provided that it's
attached to any of your Pokemon. Balloons aren't really
a "keep it till it's gone" sort of thing, so it makes
sense that Bursting Balloon would destroy itself sooner
or later. So it's a temporary Rock Guard that can deal a
ton of damage back to the opponent and doesn't always
take up your Tool slot. What all does that mean?
Well, for Mega decks, you could use
it to keep your Mega-Evolving Pokemon safe for a turn -
if your opponent can't take out your Pokemon-EX during
their next turn, they may avoid risking the 60 damage
from Bursting Balloon, and then you've got free range to
attach a Spirit Link, Mega Evolve, and then push for a
sweeping victory! I can already see this being used in M
Tyranitar-EX builds to add a lot of damage out of
nowhere and then deliver a punishing blow!!
Another way of using it would be as
a possible deterrent to KOing a Pokemon. Similarly to
the last example, but instead now your opponent isn't
willing to attack and take 60 damage, an amount that
could easily KO themselves if they're not careful. An
easy way of enforcing that is to push enough damage onto
an opponent that they only have 60 HP or less remaining,
and given the large scores that some Pokemon are capable
of putting out, it's not so far-fetched to have Bursting
Balloon keep the opponent away for a turn!
That all being said, Bursting
Balloon is not a perfect Tool. Just as any other Item or
Tool, it is susceptible to forms of removal that can get
rid of it outright, and because it only lasts a turn,
there are different ways of working around it. For
instance, the opponent can easily Lysandre out another
Pokemon that the Balloon isn't attached to, taking out
another target and letting the Balloon pop on its own.
It also won't deter the opponent if, by KOing the
Pokemon Bursting Balloon is attached to, they can gain
the advantage in terms of Prizes or even win the game.
Not to say it's not possible the game could end up in a
tie from Balloon's effect, but that's a rare instance if
any.
So keep an eye on this card, as
some decks may tech a copy of it in - after all, 60
damage is still a LOT of damage.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (a fairly decent
Tool, but it's not necessarily one you'll see often)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (if you do see it
though, be wary - your opponent won't just be doing it
to stack damage onto you)
Limited: 4.5/5 (keep all that in
mind, and you should be able to work around it!)
Arora Notealus: But seriously, a
balloon with needles? That's just asking for trouble!
It'd be like sending a ten year old out into the
wilderness to tame wild creatures!!......wait a sec-
Weekend Thought: A bit early of
course, but it is a short week for us! What do you think
of this week's cards? Think there's potential for some
of them? Think there's no reason for a couple of them?
Or maybe you're under the impression that there are
better cards out there? I mean, we did only find at
least 10 cards we thought could be better, but still!
These were all pretty good in their own way :P
|
Otaku |
Welcome to our last Card of the Day for this week; yes
it was just a short three this time, but we should
resume our regular schedule next week. Still,
hopefully today’s selection will let us end the week
with a bang, instead of bursting your balloon. No
wait, one way or the other it will have to do that
because it is Bursting Balloon (XY: BREAKpoint
97/122)! Yes, that was a really, really obvious
lead in.
Bursting Balloon
is a new Pokémon Tool; this means all cards that effects
which apply to Trainers, Items and Pokémon Tools all
apply, whether they are beneficial (legal target for
Trainers’ Mail) or detrimental (opponent can discard
via Startling Megaphone). Pokémon Tools may
be more important now than they have been in years, and
they have not exactly been unimportant for the last
several months. You can only put a Pokémon Tool
into play if you have a Pokémon that can equip it, and
most Pokémon are limited to a single Pokémon Tool.
There are ways to increase how many Pokémon you can have
in play (Sky Field) and some Pokémon can have
more than one Pokémon Tool equipped at a time, but even
with these there are good reasons to run only so many
Pokémon Tools. The first and foremost is that deck
space is limited and the Pokémon Tools that can help aid
in setup and field maintenance aren’t particularly good
at it, followed closely by how there are cards like
Startling Megaphone or various Pokémon effects that
can discard or negate all Pokémon Tools on at least one
side of the field.
So what does Bursting Balloon do and how does it
stack up to the Pokémon Tools already seeing successful
competitive play? Bursting Balloon has two
effects, the first happens unless somehow negated while
the second requires two separate conditions be me.
So what happens no matter what? Bursting Balloon
discards itself at the end of your opponent’s turn.
That is mostly bad as it means one way or the other,
this card is going away somewhat quickly. The good
news is that means using another effect to discard or
otherwise bypass it can be a real waste, making the
decision about how to handle it less clear cut.
The other good news is that this means you can attach
other Pokémon Tools after Bursting Balloon is
gone, but it still lasts long enough to protect
Pokémon-EX from Pokémon Tool F cards. The second
effect only happens if Bursting Balloon is
attached to your Active and is damaged by an
opponent’s attack; if so six damage counters are placed
on your opponent’s Active (even if your Active with
Bursting Balloon was KOed by the attack).
These are some real drawbacks for the most part, but the
effect is pretty potent; in fact Bursting Balloon
is a essentially Rock Guard with a different nerf.
Rock Guard is supposed to be balanced by being
an Ace Spec card and thus you only get a single copy of
it to use; Bursting Balloon will discard itself
at the end of your opponent’s next turn, but you may run
four copies of it.
So Bursting Balloon is is a bit tricky to
categorize. On one hand it is an offensive card as
it places damage counters and thus can take KOs
(completely on its own against the smallest attackers!).
On the other hand, because of how dangerous it can be to
attack into something with its protection and the
fact that you just have to wait a turn and it is gone,
it may function more as an attack discouraging card
(your opponent decides to just wait it out). A
third use that is not exclusive to either of the
previous two is that it can also be used as a pressure
card, forcing your opponent to expend resources that can
deal with it but which said opponent might wish to save
for other threats. With these uses, sometimes it
will be an alternative to Muscle Band because you
got six more damage counters out of it. Other
times it effectively voided the damage/effects of an
attack because (thanks to Bursting Balloon) your
opponent didn’t attack at all. Bursting Balloon
has already been seeing success, particularly in Item
lock decks, because especially with Startling
Megaphone blocked, most decks will be unable to
discard it or unwilling: do you really want to burn your
Xerosic on something that discards itself, if you
even have Xerosic?
Some decks are more vulnerable to Bursting Balloon
than others. The worst hit is probably Night
March, especially in Standard. In Expanded it is
bad enough that your Mew-EX gets half KOed
attacking into something with Bursting Balloon,
but Pumpkaboo (XY: Phantom Forces 44/119)
and Joltik (XY: Phantom Forces 26/119)
can’t survive unless their HP scores are boosted. Fighting
Fury Belt can help with that, but not if Items are
locked down or your opponent just discards your Tools on
his or her next turn. On the other extreme, many
of the decks that are making good use of Bursting
Balloon are Item lock decks and they have less to
fear simply because Bursting Balloon can only
stay in play for a turn (less something negating its
entire effect) so once the Item lock goes into effect,
your opponent at most has one turn of protection left.
There are ways around the effects of Bursting Balloon
besides not attacking or discarding it. Lysandre
can bring up an unprotected target, and after you attack
it and your turn ends, the previous Active has lost
Bursting Balloon. Potentially quite annoying
are cards you can bounce or heal; healing isn’t super
common, but of course if your opponent can afford to
drop a Super Potion or Pokémon Center Lady,
all the damage counters you just placed are now gone.
That can be costly, but what might not be is when your
opponent can afford to attack with something that
bounces itself to hand as part of the attack effect.
For example, Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies
77/108; 106/108) can use “Sky Return” for [CC] to hit
for 30 damage. While not great, this does return
it and its Energy to hand, and we all remember its
wonderful “Set Up” Ability. In this case it also
has the added benefit of still hitting (even if only for
a small bit of damage) something sporting Bursting
Balloon, and then all the damage counters placed on
it by Bursting Balloon go to waste because
Shaymin-EX bounces back into your hand… even if
Bursting Balloon would have placed enough damage
counters to otherwise have scored a OHKO!
For Standard and Expanded play, get used to Bursting
Balloon. I don’t know how long it will remain
relevant, but seems like it should be a potent card in
some well known decks (like Trevenant BREAK)
until we get some major metagame shake-up. Maybe
we won’t find much additional use for it, maybe other
tricks will prove to have lasting benefit; it just
occurred to me that Garbotoxin can be activated using
Bursting Balloon to switch Abilities off until the
end of your opponent’s next turn. That could be a
waste of resources or part of a nasty combo for all I
know, but it seemed like a thought worth sharing.
For Limited play, Bursting Balloon is a must run;
even in an otherwise tight deck you should still have
room (“tight” has a far different meaning here than in a
constructed format), and as HP scores tend to be lower
even more attackers are likely to fall into the self-KO
range.
Ratings
Standard:
4/5
Expanded:
4/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary:
Bursting Balloon does something surprisingly
well. When I first saw the self-discard clause
that used to nerf so many old-school Pokémon Tools, I
significantly lowered my estimation of this card and
that was a mistake. Bursting Balloon has already
proven itself for the short term and may be relevant for
the long term. It is not for every deck, but most
decks could make use of it, at worst being suboptimal
builds, while some can do amazing things with it.
Just remember if you can’t do anything with those six
damage counters (like take a Prize a turn sooner), they
don’t really mean much.
I lowballed Bursting Balloon by selecting it as
my 12th place pick for our Top 10 Cards of XY:
BREAKpoint list. Yes, if you’re new I usually
submit a longer list than required in case of tie
breakers, though this can cause them instead of solving
them. This was enough for Bursting Balloon
to make the site’s Top 20 list in the 19th place slot
with four points, tied with the 20th place pick of…
Slowbro (XY: BREAKpoint 20/122), and one
place below our 17th and 18th place picks. 18th place
was Raticate BREAK so… ouch. This should
have been at least in the middle of my Top 10 list,
maybe even in the top half.
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