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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Golduck BREAK - XY BREAKpoint
Date Reviewed: March 21, 2016

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.4    Expanded: 2.1     Limited: 3.4

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 crazy shenanigans! This week is going to be pretty interesting...I suppose. We start off with another BREAK Evo in Golduck BREAK! 

Who basically gives a BREAK Evolution to a bunch of mediocre Stage 1s. Sorry, Golduck, you're really cool and all, but it's true. At least whatever Golduck you use will get the 140 HP score from BREAK here. On top of that, they'll inherit a neat Ability in the form of Hyper Transfer, letting you move Energy around from one Pokemon to another during your turn. 

...yeahhhhh, it's a great Ability on a not-so-great Pokemon. Don't get me wrong, Hyper Transfer itself is great, but it's attached to a BREAK Evo that in turn evolves from a Stage 1 that no one uses. So already, we're looking at something that can't be easily searched, and you can't really Archie's this card into play, so already you know you're having to settle for a little less to get more. That being said, the biggest benefit to playing Golduck BREAK is having that Ability around to move Energies off your main Active Pokemon before they're KO'd to set up your next attacker.  

And that's not saying much about this duck. Personally, among the BREAK Evos, I'd skip this guy if only cause he's more trouble than he's worth to get out. And trust me, he's very much WORTH it to get out. 

Rating 

Standard: 2/5 (a powerful Ability for sure, it's just unfortunate that it's on an undersupported mechanic) 

Expanded: 1.5/5 (maybe we'll see more BREAK Evolution support in the future, and that'll help Golduck's chances) 

Limited: 3/5 (but for now...not so good) 

Arora Notealus: Golduck is still going to be one of the many underappreciated greatest single evolution Pokemon of all time - OF ALL TIME!! He evolves from Psyduck of all things, HOW DOES PSYDUCK BECOME THIS GUY!! 

Next Time: Wait a sec...you look familiar?


Otaku

As a reminder, CotDs are written ahead of time and I’ve only been able to glance at a few results from the first weekend of State Championships.  In this case, the fact that I have seen any at all is because I remembered to edit this review at the last minute. 

We open this week with Golduck BREAK (XY: BREAKpoint 18/122).  As a BREAK Evolution for a Stage 1, it will act as a kind of worse Stage 2 since it takes as many resources as a Stage 2 but cannot tap Stage 2 support.  It also cannot use a cheat like Archie’s Ace in the Hole as without a Stage 1 card under it, it is an incomplete card!  Pretty relevant given that this is a Water-Type and Archie’s Ace in the Hole has been pretty key for their Stage 2 Pokémon.  Other benefits of being a Water Type are some solid Type support… well actually the Water-Type overall has great direct and indirect Type support however the best stuff is unlikely to work with Golduck BREAK; I’ll mention Archie’s Ace in the Hole for the third (and next-to-last) time, but even using it as a shortcut it seems unlikely you would have space for Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed 31/149; BW: Plasma Storm 137/135; BW: Plasma Blast 16/101).  You’ll still have options like Keldeo-EX and Octillery (XY: BREAKthrough 33/162) as options, but the remaining direct support like Rough Seas or Dive Ball or Splash Energy just aren’t as impressive.  You can still hit nearly all Fire-Types and a chunk of Fighting-Types for double damage thanks to Weakness.  The built in drawbacks aren’t too bad either; Water Resistance is only on most BW-era Grass-Types, but nothing more recent, and while there are some anti-Water-Type cards, they just are not particularly good. 

Golduck BREAK has 140 HP, enough to maybe survive a hit.  I really would have preferred more but that seems reserved for BREAK Evolutions of Stage 2 Pokémon, and perhaps for larger Stage 2 Pokémon that - as of yet - do not have a BREAK Evolution.  Trevenant BREAK gives me some hope in that regard as it has 160 HP and is also the BREAK Evolution of a Stage 1; the difference is the only two Trevenant we have received so far have 110 HP while the largest of our available Golduck is 100.  Everything else about this card will have to come from those Golduck, save the Ability “Hyper Transfer”.  This is interesting because it is an Energy moving Ability, but instead of the usual restriction of one Energy once per turn or to a particular Type but as many as you want (just one at a time), this one is moving one Energy at a time of any Type, as many times per turn as often as you wish during your turn.  As usual it is also must be before you attack and thankfully, it avoids any weird additional restrictions (which have also popped up before, hence my even mentioning it).  Being restricted to Basic Energy puts the kibosh on one of the more popular tricks, where the Energy mover shuffles around Special Energy like Rainbow Energy or Double Dragon Energy that provides multiple Types.  Fortunately, Basic Energy has a solid bit of support through various other cards, this could very well compensate for the lack of that big trick. 

Okay, so unless you use Archie’s Ace in the Hole to put Golduck into play directly, you’ll need to use a Psyduck.  We have three options, though the first two are Expanded Only: BW: Boundaries Crossed 32/149; BW: Boundaries Crossed 33/149 and XY: BREAKpoint 16/122.  All three are Basic Water-Type Pokémon with no Resistance, no Ability, no Ancient Trait and just one attack.  BW: Boundaries Crossed 32/149 has 60 HP, is Lightning Weak, and for [C] it can use “Dazzle Dance” to flip a coin; “heads” Confuses the opponent’s Active, “tails” does nothing.   BW: Boundaries Crossed 33/149 has 70 HP, is also Lightning Weak but has a Retreat Cost of [CCC] while for [W] its attack is “Firefighting” which allows you to discard a [R] attached to the opponent’s Active.  XY: BREAKpoint 16/122 is back down to 60 HP, but is Grass Weak while its attack is “Stampede”, which costs [CC] and does 20 damage flat.  No choice in Standard, you have to use XY: BREAKpoint 16/122, but unless you are worried about getting stuck due to the Retreat Cost, go with BW: Boundaries Crossed 33/149 for its 70 HP and possible hijinks as you use Firefighter to discard Special Energy like Double Dragon Energy that provide [R] in addition to all other Types. 

Golduck also gives us three options: BW: Boundaries Crossed 34/149, BW: Boundaries Crossed 35/149, and XY: BREAKpoint 17/122.  All three are Stage 1 Water-Type Pokémon with no Resistance, no Ability, no Ancient Trait, and two attacks.  BW: Boundaries Crossed 34/149 has 80 HP, Lightning Weakness, a free Retreat Cost, “Confuse Ray” for [C] (Confuses the opponent’s Active) and “Water Gun” for [WC] (hits for 30 damage).  We reviewed this one here; all four reviewers, myself included, gave it the minimum one out of five and we were correct in doing so (even with the free Retreat).  BW: Boundaries Crossed 35/149 has 90 HP, Lightning Weakness, a free Retreat Cost,  “Amnesia” for [C] and “Aquafall” for [WW], which require a bit more explanation than I want to squeeze into parenthesis.  Amnesia allows you to select one of the attacks on the Defending Pokémon; the Defending Pokémon cannot use that attack during your opponent’s next turn unless it resets the effect.  It also does 20 damage, allowing for potential lock-until-KO scenarios.  Aquafall is not brilliant as it requires you discard all Energy attached to Golduck and only does 90 damage for the effort, but that isn’t actually bad, just not overly good.  This version also got a review and before its set-mate.  I didn’t manage to get one in for it; I had hopes and probably would have overrated it a bit, but baby_mario got it right.  The card has some nice bits but (especially when it didn’t have a BREAK Evolution) it wasn’t enough. 

XY: BREAKpoint 17/122 has 100 HP, Grass Weakness, Retreat Cost [C], “Derail” for [W] (20 damage, discard a Special Energy attached to your opponent’s Active) and “Hydro Splash” for [WCC] (does 70 damage flat).  This is your only option for Standard.  For Expanded, I would split it with BW: Boundaries Crossed 35/149 so that some of your Golduck BREAK have free Retreat Costs and Amnesia, though Derail is also a good attack.  Both are situational though.  Fortunately you ought not to be attacking with Golduck BREAK anyway; as the source of Energy transferring it is meant to sit on your Bench.  So what should you use as your attacker?  Not seeing any tournament results (again, writing this before the first weekend of States is even over), so I will just have to guess.  Ho-Oh-EX (BW: Dragons Exalted 22/124, 119/124) seems like a candidate, with the main drawback being its deck with Huntail (XY: Primal Clash 50/160) seems better.  Still with Fighting Fury Belt and multiple Ho-Oh-EX going off in a single turn you could have 200 HP attacker that is swinging away for 90+ damage.  With up to nine Basic Energy attached (all Types that currently have a Basic Energy card) and Fighting Fury Belt you could swing for 210 damage.  If your opponent doesn’t score a OHKO, move the Energy onto a secondary Ho-Oh-EX (hopefully one that also has Fighting Fury Belt) and then use Max Potion or a bounce effect to deal with any damage.  Probably better ideas out there, but that  If you want to trade HP for more damage and being worth only one Prize, while you still need Ho-Oh-EX for Energy acceleration you could use Arceus (XY: Black Star Promos XY83) and its “Judgment Light” as your attacker instead.  It does 10+30 per different Type of Basic Energy card attached to itself, so it can reach 280 damage before any Pokémon Tool bonuses. 

In Standard, you have to find other ways to accelerate Energy, but Arceus is probably a good attacker to include.  You will need a different form of Energy acceleration, probably Max Elixir, maybe Milotic (XY: Flashfire 23/106), but you could still do it.  Again, this is just guesswork and hopefully you’ll figure out something better, or at least how to do these better.  For Limited play if you can get the whole thing out it should be handy; you won’t have the usual healing tricks but moving around Energy can still be useful as you might be able to retreat something before it is KOed and save an Energy or two from it.  Mostly though it just makes this sets Golduck into a stronger attacker by giving it an HP boost. 

Ratings 

Standard: 2.75/5 

Expanded: 2.75/5 

Limited: 3.75/5 

Summary: Golduck BREAK has potential, but then again Aromatisse (XY 93/146) has been struggling to do its thing and it is a Stage 1 and not a pseudo-Stage 1 BREAK Evolution.


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