Otaku |
Our final subject
this week and sixth place finisher is Trevenant (XY
55/146). It has one previous review (here)
where we ranked it as our third best card of the
original XY set. I didn’t weigh in on it
then… and even if I had, I keep going into full review
mode anyway, so let’s just dive in.
Trevenant
is a Psychic Type, allowing it to hit a good chunk of
the Fighting and Psychic Types for double damage, but it
also means that nearly all Darkness and Metal Types can
soak 20 damage via Resistance. We reviewed their
best bit of Pokémon Type support
yesterday
when we looked at Dimension Valley but the loss
of Mystery Energy might matter more for
Trevenant (at least directly). Still, some
nice tricks to have handy, and if there are any
anti-Psychic cards I missed them; net result is that
this is usually a pretty good Type, though in Standard
its coasting on (currently) hitting some important cards
for double damage via Weakness. As a Stage 1,
Trevenant is a bit slow; not too bad though and as
we’ll soon see it has some tricks to make it almost as
fast as a Basic in the right deck build. 110 HP isn’t
great, but it isn’t too bad for a Stage 1; a lot of
decks can hit this amount pretty reliably if they
aren’t dealing with some form of disruption, but if they
are then Trevenant has a decent chance of taking
a hit and surviving (hint hint). Plus it can BREAK
Evolve, helping it to be even more durable.
Darkness Weakness is dangerous; while the Type isn’t
consistently fielding the top deck in the format, it has
often enough and when its heavy hitters start to appear
weak, it usually just lets you measure the current power
creep. Fighting Resistance is far better than none
at all, and even though that Type has a tendency to
include Resistance ignoring effects, or stack damage to
effectively ignore Resistance, it still gives you a bit
of an edge. The Retreat Cost of [CCC] is chunky;
include multiple alternatives to manually retreating.
Trevenant
has the Ability “Forest’s Curse” and it is quite
vicious; though it only works while Trevenant is
Active, it provides one-sided Item lock. You may
still assail your opponent with Crushing Hammer
and whatever other disruption you wish to include, but
your opponent can’t use their Items. This really
kills momentum for many decks as they can no longer thin
their decks with Battle Compressor, reclaim
Supporters with VS Seeker, search via Ultra
Ball, or drop any Tools (to buff attacks, cancel out
Retreat Costs, avoid losing a turn to Mega Evolve,
etc.). Trevenant also has a solid attack; for
[PCC] it can use “Tree Slam” to do 60 damage to the
opponent’s Active plus 20 to up to two of your
opponent’s Benched Pokémon. The damage against the
Active is high enough to be a threat but low enough not
to be a major threat; a 3HKO against things like a 180
HP Basic Pokémon-EX instead of the normal minimal rate
of a 2HKO. The Bench damage helps with this, as
100 for three Energy is in line with the going rate, but
there are some tricks beyond the norm your opponent can
use to bring this down. While sometimes risky for
him or her, your opponent may simply keep a single
Benched Pokémon or none at all. Your opponent may
have a card like Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) or Mr. Mime (XY: BREAKthrough
97/162) that can totally protect against Bench damage
from attacks. Fortunately Forest’s Curse is
packaged with Tree Slam, so a great Ability with a solid
attack is still very good… and there’s more going for
this card in the form of the rest of its line.
There are two
Phantump from which you may pick: XY 54/146
and XY: BREAKpoint 64/122. Both are Basic,
Psychic Type Pokémon with Darkness Weakness, Fighting
Resistance, and Retreat Cost [CC]. Neither of them
have an Ancient Trait or Ability. XY 54/146 is
Expanded only, has 60 HP, and two attacks: “Astonish”
for [P] and “Hook” for [PCC]. Astonish lets you
select a card from your opponent’s hand, forces your
opponent to reveal said card, and then your opponent
shuffles that card back into his or her deck. Hook
simply does 30 damage. XY: BREAKpoint 64/122 has
only 50 HP but is legal for both Standard and Expanded
play and has just one attack, but it is “Ascension” for
[C]; going second means an all but guaranteed (Trevenant
has to be in your deck) Trevenant without
having to use your Supporter for the turn. Your
opponent may have gotten one turn of Items, but that is
still an amazing boost and that is why XY: BREAKpoint
64/122 is the Phantump to run. With
Trevenant already running Wally, this becomes
a positive redundancy, one that ensures almost
total reliability for Trevenant hitting the field
ASAP.
There are two other
versions of Trevenant: XY: Black Star Promos
XY14 and XY: BREAKpoint 65/122 (also available as
XY: Black Star Promos XY94). In terms of
stats, these two are identical to today’s Trevenant:
Stage 1 Psychic Type Pokémon with 110 HP, Darkness
Weakness, Fighting Weakness, Retreat Cost [CCC].
These two are still Standard legal, and both lack an
Ancient Trait. XY: Black Star Promos XY14 has
two attacks: for [P] it can use “Eerie Wave” to do 30
damage plus inflict Confusion on the opponent’s Active,
while for [PPC] its “Wood Hammer” attack does 90 damage
with a coin flip (“tails” means it does 20 damage to
itself). Not awful, but not good; first attack has
decent-ish damage and effect, second is functional but
overpriced/underpowered. XY: BREAKpoint 65/122
has the Ability “Nervous Seed” which ups the attack cost
of your opponent’s Active Basic Pokémon by [C], and the
attack “Energy Press” for [PCC] which does 70 damage
plus 10 more per Energy attached to the opponent’s
Active. Forcing your opponents Pokémon to pay more
for an attack can be a huge hurdle, a speed bump, or a
non-event for your opponent depending upon the deck in
question, but is pretty good. It only works
against Basic Pokémon which is great when that is all
you really have to worry about. Unfortunately for
XY: BREAKpoint 65/122, it isn’t as good as
blocking Items and in the format where it doesn’t
have to compete with today’s card, decks have been
focusing on a decent amount of Evolutions. Energy
Press has solid base damage, but the per-Energy bonus
isn’t too great; combos with the Ability but not enough
to make the net results worth it.
There is also
Trevenant BREAK; this pseudo-Stage 2 is a Psychic
Type with 160 HP and the attack “Silent Fear” for [PC],
which places three damage counters on all of your
opponent’s Pokémon. Adding both a good attack and
a good HP score was the final shot-in-the-arm that
Trevenant (XY 55/146) decks needed to see a
resurgence. Even an opponent with a fast start was
going to need some luck to score a OHKO, and thanks to
Dimension Valley you could use Silent Fear for a
single Energy. Lower Energy demands meant more
room for other cards. Other cards important to the
deck (besides Dimension Valley), are Battle
Compressor, and VS Seeker, with Mystery
Energy being somewhat important. Trevenant BREAK
decks are still a powerful force in Expanded play, but
losing today’s Trevenant seems to have killed the
deck in Expanded, even though XY: BREAKpoint
65/122 isn’t without merit. Why? Well no
more using Wally quite as easily with Battle
Compressor gone and no discounts to attacking with
Dimension Valley gone. This would have been
an issue even without the current metagame focusing more
on Evolutions (which Nervous Seed won’t affect) and a
strong Ability denial presence in the form of cards like
Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122). So
would it come back if we just reprinted XY
55/146? A partial comeback, I think: Klefki
(XY: Steam Siege 80/114) provides a way to get a
Tool onto Garbodor even after Forest’s Curse is
in effect to provide at least a single turn’s reprieve
from the Item lock, but losing Battle Compressor
and Dimension Valley as well both slows the deck
and hurts its reliability. For the record, should
you get a chance to use Trevenant in Limited
play, I think it’s reasonably good but for its attack
more than its Ability (your opponent will have fewer
Item cards), and you need to mind that Darkness
Weakness.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
4/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Trevenant is still a force to be reckoned with in
Expanded play, but when it left Standard, it took some
key pieces of its support with it. Were it to
suddenly be reprinted, I expect the deck would arise
anew but it wouldn’t be as good.
Trevenant
managed to earn 36 voting points; one more than
yesterday’s
Dimension Valley and one less than Monday’s 5th
place finisher. As you probably have guessed with
how my review stresses that Trevenant BREAK decks
lost more than just the best Trevenant for them
to run, I ranked Trevenant (XY 55/146)
much lower, only awarding it 17th place on my personal
list. Don’t get me wrong: as my Expanded Format
score indicates this Trevenant is a great card,
but even if it was reprinted tomorrow (and thus became
legal three Fridays from now) it lost too many key
supporting cards to still be on top.
|
