21times |
Pinsir
(Sun & Moon, 6/149) turns up again, this time in
the Sun & Moon expansion last February (has it
really been two and a half months since SUM was
released?
Geez it seems like a week ago).
Pinsir has a double colorless attack that does no damage but might
win you a game.
If you play
Roof Fling, you flip a coin.
If heads, your opponent’s active Pokemon and all
cards attached to it return to your opponent’s hand.
And the answer to your next
question is yes.
If your opponent has no other Pokemon on his or
her bench, and you flip a heads after playing
Roof Fling,
you win the match.
With boundless optimism for
this attack, I put together a
Pinsir
Herdier (Sun
& Moon, 104/149) troll deck.
I had some success with it, too.
I put one of my opponent’s
Solgaleo GX (Sun
& Moon, 89/149) back into his hand immediately after
he played Sol Burst GX (and he had used
Rare Candy (Sun & Moon, 129/149) to evolve
into Solgaleo GX). However,
after facing back to back Grass decks where I returned a
Pokemon back into my opponent’s hand only to see every
single card be put instantly back down on the board, I
decided to shelve
Pinsir until after
Forest of Giant
Plants (Ancient Origins, 74/98) rotates out
in August or September.
Guardians Rising
will also bring us a card that
will GREATLY increase the potency of
Pinsir.
The much anticipated return of
“Fliptini” (Victini, Guardians Rising)
and the ability
Victory Star has those of us who hate coin flip
attacks gnashing our teeth.
Victory
Star allows you to re-flip your coin or coins after
an attack.
This means that instead of a 50% chance of
Roof Fling
working, you now have a 75% chance of returning your
opponent’s active Pokemon and all the energy or tools
cards attached to it back into their hand.
I could again go into why coin flips are bad for
the game and how
Victory Star makes random variability more important
than skill like I did the other day with
Greedy Dice (Steam Siege, 102/114), but I won’t here.
I understand why coin flips exist (for instance,
to prevent attacks with paralysis from completely
dominating the game), I just think it’s bad for the game
that a match can potentially be decided by the flip of a
coin.
Rating
Standard: 2 out of 5
Conclusion
Pinsir
will have a definite place in the meta in about five
months from now.
Mill and troll deck players everywhere are
licking their chops as we speak.
He’s just not quite ready for the prime time yet.
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Otaku |
We close the week
with Pinsir (Sun & Moon 6/149) and a very rushed
review. It is a Basic Grass Type Pokémon with 110
HP, Fire Weakness, lack of Resistance, Retreat Cost
[CC], and two attacks. Being a Basic is great.
Being a Grass Type is mostly a boon when something can
Evolve from you (thanks to Forest of Giant Plants).
110 HP is probably (but not always) getting OHKO’d
outside of Fire Types, who will score a OHKO most of the
time thanks to Weakness. No Resistance is typical,
so no penalty for lacking it. Retreat Cost is low
enough you can probably pay it, but high enough you’re
better off avoiding it if you can. The first
attack requires [CC] for “Roof Fling”, which then
requires you flip a coin. If “tails”, the attack
does nothing. If “heads”, you bounce your
opponent’s Active and all cards attached to it back to
his or her hand. If your opponent has nothing else
in play, this wins you the game. If your opponent
has nothing else ready to go and/or can’t play those
cards down quickly, this can really slow your opponent’s
set-up down. The second attack is “Guillotine” for
[GG], which does 50 damage; not great, but not bad.
Due to time
constraints, we won’t detail the other Pinsir; I
don’t know of any others seeing competitive play, so
they can’t crowd out this card, and at best Pinsir
(BW: Next Destinies 1/99) also has one disruptive, coin
flip based attack so maybe it could tag team with
this one… but probably not. Said attack discards
Energy based on coin flips, but I’d rather back
today’s Pinsir with Crushing Hammer,
Enhanced Hammer, Team Flare Grunt, and/or
Team Skull Grunt if one wants to add more control
elements, which may indeed be a good idea. The
older Pinsir can only discard from the Active,
after all. I don’t have a deck for Pinsir,
but anything with Double Colorless Energy or
similar Energy acceleration could try and work it in.
Maybe some Decidueye-GX/Vileplume (XY:
Ancient Origins 3/98) decks, as without Items your
opponent should be much slower. Maybe save it for
when an opponent manages to build something up on the
Bench? With cards like Trick Coin and the
“Victory Star” Ability on Victini (BW: Noble
Victories 14/101, 98/101; BW: Black Star Promos BW32;
BW: Legendary Treasures 23/113) you can re-flip for your
attacks, improving your odds. We are slated to
get another Victini with that Victory Star
Ability soon, possibly in SM: Guardians Rising.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2.15/5
Limited:
4/5
Theme:
4/5
Conclusion
So… nothing
concrete for Standard or Expanded, but for now slightly
better usage in the latter due to effects that allow you
to re-flip coins. The future Victini
bringing back Victory Star, it might have a real chance
in Standard… but that is then and this is now. In
Limited and Theme deck play, this is a really scary
card. Being a reasonably sized basic with solid
damage output (if you are running Grass Energy),
that bounce is terrifying when your opponent has
something they slowly built up on their Bench… which is
a lot more common in these formats than in Constructed
play.
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