Baby Mario
Top 4 UK Nats |
Heatran (Platinum – Arceus)
Hello, and welcome to a new week of Pojo CotD!
This week, we begin with a couple of cards from the new
Arceus set which (I think) is going to be released in
November.
The first thing to say about Heatran is that the art is
absolutely amazing. Just look at that flame effect! If
the actual card can be half as good as the illustration
this is going to see a lot of play.
Hreatran boasts an impressive 100 HP. Excellent for a
non-SP Basic, but pretty much what we have come to
expect from a Legendary in the TCG. The Retreat Cost of
three is a bit of a nightmare, but hey, Heatran LA (the
Fire one) has FOUR Retreat! Either way, you are going to
need some Switches or Warp Points if this is in you
deck. An X2 Water Weakness isn’t a surprise, but it will
be a problem if Kingdra, Gyarados, or Palkia G see play
in your area.
Looking at the attacks, Fire Fang, which does 20 damage
plus Burn for [R][C] is reasonably costed and it is
always nice to have a 1-2 Energy attack. Heatran’s big
attack, though, is Magma Mantle which does a base 60
damage for [R][R][C][C] but then you discard the top 3
cards from your deck and do 20 damage for each Metal or
Fire Energy discarded. While there are ways to
manipulate the top cards of your deck (Delcatty PL’s
Power Circulation being the best), this is never going
to be worth it. At a cost of four Energy, Magma Mantle
is just much too slow. Couple this with the fact that
Fire and Metal decks don’t usually enjoy discarding more
Energy than they have to and usually have much more
efficient ways of doing large damage, and the result is
that Heatran is not a card that you will want as an
attacker.
Like all the other Heatrans, the only time this will see
play is as a necessary step towards Heatran LV X which
is sometimes used as a bench-sitting tech in Fire decks
which like to inflict Burn, or have to discard Energy in
order to attack (such as some Infernape, Blaziken, or
Magmortar lists). For this purpose, the Heatran from POP
8 remains the best choice, simply because it has a +30
Water Weakness (not X2), which gives it a better chance
of surviving if you are unfortunate enough to ever have
it active. Decks that use Heatran tend to use plenty of
Warp/Switch/Level Max to try and avoid this, though.
Rating
Modified: 1.25 (if only it was as good as it looks)
Limited: 2.25 (the attacks are much better in a slow
environment with plenty of Energy) |
