Blaziken
(Dark Explorers)
Let’s be clear
about this from the start – I
like this card. I like its stats, I
like its attacks, and I
love the typically awesome artwork
by TOKIYA. However, by the end of this
review I will end up giving a rating
that will make it seem as though I think
this card is pretty mediocre at best. So
let’s see how I ended up doing that.
Blaziken is
a Fire Type Stage 2 Pokémon with a solid
(but not exceptional) 140 HP, which
should keep it out of the
unboosted
OHKO range of most playable attacking
Pokémon (Zekrom-EX
perhaps being the exception). Fire
Typing is kind of neutral right now: you
won’t often get to hit for Weakness as
Metal and Grass Pokémon are rarely
played, but on the other hand there is
very little Water in the
metagame
right now to threaten
Blaziken.
The Retreat cost of two is a bit of a
disappointment as it is neither low
enough to be painless nor high enough to
make Blaziken
searchable with Heavy Ball, but it
doesn’t really affect the playability of
the card too much.
No Abilities here
so Blaziken
is meant for straight-up attacking . . .
and it’s actually pretty good at it.
Blaze Kick is reasonably priced at one
fire and one Colourless Energy and even
though the base damage of 40 is a bit
low, you do get a coin flip for some
extras. Even better, it is a win-win
coin flip: get heads and Blaze Kick does
30 more damage, get tails and the
Defending Pokémon is
Burned. You’re either hitting
decent damage, or causing your opponent
some disruption with a potentially nasty
Status Effect . . . it’s not a
devastating attack by any means, but as
something to use when you don’t have the
Energy for anything bigger, or when 40
damage is enough, it’s more than fine.
Add another Fire
Energy to the cost and you get to use
Flamethrower. The
downside? You have to discard
one Energy to
use it. The upside?
It hits for a big 130 damage. A few
months ago, 130 was a real magic number
in the TCG: it was what you needed to
OHKO the Unova
Dragons, plus almost any Stage 1 or
Stage 2 Pokémon. With the release of the
170+ HP EX Pokémon, that has changed
somewhat, but Flamethrower is still a
very powerful attack. Combined with
Blaziken’s
decent HP, you should at least be
trading two-hit KOs, even with the
EX-Pokémon, and that’s a good thing,
right? After all,
Blaziken gives up only one Prize
when it gets knocked out.
But there are two
problems . . . and this is where we get
to the heart of the issue regarding
Blaziken’s
playability. First off, it’s a Stage 2
that needs three
Energy for its big attack. This
makes it relatively slow and difficult
to swarm against Pokémon-EX. Sure, you
can trade KOs, but what then? Will you
always be able to set up
another
Blaziken ready to use
Flamethrower in time? I seriously doubt
it. Yes, the deck does have Fire Energy
acceleration available through
Typhlosion
Prime or Ability
Emboar BLW, but that means adding
another Stage 2 to the deck, with the
resulting loss of speed and consistency.
The second problem can be expressed with
one word: Reshiram.
Yep, I’m sure
everyone has notice the similarities
between the two Pokémon.
Blaziken may
have a very slight edge in terms of HP
and damage output, but essentially,
Reshiram
does the same thing as
Blaziken,
except that it’s a Basic which means
it’s quicker, takes a lot less resources
to get into play, and has access to a
lot of support cards. The sad fact is
that if you ever decide to build a
Blaziken
deck (for competitive purposes), you
could stop at any time, switch the
Blaziken for
Reshiram,
and have a faster deck with more or less
the same attack power and at least six
empty slots that you could use for
consistency cards and/or techs.
Blaziken?
Yeah, he’s a good Pokémon, but you know
what? There’s something even better
that’s a lot less hassle. Unfortunately,
that means there is little or no reason
to play him other than for fun.
Rating
Modified: 2.75
(even the good Stage 2s are outclassed
by Basics these days)
Limited: 3.75 (Rare
Candy is in the set, so setting up this
Stage 2 is achievable. He’ll do very
well here too)
