Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#9 Beartic
You are never going to see this
Beartic in its own deck, but you will almost
certainly see it slotted into other, existing decks.
Yes, the #9 card on our countdown is a Stage 1 tech card
that seems designed specifically to deal with a couple
of big threats in the format. How does
Beartic do this? Why, with
its Igloo Hold attack. For
the cost of a Double Colourless Energy, this does 20
plus 20 more damage for each Energy
in the Defending Pokémon’s retreat cost. Doesn’t sound
so impressive, and against most things it really isn’t,
but put Beartic up against
the right Pokémon, and it wreaks havoc.
The Pokémon in question are
Landorus EX and Pyroar
FLF. Against a Landorus,
Beartic can score
a OHKO with the help of a
Muscle Band, while it doesn’t even need the Tool card to
take down a Pyroar. Decks
that have no real answer to these two threats are going
to love Beartic, and the
fact that he can deal with both gives him enough
coverage to be worthwhile. The 130 HP gives
Beartic some decent
durability, and the Colourless Energy requirement means
he can fit into pretty much any deck.
Of course the amount of play
Beartic gets will be directly related to how
often we see the Pokémon that he counters. I think it’s
a pretty safe bet that there will be a lot of
Landorus EX around: the
support it has gained from Furious Fists have made it
into a ridiculously good card.
Pyroar, I am not so sure about, but if you are
playing a deck that struggles against it (Virizion/Genesect
or Thundurus EX/Deoxys
EX/Kyurem), then a 2-2 line
of Beartic can turn a
virtual autoloss into
something very winnable, and that makes it a tempting
inclusion for those decks.
As I said at the start of this review,
Beartic is incapable of
functioning as a primary attacker: Igloo Hold is poor
against a lot of things and Mountain Drop is overpriced
and underpowered. But as a tech, this card can find an
extremely useful niche.
Rating
Modified: 3.75 (great against two popular attackers)
Expanded: 3.75 (Landorus
will likely be common here)
Limited: 3.5 (good HP and Colourless costs make it a
decent option)
|
aroramage |
Hey guys, welcome to our Top 10 Furious Fists cards!
Today's card is a Stage 1 Water smasher that's ready to
bring the pain, Beartic! Is his power truly that
astonishing? Is he ready to crash some icicles down on
the TCG party? Let's find out!
Alright, so Stage 1s are not notorious unless they've
got some kind of trick up their sleeve, like Trevenant
(XY) or Electrode (PLF), and even they don't get played
too often. So what makes Beartic different aside from
not having an Ability? Well that would be in his
attacks: Igloo Hold and Mountain Drop. Mountain Drop
does 80 damage with 4 Energy, and if there's a Stadium
floating around, it does an additional 40. Not bad, and
there are a number of Stadiums like Virbank City Gym,
the new Fighting Stadium, and of course stuff like
Mountain Ring hanging around, but I think his best
Stadiums are Virbank (to combo off of Hypnotoxic Laser
for damage) and the new Training Center (to add an extra
30 HP, bulking him up to be on-par with most Stage 2s).
But surprisingly, Igloo Hold may hold your attention
outside of that. At first glance, it's nothing
spectacular, a mere 20 damage for 2 with the potential
to add 20 for each Energy in the opponent's Pokemon's
Retreat Cost. So what, up to 100 if something like
Blastoise (PLB) goes active? What are the chances of
that? But let's be open-minded: most Pokemon tend to
have about 2 Energy in their retreat cost, so Igloo Hold
will at least do 60 damage. Then we've gotta consider
that there's a whole Type that's just weak to Water, the
Fire types. Not to mention there are also a few good
Fighting-types in the TCG weak to Water too! So that
means that against those kinds of opponents, Igloo Hold
can deal 120 damage on average.
And wouldn't you know it, we just got two sets each
focusing on these popular types! That means Beartic can
beat down on some serious competition, but let's see
where that gets us. He can definitely OHKO Pyroar (FLF),
getting around the latter's Ability and taking advantage
of that retreat cost of 2 and the 110 HP to keep him
out. Then there's Landorus-EX (BCR) to worry about,
though Beartic can deal 160 damage to him prior to stuff
like Muscle Band and Hypnotoxic/Virbank! So these two
are easily Beartic's main targets, though he can dish
out great damage against stuff like Charizard-EX and
Reshiram-EX - stuff to keep in mind.
And speaking of stuff to keep in mind, Igloo Hold costs
2 colorless Energy. That means Beartic doesn't have to
appear in just Water decks - he could be teched anywhere
that can run a Stage 1 set! Suddenly Pyroar decks can't
keep up against the likes of a Big Basic deck with this
guy running on the sidelines! Landorus-EX, despite his
power boost, will only go so far if Beartic gets out and
strengthens himself! Looks like tough competition!
Still, while all this sounds great, Beartic is a Stage
1, and that means you need to run Cubchoo alongside him,
so you're making room for 2 in your deck if you want
him. He's a great tech, but whether he'll fit as a
Pyroar counter is all dependent on the deck. Never mind
if he's not niche enough to fit perfectly into every
deck.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (great Pyroar counter, and probably the
only real reason to run him in a deck)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (sure, he's got a few more targets, but
I don't think he'll do that greatly here, to be honest;
there's more than just Pyroar to worry about here)
Limited: 3/5 (he might come in handy against some of
those Seismitoad-EX, what with their 3 Retreat Cost and
Item-locking shenanigans; aside from that, Mountain Hold
may hold more sway)
Arora Notealus: Kinda want Beartic to have Mold Breaker
in the games now. I dunno, maybe cause he's BREAKING THE
BARRIER here or something...actually, a Beartic-EX could
be pretty cool, now that I think about it...
Next Time: Is it a bird? A plane? No wait, it's-!!
|
Otaku |
Welcome readers as we move onto another Top 10 list: the
Top 10 Promising Picks of XY: Furious Fists! Of
course, that’s just the name I am using; I don’t think
we have an “official” one for it. The reviewers
compiled their own separate lists, and Pojo crunched the
numbers to determine the site list. As these cards
aren’t technically legal for competitive play under
NXD-On Modified (the current Standard Format), I’ll be
using this list as the official transition point and
scores will be for Standard (BCR-On), Expanded (BW-On)
and Limited.
Number nine on our list is a Pokémon whose previous TCG
offerings tend to generate some positive buzz, but never
pay off as predicted. Will Beartic (XY:
Furious Fists 22/111), in a set built around
Fighting-Types, prove to be a cool customer or will fans
be left out in the cold again? Let’s break it down and
see.
There isn’t much support for Water-Types; this set
brings the new Aurorus (XY: Furious Fists
26/111) whose Ice Shield Ability allows a Water-Type
with a source of [W] Energy attached to soak 20 points
of damage from attacks by your opponent’s Pokémon, and
based on the wording it should stack. Other than that,
nothing I can think of worth mentioning. Basic Water
Energy has well known support in the form of
Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed 31/149;
BW: Plasma Storm 137/135; BW: Plasma Blast
16/101), but as we’ve seen that works for far more than
Water-Types. Honestly, I don’t think either of these
are especially useful to Beartic; its Type is
important though because it allows it to hit almost all
Fire-Types and some popular, potent Fighting-Types for
double damage. Just mind the occasional Water
Resistance; it is really lame to miss a KO because you
forgot to subtract the -20 when planning out your
attack.
Beartic
have always been Stage 1 Pokémon in the TCG, but this
time it isn’t all bad; yes it takes more space and is
slower than a Basic, but thanks to the popularity of
Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106) most decks need
an out around Intimidating Mane. Its 130 HP is pretty
good for a Stage 1; there are a few still legal Stage 1
Pokémon that top this, but at least it has a decent
chance of taking a hit and surviving. It’s Metal
Weakness is relatively “safe” at the moment, but
Metal-Types are supposed to get some love in the next
set (XY: Phantom Forces). That isn’t to say we
don’t have some great Metal-Type attackers now, it is
just between their usual Weakness (Fire) getting pumped
up last set and the current set putting the focus on
Fighting-Types, most of the other Weaknesses are more
problematic.
Beartic
lacks any Resistance; a pure Ice-Type in the video games
only has Resistance to other Ice-Types, which in the TCG
is mixed with the Water-Type. Coupled with Resistance
being just a tiny bonus right now, having the “worst”
Resistance (of “None”) probably wasn’t even worth me
writing about. The four Energy Retreat Cost certainly
is worth mentioning; this is bad and can make it easy to
strand Beartic up front. Many decks will have an
alternative to manually Retreating at full price just
due to the nature of the format (its kind of important),
but not every deck has an ample supply or a trick that
can be used over and over again. In Expanded there is a
silver lining due to Heavy Ball providing an
additional search option.
eartic
has two attacks, and the first one is why we are looking
at this card. For [CC] Igloo Hold does 20 points of
damage plus another 20 per [C] in the Defending
Pokémon’s Retreat Cost. This is a tactic that has been
tried multiple times and usually fails to impress, let
alone prove competitive. What has changed? Even though
we have Float Stone, Fairy Garden and
Darkrai-EX (via its Dark Cloak Ability) to zero out
Retreat Costs, plus a decent amount of Pokémon with
natural Retreat Costs of zero or one. This is a great
example of how a format can make a card; Landorus-EX
has a massive three Energy Retreat Cost, so before any
buffing Beartic slams Landorus-EX for 160
points of damage. Adding in that last 20 isn’t too
hard. Pyroar was mentioned earlier, and its
Retreat Cost of two means that Igloo Hold scores an easy
OHKO for a Double Colorless Energy. The second
attack, Mountain Drop, is overpriced for the current
crop of attackers: [WWCC] for 80 is bad, and if a
Stadium is in play it jumps to a decent 120. There are
still enough useful Stadiums that even apart from
wanting to use Mountain Drop, between you and your
opponent it is likely one will be present. [WWCC] isn’t
easy to power-up in most decks, but for the odd one or
two that can, it is still better than nothing.
To get to Beartic, you’ve got to go through
Cubchoo and… they all are identical except for their
attacks. Even in Expanded, which as Cubchoo and Beartic
are relatively new means all versions ever printed are
legal, this still holds true and none have especially
good attacks. In fact, I can only single out BW:
Next Destinies 36/99 is the worst choice and
should be avoided. Take into account what type of
Energy you can use to attack as well; all have at least
one attack that needs some [W] Energy but as Beartic
is being run for an attack that requires just [CC], you
might be limited to attacks that can use any Energy for
Cubchoo as well. I wouldn’t bother with any of
the other Beartic (be it Standard or Expanded
with one possible exception: Beartic (BW:
Plasma Storm 41/135) has Stats near identical to
today’s card in addition to to attacks, but it is a Team
Plasma Pokémon. With the right Team Plasma support it
might be better than today’s card, but outside of that
today’s Beartic is the best Beartic.
For Standard play, Beartic has already shown
promise. It is still early, and it might turn out to be
another false start, but right having a Stage one that
for a Double Colorless Energy that OHKOs
Pyroar and just needs a small boost (Muscle Band,
Silver Bangle or Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym) to OHKO Landorus-EX. Chunky
Bench-sitter Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) can also be OHKOed with
just a Muscle Band or Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo, provided you can force it up front.
For Expanded Play, I believe it shows similar promise,
however it might have to already worry about Metal decks
here as some older examples of have all their components
here. For Limited Play, this is pretty much run with
the usual exceptions; if you’ve got a good +39 deck
built around (say) a killer Pokémon-EX you managed to
pull, go with that instead. Otherwise make room for
Beartic, even if you’re only using Igloo Hold.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5 - This is a general rating; the reason
Beartic won’t be everywhere is most decks have
something more specific which (in that particular deck)
is much more valuable. When you’ve got a deck that
really needs a Stage 1 Water-Type attacker to counter
Pyroar and Landorus-EX, this is pretty much
perfect.
Expanded:
3/5 - For now I expect Expanded to behave similar to
Standard, if only because players are still new to
Expanded and that is perhaps the most logical place to
start, give or take a few older or new decks that a
player already has the cards for: as such I expect a
more distilled version of Standard, which means a
somewhat concentrated counter like Beartic is
just a bit weaker.
Limited:
4/5 - Besides pulling a Pokémon-EX strong enough to just
build your deck around it, its “must run” status I
proclaimed right before the Ratings section is due
partially to how much space you have in Limited decks,
the need for easy to splash attackers and how Evolutions
are often better here just because their HP and damage
output exceeds most of the filler in your deck. It will
be great if you can have a Beartic waiting in the
wings for something with a big Retreat Cost, but even if
Beartic is just used as a meat-shield while
swatting at low Retreat Cost Pokémon, that’s still worth
having here.
Summary:
Beartic did not impress me when I first saw it;
in fact I had written it off as filler. This was in
part because we saw it so early, before Landorus-EX
had reestablished itself and was revealed to be
surviving rotation. I still missed its usefulness
against Pyroar, of course, but at least for now
this is a very useful card because of some key aspects
of the metagame it counters, and without placing a lot
of extra demands on decks. At the same time, being a
metagame dependent card means that its time being this
good maybe fleeting. For now, though, it is a worthy
addition to the card pool.
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