Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#4 Xerosic
Xerosic
is the fat Team Flare Scientist who reneges on
Lysandre’s promise to
deactivate the ultimate weapon in the XY video game,
luckily the card is a whole lot more likeable than the
character.
It’s a Supporter, so you would expect a pretty good
effect to justify that once-per-turn use. While
Xerosic doesn’t offer
anything huge, he does have a lot of versatility to make
up for that. This is because the card offers you two
options: you can discard either a Tool or a Special
Energy from any Pokémon in play (including yours). That
last bit is important as Xerosic
is one of the few ways we have to get rid of the Team
Flare Hyper Gear Tools we looked at last week. I suppose
he could also be used for something obscure such as
removing a Strong Energy from a
Donphan so it could attack
Aegislash EX, but that’s reaching a bit.
Outside of these specialist uses,
Xerosic offers some neat disruption to an
opponent’s plans, removing such useful cards as Muscle
Band, Float Stone, and Double Colourless Energy. While
it is true that both of his functions can (mostly) be
accomplished by Item cards (Startling Megaphone,
Enhanced Hammer), being a Supporter may actually prove
to be an advantage in a format where
Seismitoad’s Item-locking
Quaking Punch is so ubiquitous.
Xerosic
is a pretty effective card against the Toad anyway, so I
wouldn’t be surprised to see some players slip one or
even two copies of it into their decks. It’s always hard
to justify using a Supporter for anything other than
draw, but Xerosic may offer
just enough to be worthwhile as long as we have some
form of Item lock in the game.
Rating
Modified: 3.25 (solid anti-Seismitoad
card which is versatile enough not to be a total waste
of space against other decks)
Expanded: 3.25 (could be useful to remove Float Stones
from Trevenant)
Limited: 4 (there are Special Energy and Tool cards in
the set, so you may as well run it)
|
aroramage |
There may be a couple of indicators from yesterday's
review that Aegislash's Ability may not be 100% useful
all the time, and there's a good reason for that - the
game is going to be impacted by 1) the return of
Enhanced Hammer, and 2) today's card, Xerosic. Welcome
back to our #4 pick from the new Phantom Forces set,
featuring Team Flare's second-in-command and lead
scientist!
Xerosic is a simple man with a simple talent: he can
discard a Tool or a Special Energy off of ANY Pokemon in
play. Both of these are extremely useful right now in
the format; with the presence of Muscle Band and Strong
Energy, Xerosic is a direct counter to the popular
Fighting decks, and given his expansive reach, he can be
a defensive and offensive option in any deck. Take
Aegislash-EX for example - if your Active Pokemon has a
Special Energy attached, all you've gotta do to get
around Aegislash-EX's Ability is use Xerosic to discard
your Energy, reattach a basic, and you're good!
There is one catch to Xerosic, and that's the Supporter
aspect. I mentioned the reprint of Enhanced Hammer made
it into this set, meaning decks will have access to up
to 4 Hammers - 4 Items - devoted to ridding the opponent
of their Special Energy. While Xerosic does have the
flexibility of targeting Tools, Hammers can be used in
multiples and don't take up your Supporter for the turn.
Still, this kind of combination can stun an offensive
threat while at the same time taking off their
damage-boosting Muscle Band - or perhaps their
retreat-for-free Float Stone or damage-reducing Eviolite
for basics! It can even stop Garbodor's effect from
going off until the opponent gets a new Tool to attach!
Xerosic offers a flexible and useful effect to cripple
the opponent's strategy, and I should think that he'll
get run in 2s for most decks. Any more and you risk
drawing him at a time you don't need him - any less, you
may not draw him at the right time. So for a bad guy,
Xerosic's not a bad guy!
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (a flexible Supporter that can hit
offensively or defensively)
Expanded: 4/5 (still very powerful here)
Limited: 4.5/5 (should've mentioned that he can help
remove those pesky Team Flare Tools in this format,
which is fantastic considering their potential presence
in the format)
Arora Notealus: I don't really remember much about
Xerosic. He only appeared once in the main story line
for X/Y, and even then it was just to battle you and
activate a superweapon. Apparently he's got a major
story in the post-game arc with Looker, so maybe I
should go explore that route.
Next Time: And you thought Sycaper was useful for deck
thinning...
|
Otaku |
Today in the United States of America we honor and
remember our military veterans with Veterans Day: both
those still with us and those that have passed on. It
is also Armistice Day and Remembrance Day, depending
upon where you are, commemorating the end of World War
I. Please take time to remember those who have served,
especially among those you know personally, and if you
aren’t familiar with World War I consider studying it at
least a little; it sometimes seems to get lost in the
shadow of World War II.
We continue the second week of our Top 10 Promising
Picks of XY: Phantom Forces with our fourth place
choice! As a reminder, reprint cards were not eligible
for the Top 10 list, which was created through each
member of the review crew submitting their own Top 10
list to Pojo, who then averages them out to produce the
master Top 10 list we use for the review order. The
official release date for this set in the U.S. was
November 5th, so XY: Phantom Forces cards aren’t
tournament legal until November 21st; however we’ll be
scoring them as if they were.
I know nothing about his character, but its time for
Xerosic (XY: Phantom Forces 110/119,
119/119)! This is new Supporter takes an approach to
the game I have been hoping to see; as a concept I like
taking effects that are too strong to be Items but
aren’t strong enough to be their own Supporter and…
combining them with another similar effect. Xerosic
is “half” a Tool Scrapper or a slightly
enhanced Enhanced Hammer: you don’t get both
effects, but choose between discarding one Pokémon Tool
or one Special Energy attached to a Pokémon in play
(belonging to either player). If you’re new to the
party, I consider both Tool Scrapper and
Enhanced Hammer to be overpowered, at least in the
formats in which we’ve experienced them, but at the same
time they are an almost necessary evil because without
them other cards would be causing even more problems.
Of course Startling Megaphone replaced Tool
Scrapper in Standard even before it rotated out.
So how good is a card that combines them? I’d try to be
positive and focus on its advantages first, but it is
necessary in this case to start with the negatives:
-
Draw power is still almost totally
Supporter dependent, at least in
mainstream, successful decks: this makes
it hard to spare a Supporter for
anything else. Search is now becoming a
“Supporter thing” again as well.
-
Lysandre
already owns the “non-draw/search
Supporter slot” in most decks, and there
are already a lot of near-misses (Pokémon
Center Lady) or deck specific
options (like Blacksmith). Of
course this set adds some other
potential rivals like AZ and
Lysandre’s Trump Card.
-
While this can target your own cards
(useful for countering Pokémon Tool F
cards) and can do one of two jobs, when
it comes to discarding your opponent’s
Pokémon Tools Startling Megaphone
has it covered and Enhanced Hammer
is back so Items can handle Special
Energy discards as well.
The main things going for Xerosic are
-
It can do the job of two different cards
(though not at the same time).
-
Pokémon Tool F cards give you a real
reason to want to discard a Pokémon Tool
from your own cards (though if that
alone is your concern, Tool Retriever
does it better).
-
Thanks to Vs Seeker, a single
copy of Xerosic can be used more
than once.
If Supporters were a bit more free, I’d want this in
many a deck. Right now, I just don’t see the room, but
perhaps I am underestimating its usage as TecH;
Battle Compressor plus Vs Seeker is a potent
combo as it allows Vs Seeker to have solid
choices all game, including some “key moment” Supporters
like Lysandre and Xerosic… and you’ve
thinned your deck by three cards. You lose the surprise
factor to some extent, and you’ve also got to worry
about Lysandre’s Trump Card.
Ratings
Standard:
3.5/5 - Good card but not one that most decks will have
room for and as a reminder, this is a general
rating; some decks make better use of it, but its more
or less this good in general.
Expanded:
3.25/5 - You can run Tool Scrapper here, removing
that anti-Pokémon Tool F factor. There are also a few
other Supporters that again, if you weren’t so reliant
upon them for draw/search, you’d also be considering.
Otherwise, the same as for Standard.
Limited:
3.5/5 - This is a must run, but the score reflects how
its amazing in the few matches where your opponent has a
Pokémon Tool or Special Energy worth discarding and
Xerosic shows up in time, but obviously is dead
weight if your opponent lacks both.
Summary:
Right now though, I just don’t think decks have the room
for Xerosic. Lysandre is already an
established non-draw Supporter and I think there might
be another one worth running before Xerosic… and
three non-draw Supporters seems too much, even if they
are all singles. Xerosic didn’t make my list,
but it may be because I’m overestimating a few other
cards or underestimating the utility of Battle
Compressor plus Vs Seeker… a combo I
neglected when making my Top 10 list. Xerosic
perhaps should have placed after all, especially given
my fondness for general cards over the specific.
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