Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#5 Landorus
Hello, and welcome to the second part of
Pojo’s
CotD countdown of the top 10 cards from Furious
Fists. Expect to see a
lot of
Fighting-related cards over the next few days.
We kick off the week with a look at
Landorus, a card which bears more than a passing
resemblance to the non-EX Yveltal
from XY. Like that card, Landorus
has an attack (Shout of Power) which does damage and
lets you attach an Energy
from your discard pile to a Benched Pokémon. Also like
Yveltal, it has a vanilla
second attack (Sky Lariat) which does reasonable damage
if you need it. Other things the cards share are decent
durability for a non-EX Basic (120 HP in
Landorus’ case), and an
easy-to-pay retreat cost.
Despite the similarities, I think there will be subtle
differences between how the cards are used.
Yveltal is often a good
starting option for Dark decks, providing acceleration
for EX big hitters like Darkrai
and Yveltal.
Landorus can certainly be
used that way, but most Fighting decks are going to
prefer to open with Landorus
EX’s Hammerhead or even Lucario
EX’s Missile Jab, for the increased damage and early
game pressure. Landorus can
perform a role in these decks, but it may be more about
providing mid-game acceleration after a KO, and offering
itself up as a sacrifice to force an opponent into a
seven-Prize game. With all the Fighting support
available, Landorus can hit
fairly hard for a single Energy (Strong Energy and a
Muscle Band means 60 damage), so it’s a great Pokémon to
promote to finish off a damaged EX and help prepare your
next big attacker.
Some Fighting decks (ummm .
. . Tyrantrum FFI?) will
definitely like this card as a starter, but other than
that, I see one or two copies being a great addition to
more conventional Landorus
EX-based lists. For relatively little investment, it’s a
handy and versatile Pokémon.
Rating
Modified: 3.75 (a useful Pokemon
in any Fighting deck)
Expanded: 3.75 (see above, plus it’s a
Tynamo killer)
Limited: 4.5 (durable basic with a cheap attack. Almost
always a ‘yes’)
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aroramage |
Hello once again and welcome back to another week of
card reviews, featuring our Top 5 from the Furious Fists
set! Today's card comes as another large piece of
support in the form of Landorus! Is he going to rock the
world with his power-packing strikes, or will his
attacks fall short?
While it remains to be seen what he can do, what we see
he can do is pretty huge. And no, I'm not talking about
Sky Lariat, though even a vanilla 90 damage is pretty
good for a non-EX Basic, never mind that it can benefit
from all the Fighting support that came out in this set.
I'm more focused on his first attack, the Shout of
Power!
1 Energy for 20 damage is...meh, in general, but this
also gets boosts from stuff like Fighting Stadium and
Machamp, giving it a similar damage range to Lucario-EX's
first attack (when considering all the potential
boosts). Shout of Power may not ignore resistance like
Lucario-EX's Missile Jab, but it does something that
Fighting decks have needed for a while: Energy
acceleration, in the form of an offensive Dark Patch for
any basic Energy.
And that's another thing, Landorus' first attack makes
it so that he can be teched into any deck, and while he
won't be nearly as effective as he would be in a
Fighting deck, I don't think anyone will complain with a
little extra acceleration in anything not revolving
around Blastoise (PLS). In a Fighting deck, Landorus
will be able to inflict hefty damage given the right
set-up AND provide Energy acceleration for Benched
fighters. Sure, it's not as abusable as Dark Patch
combined with Sableye, but it's a powerful attack that
can do a lot of good!
Landorus is going to bring a heavy shift towards
Fighting decks, amongst the rest of the set's support,
so don't be surprised if you see players combining a
deck with even just Landorus and Lucario-EX - now
there's a team that could devastate the TCG outside of
Pyroar decks, though a nifty Garbodor (LTR) thrown in
will make a nasty power-packed deck for sure!
Rating
Standard: 4.5/5 (he's incredible support to a Type that
just got a lot of support, and he's a lot more
splashable with Rainbow Energy hanging around)
Expanded: 4/5 (still pretty solid here, all things
considered, but Dark Patch is a bit faster given its
Item status; Landorus does have Type advantage against
most of the Dark-types though)
Limited: 4.5/5 (if you have Fighting types, you're going
to run Landorus, and if you're tempted to get a head
start on a Lucario-EX/Landorus build, you could try them
out here too!)
Arora Notealus: HE'S-A CHARGING HIS FIST!!...wait, isn't
this supposed to be a shout of power?
Next Time: Spunky and raring to go!
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We begin the top half of our the Top 10 Promising Picks
of XY: Furious Fists with Landorus (XY:
Furious Fists 58/111). As a reminder, each reviewer
compiled his own separate Top 10 list, submitted it, and
Pojo compiled the “master list” or review by averaging
out those individual lists. Since my review is late, we
are now officially past the rotation point, with
Standard being BCR-On (plus various promos), Expanded
officially existing and Limited… well rotation doesn’t
affect Limited.
So why did this Landorus snag the fifth place
position? For starters it is a Fighting-Type released
in a set full of Fighting-Type support and other
Fighting-Types; that is going to be relevant as to why
it isn’t lower or higher. The majority of
Colorless-Type Pokémon and nearly all Darkness- and
Lightning-Type Pokémon have Fighting Weakness, so unless
the metagame can radically shift to eliminate it, it is
an amazingly strong bonus. No Resistance is the most
common form of Resistance, but Fighting Resistance is a
close second (I think - hate to admit it but I lack hard
numbers here or the time to calculate it all by hand).
As Resistance is relatively balanced while Weakness is
not, combined with the new Type support being a
Fighting-Type is awesome.
Being a Basic Pokémon is also still the best; requiring
minimal deck space and time to get to the field. Pyroar
(XY: Flashfire 20/106) forced many decks to
either run at least a few Evolved attackers or
Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted 54/124; BW:
Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW: Legendary Treasures
68/113) or some other “trick” (Hypnotoxic Laser
spam, basics that inflict Special Conditions or place
damage counters, etc.) to deal with Intimidating Mane,
however no Pyroar deck made the Top 4 of any age
bracket for the 2014 World Championship. It is still
too early to count it out (especially given the
propensity we see for “comebacks” among former
powerhouses)... but that is basically the only
drawback to being a Basic Pokémon: an external counter
in the form of a somewhat Energy specific Stage 1!
120 HP is just 10 under the maximum printed score we’ve
seen for a Basic Pokémon that is not a
Pokémon-EX; this isn’t safe from being OHKOed but is
still somewhat durable and as we are only giving up a
single Prize, is still great (in more than one sense of
the word). Currently (I’m not even trying to make puns)
the Water Weakness is flowing (okay, that one was
intention) back and forth between “somewhat problematic”
to “tolerable”. The reason is Landorus-EX and
Pyroar have incentivized players to work in solid
Water-Type attackers.
The good news is that outside of these counters, only a
few Water-Type attackers like Kyurem (BW:
Plasma Freeze 31/116) a.k.a. Kyurem [Plasma]
and Seismitoad-EX have proven strong enough to be
used for their own merit (as opposed to exploiting
Weakness). Even fellow Top 10 list finalist Beartic
(XY: Furious Fists 22/111) needs a lot of help to
OHKO Landorus, and it is being run specifically
to KO Water Weak Pokémon. Dealing with TecH or at least
a lesser line is much easier than dealing with a “main
attacker” striking your Weakness. The lack of
Resistance is disappointing but as usual, not especially
damaging. The single Energy Retreat Cost is very good,
making it far easier to retreat than its Pokémon-EX
counterpart, and while unlikely to be run specifically
for it, in Expanded this works nicely with Skyarrow
Bridge.
Landorus
has two attacks, and the first one is the main reason to
run it… but also means it works out better if I explain
the second attack first. For [FFC] Landorus
attacks using Sky Lariat (probably the attack shown in
the artwork) for 90 points of damage. For the Energy
going into it, 90 isn’t good but it isn’t really bad
either; for three Energy 90 points of damage is a decent
amount. I would clearly be on the happy side of
“adequate” if the cost had been [FCC] and thus able to
make use of tricks like Double Colorless Energy.
As is it can OHKO almost all Fighting Weak Pokémon
without any boosting, 2HKO almost anything that isn’t
Resistant, and would need minimal boosting (like a
single Muscle Band or Strong Energy) to
score a 2HKO against anything I can think of that is
Fighting Resistant. Of course, this ignores additional
effects on those cards like Pokémon Tools or Abilities.
Shout of Power requires [F] and does 20 points of damage
while attaching a Basic Energy card from your discard
pile to one of your Benched Pokémon. Unfortunately the
attachment is not optional so (as has happened to
me on occasion) you may find yourself attaching to
something that just doesn’t need the Energy… and in a
format where so many attacks do damage based on the
Energy attached to the Defending Pokémon or all Pokémon
you have in play, it can be both a waste and risk. The
vast majority of the time it is a welcome form of Energy
acceleration, especially as Fighting-Types don’t really
have anything that isn’t generic or that has proven
successful in the past. In fact this could be used to
accelerate basic Energy from the discard to any
Pokémon-Type, so other than requiring [F] Energy to use
it is in fact generic itself. The 20 points of damage
on a 120 HP body makes it a solid way of buying time,
even though a single Shout of Power won’t actually put
you any Energy ahead.
So for decks running a decent chunk of basic Fighting
Energy (or a means of easily searching it out), this
is a good opener. It does have to share the limelight
with Landorus-EX and the new Lucario-EX,
who also each have excellent single Energy attacks.
Everything about this card gives it a protected niche
in Fighting-Type decks, though if you plan to go
aggressive or lose, you would leave it out; it is for
building something else on the Bench while still doing
damage or as a backup attacker (such as to get through
Safeguard), not a deck’s focus. Fighting decks focused
on buffs will really appreciate the damage as well;
going second against an opponent’s opening, Fighting
Weak Pokémon-EX can’t be relied upon, nor can having a
Strong Energy, Silver Bangle and
Fighting Stadium, but the chance for a surprise OHKO
is still nice to have.
I am still unsure of what to expect for Expanded; as
this went up late I already found out that
unfortunately, the PTCGO has not added an official
Expanded Format option (still being limited to its very
incomplete Unlimited, its Standard, and its Theme deck
formats). I am still operating on pure conjecture, and
right now I think that this card is about as useful here
as in Standard. Like many, I expect Eelektrik (BW:
Noble Victories 40/101) decks to return, and all
versions of Tynamo (its Basic Stage) have 40 HP
(or less), meaning you might be able to Lysandre
or Escape Rope or simply luck into an easy but
strategic OHKO while still scoring your Energy
acceleration. On the other hand, this format will
likely have most (if not all) of the competitive decks
found in Standard, plus a few older ones now unique to
Expanded or simply whatever few decks (old or new) that
will swallow up the competition. For Limited things are
much easier; run it unless you get a better Pokémon for
a +39 (1 Basic Pokémon plus 39 non-Basic Pokémon cards)
deck or the highly improbable chance you can’t run at
least a few FIghting Energy in order to use Shout
of Power reliably. For everything else you should be
able to make room, and you can even risk using it in its
own +39 deck, though I do not recommend the latter.
Ratings
Standard:
4/5 - A good score, though it is not a general score; it
requires some effort to get this working in decks that
don’t run a good source of [F] Energy (and I’d be leery
of committing a Rainbow Energy to it) and
sufficient basic Energy cards to accelerate.
Expanded:
4/5 - As above, but with different opportunities; in
some ways it will be a bit better (OHKOing Tynamo!)
in others, not so much (probably a lot more generic
competition).
Limited:
4.9/5 - Almost as good as it gets, though there is just
enough of a chance you shouldn’t run (better card for
+39 deck, can’t make room for enough Fighting Energy
cards) to dock a tenth of a point.
Summary:
This is a very well made card, with almost every aspect
contributing, to the point it scores very high even
though it provides only modest Energy acceleration, its
big but not the biggest, it isn’t a Pokémon-EX and its
Retreat Cost is a lot nicer than most other
Fighting-Types. Landorus is something to snag if
you plan on running any Fighting decks, even if they
aren’t all Fighting… though there is so much competition
for an opener/low Energy attacker that it might not
always make it to your final build for such decks.
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