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Welcome to a very special week of reviews. What makes them so
special? Every single one of these reviews is over a
week late (with this one hopefully “only” being two
weeks late if it is posted the Monday after I submit
it). Yes I am most fortunate the Pojosama tolerates my
tardiness, but I still wish to apologies to readers that
were eagerly anticipating these articles.
…
I’m allowed to pretend that at least some people out there enjoy
reading this. ;)
We begin this week with Flygon (XY: Primal Clash
11/160). The Dragon-Type was officially added to the
TCG about halfway through the BW sets, but after its
initial introduction it hasn’t gotten much new support,
though XY: Roaring Skies will give us Double
Dragon Energy once it is legal. Otherwise the older
Dragon-Type what support has half-rotated out of
Standard, though the half that is left is worth
remembering: Altaria (BW: Dragons Exalted
84/124; BW Black Star Promos BW48; BW:
Boundaries Crossed 152/149) is a Stage 1 but its
Ability provides a +20 buff to the damage done by
Dragon-Types to the Active Pokémon (before
Weakness/Resistance). Of course Weakness to the
Dragon-Type is currently only found on BW-era
Dragon-Type Pokémon: it might not exist past the next
rotation but for now there are a still a few in Standard
with it. At least there is no Dragon-Type Resistance to
worry about. Until XY: Roaring Skies is legal,
this seems like poor Typing, but Double Dragon Energy
should beef the Type up substantially: it has the
attachment restrictions similar to what we’ve seen on
other Type specific Special Energy like Strong Energy
but it provides two units of Energy that count as all
Types at once!
Being a Stage 2 is pretty rough right now. While I’ve questioned
the wisdom of a universal shortcut like Rare Candy,
most Stage 2 Pokémon seem reliant on it (the few that
aren’t are the ones currently seeing competitive play)
and as Evolutions are inherently combos, they are more
reliant upon draw and search effects in general… so
Seismitoad-EX and its easy Item lock in addition
to a format that already favors big, Basic Pokémon makes
things that much more difficult as you suddenly have to
rely on natural draws and likely hand shuffling or
discarding Supporters to set-up your field. The 140 HP
is enough to (probably) survive one hit, but most decks
can ramp things up to score the OHKO (they just may not
be able to do it rapid fire six times in a row). As any
sort of Weakness is undesirable so I can’t call
Fairy-Type Weakness “good”, but its definitely not the
worst to have as it just isn’t common outside of
Fairy-Type decks. No Resistance is disappointing but
not overly detrimental because its the norm; at worst it
is a missed opportunity for the card to have a small
bonus in certain match-ups. The single Energy Retreat
Cost is very good; you’ll rarely have an issue with
paying it (and recovering from the loss of said Energy).
Flygon has an Ability and an attack. The Ability is Sand Flap; once per
turn you can select either player and force that player
to shuffle his or her hand back into his or her deck,
then draw four cards. While it says “Once per turn…”
the wording is such that each copy you have of a card in
play with Sand Flap can be used if you wish. For [GFC]
Flygon can use Sand Tomb to hit for 80 damage, as
well as preventing the Defending Pokémon from manually
retreating during your opponent’s next turn. This is an
odd one; the Ability doesn’t provide enough draw that
you’ll want to rely on it for setting up but its too
much draw for it to be overly effective at disrupting
your opponent. In fact I’d assume players would learn
to play their hand down both ways; if you’re on the
receiving end its the standard strategy used to brace
for an expected N. When you’re using it as a
draw aid for yourself, its what you do when you’re stuck
trying to draw into something good with N and
you’ve already taken two Prizes. So on your side, its
some (but not a lot) of insurance coverage while using
it offensively it will mostly disabuse your opponent of
relying on their hand to survive between turns. It is
nice to have even mild draw power from an Ability and
unlike say Electrode (BW: Plasma Freeze
33/116) you don’t have to worry about your hand being
too large to make use of it; even if you use Sand Flap
once and draw dead, you can use additional instances of
the Ability (if you have them in play) to try again.
The attack is mostly saved by just barely hitting hard
enough (with something to boost it) for a 2HKO against
most Basic Pokémon-EX. The effect is a very slight
bonus as plenty of decks don’t do a lot of manual
retreating anyway.
So what is your path to Flygon? You’ll need to start with
Trapinch and we have three options: BW:
Boundaries Crossed 83/149, XY: Furious Fists
53/111 and XY: Primal Clash 82/160. All three
are Basic Fighting-Types with 60 HP, a single Energy
Retreat Cost of [C], no Ability and no Ancient Trait. BW:
Boundaries Crossed 83/149 has Water Weakness,
Lightning Resistance and two attacks: Smithereen Smash
requires [C] and gives you a coin flip to discard an
Energy attached to the opponent’s Active Pokémon and
Bite for [FC] which hits for a flat 20. XY: Furious
Fists 53/111 and XY: Primal Clash 82/160 are
both Grass Weak and have no Resistance: the former can
use Mountain Munch for [F} to discard the top card of
the opponent’s deck or Mud Slap for 10 damage while the
latter can use Gnaw for [C] to also hit for 10 or
Mud-Slap for [FC] to hit for 20. Though they aren’t all
vanilla they are still largely interchangeable unless
you have a metagame or specific build reason for
including a particular version.
For Vibrava your options are BW: Boundaries Crossed
98/149, XY: Furious Fists 75/111 and XY:
Primal Clash 109/160. All three are Stage 1
Dragon-Type Pokémon with 80 HP, no Resistance, a single
Energy Retreat Cost, no Abilities, no Ancient Traits and
two attacks. BW: Boundaries Crossed 98/149 is
Dragon Weak and for [G] can use Quick Turn for two coin
flips (each “heads” is good for 20 damage) or Sand Pulse
for [FCC] to hit the opponent’s Active for 50 and 10 to
each of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon. XY: Furious
Fists 75/111 is Fairy Weak and for [C] it can use
Charge Energy to search your deck for up to two basic
Energy cards to add to your hand while for [GF] it can
use Vibration to hit for 30 points of damage. XY:
Primal Clash 109/160 also carried Fairy Weakness,
and for [C] it can use Sand Attack for 20 damage plus
the current Defending Pokémon (until the end of your
opponent’s next turn) has to flip a coin and get “heads”
or else its attack does nothing. For [GFC] its Super
Vibration hits for 60 points of damage. This time I do
favor a version: XY: Primal Clash 109/160 because
while its not a strong attack, Sand Attack is easy to
power and throws up one more obstacle to your opponent
scoring a KO… hopefully buying time for Vibrava
to Evolve!
There are two other options for Flygon: BW: Boundaries
Crossed 99/149 (re-released as BW Black Star
Promos BW53) and XY: Furious Fists 76/111.
Both of these cards have already been reviewed
here
and
here.
Both are Stage 2 Dragon-Type Pokémon with no
Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [C] and no Ancient Trait.
BW: Boundaries Crossed 99/149 has 140 HP, Dragon
Weakness an Ability and a single attack. The Ability is
Sand Slammer; if you leave this particular Flygon
Active between turns you place a damage counter on each
of your opponent’s Pokémon. For [GFCC] it can use
Flying Beatdown for 80 damage, and if you discard a [F]
and a [G] Energy attached to itself (it is optional) the
opponent’s Active is Paralyzed. This card saw success
in some Accelgor (BW: Dark Explorers
11/108) decks and perhaps a few others I am spacing off.
XY: Furious Fists 76/111 has just 130 HP, is
Fairy Weak and has two attacks: Rainbow Shower costs [C]
and allows you to attach as many basic Energy cards from
your hand to your Pokémon in any way you like and Sand
Sweep for [GFC] for 70 and heals 30 damage from each of
your Pokémon that has an Energy attached to it. Some
people had high hopes for this, but attack based Energy
acceleration especially on a Stage 2 is just too
hard to use effectively right now. Either could work
alongside today’s version if a deck has sufficient room
and the strategy allows enough wiggle room.
So how should we use today’s version? Honestly, I don’t know.
Maybe it could fit into the aforementioned Accelgor
deck in Expanded but I don’t know if said deck has room
on the Bench for an extra Flygon. In Standard I
wish I had an answer but nothing plausible springs to
mind. I guess with Altaria boosting damage,
after Double Dragon Energy is available you
might build a deck where you just use Sand Flap as
emergency draw power/mild disruption against your
opponent, hopefully hitting just hard enough to outpace
your opponent. The only place this card is awesome is
Limited; unless you’re running a +39 deck, if you pull
even just a 1-1-1 line you should try to squeeze it in.
Ratings
Standard: 2.5/5
Expanded: 2.75/5
Limited: 4.5/5
Summary: Ignoring how difficult it is to build a competitive Stage 2 deck,
it is hard to think a card that offers draw power or
disruption doesn’t have a deck waiting. Flygon
isn’t something I’d bank on but it is a card that looks
like it is worth snagging for fun and/or experimental
decks. It is good enough that I’m glad it was printed,
unlike some of its set-mates.
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