Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Talonflame
(Roaring Skies)
The best thing that you can say about
Talonflame is that its
attacks are cheap. In fact, they’re not even bad value
for what they are. For a single Energy of any colour,
Grand Loop lets you draw three cards and switch out
Talonflame if you choose;
while Brave Bird does a decent 90
for two Energy. The 20 points of recoil damage
aren’t ideal, but hey, this thing
will still one-shot Fire-Weak EX Pokémon like
Virizion,
Genesect, or
Aegislash.
Unfortunately,
though, Talonflame is a
Stage 2, and while an attack like Grand Loop would be
super nice on an evolving Basic, and Brave Bird on a
Stage 1 could be used to abuse Weakness, neither of
these attacks has a place on the highest evolutionary
Stage in today’s format. You simply cannot be using such
a resource-heavy Pokémon for draw and niche-hitting
purposes.
There was a time when 90 for two on a Stage 2 Pokémon
was stupid good (Infernape
DP). Now, it is barely worth a second glance.
Rating
Modified: 1.5
Expanded: 1.5
Limited: 2.5
|
aroramage |
Hey guys, I'm back! Sorry for
disappearing last week, I ended up moving some stuff
around into a new apartment, but now I'm good and
settled! So let's get back into the swing of things with
this week's set of cards!
Today we've got Talonflame, the
only Fire line-up in the set and the only Fire Pokemon
aside from Fletchinder (his pre-evo) and Victini. Once
again, we've hit that doomed Stage 2 Pokemon that could
be really good but won't be played because Pokemon-EX
exist. Talonflame is no exception, though it should be
noted he's got some great cheap moves here!
Take Grand Loop for instance - it
only costs one, and it nets you three cards and switches
Talonflame onto the Bench. Simple, removes Talonflame
from getting threatened, and benefits you all at the
same time by keeping him out of danger and putting your
attacker up at bat. It's not bad. Not great, but not
bad.
Then you've got Brave Bird, which
only adds another Fire Energy and deals 90 damage -
that's right, 2-for-90! That's a 2HKO on most anything
outside of Megas and a OHKO for any Grass-Pokemon that
isn't M Venasaur-EX - and who runs that? That's a
powerful bird! The only drawback is that he deals 20
damage to himself, which would put him in range for an
opposing 90-damage move plus Muscle Band to KO. Not the
best attacking move out there.
So why will Talonflame not see
play? Despite the cheapness of his attacks, Grand Loop
is outclassed by Shaymin-EX's Ability Set Up; while Set
Up only gets you up to six cards, Grand Loop forces you
to attack so you can't "set up" combos and what-not. And
Brave Bird, while a nice cheap high-damage-dealing
attack, isn't going to help cement Talonflame on the map
since his HP is about so-so. Oh, and there's the fact
that he's a Stage 2.
Still, he's not a bad pick, and I
won't fault anyone trying to make him work. Just trying
to make him work in tournament play.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (does things that
other Pokemon do better and who aren't Stage 2)
Expanded: 2/5 (not too much better
here)
Limited: 3.5/5 (the draw-and-switch
does a lot here, and Brave Bird can KO more things here
if the opponent's not careful)
Arora Notealus: It's funny that one
of the most powerful Pokemon in the video games hasn't
done nearly as much in the TCG. Maybe one day there will
be an exceptional Talonflame card...maybe...
Next Time: From the fire in the sky
to the depths of the ocean!
|
Otaku |
Welcome to another week of reviews. It
might be a bit boring, but I suggested that unless we
had a better theme to go with, we stick with reviewing
recent cards by Type as it is a lot harder to miss
something that way. With a week of Grass-Types out of
the way, let’s heat things up by moving onto Fire-Types!
…
Not a lot of them to review, actually. I’m
trying to avoid the ones I think are going to be pretty
hopeless or uninteresting to review so looks we are
going to cover Talonflame (XY: Roaring Skies
15/108). Being a Fire-Type means scoring double damage
against most Grass-Type as well as most Metal-Type
Pokémon, though there are a few with alternate
Weaknesses (often Lightning-Type for something that was
part Flying-Type in the video games). The main
Grass-Type deck would be VirGen and it is quite a
benefit if your attacks get into OHKO range against
Genesect-EX and Virizion-EX due to Weakness.
The main Metal-Type seeing play seems to be Bronzong
(XY: Phantom Forces 61/119) but it isn’t overly
big and while it might be backing up other Metal-Types,
it also sees play with anything that can make decent use
of Metal-Type Energy acceleration. Nothing in the
Standard or Expanded card pools has Fire Resistance,
though there are some anti-Fire-Type effects, including
“Thick Fat” found on cards like Hariyama (XY:
Furious Fists 52/111) that fake it (said Ability
reduces the damage taken from Fire-Types as well as
Water-Types by 30). Fire-Type support is there, but
with mixed results; you’ve got Blacksmith and we
keep getting more and more non-Supporter draw effects so
that you might be able to afford using it to attach two
Fire Energy cards from your discard pile. For
the competitive metagame, this is probably “average” at
best, maybe a little below.
Being a Stage 2 is unambiguous: unless
you’ve got a great “shortcut” option available or your
line is one of the few lucky ones with worthwhile lower
Stages or a ludicrously powerful end Stage, you’re
probably not seeing competitive play. Well, at least
successful competitive play. Even that last option
isn’t what it used to be; quite a few potent effects
still aren’t enough to earn a Stage 2 Pokémon success on
the tournament scene when it needs so much more time and
deck space relevant to Basic Pokémon. Disregarding my
opinion that HP scores across the board are too low for
what the-powers-that-be seem to want to do with this
game, Talonflame isn’t something known for its
HP, Defense, Special Defense, etc. (anything that the
TCG does or could represent with HP) so 130 is
appropriate in that sense… but functionally it isn’t
good enough right now. Just another 10 or 20 makes it
that much harder to OHKO, and while 130 is more likely
to survive than not, it’s gone from being comfortably
outside the typical attack range to the “than not”
portion reflecting that decks take time to set-up or
recover from an opponent’s big play than actual
durability.
Water Weakness is… disappointing. This
enables that card we love to hate but still run when we
want to win - Seismitoad-EX - to use Muscle
Band alongside the Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo for Quaking Punch OHKO.
Lightning-Type Weakness would have been more
appropriate given that the video game counterpart has
Rock Weakness x 4 (doesn’t work because Rock is part of
the Fighting-Type in the TCG) and the Water-Type in the
TCG contains the Ice-Type which does not hit this
Pokémon for double damage in the video games. Only the
video game Electric Weakness directly corresponds to the
TCG Lightning Weakness and while being
Lightning-Weak is dangerous right now, it is both safer
than the Water Weakness and brings Weakness diversity
since nearly all Fire-Types are Water Weak. The lack of
Resistance is acceptable only because that is typical of
most modern TCG cards, though since I’ve already been
looking at the video game Talonflame I’ll point out that
it takes only half damage from Fairy-, Fighting-, Fire-
and Steel-Type attacks, a quarter of the damage from
Grass- and Bug-Types and is Immune to (takes no damage
from) Ground-Type moves. The odd marrying of
Fighting/Ground/Rock is why those are out but the
others? Interesting and I can’t image that all are
unbalancing. Talonflame does get the free
Retreat Cost it deserves: this is perfect and perfectly
appropriate as the Pokémon’s main claim to fame is its
speed.
In fact, the speed (or rather base Speed
Stat) is reflected in the attacks of Talonflame
as well. For [C] it can use “Grand Loop” to draw three
cards and then switch places with one of your Benched
Pokémon while it just needs [RC] to access its other
attack - Brave Bird - which hits for 90 while
Braviary does 20 to itself. Both of these attacks
are actually pretty solid, maybe even at the threshold
of being “good” but there is a problem; they don’t work
so well with the rest of the card. As a reminder, the
format currently has easy access to Double Colorless
Energy and again Fire-Types have Blacksmith.
So in a weird way [C] and [RC] are almost too low of
costs - easily met so you might as well have had to pay
a bit more so you could get a bit more. While we have
good dance partners for Grand Loop, drawing three cards
is a trick for a Basic you open the game with, not an
Evolution. Not saying it can’t have a set-up attack,
but it needs a better one… especially because there is
N in a low of decks to provide hand disruption:
you may never get to use those three cards. Not to make
this a Create-A-Card but making Grand Loop search for
three cards or draw more even upping the cost to [CC]
might have been better, with Brave Bird requiring [RRCC]
but hitting hard enough that at least with a Silver
Bangle it could OHKO typical Pokémon-EX may have
been warranted. As is, it is just going for a 2HKO and
it probably won’t survive that.
What about its lower Stages? Other
versions? We have five different versions of
Fletchling with a total of 10 different releases to
pick from for both Standard and Expanded. All
are Colorless-Type, Basic Pokémon with 50 HP (except
XY: Roaring Skies 82/108), Lightning Weakness,
Fighting Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Abilities and
no Ancient Traits. XY: Kalos Starter Set 31/19,
XY Trainer Kit: Sylveon Half Deck 1/30, 19/30 and
McDonald’s Collection 2014 11/12 can use Razor
Wind for [C] to flip a coin: 20 it “heads”, nothing if
“tails”. XY 11/116 and XY Trainer Kit:
Bisharp Half Deck 1/30 can use Me First for [C] to
draw a card or Peck for [CC] and 20 damage. XY:
Flashfire 86/106 has the classic Quick Attack for
[C], doing 10 damage plus another 10 with a successful
coin flip. XY: Phantom Forces 89/119 and XY
Trainer Kit: Latias Half Deck 4/30 are a bit of a
remix with Peck and Quick Attack, this time costing [C]
and [CC] while hitting for 10 and 10 (+20 on “heads”),
respectively. Finally XY: Roaring Skies 82/108
has only 40 HP and Acrobatics for [C], hitting for 10
damage with two coin flips good for another 10 damage
each. None of these attacks are especially good at
keeping Fletchling alive to Evolve (its main
function) or at taking Prizes or anything else that
directly contributes to a win (not its job, but then why
give it attacks focused on doing damage?). XY
11/116 and XY Trainer Kit: Bisharp Half Deck 1/30
because if I am attacking with Fletchling, I
probably just need options.
Things are a bit simply with Fletchinder
as there are just four versions each released once:
XY 27/146, XY: Flashfire 17/106, XY:
Phantom Forces 9/119 and XY: Roaring Skies
14/108. All are Stage 1 Fire-Type Pokémon with no
Abilities and no Ancient Traits. All except
XY: Roaring Skies 14/108 have Lightning Weakness,
Fighting Resistance and Retreat Cost [C]. XY
27/146 has 70 HP and two attacks: Flame Charge for [C]
that allows you to search your deck for a [R] Energy and
attach it to itself plus Fire Wing for [RC], hitting for
30 points of damage. XY: Flashfire 17/106 enjoys
80 HP but has just one attack - Firebreathing - for 20
damage, plus another 20 if you get “heads” on the coin
flip. XY: Phantom Forces 9/119 also has 80 HP
but sports two attacks: for [R] it can use “Peck” for 20
and for [RRC] it can use “Combustion” for 60. XY:
Roaring Skies 14/108 drops the HP back down to 70
and like its set-mate Talonflame is Water Weak,
has no Resistance but also enjoys a perfect free Retreat
Cost. For [C] it can use Peck Off which does 10 damage
but before that discards all Pokémon Tools attached to
your opponent’s Active Pokémon. I appreciate that some
versions offer potentially useful “tricks” but I say go
with XY: Flashfire 17/106 for the HP (and of the
two with 80, the better attack) or with XY: Roaring
Skies 14/108 for that free Retreat Cost. It is hard
to say which will be more valuable as both 70 and 80 HP
are likely to be OHKOed but similarly how often will you
need to retreat this Pokémon?
There are also two other Talonflame
to consider, both of which have been reviewed before. XY
24/146 was reviewed back on
April
2, 2014 while XY: Phantom Forces 10/113 was our
December 9th, 2014 CotD. Since things have changed a bit since they were last
looked at, I’ll run through them quickly, but focus on
what is different from today’s card. Both have
Lightning Weakness and Fighting Resistance, making it a
bit easier to understand why they deviated with today’s
Talonflame by giving it Water Weakness, though it
doesn’t excuse the lack of Resistance. Both also lack
an Ability or Ancient Trait but have two attacks. Both
also apply the pricing options I had wondered might be
better for this card. XY 24/146 has Devastating
Wind for [C], allowing you to force your opponent to
shuffle his or her hand back into the deck and draw four
cards. That isn’t what I was talking about and is a
pretty poor attack. Flare Blitz requires [RR], hits for
100 damage but requires you to discard all [R] Energy
attached to itself; a bit underpowered but even though
it came out the set before Blacksmith, it
actually takes advantage of that card. Discarding all
the Energy attached isn’t a huge deal since not only is
it likely to be OHKOed after attacking but its odds of
survival go up a tiny bit due to attacks like X-Ball and
Evil Ball (on Mewtwo-EX and Yveltal-EX,
respectively).
XY: Phantom Forces 10/113 is in a similar boat, except it gets an
annoying Retreat Cost of [C] - not that hard to pay but
again Talonflame seems like one of those Pokémon
that should have a natural free Retreat Cost. It has
possibly the best single Energy attack of the three,
though that isn’t saying much: Acrobatics does 30 for
[R] plus gives you two coin flips for an additional 30
per “heads”. Even if it’s only one of four possible
outcomes, 90 for [R] is still pretty good, or at least
intimidating. Its “Jet Shoot” attack requires [RRC] and
again shows that the card is trying to take some
advantage of Blacksmith… except it only does 120
damage while increasing the damage Talonflame
takes the next turn by 40. The drawback isn’t terrible
it just doesn’t give quite enough of a damage bump
especially given that you really need to be able to
score a OHKO against most common attackers that aren’t
Mega Evolutions. Jet Shoot at least has the potential
with a Muscle Band and/or Silver Bangle,
Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym
but why put all this effort in when you can accomplish
as good or better feats with something else.
So… no real help from its lower Stages or
other versions. Is there a reason to use this
Talonflame? Nope; every reason I can think of to
use it applies more to another card, even another
Talonflame. Even the Weakness shift doesn’t help
because if another Talonflame was worth using, it
would probably be worth just including something else to
deal with the Weakness instead of something that can’t
even 2HKO M Manectric-EX on its own (and if you
don’t block self-damage, still gets OHKOed back
by Turbo Bolt). Talonflame does just enough to
not be totally hopeless and a little interesting and of
course, if you can pull even a 1-1-1 line and don’t
pull something that precludes you running said line
(like a Pokémon-EX around which to build a +39) then it
can burn brightly there, being quite open to splashing
with other Types and providing draw if you want to focus
more on set-up than early offense.
Ratings
Standard: 1.75/5
Expanded: 1.5/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Well, hopefully that was interesting; Talonflame
didn’t look too appealing at first glance but it wasn’t
totally vanilla. Its Grand Loop would be great on an
Evolving Basic and handy on a Stage 1 or Pokémon-EX
(Evolving or not). Brave Bird would probably be too
good on an Evolving Basic or big, Basic (whether it
Evolves or not); 90 for two can add up really fast but
just right on an Evolving Stage 1 as an “emergency”
attacker, at least in the current cardpool. On a Stage
2 though, we’ve used up a lot of the room for additional
support and neither Fletchling nor Fletchinder
provides said support. At least looking at this card
now should prevent anyone from selecting one of its
lower Stages for a later “filler” review. ;)
|
Emma Starr |
Normally, when you’re a Stage 2 Pokémon, to make it
these days, it would need to have a really awesome
ability to be very useful. Unfortunately, Talonflame
lacks one. And the 130 HP is just not the most ideal
either, along with that dreaded Water weakness, though
the free retreat is definitely nice. So, does Talonflame
have what it takes to bring on the heat (yes, that was
lame, I know…)
For one Colorless, Grand Loop lets you draw three cards,
and lets you switch out to a benched Pokémon. It’s a
nice effect, though I feel if this was an ability that
could activate on your bench, and then Talonflame
would be your active, I feel this card could have been
more useful. As it is, however, it’s still nice to see
some draw power from an attack, but this sort of attack
on a Stage 2…is just bothersome. Hopefully the REAL
attack can hold its own…
Brave Bird does 2-for-90, with 20 damage being given to
Talonflame himself. Really, that actually isn’t as bad
as it sounds, as Talonflame most likely won’t be
sticking around for to long anyway, usually. However,
the damage-per-energy count is…very nice. In fact, in
our college’s Pokémon Club, I used a card similar to
this one, Blaziken (PC 28) in our pre-release
tournament, and it mopped the floor with its low cost
2-for-100 attack every time I got it out, and even
helped me win the entire tournament. Although both have
an underwhelming effect to them, sometimes raw
damage…just plain works. And this is no problem for the
energy-efficient Talonflame.
Standard: 2.45/5
Expanded: 2.45/5
Limited: 3/5
|
