aroramage |
HEY GUYS, I'm back. Sorry about
missing the tail end of last week, I've been working on
adjusting myself to my new workflow with the new job and
stuff - one of those things of life. But now that we're
getting closer to wrapping up our Ancient Origins list
(and finally starting on the XY Breakthrough Top 10),
IT'S TIME TO TAKE A LOOK AT
META-FREAKING-AMAZING-GROSS!!
...or just Metagross.
Now Metagross here is one of two
versions (what a surprise), and this one lacks the
Ancient Trait (what a surprise). Instead, he's got an
Ability in the form of Magnetic Wrap. Essentially, it's
a Switch for both sides of the field, where you can
switch out your Active Pokemon for a Bench-sitter for
free, knowing your opponent will inevitably switch out
their own Active for a Bench-sitter. This could be
really good and put pressure on the opponent if they
don't have anything they want to force out Active, or
even better it can lead to an easy win if they don't
have any other Benched folk, so there's potential for
this card to say the least.
And considering that Iron Cannon is
a hefty 4-for-80 attack that can discard all your Metal
Energy attached to him to give it another 80...well,
you've got better attackers than Metagross.
The only issue then with Metagross
is actually getting him out onto the playing field,
which at the very least is easier if only cause of the
evolution support we've got. Besides that though,
there's also having so much devotion towards playing
Metagross in your deck, and that could lead to some
problems in consistency. Not to mention you're still
banking on your opponent to not be set-up well enough on
their side of the field to throw away a monster while
you bring out your main attacker to sweep.
It's an idea kind of card but not
an ideal card.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (a bit of a tricky
Ability and a generally bad attack won't get this
Metagross very far)
Expanded: 2/5 (that's about it
really)
Limited: 2.5/5 (...meh)
Arora Notealus: At least he looks
cool here!
Next Time: Moving right along...
|
Otaku |
One
last week of XY: Ancient Origins reviews before
we dive into XY: BREAKThrough! Did we save
the best for last? Well, if we did then we did a
bad job on our Top 15 list for this set. Still
there might be one or two buried gems this week… or will
that be “ore” as we are starting with Metagross (XY:
Ancient Origins 49/98), the one without an
Ancient Trait and the first of three Metal-Type Pokémon
we’ll be looking at this week. The last two belong
to the only Type we haven’t covered since our last Top
15 list: Colorless.
Metal-Types enjoy hitting some Water-Types (namely those
based on the TCG Ice-Type) and so far all
Fairy-Types are Metal Weak, while most Lightning-Types
released in the XY-era are Metal Resistant; not the best
Types to smack for double damage or the worst Type to
hit for 20 less damage. I am finding “anti-Metal”
card effects, but their Type specific is minimal:
Klinklang (BW: Plasma Storm 90/135),
Shield Energy and Steel Shelter. All
offer protective effects and have enjoyed some success,
with Klinklang [Plasma] protecting all your
Metal-Types from damage by opponent’s Pokémon-EX once it
is in play, Shield Energy reducing the damage
taken from opponent’s attacks by 10 before
Weakness and Resistance (errata) while providing a unit
of [M] Energy (can only be attached and work with
Metal-Types though) and Steel Shelter not only
prevents Special Conditions for Metal-Types but removes
any already present on them when you play it. All
face steep competition; Klinklang [Plasma] is a
Stage 2 line that takes over a deck and has no shortcuts
beyond generic ones to get into play, Shield Energy
competes for space against other potent Special Energy
while Steel Shelter similarly competes against
the many potent Stadiums available.
Then
things get a bit weird; sometimes I draw a distinction
between kinds of Type support because frankly, there is
an obvious difference between a card that supports a
Type because it only works for said Type and a card that
supports a Type because it happens to be that Type
and/or requires that Type’s Energy to fully
function. There are some great Metal-Type
attackers like Cobalion (BW: Noble Victories
84/101, 100/101; BW: Legendary Treasures 91/113),
Cobalion-EX, Dialga-EX (XY: Phantom
Forces 62/119, 122/119), Heatran (XY:
Phantom Forces 63/119). They also have some
nice Bench-sitters like Bronzong (XY: Phantom
Forces 61/119) for from-the-discard acceleration of
basic Metal Energy cards via its “Metal Links”
Ability and Jirachi-EX to search out a Supporter
through its “Stellar Guidance” Ability. Jirachi-EX
is not used for its lackluster attack, so it can be
splashed into anything (though it isn’t always an
optimal inclusion). Bronzong and thus the
attackers mentioned would seem locked into Metal-Type
decks, but instead Bronzong has been combined
with just about any attacker that has at least two [CC]
in their attack costs so long as the rest can also be
met easily. Colorless-Types with all Colorless
attacks and Dragon-Types using Double Dragon Energy
are among a few different options that have successfully
used Bronzong in this manner.
All of
that together makes it hard for me to accurately gauge
how strong Metal-Type Pokémon currently are: if
Fairy-Types or the correct Water-Types suddenly saw a
huge upswing, if a Metal-Type Pokémon was released that
utilized other Metal-Type Pokémon I listed better than
everything else, etc. it would benefit far more than
other Types, but so it hasn’t happened; does that mean
the Metal-Type is a bit weak or does that just mean
certain cards are far too overpowered? I think it
is a little bit of both. Moving on we see that
this is a Stage 2; as per usual I’ll run through the
prior Stages of Evolution after we finish with the
specifics of this Metagross, but if you’re new
the game (or at least the remotely competitive side of
things), know that being a Stage 2 is difficult.
The designers seem to have allowed the game’s pacing to
get badly out of whack, so even though core game design
has Stage 2 Pokémon needing two extra cards and turns to
enter play, top decks often lack the time or space for
that. Those with sufficient shortcuts can still be
the backbone of a World Championship winning deck… but
the Metal-Type has no such shortcut (nor would I want
them to because that doesn’t fix the pacing issue, it
just hides it while creating more problems).
Metagross
has 150 HP; this is 10 less than the maximum we’ve seen
printed Stage 2 Pokémon is still within OHKO range of
many top decks. It isn’t bad though, in fact it’s
reasonably good; it just isn’t because it will rarely
fail to survive a hit, but because your opponent will
usually need a primary attacker and more or less
complete set-up to dispatch it with one blow.
Fire-Types will find this easier because of Weakness;
the main reason this will matter is Flareon (BW:
Plasma Freeze 12/116) though thanks to Flareon
(XY: Ancient Origins 13/98) any Stage 1
Pokémon might function as a Fire-Type. This is
still far safer than being Fighting or Darkness Weak in
the current metagame, possibly safer than being Water or
Lightning Weak either. Psychic Resistance won’t
make a huge difference; -20 damage just isn’t that much
and “raw damage” attackers will likely be able to offset
it while more technical attackers are about attack
effects than damage (possibly scoring KOs without doing
damage at all) but it is of course superior to
the usual lack of Resistance and as such is a most
welcome sight. The cards Retreat Cost of [CCCC] is
massive and you should make sure you can avoid paying
for it; even if you have enough Energy attached to
Metagross, it is incredibly difficult to recover
from losing that much Energy… fortunately as we are
about to discuss, this card has a built in work around.
Metagross
(XY: Ancient Origins 49/98) may not have an
Ancient Trait but it has an Ability named “Magnetic
Warp” that acts very similar to Escape Rope: once
per turn Magnetic Warp allows you to Bench your Active
Pokémon and replace it with one of your other Benched
Pokémon (your choice) and if you do, your opponent must
do the same (unless he or she has no Bench). This
definitely helps deal with the Retreat Cost and could
set-up some nice combos, but at the same time since it
is not as good as Escape Rope, that raises
concerns. Since Escape Rope already exists
we know the times it is useful and the times it is
lacking, plus as Escape Rope is almost identical
to the much older Warp Point long time players
really know its ins and outs; so all the places
where Magnetic Warp falls short are glaring. First
the way this is worded, you cannot use Magnetic Warp to
force the opponent to change his or her Active Pokémon
unless you’ve got a Bench. One of the nice
things about Escape Rope is that if you have no
Bench (or a good pivot Pokémon) it can function as a
Pokémon Circulator, good for when your opponent has
only one target on the Bench you want to hit or only one
target currently Active that you do not want to
hit. You also have to change out yours first, so
your opponent can adjust accordingly. These may
seem quite small, but such a niggling detail may come
back to haunt this card.
The
sole attack on this Metagross is “Iron Cannon”
which requires a sizable [MMCC] to hit with and unless
you use its effect it only does 80 damage - at least 20
below where I really like four Energy attacks to weigh
and more like 40 short for a main attacker. The
effect allows you to discard all [M] Energy attached to
Metagross for an extra 80 damage (total 160).
If you only have two [MM] Energy attached that is a good
deal, with a loss of [MMM] being merely “okay” and if
you use a full [MMMM] it is actually a little
underwhelming. In most cases it isn’t the option
to do more damage so much as the option to do less when
you aren’t trying for a massive blow; again 150 HP is no
guarantee Metagross will survive. 160 for four
Energy is enough to realistic consider this card; with a
Muscle Band alone you are OHKOing anything with
180 HP or less (360 HP or less for Metal Weak targets,
160 or less for Metal Resistant ones). With the
rest of its attributes and its Ability factored in, this
seems like it might be worth the effort for competitive
play… but we need to go over a few more details first.
There
are two Beldum to choose from in Expanded: BW:
Plasma Freeze 50/116 and XY: Ancient Origins
47/98. Both are Basic Pokémon with 60 HP, no
Ancient Trait, no Ability and two attacks. BW:
Plasma Freeze 50/116 is a Psychic-Type with Psychic
Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C]; its
“Calculate” attack requires [C] to use and allows you to
look at and rearrange the top four cards of your deck
while its “Psypunch” requires [PC] to hit for 20 damage.
XY: Ancient Origins 47/98 is a Metal-Type with
Fire Weakness, Psychic Resistance and a Retreat Cost of
[CC]; for [M] it can use “Ram” to do 10 damage while for
[MCC] it can use “Spinning Attack” to hit for 30.
Neither of these is good, but “Calculate” does
potentially aid in setting up and can use one of any
Energy; unless you are extremely concerned about Psychic
Weakness or using something like Shield Energy, I
would go with BW: Plasma Freeze 50/116 when I
can; in Standard you are stuck with XY: Ancient
Origins 47/98. An odd area for disappointment;
I think I would have preferred one or the other have a
higher Retreat Cost; besides the possibility the
designers would have also included higher HP or a
similar bonus to “compensate”, it would have made
whichever Beldom had it a legal Heavy Ball
target and as soon as a Metagross hits the field,
you’ll be a lot less likely to have to pay the cost
anyway.
Besides
using Rare Candy to skip directly from Beldum
to Metagross (something you’ll want to include
but not rely solely upon due to Item lock) you’ll need
to consider Metang. Again we have two
Expanded candidates - BW: Plasma Freeze 51/116
and XY: Ancient Origins 48/98 - with the latter
being the only option for Standard play. Both are
Stage 1 cards with 90 HP, no Ancient Trait, no Ability
and two attacks. BW: Plasma Freeze 51/116 is a
Psychic-Type with Psychic Weakness, no Resistance,
Retreat Cost of [CC], the attack “Psybolt” for [P] which
does 10 damage and (on a coin flip) Paralysis as well as
the attack “Psypunch” for [PCC] and doing 50 this time.
XY: Ancient Origins 48/98 is a Metal-Type with
Fire Weakness, Psychic Resistance, Retreat Cost [CCC],
plus attacks “Metal Claw” for [MC] which does 30 damage
and “Bullet Punch” for [MMC] which does 50 damage plus
two coin flips good for another 20 damage per “heads”.
Once again neither are especially good, though they are
somewhat depressingly better than many other
transitional Stage 1 forms because their attacks are not
as overpriced. BW: Plasma Freeze 51/116 can
Paralyze which could buy it time to Evolve while is
Heavy Ball and Metal-Type support compliant.
Both are as large as they can be while still being
Level Ball legal targets. If a deck is using
something other than Ultra Ball, Heavy Ball
and Level Ball are likely to matter, but
otherwise use whichever one matches up to any Type
support in the deck. Plus some Rare Candy.
When it
comes to Metagross there are two other options
for Expanded (one for Standard) besides today’s card:
BW: Plasma Freeze 53/116 and XY: Ancient Origins
50/98. Technically BW: Plasma Freeze 53/116
was first released as BW: Black Star Promo BW75
as that was the BW:Plasma Freeze prerelease
promo. Both are Stage 2 Pokémon with nothing else
in common - surprise? BW: Plasma Freeze 53/116
is a Psychic-Type with 140 HP, Psychic Weakness, no
Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], no Ancient Trait, one
Ability and one attack. It is also a Team Plasma
affiliated card so I’ll refer to it as Metagross
[Plasma] for the rest of the review. Its Ability
makes it Team Plasma support; “Plasma Search” allows you
to search your deck for a Team Plasma card (Pokémon,
Trainer or Energy), show it to your opponent, add it to
your hand and then shuffle your deck. You can use
it once-per-turn, though multiples can each use their
own Plasma Search each turn. For [PCCC] it can use
“Mind Bench” to hit for 60 damage plus Confuse the
opponent’s Active. We (or rather baby_mario)
reviewed this card already
here:
apparently this was a week of cards that nearly made the
crew’s Top 10. I didn’t have a review up (and
Metagross [Plasma] wasn’t even in my Top 20, let
alone my Top 10) but I probably thought it had a chance
just because it could snag so many useful Team Plasma
cards, but being a Stage 2 meant it was too slow and
took so much room that even back then (let alone now) it
is just easier to run more non-Supporter draw power.
XY:
Ancient Origins
50/98 is
tomorrow’s CotD so I won’t be going into intricate detail… well by my standards.
The quick rundown is that it is that besides art, card
ID, etc. the only differences are that it has the
Ancient Trait “Θ Double” (which allows it to have two
Pokémon Tools attached to itself instead of just one)
and the attacks “Machine Gun Stomp” and “Guard Press”
instead of the Ability and attack on today’s version.
The former requires [CC] and does 20 damage plus 10 for
each card in your hand while the latter does 80 damage
while reducing the damage it (Metagross) takes
from attacks during your opponent’s next turn, after
applying Weakness/Resistance. If you’re building a
deck around this version, working in one of today’s is
recommended. If you’re focused on today’s version,
I actually might consider one copy of XY: Ancient
Origins 50/98. Most of the time it won’t hit
very hard but if your opponent isn’t destroying your
hand with N or Judge or Red Card
and neither are you ripping through it yourself, a
massive hand would buy massive damage. This only
applies if you have a strategy that calls for enough of
today’s Metagross without maxing it out or being
able to go light on the lower Stages.
So why
should you consider using this card? Cashing in on
the existing synergy, though that seems somewhat vague.
If you can fit in a few Bronzong to help
with the Energy costs alongside some Double Colorless
Energy (or else you need a maxed out Bronzong
count) this can be a good attacker. Not great;
you’re investing a lot and aren’t getting more than what
has already been paid for, plus you’ll need something
else to tackle things that are outside of OHKO range,
either to set-up for the 2HKO or score the OHKO
themselves. This is a lot of space so in
Expanded, I wouldn’t bother; if I want to run a Stage 2
Metal-Type with an Ability, Klinklang (Black &
White 76/114) and/or Klinklang [Plasma] win
hands down. In Standard, just maybe it can work as
Magnetic Warp also helps compensate for lack of
Keldeo-EX and its “Rush In” Ability. There is
one other possibility; there are various cards with
“once per turn per copy while Active” effects and like
Vanilluxe (BW: Next Destinies 33/99)
before it, Metagross might be an option for
spamming such effects in either format. As for
Limited play it is a good pull; you’ll need the entire
line of course but otherwise you need to be trying for a
+39 deck or something else that would prevent you from
using Metagross just for the Ability. The
attack rewards running some off-Type Energy so most of
the time you will also enjoy it has at least a back-up
big hitter as well. This is found in the “Iron
Tide” theme deck that released as part of XY: Ancient
Origins where it is is the deck’s MVP. The
deck isn’t the greatest but as far as such decks go, it
is reasonably well made with only a few “filler” or “why
include this?” cards.
Ratings
Standard:
2.25/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Theme
Deck:
4/5
Summary:
Metagross can be a useful Bench-sitter or deliver
a nice, big hit for something that isn’t a Pokémon-EX,
but like nearly all Stage 2 Pokémon it suffers because
by the time you get it up and running your opponent will
have already begun to tear into your own Pokémon, plus
if you use Metagross as an attacker, when it goes
down you lose a pretty major investment except in
Prizes. It does a lot, just not well enough for
all that is being invested in it. Go ahead and
play around with it; besides more obvious uses there may
be some specific combo (most likely involving Abilities
you may only Active once per turn per copy while said
Pokémon is Active) that earns this a place in the top
cut, even if only for one event.
|
