aroramage |
If I'm going to be perfectly
honest, I almost skipped past Max Elixir because I
thought it was a reprint, but when I took another look
at it, I realized it was actually a new card! Go figure,
eh?
To my credit, Max Elixir does have
a pretty potent effect, of which we've seen different
variations of this type of effect on other cards. Using
Max Elixir basically lets you search the top 6 cards of
your deck for a basic Energy and attaches it to a
Benched Basic Pokemon, shuffling the rest back into the
deck. Super simple, as it always is with these cards.
Now at first, you might think the
restrictions are a bit stringent, but they're actually
pretty easy to fulfill in just about any deck. All you
need is a Basic Pokemon, and most attackers are, in some
form or another, either Basic Pokemon themselves (i.e.
every Pokemon-EX ever) or are derived from a Basic
Pokemon (i.e. every Evolution ever). Only looking at 6
cards is just a means of balancing the card, since
you're effectively accelerating Energy straight from the
deck, but if you've thinned your deck out enough with
Sycamore and what-not, it shouldn't be a big deal.
Heck, there are some decks that
will even appreciate you thinning things out like this.
I don't wanna name any names-*COUGHCOUGH M GYARADOS-EX
COUGHCOUGH*-but I think there are a few decks that will
be playing this card in general. Usually it'll be used
on a Basic to charge it up so that you can evolve Combee
into Vespiquen and get the Vengeance once the main
Vespiquen is gone, or prep your EX for Mega Evolution
and get the revenge strike on your opponent, or even
just a Basic Attacker of some sort! It doesn't matter,
JUST USE IT!!
Max Elixir: it's another good Item
staple.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (Energy acceleration
is always a valuable resource, and Max Elixir provides a
relatively unique form of it by attaching Energy
straight from the deck)
Expanded: 4/5 (it's not a perfectly
flawless form of Energy acceleration, thanks to the
presence of cards like Seismitoad-EX and in general the
Energy Recycling abilities of Pokemon like Eeletrik and
Bronzong)
Limited: 5/5 (but it's a fairly
viable form of acceleration that can help out decks that
don't have much access to it otherwise)
Arora Notealus: You know, I've
always assumed things like Ether and Elixir were
man-made items in the Pokemon games, and yet you're not
able to buy them in stores...what's up with that?
Next Time: The return of a
dragon...who is now Water!
|
Otaku |
Lucky
number seven in our top ten countdown is Max Elixir
(XY: BREAKpoint 102/122)! This is a new
Item that allows you to look at the top six cards of
your deck; if you find any basic Energy cards you may
select one and then attach it to one of your Benched,
Basic Pokémon. There is no other cost to using the
card, unless you count running enough basic Energy cards
and/or combo elements to improve your odds of success.
There are a few restrictions though, and I actually keep
forgetting they exist because most of the time, they
won’t be relevant, and even when they are you can work
around them without a huge hassle: it stinks if you have
an Active stuck up front or are forced to Evolve ahead
of time/wanted to attach to an “Unevolved Basic” played
via Archie’s Ace in the Hole or Maxie’s Hidden
Ball Trick, but even then there are simple combos
like using Energy Switch to get around these
restrictions if they are that important. Most of
the time, though, you’ll just attach to a Basic and then
Evolve (if it is one of the few Evolved attackers worth
using with Max Elixir). The Bench
restriction is a bit more demanding but unless your
field is in poor shape, you’ll likely have something
that can benefit from the attachment. Between
various tricks decks already use to flit from Active to
Bench to Active again, doing so (or just Bench to
Active) isn’t a terrible burden in said decks.
Max
Elixir
seems like a fairly solid example of power creep from
the BW-era sets to the XY-era. Don’t know what I
mean? Besides being Basic Stage support at a time
when it is unneeded and largely unwanted, there is a
past card with a similar but weaker effect. Ether
is an Item that revealed the top card of your deck and,
if it was a basic Energy card, allowed you to attach it
to one of your Pokémon. Max Elixir may have some
token attachment restrictions, Anything other than a
Basic Energy card? Returned to the top of your
deck. Max Elixir restricts targets, but it isn’t
like it only attached to an Active Evolution or the
like. What it does do is power things up by having
a range six times as wide for the effect and not
revealing any of the non-selected cards. I suppose
there are times when you might want your opponent to
know what is coming, or would have a follow up play
where a player is glad to know what is on top thanks to
Ether (and would want it for Max Elixir),
but that’s a pretty minor thing for me to try and claim
Ether is not the weaker predecessor of Max
Elixir.
Ether
saw little to no competitive success; part of this has
to do with timing. My information is sketchy, but
it appeared to have at least a brief period where
Ether mattered, but we didn’t get it over here until
the equivalent of a set later. Instead of trying
to set up Landorus-EX for a faster “Land’s
Judgment” attack, but instead we got it at the same time
we received both Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank
City Gym. When given a choice, iffy basic
Energy acceleration lost to a reliable three damage
counter bonus to damage done. Max Elixir also
faces steep competition, and many decks still use mostly
Special Energy cards, but for those that have a heavier
enough Basic Energy count and/or wish to include cards
that stack or at least preview the top card(s) of your
deck, Max Elixir can do some amazing things.
It is an Item you are trying to exchange for a basic
Energy card attached to the field from the deck, after
all. Six cards is 10% of your full deck, and
you’ll start the game with fewer cards than that left in
it thanks to your Prizes, opening draw. I don’t
expect this to become the new, universal deck staple,
but I expect it to be vital to certain speedy builds and
experience at least a little competitive success.
So
experiment with it in Standard and Expanded play.
In Limited it is a must-run staple; whether your deck is
mono-typed or multitype, whether you’ve got a broad
selection of Pokémon or just a single Pokémon-EX, the
chance for Energy acceleration is just too good to pass
up.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3.25/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary:
Max Elixir is one of those cards meant to make
something else fearsome and it can work in many decks,
but I suspect will only work well enough in a select few
for competitive play. Max Elixir did not make my
own Top 10 list, but clocked in as #13 in my Top 15.
As mentioned yesterday, it actually tied with Manaphy-EX,
but as Max Elixir appeared on both lists, I
decided to aware the seventh place spot to it.
Once again things are close though in terms of voting
points we had a tie for sixth and fifth place, plus they
were only one voting point higher than Max Elixir!
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