aroramage |
Just pulling a little shy off my
Top 10 list and yet making it to #6 on the overall list,
we have Lugia! But let's be honest, there's certainly no
reason why he shouldn't be on this list - after all, he
IS one of the best cards in this set! And to think you
can get him in the Sky Guardian deck so easily...
Anywho, Lugia isn't anything
special at first either - notice a trend here? He's
Colorless, which is good to tech into anything, but he's
only got 120 HP - not the most a non-EX non-evolving
Basic can have, but a fair amount. His Retreat Cost
isn't too bad either, though 2 Energy doesn't really
make him any more or less searchable. So what's the
appeal in something like Lugia?
First off, Pressure is his Ability.
With it, he technically qualifies as having 140 HP,
since Pressure can reduce the damage he takes by 20 -
BEFORE Weakness and Resistance. That's pretty key,
considering some effects don't always say "before" those
other two bits, and that's pretty big! While Electric
types aren't usually around that much outside of
Manectric-EX and Magnezone builds, having that Fighting
Resistance is pretty stellar, especially considering we
just got Strong Energy reprinted this set.
Oh yeah, Strong Energy got
reprinted this set, thought you oughta know.
But then there's Intensifying Burn!
It's 3 Energy of pure power, hitting for an
ASTOUNDING...oh...it only hits for 60 damage.
That's...okay. But if the opponent's Active is an EX,
then you can do 60 more damage and hit for 120 damage!
That's pretty good, considering that's the magic number
to 2HKO most anything in the format! I mean the only
thing that could really make Lugia stand out even more
would be-
LUGIA BREAK!!
...well, okay, it mostly just
builds off of what Lugia can do. Adding on a little
extra HP isn't gonna do too much but give Lugia some
breathing room, and the Flash of Destruction attack is
basically an extra Energy to deal 150 and then discard 2
cards - not terrific, but still pretty good. Still,
there's a reason Lugia made the list and not Lugia
BREAK, and that's because Lugia on his own is a really
solid card!
Try him out if you get the deck for
him!
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (a very solid option
for those wanting to tech in some anti-EX!)
Expanded: 4/5 (I mean, let's face
it, the EX aren't going anywhere any time soon)
Limited: 4/5 (and having something
like Lugia by your side is probably better for you than
not)
Arora Notealus: Lugia, Guardian of
the Seas - that's how I see this artwork! It's really
really cool to see Lugia like this! I hope we get the
chance to see more Pokemon in this manner, with them
interacting with stuff in a dynamic way. Kudos on ya,
TOKIYA!!
Weekend Thoughts: Do you agree with
our list so far? Think some of these cards oughta be
higher up? Maybe some of them lower or even off? Do you
think these cards will play a big role in the format now
and later, or will they drop out when rotation hits or
end up being duds? Who can say, but we've still got 5
more cards to go!
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Otaku |
Lugia (XY Fates Collide 78/124) is the top of the bottom half of
our 10 list, ranking sixth. As a Colorless Type we
won’t be encountering Weakness or Resistance unless we
explore the Unlimited Format cardpool, and we aren’t.
There aren’t many cards that punish the other player for
using Colorless Type Pokémon and they aren’t that good,
but there are only two of them so I’ll name Exeggutor
(XY: Roaring Skies 2/108) and Haxorus (BW:
Dragon Vault 16/20). Colorless Type support
features just one more card: we have Altaria (XY:
Roaring Skies 74/108; XY: Black Star Promos
XY46) which makes your Colorless Pokémon have no
Weakness, Aspertia City Gym which gives Colorless
Types +20 HP, and Winona, a Supporter that allows
you to add three Colorless Pokémon from your deck to
your hand. They don’t have their own Special
Energy, though as most (but not all) Colorless Types
have just Colorless Energy costs, Double Colorless
Energy helps most of them (as opposed to select
examples of other Types). There are also many
strong Colorless Type attackers but as they are so easy
to splash into other decks, the only upside of building
a deck around them is sharing the explicit Colorless
support.
Lugia is a Basic Pokémon, which means one slot in your deck yields one
copy for play, you can Bench it without requiring any
other cards or turns of waiting, you can use it as your
opening Pokémon, and many effects naturally favor it due
to the preceding points. There are some anti-Basic
Pokémon effects like Jolteon-EX, Pyroar (XY:
Flashfire 20/106), and Silent Lab; the first
two have methods of blocking damage from Basic Pokémon
while the latter shuts off its Abilities. Lass’s
Special (XY: Fates Collide 103/124) takes a
slightly different route as instead of punishing your
opponent directly, but instead allows you to draw a card
for each of your opponent’s Basic Pokémon in play.
Stage specific counters aren’t unique to Basic Pokémon
though, plus there are some potent Basic Stage support
like Fighting Fury Belt reward them and easily
balance out such things. Lugia has 120 HP, 10
20 shy of the maximum we’ve seen printed on regular
Basic Pokémon now that Snorlax (XY: Fates
Collide 77/124) with its 140 HP has released. 120
HP is enough that while taking a hit is still far from
guaranteed, being OHKOed doesn’t seem significantly more
or less likely than being OHKOed. An exception is
going to be when you are hit by Lightning Type attacks
as Lugia is Lightning Weak; this can matter as
even with 120 HP, this allows attacks doing as little as
60 damage to jump to OHKO range. Lugia enjoys
Fighting Resistance, which is more likely to matter than
normal thanks to its HP and something else we’ll get to.
The Retreat Cost of [CC] is low enough to pay if you
must, but try to at least reduce the cost if you don’t
bypass manually retreating Lugia entirely.
Lugia has one Ability and one attack. The former is “Pressure”, an
Ability that only works while Lugia is Active; it
reduces the damage Lugia takes from the attacks
of your opponent’s Active Pokémon by 20 before
Weakness and Resistance. We’ve seen similar
effects before, but this time the protection only works
while Lugia is Active; no tanking the often low
damage Bench hits. If there is ever something that
can attack from the Bench, Pressure also wouldn’t
protect against that; only damage from attacks by the
opponent’s Active. It does apply before Weakness
and Resistance, and I stressed that earlier because it
is indeed important as it can be the difference between
a OHKO and a 2HKO; say Jolteon-EX hits Lugia
with its “Flash Ray” attack. Unless Pressure is
shut down (such as by Silent Lab), it will reduce
the damage an unboosted Flash Ray does from 70 to 50,
then Weakness will double it to 100; but if
Pressure applied after Weakness, then in the same
situation it would do 70, doubled to 140, less 20 which
is 120 and OHKO. Pressure combines with a solid HP
score and Resistance to Fighting, which is important
considering the Fighting Type got some more help this
set.
Lugia also has a familiar attack; “Intensifying Burn” requires [CCC] to
hit for 60, but it does an extra 60 (totalling 120) if
used on a Pokémon-EX. Three-for-60 is bad,
three-for-120 is good, and thankfully right now the
format is such that this is not likely to average
out to an “mediocre” or even “average” attack.
There are non-Pokémon-EX with more than 60 HP that see
competitive play, and if you face those Lugia is
probably just getting used as a wall up front to stall
(if used at all), but Pokémon-EX are still so commonly
used by decks that especially if you have Lysandre
to force a Shaymin-EX (77/108, 106/108) Active
for a OHKO, most of the time Intensifying Burn should
prove useful. Something similar to this combo has
proven worthwhile in the past: Bouffalant (BW:
Dragons Exalted 110/124). Both are Basic
Colorless Pokémon with a Retreat Cost of [CC], an
Ability that soaks 20 damage from attacks, and a three
Energy attack that hits for 120 against Pokémon-EX (60
against anything else). Bouffalant has 20 less
HP, Fighting Weakness with no Resistance, and of course
the Ability and attack have different names. The
attack text though is only different because of
templating changes since then, while the Ability on
Bouffalant reduces damage from attacks by 20 whether
Bouffalant is Active or on the Bench, and from
any Pokémon (not just the opponent’s Active), but it
applies after Weakness and Resistance. Bouffalant
had a period where it was quite potent and popular, and
though it isn’t what it once was, in Expanded it can
still do some damage with the right backing.
Lugia has something else going for it that Bouffalant does not:
Lugia BREAK (XY: Fates Collide 79/124)
also just released. Being the BREAK Evolution of a
Basic is a lot like being a Stage 1, save cards that
specifically reference being a Stage 1 won’t work for
(or against) Lugia BREAK. Lugia BREAK
keeps its Colorless Typing but has 150 HP and a new,
larger attack: “Flash of Destruction” costs [CCCC] and
requires you discard two Energy from Lugia itself
to hit for 150 damage. As this is a BREAK
Evolution, Lugia BREAK still enjoys the
protection from Pressure, allowing it to often “fake”
having 170 HP against OHKOs, 190 HP against 2HKOs, etc.
It also can use Intensifying Burn for when 60 or 120
damage is all you need. Does Lugia require
Lugia BREAK? I don’t think it does, but it
is a great option for have, especially for a deck that
can manage the increased Energy costs. As is, a
Lugia that survives an attack can BREAK Evolve,
attach just one more Energy, and shoot for 150 damage;
if it can’t survive a second shot then the discard cost
didn’t matter, and if it does then one more Energy
brings Intensifying Burn back online while something as
simple as a Double Colorless Energy brings Flash
of Destruction back to bear.
Lugia BREAK also brings up
the possibility of building an entire deck around these
two cards. 120 versus Pokémon-EX is enough that
boosting can bring big results. Silver Bangle is
an option in Expanded, which would get damage versus
Pokémon-EX up to 150 for Intensifying Burn or 180 with
Flash of Destruction. Toss in Hypnotoxic Laser
and Virbank City Gym and you now can effectively
OHKO 210 HP Pokémon-EX with upwards of 240 HP Pokémon-EX
going down from the Poison damage if the opponent can’t
get rid of Virbank City Gym or being Poisoned.
In Expanded or Standard, Golbat (XY: Phantom
Forces 32/119; Generations 31/83) and
Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces 33/119) could be
used to try and make up the difference between OHKO and
2HKO instead. However I believe the main use will
be splashed into decks that have ample Energy
acceleration and need some options to work around
various blocking effects. Lugia is not a
Pokémon-EX and Lugia BREAK is not a Pokémon-EX or
a Basic Pokémon, while also having the potential to
tank. Even just sticking with regular Lugia
(since we are reviewing it), it can be a great addition
to a deck with the space and capacity to quickly power
it up. Toss a Fighting Fury Belt on it and
you have an effective 190 HP versus 2HKOs, 210 versus
2HKOs, etc. and that means a solid chance of trading
favorable with Pokémon-EX you can hit for 120 each turn.
Even against non-Pokémon-EX, the durability may be
enough to help you break even or pull ahead.
In Limited play this card ought to be amazing. Even with the
new Evolution Packs, a 120 HP Basic that takes 20 less
damage from attacks, and can use any Energy to attack is
great, even if most of the time it’s just hitting for
60. When it gets to hit for 120, it will probably
be a lifesaver. Only leave it out if you pull
something like Zygarde-EX and decide to run it
completely on its own (no other Basics) to ensure you
open with it. An added note is that Lugia
is in the new “Sky Guardian” Theme Deck: in fact there
are two, one regular and one special Holofoil version.
I will point out what is likely obvious; Lugia is
amazing in any formats build around Theme Decks.
Prior to the recent Pre-Release change, there was a
Limited Format that used Theme Decks plus a booster or
two; I am uncertain if this still exists or not.
What I do know is that the PTCGO specifically has a
Theme Deck only mode, and Lugia certainly
impressed me there. If your opponent already has
another fully Evolved (excluding BREAK Evolutions)
Pokémon that is also powered up then Lugia
probably isn’t going to be enough to take it down, but
just about everything else is doing well to trade with
Lugia thanks to Pressure. Intensifying Burn
won’t be getting its bonus damage, but it often won’t
need it as you’re dealing with a lot of Evolving Basics
that have yet to Evolve, sometimes can’t even Evolve at
all.
Ratings
Standard: 4/5
Expanded: 4/5
Limited: 4.5/5
Theme: 4.5/5
Summary: Lugia provides a new anti-Pokémon-EX Basic bruiser for
decks that can meet a three Energy attack cost without
too much hassle. The reworked version of
Bouffalant does most of what it did, but with
Fighting Resistance instead of Fighting Weakness and an
optional BREAK Evolution that can really bring the hurt.
Not every deck should use it, but most should be able to
make it a functional play.
Lugia secured sixth place with 24 voting points. This means it
only beat out the
seventh place pick
- Marowak (XY: Fates Collide 37/124) - by
one point. It would have needed a full four points
to tie with fifth place pick (and it turns out, the
fourth place as we had a tie). All of these cards
are still so new I don’t know if this we dodged a bullet
or dodged right into a bullet with this positioning, but
overall I’m good with Lugia clocking in at sixth
place, even though I actually selected it as my second
place pick. I elevated it so much because of its
general usage potential, but at least four out of the
five cards that beat it I can easily see doing as well
or better than Lugia.
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