aroramage |
You know, this set has brought with
it many curiosities. Not only in what ended up on the
Top 10 list but even beyond that. It's not to say all of
them are good, but there's a lot of niche potential to
be had in a few of these cards.
Take for instance Bent Spoon. At
first, I was thinking it was to act as a Psychic-type
boost of some sort, in much the same way cards like
Strong Energy and Fighting Stadium boost the
Fighting-types. I suppose we'll have to wait a little
longer for Type-centric Tools to come back into the
game, but in the meantime, we get this crazy little
spoon. And what does it do exactly?
Simple: any effect of your
opponent's attacks that would affect the Pokemon Bent
Spoon is attached to, doesn't work.
There's certainly a lot of
potential in an effect of this sort. Energy discards and
Status Conditions notably come to mind on a general
scale, but there are some other cards with effects of
their own that could really mess with your strategy if
they hit the Pokemon you'd want a Bent Spoon on. In a
way, the spoon bends the effects around the wielder so
they don't touch them! That's pretty cool!
The problems with the card though
become apparent after some thought though. First of all,
it takes up your Tool slot for your Pokemon, so they
can't have another one equipped. That alone is pretty
vital in and of itself. It also won't stop effects that
add on more damage or hit the player's hand in some
form, like Seismitoad-EX's or Giratina-EX's locking
attacks. On the surface it doesn't seem that bad, but
since most attacks being used competitively aim more for
damage than not, it's safe to assume there's not gonna
be much use for Bent Spoon outside of casual play.
Not to mention Muscle Band's still
around taking up the slot anyway.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (it's got a certain
appeal that only really works if certain cases unfold)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (but there's not a
whole lot going for it otherwise)
Limited: 3/5 (it's a tech card to
say the least)
Arora Notealus: I wonder why they
didn't call it Twisted Spoon, like how it's called in
the games. Seems like it'd have been a no brainer, ya
know? Maybe something about Twisted things is...bad?
Controversial? I don't think there is, but you never
know.
Next Time:...I could swear I've
talked about this guy already
|
Otaku |
We begin our week after our Top 10 with Bent Spoon
(XY: Fates Collide 93/124). This is a new
Pokémon Tool that can be attached to any of your Pokémon
that don’t already have the maximum number of Pokémon
Tools permitted to them. While equipped, that
Pokémon is protected by all effects of your opponent’s
attacks except damage which would otherwise be done to
it. Bent Spoon does not remove effects
already on a Pokémon when it is attached, so this has to
be in place beforehand to do any good.
Many attacks do nothing but damage, which can make
Bent Spoon seem almost silly to use at first glance.
After all, why do that when one could other defensive
tricks like Assault Vest, Fighting Fury Belt,
Float Stone, Muscle Band, Sparkling
Robe, or (for Fighting Type) Focus Sash.
Obviously most of those are quite dissimilar in effect
from Bent Spoon, but all are Pokémon Tools and
thus in direct competition with each other as well as
Bent Spoon. Sparkling Robe is a bit similar
except instead it blocks only one kind of effect
(Special Conditions), works against any source of said
effect (attacks, Abilities, Trainers, etc.), and because
of that second thing it also is allowed to remove any
present when it is attached. To clarify that last
bit, Special Conditions are denoted by card position or
counters, so as long as it doesn’t matter where they
come from (like with Sparkling Robe), then it
makes sense for existing ones to also be cured.
With attack effects, they usually just have to be
remembered and kept track of by the players; removing
those already present would be difficult for some and
begging for cheating in competitive play (assuming
Bent Spoon proves worth running).
So where might Bent Spoon have a reason to be
used, especially in light of the competition? Its
effect is so specific and depends on your opponent, that
you need to look for a card that already is protected
from damage: narrow protection is much more important
when it is filling in the gaps of far more broad
protection. Pokémon like Glaceon-EX,
Jolteon-EX, and others have protective effects good
against damage but not effects of attacks, so with
Bent Spoon they are completely protected from
attacks by whatever it is their respective effects
specify (Evolution Pokémon for Glaceon-EX, Basics
for Jolteon-EX, etc.) as well as protected
against effects of attacks by stuff which they are not
otherwise protected again (Basics for Glaceon-EX,
Evolutions for Jolteon-EX, etc.). Note that
an effect that ignores effects on the opponent’s Active
can still punch through Bent Spoon, as it is an
effect on the opponent’s Active; fortunately I don’t
think anything that bypasses protective effects also
then inflicts another effect.
With all that being said, I don’t see much of a use for
this in Expanded or Standard play; not only do you have
many decks built around attackers that are focused on
just dealing damage, but to ensure Bent Spoon
sticks around you’ll need another effect. If not,
expect Startling Megaphone to discard it (along
with every other Tool you have in play), or Xerosic
in some decks that are wary of Item lock and/or Special
Energy cards, or even some Pokémon that can discard or
negate the effects of Pokémon Tools. Speaking of
Item lock, while one sided Item lock can protect your
Bent Spoon, if your opponent runs Item denial then
it blocks it. Sounds kind of obvious, but one of
the uses I’ve seen floating around for this card was to
protect a target from the damage counters placed by the
“Silent Fear” attack Trevenant BREAK uses… a
Pokémon that usually BREAK Evolves from Trevenant
(XY 55/146) and thus prevents you from playing
Items. As such the best place for Bent Spoon
seems to be Limited; while a lot of attackers still
won’t have effects, or effects that apply to the
hypothetically equipped Pokémon, Limited makes a lot of
annoying attack effects far more effective.
Additionally your opponent will have much fewer ways to
deal with it and you most likely have much fewer Pokémon
Tools to run in its stead.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5
Expanded:
1.65/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary:
So “Twisted Spoon” from the video games becomes Bent
Spoon for the TCG, and instead of boosting the
damage done by Psychic Type attacks, it bears a
protective effect. A very specialized protective
effect that only really matters if you already are
protecting against other things or are otherwise extra
vulnerable to said effects. What this means is
that if I were running something like a Jolteon-EX
focused lock deck, yes I would consider including a
single copy of Bent Spoon as TecH to counter my
opponent’s possible TecH to bypass the protection
Jolteon-EX receives from Flash Ray. That… is
about the only competitive, plausible example occurring
to me. So that is enough to keep it from a minimal
score but not even enough to justify it as a full two
out of five.
When we do our Top 10 lists, it is rare that all
reviewers submit the exact same cards, so the site’s
master Top 10 list is usually much larger. I
actually prefer us to submit more like a Top 15 or Top
20 list; sometimes it helps break ties, sometimes it
causes them, but in the end I just like getting a better
picture of what everyone thinks of more cards from the
set. So it isn’t surprising we ended up with a Top
27 list this time, but what might be surprising if this
wasn’t its CotD, Bent Spoon ended up in 27th
place with a single voting point, tied with one other
card.
|
