aroramage |
Contrary to yesterday's BREAK
evolution, Mandibuzz BREAK actually does have a Standard
Mandibuzz to work with! Hooray! Not that that will last
for too long, but we shall see.
In the meantime, let's take a look
at Mandibuzz BREAK's attack, Disaster Wing. It's a mere
1 Energy, but it does a LOT of stuff. First off, she'll
sweep across 20 damage to every one of your opponent's
Pokemon - EVERY ONE OF THEM! That can be up to 120
damage - 180 with Sky Field in play - on your opponent's
Pokemon for a single Energy! Not too shabby, but it's
not over there! While the damage itself can't hit
Weakness or Resistance, it does discard all the Tools
your opponent's Pokemon have! What a fantastic sweeping
motion!
A lot of the Expanded versions of
Mandibuzz will appreciate the increase in HP as well as
Diaster Wing's sweeping strike. Mandibuzz (BW) can combo
off of it with Blindside, hitting any Pokemon with
damage on it for 50 damage for a single Energy, while
Mandibuzz (EMP) and Mandibuzz (BCR) wouldn't mind the
beneficially better attack to work around with their own
attacks. The one Standard legal print, Mandibuzz (FCO),
will benefit from this as much as the Emerging
Powers/Boundaries Crossed versions, but none of them can
really take advantage of Disaster Wing's power the way
the Black & White Base Set can.
It's hard to judge how far
Mandibuzz BREAK can get, but considering her other
evolutions aren't too powerful on their own, I don't see
her being a crazy strong powerhouse. Disaster Wing
should definitely get looked at for the widespread
damage and the Tool scrapping capabilities, but it's
understandable if the investment of what is a Stage 2 in
essence is too much for that.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (she's a great ally
with that Disaster Wing on her side)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (but her
counterparts are a bit lacking overall)
Limited: N/A (if only being a promo
worked in one's favor)
Arora Notealus: It's definitely a
great card on its own, but Mandibuzz BREAK suffers from
its other forms at the moment, and there's not much
change coming in the future from the look of things. The
Fates Collide version of Mandibuzz isn't too great, but
maybe there will be some people running BREAK with it,
and I'd expect the original BW version to get some good
press in Expanded. Not game-breaking good, but good
enough.
Next Time: The classic star of
Pokemon gets the EX treatment!
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Otaku |
Our second card
this week is Mandibuzz BREAK (XY: Black Star
Promos XY182), our second promo and BREAK Evolution
this week. Being a BREAK Evolution means only
generic Evolution support applies; even though
Mandibuzz BREAK Evolves from a Stage 1, she won’t
count as a Stage 2. Thanks to a few releases late
in the XY-era, now both generic Evolution counters
and BREAK Evolution counters apply to Mandibuzz
BREAK. She’s a Darkness Type, which means
Mandibuzz BREAK enjoys some solid support, however,
the best of this comes in the form of other potent
Darkness Type Pokémon that may crowd her out of a deck
instead of supporting her. Pokémon and/or Energy
Type specific Darkness support isn’t as thrilling as it
once was, with the best bit (Dark Patch) being
Expanded only. There are anti-Darkness Type
effects but none have proven worth the effort of
running. Darkness Resistances is found on all
Fairy Types (excluding BREAK Evolutions having no
Resistance of their own); this isn’t as bad as it sounds
as often the -20 damage from Resistance won’t matter,
but there are indeed some Fairy focused decks out there
that will make it matter. Darkness Weakness is
only found on certain Psychic Types, namely those that
represent Ghost Types. It isn’t the least useful
Weakness to exploit, but I’m not seeing a lot of it on
the competitive Standard decks at the moment (I believe
it still has a significant presence in Expanded play,
however).
Mandibuzz BREAK
has 140 HP, enough that surviving an attack is more
likely than not. It isn’t by a huge margin,
though, so be cautious; as a pseudo-Stage 2, you
probably cannot afford Mandibuzz BREAK going down
in a single hit. This Pokémon gets her Weakness,
Resistance, and Retreat Cost from whichever Mandibuzz
you BREAK Evolve from so we’ll move onto her attack,
“Wings of Disaster”. For [C] this imposing
sounding attack does just 20 damage to each of your
opponent’s Pokémon (sans Weakness or Resistance) and
discards all Pokémon Tools attached to each of them.
I would rather it placed two damage counters instead as
there are fewer ways to block damage counter placements,
and since even the damage against the Active doesn’t
apply Weakness or Resistance, the only benefit of doing
damage is you could use something like Muscle Band
to hit a tiny bit harder. Against just the Active.
I am torn when it comes to evaluating this attack; this
is the raw, sweeping Tool discarding effect many have
been clamoring for as Wings of Disaster destroys so many
of the Tool related combos that have no (effective)
Standard counter. While I’ve gone on the record
stating cards like Startling Megaphone and even
Tool Scrapper are too potent, that is because
those are Items with no cost to play besides actually
using said card. Discarding Bursting
Balloon, Exp. Share, Fighting Fury Belt,
Float Stone, Spirit Link cards, etc. all
at once gives her a use against most decks, with that
that rely heavily on such cards or Garbodor (XY:
BREAKpoint 57/122).
So what about the
rest of the Evolutionary line? For Vullaby
we have Black & White 72/114, BW: Emerging
Powers 68/98, BW: Dark Explorers 73/108,
BW: Boundaries Crossed 92/149, and XY: Fates
Collide 57/124, while Mandibuzz has Black
& White 73/114, BW: Emerging Powers 69/98,
BW: Boundaries Crossed 93/149, and XY: Fates
Collide 58/124. All are Darkness Type Pokémon
with Lightning Weakness, Fighting Resistance, Retreat
Cost [C], no Ability, and no Ancient Trait. That
means Mandibuzz BREAK cannot have an Ability
either, but she will share the same oft exploited
Weakness of Yveltal-EX, enjoy -20 Fighting
Resistance, and easy to pay Retreat Cost. All
Vullaby are Basic Pokémon with one or two attacks. Black
& White 72/114 has 60 HP and for [D] may use
“Surprise Attack” to do 20 damage, but it requires a
coin flip and does nothing on a “tails”. BW:
Emerging Powers 68/98 has 50 HP and can use “Rear
Guard” for [D] to soak 30 damage from attacks during
your opponent’s next turn, or for [DC] can use “Gust” to
do 20 damage. BW: Dark Explorers 73/108 is
another with 60 HP and a single attack; “Whirlwind”
costs [D] and does 10 damage before forcing your
opponent to change out his or her Active. BW:
Boundaries Crossed 92/149 brings back 50 HP and two
attacks. Even the first attack is a repeat as its
Gust again, though for [D] and doing only 10 damage this
time. The second attack is “Razor Wing” for [DC],
doing 20 damage. XY: Fates Collide 57/124 is the
only version with 60 HP and two attacks; the
first is “Leer” for [C], the second is “Cutting Wind”
for [DCC]. Leer lets you flip a coin, and if
“heads” it Paralyzes the opponent’s Active; Cutting Wind
simply does 40 damage. None of these are great,
but XY: Fates Collide 57/124 looks to be the best
since she has the (slightly) larger HP and a chance of
Paralyzing the opponent’s Active… which might keep her
alive long enough to Evolve. She is the only
Standard legal option, anyway.
All Mandibuzz
are Stage 1 with two attacks, and all but XY:
Fates Collide 58/124 have 90 HP (our exception has
110). 90 HP is a probable OHKO though it is easier to
search out thanks to Level Ball; 110 is slightly
more durable but the +20 HP is probably on par with
being Level Ball compliant as it doesn’t make
XY: Fates Collide 58/124 that much more durable.
At least this makes the 140 HP of Mandibuzz BREAK
a good bonus; 30 more than XY: Fates Collide
58/124 and 50 more than the others! Black & White
73/114 can use “Blindside” to do 50 damage to one of
your opponent’s Pokémon that already has damage counters
on it, and for just [D]. For [DCC] she can use
“Punishment” to do 40 damage that gets a +60 damage
bonus against Stage 2 Pokémon. No, Stage 2 Pokémon
weren’t dominant at that time, though they were not
uncommon as Bench-sitters. Blindside was decent
for its day, but now I’m not sure if it is adequate,
even though spreading damage counts is relatively easy
in the proper deck. We thought this Mandibuzz
was at least on the happy side of average when we first
reviewed her
here,
with some of us expecting quite a bit out of her.
I don’t recall that every happening, and in our defense,
we were trying to anticipate how she would play in a
then still pending format. We were still wrong,
though.
BW: Emerging Powers
69/98 can use “Bone Rush” for [D], flipping a coin until
you get “tails” to do 30 damage per “heads”, or “Dark
Pulse” for [CC] to do 20 damage plus 10 for each [D]
Energy you have in play. Yes, the same attack that
has made Darkrai-EX (XY: BREAKpoint
74/122, 188/122) such a star. This Mandibuzz
wasn’t even the attack’s first appearance; looks like
that honor goes to the original Weavile (Diamond
& Pearl 40/130), a card from nearly 10 years ago
(over 10 in Japan). Dark Pulse has evolved over
the years; the original on Weavile required [DDD]
and just did 10 damage times the amount of [D] Energy
you had in play. Darkrai-EX does 20 plus 20 per
Energy for [CC]. While Mandibuzz is only
worth a single Prize when KO’d, Darkrai-EX hits
almost twice as hard for the same amount of Energy and
(especially with Fighting Fury Belt) is usually
able to survive a hit to attack again. This
Mandibuzz isn’t worth it right now, and she wasn’t
back then, either. BW: Boundaries Crossed 93/149 didn’t even get a
review back when it released. For [DC] it can use
Gust to do 30 damage (at least it is stronger than the
version on Vullaby), and for [DCCC] “Dual Cut”
allows you to flip two coins to do 80 damage per
“heads”. Even if BW: Boundaries Crossed
hadn’t been the final set of 2012, eating of two weeks
that would probably have been filled with more BW:
Boundaries Crossed reviews, this Mandibuzz
screams “Filler!”.
That just leaves
XY: Fates Collide 58/124, which we actually did take
a look at
this past summer.
My review for it may still be missing; I sent it in a
day late and it looks like it was lost in the shuffle.
We’ll see if we can get that up now, for what it is
worth. Back to this Mandibuzz: for [C] she
can use “Bone Drop” to hit an opponent’s Pokémon for 60
damage if the target has an Ability. Not
bad if your opponent has something small with an Ability
on his or her Bench, but it can’t hit anything at
all your opponent’s Pokémon lack an Ability. Most
of what it can OHKO aren’t likely to remain in play long
or else are “glass cannons” likely to be Active (so
anything can do the job). With a lot of help Bone
Drop could end up scoring a OHKO against a Benched
Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/108). Oh, and for [DCC] her version of Cutting
Wind does 80 damage. This would be fine if the
rest of the card was better (stats or a great Ability),
but is mediocre without such things. Still, she’s the
only Standard legal Mandibuzz, better than being
stuck with BW: Boundaries Crossed 93/149 but on
par with the other two. That means this is where
our review seems to grind to a halt; Wings of
Destruction isn’t good enough to justify such a heavy
investment. There are a few decks that would
desperately love to include the attack, but they just
don’t have the space for this many cards for a single
instance of the attack. Mandibuzz BREAK has as
good or better options for Mandibuzz in Expanded
play, but this is overshadowed by its Tool discarding
effect being unneeded thanks to Startling Megaphone.
This card is a promo so once again, it won’t work for
Limited play, but it might have been pretty good there;
its stats and attack are just better the more limited
your opponent’s options.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
1.75/5
Limited:
(N/A)
Summary:
Again we get a BREAK Evolution with something we
actually want, but by virtue of being a BREAK Evolution
(or at least one with really bad previous Stages),
Mandibuzz BREAK won’t be able to deliver the mass
tool removal so many Ability heavy decks crave.
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