aroramage |
Porygon is an interesting beast in
his own right. He's playable in any deck thanks to his
Colorless Typing, but what else does he really bring to
the table? The answer is surprisingly simple and
effective.
Conversion 3 is a shout-out to the
previous Porygon (Base Set)'s Conversion 1 and
Conversion 2 attacks. The interesting thing about these
attacks is that they don't do any damage but either
change the Weakness of your opponent's Pokemon or the
Resistance of Porygon's. In those days, Resistance would
take off 30 damage, which for that Porygon meant he
could endure an attack that did 60 damage - which was a
lot back in those days. Conversion 3 though is much more
limited than either 1 or 2, as it basically does what 1
does but only lets it last until the end of your next
turn.
Still, given that Porygon himself
has no damaging attacks, what this does is set-up your
other Pokemon for an impressive KO. Remember that
hitting for Weakness these days does double the damage,
so even a Pokemon hitting for 90 normally can OHKO a
Converted Pokemon-EX for an exchange of Prizes that
strongly favors you. Or another way of looking at it is
that a Converted Mega-EX loses out to anything hitting
for 120-130 damage normally! It makes Porygon worth
looking into as a tech piece...but that might be
stretching it.
Without the Resistance shift of
Conversion 2, Porygon loses all hope of survivability,
so you're banking on minusing yourself to maybe take out
whatever your opponent has...and assuming they don't
Switch, use something to remove the effects of the
attack like Pokemon Ranger, or somehow mess up your neat
little two turn set-up for Porygon shenanigans. This is
probably what will keep your Porygons locked in the
binder more than anything.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (a very niche and
specific strategy that requires set-up isn't always
worth the competitive lulz)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (though I'm sure
you might see a couple people have tried that)
Limited: 2/5 (such is what it is)
Arora Notealus: Porygon does some
interesting stuff, but maybe if they had at least kept
some form of Conversion 2, maybe as an Ability, or even
just gave him some kind of damaging move like what is on
some of the other Porygons. As he is right now, he just
feels lacking. Course maybe that's why we've got
Porygon2 and PorygonZ these days.
Next Time: BREAK out with a
destructive dragon!
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Otaku |
Today we look at Porygon (XY: Evolutions
71/108). My usual order of operations doesn’t work
quite so well for this card, because you need to view
everything in light of its lone attack, “Conversion 3”.
For [C] this attack allows you to select from the
current Pokémon Types except Colorless; until the
end of your next turn, the Defending Pokémon Weakness is
now that Type. It states that the amount of
Weakness does not change; for me this brings up more
questions than it answers because it seems too
obvious. I am unaware of any contemporary cards
that have anything other than a single, damage doubling
Weakness. Some older cards, stuff that easily
predates the Expanded Format, can have either multiple
forms of Weakness or amounts other than “x2”
(+10, +20, +30, or +40); is the note for interactions
with those cards? Maybe I am just overthinking the
situation, so let us now get back to the rest of the
card. Porygon doesn’t do any damage itself, so
the lack of Colorless Weakness or Resistance (outside of
the Unlimited Format) doesn’t matter. There isn’t
really Colorless Energy Type support, and most Colorless
Type specific Pokémon support isn’t going to be too
useful because Conversion 3 means you need non-Colorless
Type attackers in your deck. That also means the
last major benefit of a Type, whatever synergy may exist
between members of that Type, is also undermined.
Porygon
is a Basic Pokémon, so it is fast to the field, requires
minimum space per copy, can be your opening Active (for
better or worse), can access Basic Stage support, and
has natural synergy with certain mechanics. The
only drawback are Basic Stage counters, some of which
won’t even matter with respect to Porygon.
It can Evolve into Porygon2, which in turn can
Evolve into Porygon-Z; we’ll come back to those
later. Porygon has just 60 HP, so it’s pretty
much a guaranteed OHKO if it is Active, and maybe even
while it is on your Bench. The silverlining is
that it makes the Fighting Weakness largely irrelevant
as many Fighting attacks are already going to at least
be close to a OHKO, even before Weakness; that doesn’t
mean it never matters, but when it is a factor it
probably just saved your opponent hitting one (or both)
of a Strong Energy and Fighting Fury Belt.
Lack of Resistance is typical, and with just 60 HP it
wouldn’t have done much good, anyway. The Retreat
Cost of [C] is also somewhat typical of Evolving Basic
Pokémon, though still quite useful as you’ll usually be
able to afford it (both upfront and in the long run).
So how about the other versions of Porygon, or
our options for Porygon2 and Porygon-Z?
Not important; hypothetically you might include
Porygon (XY: Evolutions 71/108) in these
decks should you have sufficient non-Colorless
attackers, but after initially writing up most of the
line, I realized I was obscuring the main use for this
Porygon; enabling a pseudo-OHKO for another
attacker. It won’t be a true OHKO because
Conversion 3 is an attack, but there are indeed
times when you need to do all your damage at once like
decks that can easily spam Max Potion. This
isn’t an issue for high damage attackers; even if they
cannot normally score a OHKO, they usually just need an
added boost from something like Giovanni’s Scheme.
Now if you’re something like M Scizor-EX,
suddenly it becomes tempting as your typical 120 damage
can struggle when 2HKO’s are not enough; there is almost
no margin for an opponent healing if the opponent is
utilizing most Basic Pokémon-EX attackers (thanks to
Fighting Fury Belt) or Mega Evolutions. So is
Porygon the answer?
No, because Conversion 3 is an attack. Your
opponent has his or her entire turn to remove the effect
or sabotage your own set-up so that you can no
longer capitalize upon Conversion 3. Even if your
opponent can’t do anything to save his or her Active, he
or she probably can attack and KO Porygon, taking
a Prize. If everything flows just right,
Conversion 3 into a follow up attack leads to a KO,
Prize Advantage, and an opponent struggling to set up
his or her next attacker. Even if everything else
goes as planned, if your opponent has a fast, reliable,
aggressive deck you may even still fall behind in
Prizes! Your opponent changing out his or her
Active, taking out your only attacker, uses Pokémon
Ranger, etc. means even if you did everything else
properly, you’re out of luck. So I don’t expect
Porygon to have much of a role in Standard or
Expanded play. It does have a chance to shine in
Limited play, as you are more likely to have the time to
set up the combo, and your opponent is much less likely
to be able to sabotage it.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5
Expanded:
1.25/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary:
Porygon offers an interesting trick, but changing
your opponent’s Weakness via attack is too slow and/or
fragile to be worth the effort in competitive play.
It is a nice call back to the original Porygon (Base
Set 39/102), and at least improves upon the
original… just not enough.
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