aroramage |
And now we come to another GX, this
time the unusual Gumshoos!
To be honest, as far as Stage 1
Pokemon-GX go, Gumshoos-GX isn't that bad. His Ability,
Search the Premises, helps gather information on what
your opponent's got in their hand, allowing you to
prepare accordingly. His regular attack, Headbutt
Bounce, is a decent 3-for-100 vanilla strike, though
probably the biggest drawback that he's got. And his GX
attack, Gumshoe Chance GX, starts out at 1-for-10 and
goes up by 50 for each Energy attached to your
opponent's Active Pokemon, thus a heavy-punisher against
Pokemon that need a lot of Energy for their attacks.
So what keeps Gumshoos-GX out of
most decks, seeing as he can technically be run in
anything? Well the Stage 1 investment line-up is
probably another factor when coupled with the Headbutt
Bounce. On top of that, if you're not making Gumshoe
Chance GX your one GX attack for the game, then Gumshoos-GX
just becomes a glorified investigator, and that can make
him a huge target for anyone who wants 2 Prizes.
Granted, they'll still need the effort to KO him, what
with 210 HP, but the right conditions will bring a lot
of trouble on poor Gumshoos-GX.
If you wanted to run a
Colorless-GX, honestly Tauros-GX is pretty much the
standard, but don't fret if you get a Gumshoos-GX
instead. It only takes a little tweaking to make him
work, and his GX attack can certainly tilt things in
your favor.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (not the absolute
beast that Tauros-GX is, but certainly a good pick)
Expanded: 3/5 (though a 210
2-Prized Investigator is probably not the most ideal
usage for two slots in a majority of decks)
Limited: 4/5 (let the record show
though that he has potential)
Arora Notealus: Gumshoos-GX has a
great deal of potential going for him, but he might not
be the greatest attacker. I'd think the best use for him
is at the start, where you can get a lot of information
very quickly and begin to counteract your opponent's
strategy. Course I don't think if you've got another GX
attack that's better than Gumshoe Chance GX that you
waste your GX attack on him, but if you needed to get
out of a pinch or else take those last couple of Prizes,
you could easily fuel him up to get away with it.
Next Time: Well now we're going way
back...to the beginning of TCG time...
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Otaku |
Note:
I’ve been falling behind in my reviews again, but
my Monday review
for Tsareena and
my Tuesday review for Repel have both been posted (since I finally submitted
them). Monday’s may be particularly interesting
because I try to clear up some misunderstandings about
how that card’s Ability functions.
Time for another
Pokémon-GX, and this time it’s Gumshoos-GX (Sun
& Moon 110/149, 145/149, 157/149)! First, let
us cover the fundamentals of being a Pokémon-GX: it
isn’t a Stage (like being a Mega Evolution), but it is a
recognized in game classification, as it is a mechanic
like being a Pokémon-EX. In fact, just like
Pokémon-EX, Pokémon-GX give up an extra Prize when KO’d.
As of yet, there aren’t any detrimental effects that
target them or beneficial effects that exclude them, but
we know that Choice Band is on the way, and it is
a Tool that seemingly anything may equip to do +30
damage when attacking an active Pokémon-EX or
Pokémon-GX, so it’s on the way. Pokémon-GX so far
have all enjoyed higher HP scores than is typical to
their regular counterparts, and have either an Ability
with two attacks or three attacks with one of those
attacks being the once-per-game GX attack. Yes,
most of this is quite obvious, but remember that there
are new players joining our ranks all the time, and for
some (especially younger) players, keeping all this
straight can be a chore. As a Colorless Pokémon,
Gumshoos-GX won’t be able to exploit any
Weakness, but at least it won’t have to deal with any
Resistance, either. It might be able to tap into
some of the Colorless Type support like Winona,
but I don’t have any data to back that up. Like
almost all Colorless Types, if there isn’t any
Type-specific support involved, Gumshoos-GX will
work just as well mixed with another Type as it will
with all other Colorless Pokémon.
As a Stage 1,
Gumshoos-GX isn’t as easy to put into play as a
Basic, but it is easier than any other Stage of
Evolution save BREAK Evolutions which Evolve from
Basics, and unlike those, this can tape some handy Stage
support (more on that later). It makes its 210 HP
less impressive than if it had been a Basic, but not by
too much; this is still a good score that should let
Gumshoos-GX survive a hit much more often than not.
If your opponent isn’t at a point where he or she can
average at least 110 damage per turn, Gumshoos-GX
can even survive two hits; I just don’t expect that to
be an overly common occurrence. Fighting Types
should have an especially easy time with Gumshoos-GX
thanks to its Fighting Weakness; the Type is already
quite good at stacking damage bonuses to enable hard,
fast strikes. The HP isn’t completely mitigated by
the Weakness, but anything with some substance behind it
like attacks that require two or more Energy or just one
Energy but with a large combo will pull off the OHKO.
Lack of Resistance is almost a non-issue; I wish there
was some but given that Colorless Pokémon represent the
Normal Type and how video games Types were converted to
TCG Types, there just isn’t a good option to use. -20
damage for a single match-up, even an obscure one, would
have been nice, but most cards lack Resistance entirely,
so it doesn’t hurt Gumshoos-GX. The Retreat
Cost of [CC] is too expensive to easily pay, but not so
pricey you won’t usually manage it; not really an
advantage or disadvantage.
Gumshoos-GX
has the Ability “Search the Premises”, which allows you
to look at your opponent’s hand, but only once for each
copy of this Ability you have in play. Constantly
seeing your opponent’s hand can actually get a bit
clunky in the implementation, and I’d prefer just being
able to look at often as one likes, but this is still
enough to aid in general planning or improve the
effectiveness of hand control/disruption. Could be
better, but it is still good. The first attack is “Headbutt
Bounce” for [CCC], doing 100 damage. The going
rate right now seems to be more like 130, since this
enables a solid 2HKO of just about everything in the
competitive sphere, but 100 is still competent,
especially if this card isn’t your main attacker.
I know one must be careful when considering future
releases, as Japan sometimes gets something way
ahead of us, or even something we won’t get at all.
Translations can sometimes have subtle errors as well,
so take it with a grain of salt as, for the second time
this review, I bring up Choice Band; that boosts
Headbutt Bounce into that good 130-for-three range.
“Gumshoe Chance-GX” requires only [C] to use; its base
damage is only 10, but for each Energy attached to the
opponent’s Active, Gumshoe Chance-GX does an extra 50
damage. This isn’t a guaranteed killer play in all
matchups, but it hits anything with two Energy attached
for 10 more than Headbutt Bounce, anything with three
Energy attached for 60 more than Headbutt Bounce, and
past that we are looking at KO’s against Energy hogs.
This is one of those GX attacks that are good because
you can have more than one GX-attack in your deck, even
if you may only ever use one in a single match.
These effects don’t have tremendous synergy, but they do
work reasonably well together for the very reasons I
kept saying they were good.
Gumshoos-GX
Evolves from Yungoos, and so far, our only option
is Sun & Moon 109. This is a Basic,
Colorless Pokémon with 70 HP, Fighting Weakness, no
Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Ability, and two
attacks. For [C] it can use “Tackle” to do 10
damage, and for [CC] it can use “Bite” to do 20.
This card is vanilla filler, doing nothing to aid in
getting Gumshoos-GX into play and with two
completely generic attacks. At least they aren’t
absolute garbage vanilla attacks, and it sports one of
the higher HP scores seen on Evolving Basics (excluding
Pokémon-EX) but without a hefty Retreat Cost. [C] is
actually pretty good. It may just be a stepping
stone to Gumshoos-GX, but at least Yungoos
isn’t a bad stepping stone. So how does one best
utilize this card? If you have room for a Stage 1,
it actually looks like a decent fit for anything that
won’t shut down its Ability. If it isn’t integral,
even an unreliable 1-1 line could be worth the effort.
As it probably won’t be the main focus, a glance at
recent tournament results (which don’t include full
decklists, at least not yet) means I don’t know if it is
seeing some worthwhile competitive play or is being
ignored. I am thinking it would be useful for a
hand control/disruption deck, or with Eeveelutions. Flareon
(XY: Ancient Origins 13/98), Jolteon (XY:
Ancient Origins 26/98), and Vaporeon (XY:
Ancient Origins 22/98) allow it to exploit up to
three forms of Weakness, and you could include Espeon-GX
and/or Umbreon-GX to cover two more forms of
Weakness. It also gives you two more technical
GX-attacks; they aren’t super specialized, but they
aren’t general purpose either; it ought to be a rare
occasion when none are worth using in a given
matchup. If one is really worried about that,
Tauros-GX is still a generic powerhouse that could
slip into such a deck.
For Standard play,
I expect something from Gumshoos-GX, but
I’m not quite sure what yet. Same for Expanded
play; as is so often the case, until I have proof
otherwise I think the increase in combo options,
competition, and counters will more or less balance out.
If that seems a bit odd (I listed two negatives), you’ll
also have more counters to the counters; dealing with
Ability denial such as Garbodor (XY:
BREAKpoint 57/122) is a lot easier here thanks to
Startling Megaphone, Tool Scrapper, and/or
Xerosic helping with discarding the Pokémon Tool
needed to trigger “Garbotoxin”. Gumshoos-GX is a
great pull for Limited play; only leave it out if
you pull a big, Basic Pokémon-GX you think is strong
enough to risk running completely solo. Every
aspect of Gumshoos-GX, excluding combos, is
better here than in either Standard or Expanded play.
Ratings
Standard:
3.35/5
Expanded:
3.35/5
Limited:
4.5/5
Summary
Gumshoos-GX
is a good, all-around Pokémon-GX. It would be a
must run if it was a Basic (even assuming slightly worse
HP and damage output), but as a Stage 1, it costs just
enough space that it plummets to “Something to consider”
for most decks. There are a few builds that might
make excellent use of it, but we’ll have to wait and see
if they perform at tournaments as well as they do in
theory. So far, that hasn’t happened.
Gumshoos-GX
received a “B” from me both times I evaluated it while
creating my personal Top 10 list. I didn’t expect
as much from it as some, but I expected more than we’ve
seen; converted to our usual Pojo scoring system, that
would be a 3.75/5! Gumshoos-GX didn’t make my
personal top 10, nor show up on anyone else’s list, but
it did make my personal top 12 in 12th place.
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