Inteleon VMAX – Fusion Strike
Date Reviewed: November 24, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 4.00
Expanded: 3.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Inteleon VMAX is our 4th-Place finisher. This is primarily due to its Ability, “Double Gunner”. You must discard a [W] Energy from your hand in order to activate it, and each instance of Double Gunner may only be Activated once, during your turn. Which is good, because Double Gunner lets you select up to two of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon and place two d amage counters on each of them. If there was no limit to how often you could activate it in a turn, it would become downright silly. It is unfortunate that the Ability can’t touch your opponent’s Active, but this is still a great deal. Speaking of your opponent’s Active, if you want to attack it with Inteleon VMAX, it knows the attack “G-Max Spiral”. For [WC], this attack lets Inteleon VMAX do 70 damage to your opponent’s Active, plus another 70 if you choose to bounce an Energy attached to Inteleon VMAX to your hand. That’s 140 for two Energy. Normally, this wouldn’t be bad, but here it is quite good. As we’ll soon see, Inteleon VMAX can easily do this turn after turn. With the added benefit of comboing with Cheryl to heal it of all damage, if it would be prudent.
Inteleon VMAX is a Rapid Strike Pokémon, so you can just bounce and reuse a Rapid Strike Energy over and over again to cover its full attack cost. You can also tap other Rapid Strike support, or partner it with other Rapid Strike attackers. In short, this is a good deal for Inteleon VMAX, There is finally a catch to being a Rapid Strike Pokémon, however: Gorebyss (SW – Fusion Strike 067/264) has an Ability that shuts down the Abilities on all Rapid Strike Pokémon in play. Though there’s also a backup option for Energy acceleration. Well, two if you were really worried about such things. Pokémon VMAX are still Pokémon V, so Melony would work to attach a [W] Energy to Inteleon VMAX from your discard pile. Being a Pokémon V means being excluded from certain beneficial effects, access to a tiny bit of support, and being subject to certain anti-V effects. As this is specifically a Pokémon VMAX, add a few more pieces of support and a few more counters to the mix.
Of course, don’t forget that being a Pokémon VMAX means Inteleon VMAX gives up three Prizes when KO’d, and has a Rule Box. Yeah, another Pokémon whose Ability Path to the Peak can disable. VMAX is also its stage of Evolution: Inteleon VMAX evolves from Inteleon V. Inteleon V isn’t a great card, but it is at least equal (if not better than) having to manually evolve from a Sobble and Drizzile, or from a Sobble directly via Rare Candy. VMAX Pokémon are basically Stage 1 Pokémon that don’t count as Stage 1 Pokémon. As a Water type, another method of fueling Inteleon VMAX over and over again could be Frosmoth… but as its Ability attaches to your Bench, that seems too clunky. Inteleon VMAX is a Gigantamax form which… yeah, still no card effects which care about that. Nessa and/or exploiting [W] Weakness on Fire types should come in handy as well.
Inteleon VMAX has 320 HP. Middle-of-the-road for a Pokémon VMAX, but difficult to OHKO outside of Weakness. That doesn’t mean it is rare to encounter decks capable of doing so; it just means they’re either [L] focused, combo focused, or just really great at dealing damage. No Resistance is typical, even if it is the worst. I won’t dock Inteleon VMAX’s score for its absence, but it would have helped had this card any Resistance. The Retreat Cost of [CC] is neither good nor bad. As for Expanded, Inteleon VMAX will face more counters in but it does something well enough and useful enough that I think it should be at least “average” there. Putting it all together, Inteleon VMAX seems like a solid contender to have its own deck, or else, partner up with some other established attackers. Which is what has been happening, just not as often or doing as well as I would like for our 4th-Place Pick. Inteleon VMAX was my 8th-Place pick, and I’m not sure if it has lived up to that yet, let alone 4th-Place. It has the potential to do so in the long term, though. To the point I’m going to round up for its Standard score.
Ratings
- Standard: 4/5
- Expanded: 3/5
Vince
Editor’s Note: Vince had Inteleon VMAX as his 4th-Place pick!
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