Review too long? Skip straight to the scores and
summary.
Name:
Steelix ex
Set:
EX unseen Forces
Card#:
109
Rarity:
Pokémon-ex
Pokémon-ex Rule:
When Pokémon-ex has been Knocked Out, your opponent
takes 2 Prize cards.
Type:
Metal
Stage:
1 (Evolves from Onix)
HP:
150
Weakness:
Fire, Fighting
Resistance:
Grass, Electric
Retreat:
CCCCC
Poké-Body:
Poison Resistance
Attack#1:
(MCC) Metal Charge [70]
Put 1 damage counter on Steelix ex.
Attack#2:
(FFCC) Mudslide
Discard 2 Fighting Energy attached to Steelix ex
and choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon. This
attack does 100 damage to that Pokémon. (Don’t
apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched
Pokémon.)
Name:
Onix
Set:
EX Unseen Forces
Card#:
65/115
Rarity:
Common
Type:
Fighting
Stage:
Basic
HP:
80
Weakness:
Water
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CCC
Attack#1:
(C) Dig Deep
Search your discard pile for an Energy card, show it
to your opponent, and put it into your hand.
Attack#2:
(CC) Mud Slap [20]
Attributes:
Steelix ex is a Metal-Type Pokémon. This may
be the best type in the game, and is rivaled only by
Darkness-Type Pokémon. The reason is that both
types have the ability to utilize special effects
from their respective Energy types. Surprisingly
damage reduction appears better than the extra
damage Darkness Energy offers, but Dark-Types
are the least integrated of the 9 TCG Types, with
nothing Resistant, and a few things Weak. Metal
Resistance is not common, but it’s found easily
enough. The same goes for Metal Weakness. So
indeed this is a great type and definite advantage.
Steelix ex
is a Stage 1 Pokémon-ex. This means at least one
other card is required to get it into play, and to
get it into play fast requires three. Being
a Pokémon-ex brings about the natural problem of
being worth two Prizes if Knocked Out, plus
incompatibility with many supportive cards, and
worse yet, many cards designed specifically to hurt
you. Having both these restrictions means that all
but the most powerful abilities and best stats
should be beyond this card.
The HP is a solid start: 150 HP is the second
highest for a Stage 1 overall, and the highest for a
currently legal Stage 1 Pokémon. Still, since
Wailord ex has 200 HP, they really should have
considered another 10-20 HP. For posterity’s sake,
I’ll remind everyone that this score is high enough
to trigger Desert Ruins. Anyway, Metal
Pokémon with high HP scores can lead to broken
cards, so maybe that’s why they didn’t make it any
higher.
The HP will seem pretty puny against Fire and
Fighting Pokémon. Both are known for solid damage.
Fire Pokémon tend to get even more damage out of
attacks via discards, so without several Metal
Energy cards, that 80 damage required to OHKO
Steelix ex is pretty reasonable to achieve. At
least they don’t see that much play in Unlimited.
Fighting Pokémon tend to have “dependant” attacks
that require some other condition be fulfilled to
get a damage boost. Sometimes coin flips (which are
common to most types, I know), and lately either
having damage already on the Defending Pokémon… or
that Pokémon being a Pokémon-ex. Hidden Legends
Machamp may not be heavily played, but it is a
very solid Stage 2 and really should see some more
play. There are still plenty of Turn 2 Control
decks, and two of the choices for those decks foci
are Fighting-Types. There are also many fast, Stage
1 decks that went by a variety of names that were
popular before the advent of T2C, and which usually
had a Stage 1 Fighting line in them. Those decks
are still pretty good. The last two World
Championships have gone to decks which had at least
one main attacker being a Fighting-Type, and of
course in Unlimited there is always Tyrogue
to harass the Fighting-Weak.
Thankfully, this card gets a double Resistance.
This evens things out somewhat against
Lightning-Type (Electric) Pokémon who are the chief
type to be Metal Resistant. The traditional Grass
Resistance common to Metal Pokémon means that Grass
Pokémon will probably be unable to damage Steelix
ex once it has a full compliment of Metal
Energy attached; Grass Pokémon don’t do a whole
lot of damage. Of course, they tend to have other
effects which Steelix ex will have to guard
against like Special Conditions.
Steelix ex
has a retreat cost of five Energy, the highest in
the game. This is so high that you’ll often be
unable to pay it. Fortunately, you shouldn’t have
to a whole lot, unless you are forced to play
Steelix ex before it’s ready.
Now, as stated, you’ll need an Onix in order
to get Steelix ex into play. For Unlimited,
you’ve got quite a few choices, though I’d recommend
the Onix from EX Sandstorm, as it has a nice
HP score and can use Rage… which means a Memory
Berry would allow Steelix ex to use it as
well, say the turn after its Focus Band goes
off. As for Modified, I think the EX Unseen Forces
Onix would be best: it shares the same stats
as the others, but has a no-nonsense "20-for-two"
attack, and for a single Energy of any type can
reclaim one Energy of any type from your discard and
add it to your hand. With 80 HP, that means you can
probably sacrifice one to reclaim two lost Metal
Energy cards.
Abilities:
Poison Resistance isn’t great, but it’s not horrid.
Special Conditions tend to be the bane of Metal Type
Pokémon. Paralysis and Sleep slow them down, and
they aren’t that fast to begin with. Burn and
Poison can bypass their damage-reducing effects.
Confusion has a 50% chance of doing both or
neither. So getting rid of one isn’t overly
impressive, but it’s nice. Poison is
probably the most effective of the commonly seen
Special Conditions, and it is perfectly inline with
the Poison/Steel relationship seen in the TCGs.
Unfortunately, you are now vulnerable to certain
attacks thanks to having a Poké-Body, the Poké-Body
probably accounts for some of the downside on this
card (used to balance it out), and since most cards
that heal Special Conditions affect them all at
once, it makes them somewhat redundant. Still, it
does have its upsides: Poison is the only
Special Condition with multiple variants (“double”
and “triple” Poison) and is also the only one
guaranteed to go off before any active use cards can
get rid of it. Steelix ex only has to
worry about the possibility of Burned scoring its
damage before it can be treated.
Metal Charge is a solid, straightforward attack with
one exception: it places a damage counter on you.
The good news is that it hits for 70 damage and
needs only (MCC) to be used. Before factoring in
this things Stage and such, you’d have gotten
roughly 25 extra points of damage, equal to another
(MC) of cost (or changing the whole thing’s cost to
MMMM). As is, its cost opens up some nice options.
Still, for a Stage 1 Pokémon-ex, it’s really just
breaking even.
Mudslide is a bit of a flashback: its effects are
more or less identical to that of Blaziken ex’s
Volcanic Ash attack. The difference would be the
cost: (FFCC) instead of (RRCC). The attack itself
is not what made Blaziken ex so broken, so we
can relax there. On average, you’ll be able to sue
this attack every other turn. You are paying for 50
points of damage base, then another 30 from the
discard, so being a Stage 1 Pokémon-ex is paying for
another 20 points of damage and the ability to
choose your intended target. What this means is
that if you set up first or just manage to get ahead
of your opponent, it will be hard for them to safely
build another attacker back up unless they have some
sort of defensive ability (like Safeguard or
Submerge).
The two attacks have high Synergy: you get a very
solid attack while “reloading” Mudslide, enough that
you may not even notice that one turn wait. Both
attacks can also use Boost Energy for a quick
hit as well, provided the other requirements are
being met. The Poké-Body does help or hurt the
attacks, though it does mesh slightly with being a
Metal-Type Pokémon, as mentioned above.
Uses and
Combinations:
This thing will definitely not become the new “Blaziken
ex”. Why? Blaziken ex was broken only
due to Firestarter Blaziken. Without that
ability to reload it quickly (more accurately to
reload it while still building other attackers up),
Steelix ex will be hard pressed to be that
one-sided a match up. However, Steelix ex
has the advantage of being just a Stage 1, unlike
Blaziken ex, and can soak up quite a bit of
damage thanks to those Metal Energy. To set
up for Steelix ex, I think one should
strongly consider running it with Dark Steelix.
Imagine the look on your opponent’s face when that
Dark Steelix with 70 damage gets hit with
Surprise! Time Machine and becomes a Steelix
ex with 50 HP and hopefully a cache of Fighting
Energy attached that seemed stupid before this
move. They also enjoy perks from having a Pokémon
like Bellossom from EX Hidden Legends or
Gardevoir from EX Emerald: each of which has
Heal Dance, a Poké-Power that lets you remove 20
damage a turn. When combined with a Metal Pokémon’s
hardiness, it’s a fearsome site indeed.
This may actually be the best way to use Steelix
ex, as an add-on for a good Dark Steelix
deck. They need much the same set-up, only
differing in what Stadiums to run (I would do a
split between Rocket’s Hideout and another
you find useful for the metagame) and that much of
the Energy that is good for Dark Steelix is
useless or will be discarded when you switch to
Steelix ex. Still, this does seem the best way:
Dark Steelix is so much faster, while
Steelix ex is able to be a bit more strategic
(hitting the bench), and both have Pokémon they
can’t damage (due to Holy Barrier and Safeguard,
respectively). Both are even vulnerable to
different tactics of Liability decks. Desert
Ruins is meaningless to Dark Steelix, and
Dark Crobat can’t Poison Steelix ex.
Don’t get me wrong though; Liability decks are still
a huge threat since they usually score a KO between
turns via Liability having reduced the Defending
Pokémon’s HP to 10 and another effect then finishing
it off.
Ratings
Unlimited:
3.5/5-Strangely enough, I can see this working at
least as well as the generic Slowking backed
Evolution-cause-I-wanna deck. In fact, perhaps a
bit better: Tyrogues will be a pain, but
you’ll have access to things like Healing Fields
and Focus Band here. There are actually some
common support Pokémon that are Grass or
Lighting-Types, and sometimes they are even deck
foci. All in all, a wall that even Suicune ex/Blastoise
will have a hard time OHKOing is impressive. Don’t
get me wrong though: Muk just makes this deck
cry, especially if it’s partnered with Banette.
Modified:
3.5/5-As stated, I believe this will become über-TecH
for Dark Steelix decks.
Limited:
4/5-Much of this score is due to Onix, who
was quite popular and effective as a wall at the
event I attended. As a common, Onix wasn’t
too hard to pull, so if you get a Dark Steelix,
you can probably score a KO while your opponent
pecks at it, and then you might get away with
dropping a Steelix ex and Mudsliding
something being built on the bench for another. Or
maybe getting off two Mudslides. Just use your head
and avoid dropping it if a Fighting (very popular
this set) or Fire (fairly popular this set) Pokémon
seems likely. It’s great if they have Grass or
Lightning, or were relying heavily on Poison. Of
course, if you get a Metal Energy as well,
aside from people looking at you suspiciously, then
the game is likely yours.
Summary
A well-built card that will probably be
over-shadowed by Scizor ex. So all your
budget gamers take note and see what you can do. ;)
