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virusyosh |
Welcome back, Pojo readers! I hope that you all had a
good time at your Undaunted Prereleases, and for those
of you lucky enough to go, Worlds. We are going to
continue reviewing the new cards from Undaunted this
week, but first we're going to take a detour to review a
card that is occasionally used as a tech from the
Supreme Victors expansion.
Today's Card of the Day is Exploud.
Exploud is a Stage 2 Colorless Pokemon. Even though it
being a Stage 2 makes it slightly harder to get out, the
fact that it is Colorless makes it usable in many
different sorts of decks. 130 HP is fairly standard for
a Stage 2, so it should survive a few hits. Weakness +30
to Fighting isn't too bad, as most Fighting threats
currently in the metagame won't OHKO it. Plus this
doesn't matter too much, as we will see later. No
Resistance is to be expected. Finally, a Retreat Cost of
2 is decent, but you still may want to retreat Exploud
some other way.
Exploud has a Poke-Body and two attacks. Erasing Sound nullifies your
Pokemon's Weaknesses. This Body is quite excellent, and
definitely warrants a tech slot. Running a Charizard
deck in an area full of Water? Run Exploud. Basically,
if your deck has a major glaring type weakness, Exploud
can make your life easier so it isn't as terrible as it
could be in such a match. While Exploud's Body is
excellent for tech, its two attacks are not quite up to
standards for top decks. The first attack, Knock Back,
does 40 damage and forces your opponent to switch for
[CC]. This is actually fairly costed, but you will
probably want more of a punch out of your Stage 2s. The
second attack, Hyper Beam, only deals 60 damage for
[CCC], even though you can discard an Energy from the
Defending Pokemon if you flip heads. 60 for 3 is average
at best, so it may be for the best that Exploud stays in
its supporting role on your Bench.
Modified: 2.75/5 Not every deck needs it, and it being a
Stage 2 can take up valuable slots in a decklist.
However, if you are running a deck that has a
considerable glaring weakness to a type commonly played
in your metagame, Exploud is definitely worth a look to
help your matchups.
Limited: 3.5/5 High HP, Colorless Energy requirements,
decent attacks, and making all of your stuff have no
Weakness make Exploud excellent here. Yes, it will be
hard to get out, but the disruption that it can cause
with its attacks will really give your opponent a hard
time. |
Wes1234
Crazed Eeveelutionist |
Greetings, COTD readers. As you may notice, I'm new
here. I've collected the Pokemon TCG ever since the Neo
era, but never truly got involved in competitive play
until about three years ago, and even back then, I was a
so-so player, playing whatever few cards I had to work
with at the time. Fast forwarding to now, I've improved
significantly by studying up on the game and its
constantly changing format and, of course, through
playing experience. One thing hasn't changed, though; my
love for Eeveelutions. Since the moment Majestic Dawn
came out, I've been determined to find a way to make
these said favorites work in such a tough and
challenging format. Due to this, I've developed a
challenging rogue-like playing style that I have taken
pride in ever since, basing it entirely around
everyone's favorite radioactive evolutionary pokemon.
During the last Battle Road event I was at, I played a
no-Claydol variant of Tankfeon, landing myself a spot in
the top four easily, only to place 3rd, losing only to
my own misplays and a very awesome and respectable
Magnezone deck player, who eventually won the whole
thing. Of course, my quest to one day take over the
world with these Eeveelutions remains unchanged, and HS
Undaunted brought a bounty of potential for them.
But today, we're not here to talk about any of the
Eeveelutions or even any of the HS Undaunted cards that
we've been so eager to get (at least some of us were,
that is) for that matter. We're taking a trip four sets
back into time to Supreme Victors at Mad Mattezhion's
request to take a look at Exploud, a Stage 2 Coloreless
pokemon from the Supreme Victors expansion.
The basics of the card are what you would expect from
a Stage 2 nowadays. A sturdy 130 HP is notably average,
yet plenty to allow Exploud to take a fairly strong blow
and retaliate back. Being Colorless means that it can
hit the popular Garchomp C Lv X along with its other
equally popular dragon-type friend Flygon Lv X for x2
weakness, which is never a bad thing. The flipside is
that Spiritomb can resist it for -20 damage, but that's
nothing an EB (Expert Belt) can't solve. A +30 weakness
is completely negated by its Poke-Body, which we'll get
to later. No resistance is standardly annoying, but
expected. A Retreat Cost of 2 is by far even MORE
annoying. It's payable, but it'll need some redemption
with its attacks and its Poke-Body if it wishes to do
something as an active pokemon.
And there in-lies the first problem, the Poke-Body.
Sure, having no weakness is nice to have, but it's still
a Poke-Body, meaning that a UD Umbreon will gladly dance
a Moonlight Fang dance around Exploud and laugh knowing
that it can't do anything back.
Of course, that only counts if you WANT to have it
active. Any pokemon with a Power or Body has the option
of playing support if it can work from the bench.
Exploud fits this possible role, but in this case, I
can't see anyone justifying a Stage 2 line in any deck
for simply nullifying weakness, partly because there are
other pokemon that fulfill this role better in specific
archetypes. The Eeveelutions have the MD Umbreon, a
stage 1 that negates weaknesses for all pokemon evolved
from Eevee, but also negates their retreat cost as a
bonus, too. Grass types fairly recently got Metapod,
another stage 1 whose body negates weaknesses for all
grass types. Sunnyshore City Gym and Azelf Lv X solves
weakness problems for electric type and psychic types
respectively. And then there's a way of temporarily
negating weakness through a Pokemon Tool card called
Bubble Coat, which is discarded at the end of the turn
the equipped pokemon is damaged, so it'll only work for
one attack. There may be others I missed, but this is
all beside the point. Most well built decks have ways of
working around their type weaknesses in a very
accessable manner via counter pokemon or stadiums,
ridding them of any need to dedicate a Stage 2 to the
task. If you're having trouble because of types, I
suggest finding a suitable pokemon tech that can counter
them or use the above mentioned cards for their
respective archetype. Running Exploud for weakness
nullification will only slow your deck down and curse
you with dead draws against decks that don't pose a
weakness-based threat. I suppose if weakness is a
serious problem and the archetype you're playing doesn't
have any techs in existance that can help, I suppose
that may be the only time to justify it. Otherwise,
there's just better options out there.
Now for the attacks. Both attacks require all
colorless energy, which means DCEs rejoice at the sight
of. But, this is also a Stage 2, so the attacks better
have better-than-average damage/effects to make the cut.
Will they be worth it, though? Let's see.
The first attack is Knock Back, costing CC and
dealing 40 damage with a bonus Pokemon Circulator effect
after damage is dealt. 40 damage is borderline average
for two energy, if not underwhelming. UD Espeon will
gladly Solar Suggestion those 4 damage counters back to
your pokemon, not that it would need to, as it and many
other pokemon will shrug it off like nothing, even with
an EB bonus. On top of that, Crobat G has become a very
popular tech in many decks ever since it landed on the
format scene. Why is this an issue? Free retreat is why.
Who will hesitate to send out a free retreater when
forced to switch? I wouldn't, I'll tell ya. Definitely
not worth burning a DCE for.
The second attack has snaked its way onto a number of
different cards throughout the years; Hyper Beam.
Costing CCC for an underwhelming 60 damage for a Stage
2, then making you "flip a coin," one the most dreaded
phrases in the history of the Pokemon TCG. If you get
heads on the flip, you do what any previous Hyper Beam
does: discard an energy card attached to the defending
pokemon. Back in the old days, energy disruption was
popular, but not so much today. A plethora combination
of energy acceleration and low energy cost attacks makes
this discarding effect seem next to worthless, as
another energy will take its place and assist in
resuming the onslaught. I guess it's fun if you like
stressing a deck's energy supplies, but if you're going
to aim for that, use UL Tyranitar, MD Flareon,
Typhlosion Prime, or any other pokemon with a guaranteed
discarding effect.
Overall, Exploud is an intriguing combination of
several roles, from weakness nullification, to Pokemon
Circulator effects, to the classic energy disruption
tactic, but sadly it underperforms in all of those
categories and fails to hit hard enough and fast enough
to keep up in today's and the future's formats. SF
Magnezone's Gyro Ball is just all out superior for hit
and run. Weakness nullification is already taken care of
by techs that take up far less deck space, and countless
pokemon can provide guaranteed energy discards over
Hyper Beam, and even with that guarantee, it has little
effect in a format were many attacks are low energy
costs. You might see a VERY rare fun deck at a league
that uses this, but I can't see it becoming even
remotely competitive at any point in time. It's just a
desperate last resort to covering a deck's type
weaknesses.
Modified: 1.5 Intriguing, but will have zero effect
in the current format. Outperformed by so many other
pokemon and techs, it's not even funny.
Limited: 2.5 The HP alone may actually get you a fair
ways. Any pokemon with 130 HP is tough to take down,
even if it's terrible. Luckily for Exploud, most of what
is in SV doesn't hit all that hard like recent
HGSS-and-on prereleases have been known for. No trainer/supportor
support hurts, though, as does lack of drawing.
Combos with: Binder?
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Mad Mattezhion
Professor Bathurst League Australia |
Exploud (Supreme Victors)
Sorry my review for this card is late, especially as it
was my suggestion to review it. I hope you all can
forgive me!
Here is a card I really think has slipped under the
radar. I give you Exploud!
The basic stats are 130 HP, +30 fighting weakness and 2
retreat cost which is good but not brilliant on a Stage
2. Colourless typing means you can splash this into any
deck, which is great because of Exploud's Pokebody.
Exploud gets 2 attacks and a brilliant Pokebody, now
that x2 weakness has been reintroduced. First, the
attacks.
Knock back is nothing special, costing CC and dealing 40
damage while forcing your opponent to switch out.
Unfortunately you don't get to choose the replacement,
so this attack is fairly limited in both damage and
effect, but still useful in occasional situations. Hyper
Beam seems to be a recent standard with sub-par damage
and a flip-for-energy-discard, and this attack is no
exception. You get 60 damage and discard an energy
attached to your opponent's Pokémon if you flip heads
for the cost of CCC. This just isn't enough damage,
though with Unown G being removed from play the energy
discard will annoy your opponent (though on the other
hand, energy acceleration is common so you may not even
slow the opponent down).
These are both sub-par attacks but that isn't the point
of the card. Exploud really shines with its Erasing
Sound body which removes weakness from all of your
Pokémon in play. With x2 weakness the future standard,
this card is brilliant for being a bench tech, and even
the attacks don't look so bad against this amazing
ability. Also, since it works on all of your Pokémon,
Drifblim FB cannot exploit your bench techs. Admittedly,
Drifblim FB proved to deal too little damage for people
to use it, but if other cards with similar
attacks/effects are introduced then Exploud will be the
counter.
The bad news is that Exploud is a bit difficult to get
into play since you want to use your Rare Candy on your
attacker, but then it's the same for Nidoqueen RR and
everyone loves that card! So why is this card so
unpopular? I just don't understand it. Come on people,
forget Metapod HGSS and use Exploud!
Modified: 4 (I love this card, and it can stall if you
need to build a replacement attacker. But more likely,
it will stop people taking your attacker out in the
first place!)
Limited: 2 (far less useful here and more difficult to
play, but still so damned cool! You'll be glad to get
it)
Combos with: Heavy attackers cursed with a popular x2
weakness (Tyranitar, Machamp, and Blastoise to name a
few), the list is endless!
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