Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Jirachi (Rising Rivals)
As a starter, Jirachi has a LOT going for it, and (for
the moment) a couple of big downsides, but we will get
to that later. Like Sableye and Smeargle, it breaks the
one Supporter rule through its cost-free Detour attack:
if you have used a Supporter that turn, Jirachi let’s
you do it again.
Of course that isn’t as flexible as Sableye’s
Impersonate, and unlike Smeargle it uses your attack.
You are also dependent on having a Supporter you want to
use twice in your hand for that turn: while double
Bebe’s Search would be great, double Pokémon Collector
is probably unnecessary most of the time. Jirachi does
have a nice bonus to make up for that though: its Final
Wish Power means that when it is KO’d you get to search
your deck for any card you like.
Twins and multiple Jirachi make a great combination.
When the first Jirachi is KO’d, search your deck for a
Twins, then play it twice with Detour and get yet more
cards. Add in the Final Wish when the second Jirachi
goes down and you have had your pick of six cards from
the deck. If that doesn’t get you fully set up, then to
be honest you are playing a horrible, horrible deck and
deserve to lose anyway.
But what about those drawbacks? The first is that
Jirachi is very vulnerable to hand disruption (Judge,
Looker’s Investigation, Giratina ‘Let Loose’). All that
great card searching goes for nothing if your opponent
plays one of those cards. The second snag is that, going
first under current rules Jirachi does precisely nothing
as a starter as you are unable to play a Supporter. If
it is still in rotation when we get the new Black and
White rules (Trainers and Supporters can be used on turn
1), then this problem will be solved and Jirachi will be
an even better card. For now though, if you kick off the
game, you better hope you are holding a copy of
tomorrow’s review card.
All things considered, I’m surprised that Jirachi hasn’t
seen more play than it has. Perhaps, like Sableye, it’s
waiting for someone to come up with the deck that will
break the card. I think that both Spiritomb and Sableye
are better cards, but this shouldn’t always be
overlooked. Try it with something like Steelix Prime and
you may be pleasantly surprised.
Rating
Modified: 3.25 (more passive than most starters, it can
work brilliantly in very slow decks, but can very slow
decks work?)
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Mad Mattezhion
Professor Bathurst League Australia |
Jirachi (Rising Rivals)
Rising Rivals was (and still is) an awesome set,
bringing us such brilliant cards as Nidoqueen, Flygon
and Luxray GL as well as many niche cards that were
either popular for a short time or are only popular in a
limited number of decks. Cards like Infernape E4,
Volkner's Philosophy, Sunnyshore City Gym and Jirachi,
while useful, seem to be almost forgotten by the
majority of players. The last card on that list is one I
confess I hadn't even thought about until writing this
review.
Jirachi RR is the 4th starter Poke'mon we will be
reviewing this week (I wonder if you can guess the fifth
review subject? Mail me at mattezhion@y7mail with a
correct guess to receive an Intangible Cookie!) and like
all of the other starters we have reviewed it is a
non-evolving Basic with a free setup attack. It would
seem that all worthy starters in any format are
non-evolving Basics, because an attacking line with a
starter as a Basic and a strong end evolution would just
be broken.
But enough waffling, on to the stats: Jirachi RR is a
Metal type non-evolving Basic with 60 HP, +20 Fire
weakness, Psychic resistance, free retreat, a Poke-power
and 2 attacks. Jirachi is not going to survive even a
medium hit unless you add Special Metal energy (which
seems to me to be a waste, unless you are deliberately
discarding it in a deck using Magnezone SF #6 for energy
acceleration) and the Fire weakness seems unfairly
harsh, though it is probably a moot point as the only
Fire Poke'mon you are likely to come across will OHKO
Jirachi anyaway (unless they are the Basic forms, since
those are weak, energy hungry attackers that hon't hit
hard enough to tickle a Teletubbie untilt they evolve).
But considering how the Poke'power works, Jirachi is
meant to go down in flames and the 60 HP is enough to
keep it alive for a turn if you get a lone start, so the
stats are balanced, even above par when you consider the
resistance which keeps the Pixies off your back for a
while and the free retreat is useful.
The Poke-power is the amusingly and aptly named Final
Wish (wish upon a star!) and it is basically Twins-lite.
Once during your opponent's turn, if Jirachi would
Knocked Out by damage from an attack, you may search
your deck for any one card and put it into your hand.
This is a simply brilliant power because searching for
any card you want is a rare opportunity and the only way
your opponent can cancel Final Wish is to play Glaceon
Lv X as their Active Poke'mon or to have Ampharos PT in
play since both Power Spray and Mesprit LA don't affect
Poke'powers used during an opponent's turn. Even better,
since Final Wish activates after damage is calculated
but before other effects are applied, the only way your
opponent can get rid of the card you searched out before
you can use it is if the attack they KOed Jirachi with
also caused you to shuffle your hand away or if your
opponent is able to discard cards from your hand
(shuffle your hand around before they choose if that is
the case, it's a legal move to rearrange your hand as
long as you aren't using it as a delaying tactic).
Unfortunately your opponent can simply play around the
Poke'power by causing a KO with damage counters and
Special Conditions (all of the mechanics that apply to
Gengar SF's Fainting Spell apply to Final Wish, except
you are grabbing a card instead of applying a KO to the
Attacking Poke'mon). Still, the fact that your opponent
has to work so hard to get around Final Wish is a
compliment more than a downside, though the low HP makes
Final Wish a little easier to beat than Fainting Spell.
And Final Wish shares the same benefit as Fainting Spell
in that it can be used when Jirachi is KOed by damage
regardless of whether or not it is Benched or Active at
the time (take that Garchomp C!). As long as your
opponent isn't using Victreebel TM/Crobat G/Gengar SF
then Final Wish is an awesome power, especially if you
throw Twins into the bargain!
The following paragraph is a long and technical 'what
if...' concerning how much of a nsty piece od work
Jirachi would be if Focus Band was reprinted. Skip the
following paragrap if you don't like technicalities or
just want me to shut up and get on with the review!
If somehow a card like Focus Band was reintroduced that
stopped a would-be KO happening to Jirachi you would
still be able to use Final Wish, because Jirachi 'would
have been Knocked Out' by the attack (and you could use
Final Wish again if the Jirachi was later Knocked Out
and/or used another Focus Band). This based on a ruling
made about Machamp Lv X's Strong Willed attack, which
allows you to flip a coin if Machamp would be Knocked
Out by damage during the next turn, keeping Machamp
alive with 10 HP if you flip heads but any attack
effects/Poke-bodies/Poke-powers that are activated by
Knocking Out the Defending Poke'mon (and it doesn't
matter if those effects originate on the Defending
Poke'mon or the Attacking Poke'mon). For example Scizor
SF's Accelerate attack would still give Scizor immunity
if it would have Knocked Out Machamp even if the flip
for Strong Willed comes up heads and Machamp survives,
and the resverse would also be true if there was a
Mcahmp printed with Fainting Spell. If a Fainting Spell
Machamp survived a guaranteed KO due to flipping Heads
for Strong Willed (or if it was a Gengar SF in Unlimited
with a Focus Band attached if you want an example that
actually exists), it would still get to flip for
Fainting Spell to take out the Attacking Poke'mon.
Actually, a Machamp with Fainting Spell would be damned
near broken in the current card pool. With a Broken Time
Space in play and Rescue Energy attached you could put
Machamp right back down after it was taken out and
Nidoqueen would stop your opponent getting around
Fainting Spell/Strong Willed with Poison. Add Flygon for
free retreat (or a single Machamp Prime) to get around
other attack effects/Special Conditions [and/or rotate
your Machamps] to get an even chance of getting 2 KOs
from one turn (your attack followed by Fainting Spell)
with a 25% shot of going for a triple due to surviving
with Strong Willed at the same time! The only problem
would be the damge cap since Strong Willed only deals 80
damage (after applying No Guard) which means taking out
an opposing Stage 2 with a single attack is unlikely at
best. Still, it's fun to have such broken dreams, and
maybe the attack to go with the Fainting Spell Machamp
would be some sort of heavy snipe (somewhat like the
attack on the SP Technical Machine?).
Now that my rambling is finished (I hope those of you
read it felt entertained, and I happily forgive anyone
who skipped it) I will move on to Jirachi's attacks. the
second attack is the lesser of the 2 so I'll start
there.
Swift costs [m] to use and deals 20 damage while
ignoring weakness, resistance and any effects on the
Defending Poke'mon. Aside from Sableye SF, all of the
starters in use have terrible offensive attacks. Swift
still isn't brilliant but it is cheap for 20 damage
guaranteed and when you consider that Jirachi's first
attack may be rendered useless the first turn or 2 (I'll
get to that) as well as the Poke-power being activated
during yout opponent's turn, you will find yourslef
attacking with Swift on the odd occasion. Or you could
just take advantage of the free retreat to attack with
something else if you don't have a lone start.
Now the first attack is Detour, and it runs in the same
vein as Sableye SF and Smeargle UD in that it
effectively gives you 2 Supporter uses in a turn. The
attack cost is free and effect is to copy the effect of
the Supporter card you already have down on the table,
so if you haven't/can't play a Supporter card during the
turn Detour is useless. Detour seems to be halfway
between Portrait and Impersonate as far as reliability
goes. If you have a Supporter down you know exactly what
you are getting unlike Portrait which relies on the
opponent being gracious/unprepared but Impersonate is
more reliable in that you can search out the Supporter
you want (unless your deck is empty of Supporter cards,
in which case you are either using a terrible deck or
trying to recover from having your heavy hitter
clobbered out of the ring). However, Portrait is more
versatile in that you can get a Supporter you don't have
in your hand or even in your deck if you are lucky while
Impersonate also allows you to get a different Supporter
than the one you have played down . This lack of
versatility is compensated by being a reliable way to
reuse a Supporter card without having to retrieve it
from the discard pile (I don't know about you, but when
I've just burned 2 Bebe's Search with Sableye to do some
evolving next turnand I get 'Judged', it really ticks me
off because I'm suddenly down 2 Supporter cards with
only 1 evolution played, or sometimes none!).
Obviously, there are few Supporters you wouldn't want to
double up on, such as Black Belt (why attack to copy
that? You would be dealing 80 bonus damage but no actual
damage would exist to add the bonus to!), Engineer's
Adjustments (if you only have 1 energy) and Judge
(unless you really need to shuffle your hand away for a
fresh one after a bad draw, or after you used Mr Mime to
peek and discovered the opponent pulled a good
replacement hand). However, Bebe's search really shines
when you can play 2 of them (and significantly lower
your hand size to go for a big Uxie Set Up next turn) as
do Cyrus' Conspiracy, Cyrus' Initiative, Poke'mon
Collector and Twins (doubling this is just awesome,
espcially if you get Final Wish too!). The main
drawbacks are that you need to play a Supporter card in
the first place, you can't use Detour to copy a
different Suppporter and that Detour ends your turn,
leaving you open to disruption via Judge/Cyrus'
Initiative/Looker's Investigation. Going first is
terrible (until Black and White come out) because Detour
is worthless without a Supporter, but this makes an
opposing Sableye your best friend (especially if Sableye
sets off Final Wish).
If not for Final Wish, I would say this card is not
versatile or consistent enough to contend with the other
starters of the era but with the current Supporter pool
and the ability to abuse Final Wish by following it with
another Jirachi using Twins (and hopefully another Final
Wish) this is a quirky choice that may just throw off an
opponent and give you an edge, especially if Sableye
becomes as popular as we expect with the release of
Black and White.
However, I may be looking at this entirely the wrong way
and Jirachi should be played more as a tech in
conjunction with other starters the way most people play
Smeargle. I can say with complete confidence that using
Detour on Cyrus' Initiative after playing Judge last
turn would be awesome in Sablelock, and VileGar players
live or die with their Supporter cards. Just be
extremely wary of of Judge, because it turns a
Detour into a 3 car pile-up (I don't know what came over
me, that pun just had to come out!).
Modified: 3.75 (Detour is too situational [at least
Portrait always has some use] for me to give a higher
score, but if you use enough Supporter cards in your
deck it can be worth the space in conjunction with
another starter. Plus with Twins in the card pool, Final
Wish becomes the best Poke-power since Fainting Spell
hands down!)
Limited: 5 (Who doesn't wan't to get more out of their
meagre Supporter cards in a Limited match? With
Underground Expedition and Volkner's Philosophy in the
set Detour becomes a major asset and the free
retreat/free attack makes Jirachi very easy to tech in
even without Metal energy. Final Wish seals the deal
though you have to watch out for the lower Prize count)
Combos with: Twins, Bebe's Search, any other Supporter
worth playing twice
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