Today we look at
Xatu (BW: Legendary Treasures
56/113).
This is a Stage 1 Pokémon; slower
and more cards than a Basic, less cards
than a Stage 2 but only faster if the
Stage 2 lacks
Rare Candy.
It is a Psychic-Type; while there
is some Psychic-Type support in the form
of
Gardevoir (BW: Next Destinies
54/99; BW: Dark Explorers
109/108), last format it didn’t have
much success and I haven’t heard of that
changing this format, personal hopes
aside.
Pokémon with Psychic Weakness see
enough play that exploiting it may prove
beneficial, but so to is Psychic
Resistance common enough that it may
impede you; fortunately Weakness is
almost always more potent than
Resistance.
Xatu
has a mere 90 HP; this does not bode
well as few decks will fail to score a
OHKO; even an incomplete set-up is no
guarantee of survival.
It does at least make the card a
legal target for
Level Ball.
The Psychic Weakness feels a bit
unfortunate;
Xatu is a Psychic/Flying-Type hybrid
in the video games, and unless it was
causing problems of which I was unaware,
I thought it always enriched the game
when they would “blend” stats so that
such a card might be a Lightning Weak,
Fighting Resistant Psychic-Type.
As is, anything
Xatu can hit for double damage can
slam it back… and the most commonly
played Psychic-Type Pokémon I can think
of have inexpensive attacks that might
not have scored a OHKO against
Xatu if it were not Psychic Weak.
As already implied, the card has no
Resistance, even though Fighting-Type
Resistance would have made a good deal
of sense.
This isn’t crippling, but it is a
missed opportunity.
Xatu even has a single Energy
Retreat Cost; normally a good thing as
it is easy enough to pay in most decks,
once you factor in the rest of the card
you have to wonder why they just didn’t
allow it to retreat for free; it is
already a fairly fragile Pokémon and I
don’t see how it would have overpowered
the card; just made it a little less
dependent on the retreat aids and
alternatives most decks already run.
Obviously
Xatu is not a card to play for its
stats, but what about its effects?
It has two attacks: Fortunate
Draw and Miracle Wing.
The former requires (P) and has
you play Rock-Paper-Scissors with an
opponent; the victor draws three cards
while the loser discards three cards
from the top of his or her deck.
That means that either way, both
players will end up with a deck three
cards smaller.
The second attack requires (PCC)
and does 60 points of damage, plus
Confusion if you get “heads” on a coin
toss.
These attacks are not good;
Miracle Wing’s problem is easy to
explain; Confusion is no where near good
enough to justify the expense of the
attack in a format where three Energy
should pay for 90 points of damage, not
60.
If it were not so overpriced, the
cost structure would make it work well
with most Energy acceleration as you
could use common tricks like attaching a
Psychic Energy to a
Natu, then Evolving into
Xatu the next turn, attaching a
Double Colorless Energy, and
proceeding to attack.
Fortunate Draw is what caught my eye
about this card; I enjoy
Rock-Paper-Scissors and I enjoy decks
built around milling the opponent into
decking out.
Unfortunately this too has flaws.
Rock-Paper-Scissors is a game of
skill if you:
1)
Know your opponent well.
2)
Are generally skilled at reading body
language or psychology.
3)
Cheat.
Reasons “1” and “2” don’t often apply,
and even when they do I question if
these skills should be made so necessary
to the game: should I be rewarded
because I know Bob always picks scissors
because they remind him of knives, that
Dave always picks rocks because they
smash scissors and he “feels” like paper
is weak, and that Brian thinks himself
so clever that if I flash one of the
signs before throwing, he’ll assume I’ve
made up my mind and choose its counter,
allowing me to play the third sign to
win?
Silly as that sounds, we all know
people either like that or with even
less complicated hang ups (they don’t
like Rock-Paper-Scissors so they just
always throw “rock”).
Then of course you’ve just got
the types that can throw their sign a
split second late, after the opposing
player has already begun to form a sign
and… that’s cheating: the entire point
is to throw at the same time, and if it
wasn’t there would be another “mechanic”
to prevent people from always choosing
to pick a sign and reveal it after the
opponent did.
I think I would have rather the effect
involved a coin toss; it would just be
simpler and I am a lot less worried
about someone that has successful
trained at flipping a coin significantly
more often in his or her own favor than
I am someone just having the reflexes to
trick me into thinking s/he went at the
same time instead of a half second later
so they could adjust to my sign.
Plus you could then use
Victini (BW: Noble Victories
14/101, 98/101; BW Promo BW32,
BW: Legendary Treasures 23/113) to
improve your odds.
The really sad part is that Fortunate
Draw, while “interesting” isn’t remotely
good.
Let us examine the outcomes
again.
You are spending an Energy and an
Energy attachment of some sort to attack
with a Stage 1 Pokémon the “average”
deck “should” OHKO on the next turn; in
order to be fair this needs to not only
compete with other once-per-turn draw
effects (like Supporters), and once you
get that big you can’t have yourself
discarding that many cards when it
“backfires”, even if you’re still
depleting your opponent’s deck one way
or the other.
I really do like the basic idea
of this attack, but the method of
randomization (or is it supposed to be a
contest of skill?) for determining who
draws and who discards, the idea that it
has to be equal which means only smaller
amounts are “safe” but also not worth
the effort while larger amounts would be
worth the effort when your opponent is
discarding but destroy yourself when it
was you… the execution is terrible.
Did I mention you can’t reliably
enjoy
N as it would undermine those turns
when your opponent drew instead of
discarding from the deck?
That was a significant part of
more recent milling decks; the harder
your opponent worked to defeat you, the
more vulnerable they became to
N.
What about Unlimited?
Better ways to mill your opponent
(some don’t even require attacking) and
even if you just want to use
Xatu, there are better versions from
past releases.
The only place to honestly
consider this card is in Limited.
It still isn’t a “good” card, but
what few things it has going for it are
enhance here while the bad is slightly
diminished.
Unless you are pulling big, Basic
Pokémon, the difficulty of assembling an
Evolution line often means lower average
HP scores than in a constructed format:
90 HP still isn’t “good” but instead is
fairly typical.
Being “splashable” becomes more
important, and as
Xatu needs just a single source of
(P) for both attacks, that improves.
Having a single Energy attack and
having an attack that helps you draw
also becomes better.
Confusion is more useful here
where it isn’t as easy to get out of or
prevent, average damage output is lower
and slower, and with the lower HP
scores, that 60 points of damage can be
worth it.
Lastly, and this is a bit of a
double-edged sword: decks are smaller.
Even if you’re constantly losing
at Rock-Paper-Scissors, each player has
but a 40 card deck that by the time a
player has taken an opening hand, laid
down four Prizes, and made an opening
draw for his or her first turn is down
to just 26 cards.
With little to no means of
getting cards back from the discard,
every attack may send something unique
and vital to the discard pile.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
1/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary
Xatu
is a risky play that might pay off for
Limited; everywhere else it’s a bad
play.
I couldn’t even justify bumping
its score up a little for being the only
Modified Legal
Xatu; the minimum score we assign
here is one out of five, and I think
that adequately covers the value of
using
Xatu because you really want to use
Xatu.
Still it was useful because
before this, I hadn’t really considered
the implications of Rock-Paper-Scissors
and what is it trying to accomplish
(randomizer or game of skill?).
