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Welcome to a week of “runner-ups”: cards that made at
least one Top 5 list from BW: Legendary Treasures!
This means some will still be new cards, while
others reprints: we begin with the former as we look at
Gallade (BW:
Legendary Treasures 81/113).
Gallade
is a Stage 2 Pokémon.
Thanks to the recent rule changes, he stands a
much better chance than it did 11 days ago, but being a
Stage 2 is still not an easy sell.
He is a Fighting-Type, which results in favorable
Type-Matching against most Colorless-, Darkness-, and
Lightning-Types (though each of those, especially
Colorless, includes some Fighting Resistant Pokémon as
well): a good start.
The HP of
Gallade clocks in at 140, which is well within OHKO
range of available combos for many decks and definitely
within 2HKO range.
Psychic Weakness exacerbates this; the
traditional and still perhaps preeminent Psychic-Type
attacker is
Mewtwo EX; unless the
Mewtwo EX
player can’t spare a lot of Energy or
Gallade is
up front with no Energy (both unlikely) it will score a
OHKO with X-Ball.
The card has no complimentary Resistance, but
this is common and in the current metagame Resistance
would is unlikely to be significant most matches.
The Retreat Cost of two is the worst to have
right now – too low for
Heavy Ball,
and if you have to manually retreat still enough to
matter; fortunately you shouldn’t have to manually
retreat often in a well made deck.
Gallade
has two attacks - Nerve Shot and Pandemonium Blade –
which have a fairly appropriate “low cost – higher cost”
pattern.
Nerve Shot requires just (F) to use, which means even if
you rush a
Gallade into play by your second turn (overall third
or fourth turn of the game), you can use that turn’s
manual Energy attachment to still get a hit in.
The damage and effect reflects this; 30 points
and a 50% chance of Paralysis aren’t that bad but are
definitely not good amongst the current card pool for
Stage 2 Pokémon.
Given the new rules, slightly higher damage at a
two Energy cost would have been better… and perhaps even
at the current cost but without Paralysis – Special
Conditions are easy to shake for most decks.
Pandemonium Blade is what I believe gets players
excited; for (FCC) you score 60 points of damage plus 20
for each of your Benched Pokémon with a damage counter
on it. If
it was “per damage counter”, this would easily be at
least a fringe deck, and as is it still allows for an
impressive 60-160 point spread.
I do wish it had counted itself because you will
need space a Stage 2 deck will struggle to produce to
get the last bit needed to OHKO Pokémon-EX, even when
you’ve got the ideal single damage counter on each of
your Pokémon.
You’ll need at least two of your Benched Pokémon
to have some damage counters on them if you want damage
that isn’t “bad”, as well.
This is a card that begs for combos, but the question is
“what”?
Reuniclus (Black
& White 57/114; BW: Dragons Exalted 126/124)
is a second Stage 2 Pokémon, but would make OHKOs (or
shutting off Abilities) the only way to take down
Gallade, and
a Mr. Mime (BW:
Plasma Freeze 47/116) then protects
Reuniclus
until your opponent gets off a lucky
Pokémon Reversal,
uses an Ability to disrupt your Bench, or again shuts
off Abilities.
Sadly, that 140 HP, even if boosted, isn’t going
to be that hard of a OHKO, and especially doesn’t seem
worth it for a deck with two Stage 2 Pokémon.
You could just run something that damages your own
Pokémon for a good benefit, simultaneously prepping
Pandemonium Blade.
It is important to note, though, that you’ll
either need an attacker which does this and survives or
some sort of Ability because if not, you’ll only hit 140
damage… which isn’t bad, but falls short of OHKOing most
Pokémon-EX without help, and this deck won’t have room
for help.
I am not seeing any such Pokémon likely to survive.
The two biggest brutes most likely to work with
this strategy are
Excadrill EX
and Landorus
(BW: Noble Victories 74/101; BW Promo
BW43; BW: Legendary Treasures 85/113)… but they
need four or three Energy, respectively.
I could see trying to get one or both of these working
in a deck with
Gallade – both of those Basic Pokémon accelerate
Energy via attack, which is better than nothing, but not
by much for these purposes.
Landorus
also hits your opponent’s Bench (unless they play
Mr. Mime,
which going by current chatter is likely) while
delivering a solid hit, while
Excadrill EX
just hits your own.
Honestly, you would be better off just focusing
on one or both of these two in a deck without
Gallade –
just setting them up will take enough resources!
So Gallade
looks to fall flat.
I know when I first saw him I started thinking
“What could I use to make this work?” and… without even
getting to the deck testing stage, I’ve run aground.
Of course, if I a missing something with a nifty
effect that damages yourself and can be used easily,
I’ll be happy to be wrong (that is basically what this
card needs, especially if it accelerates Energy).
As I do not like ignoring this completely, I will
just comment that the lower Stages are, as usual, almost
totally filler with only a few that look like they are
trying (still failing, but trying) to actually be more
than a placeholder from which to Evolve
Gallade.
The
Gardevoir angle doesn’t work because neither
Modified legal version combos with
Gallade.
For Unlimited, you could probably find a combo for him
but you’ve got much better
Gallade to
choose from unlike in Modified, where there is just a
“technically better but not by much” option.
I am of course going out on a limb commenting on
this format at all because I just can’t seem to find the
information for it (and personally lack means of
significant testing).
Limited is probably the only real shot for
Gallade to
shine – it will still take some doing, but you can
slowly build to where it is scoring OHKOs, and even if
that doesn’t work out the rest of the card is a solid
deal here.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
1.25/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Summary
My apologies for the less detailed (than my usual)
review… and for making this my number five pick for the
new cards’ list.
I don’t recall if I misread the card or was
simply overly optimistic about its prospects; it
requires far too much to get to the OHKO level an
attacking Stage 2 needs to reach.
Excadrill
EX was definitely a much worthier pick, but I only
had it as an unlisted honorable mention.
Excadrill
EX should have replaced
Gallade or
placed in an even higher slot to lower other picks and
still removing
Gallade from the list.
To spare the curious from digging through my previous
reviews to construct what was revealed of my personal
picks so far,
Elesa was my top pick followed by
Meloetta EX
and Spiritomb.
That means we haven’t looked at my number four
pick… but we’ll remedy that tomorrow.
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