Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
AZ
The freaky giant guy from the XY games gets his own card
at last and it’s . . . ok. Not as good as the stuff
Lysander gets, mind you.
AZ does what a lot of cards throughout the games history
have done in various ways: it picks one of your Pokémon
up off the Field. In the case of AZ, it returns the
Pokémon (which includes
all the
Stages of an Evolution) to your hand and discards
anything that is attached (which would be Energy and
Tool cards). It’s pretty clear how this might be useful
for re-using something like Jirachi
EX, getting a damaged or Status-inflicted Pokémon off
the Field, or as an alternative to
retreating an active Pokémon under certain
situations such as Item or retreat lock.
Functionally, AZ is quite similar to Cassius. Cassius
doesn’t discard attached cards, but it does send
everything to the deck rather than your hand. Obviously
AZ is the better choice for something like
Jirachi EX, which won’t have
any attachments, or in a deck using
Bronzong PHF which can recover the Energy. The
real competition for this card isn’t Cassius, however
(or even Super Scoop Up), but
other Supporters.
We rely on them so much for the draw that keeps our
decks flowing that it is very hard to give that up for a
turn to play something like AZ. An
aggressive card like
Lysandre, sure . . . but defence is more often of
secondary importance in this format.
I can see single copies of AZ making it into something
like Dialga EX/Bronzong
decks, but elsewhere I think that Pokémon Centre Lady is
probably a better option for healing and/or dealing with
Status Conditions. Most players are likely to prefer
Lysandre or even
Xerosic as a non-draw
Supporter anyway.
Rating
Modified: 2.75 (useful in certain circumstances and for
certain decks)
Expanded: 2.75 (as above)
Limited: 4.5 (Prize denial is great and you aren’t
likely to have many other Supporters to compete for
usage)
|
aroramage |
Hello hello, and welcome back to another week of
Pokemon cards! Today we're taking a look at the
Supporter known only as AZ, the mysterious wanderer of
the Kalos region. The story of XY revolves partly around
him, and the story goes he used a super weapon long ago
to end a war and lost his best friend, a Floette,
forever. Since that time he's been wandering the Kalos
region in search of his missing Floette.
Today's card relates to AZ in the idea of retrieving a
friend of yours, but the cost of it may be too much. You
return Pokemon back to your hand and discard any other
cards from it, which makes it useful for denying a KO
and getting rid of the new Team Flare Hyper Gear, but
that's about it. You lose whatever Tools were attached
to and all the Energy you had on the Pokemon you return
to your hand, which sets you back in terms of set-up.
Now if you've got a deck that can retrieve Energy from
the discard pile, then losing Energy isn't a set-back
but a set-up, and luckily there are several decks that
can do that these days! Fighting and Steel decks both
benefit from having Energy in the discard pile, and
going into Expanded you've got Dark Patch and Eelektrik
to add to the stack. I'd avoid running AZ in Blastoise
and Emboar decks, as even though they do have Energy
acceleration, it comes from your hand, and since AZ is
your Supporter for the turn, you better have a large
hand filled with Energy ready to go - or else just have
another ready attacker.
On that note, it'll be tough fitting AZ into a deck,
even with all the support he can give, but his function
is so simple I wouldn't be surprised if he were glossed
over. The two biggest problems I can think of are that
AZ doesn't work well with Evolutions (he gets back 1
Pokemon and discards the rest, which in the case of an
Evolution discards the Basic form and probably the Stage
1 if it's there, so you end up with Ultra Ball fodder)
and he gets rid of any Tools on the Pokemon (which if
not from your opponent are from you, and Tools aren't as
easy to get back as Energy). Add in the necessity for
draw Supporters like Sycaper, and AZ just doesn't stack
up.
Some decks may be able to throw a copy or two of AZ into
their decks and be able to function off of that, but for
the most part it looks like AZ will just have to keep on
wandering...
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (does one thing well, but not
flawlessly)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (about the same here)
Limited: 3/5 (denying a KO here can be pretty crucial,
but be careful on which Pokemon you use it with)
Arora Notealus: If there's one thing I think they
could've done better with XY's story, it's put the focus
on AZ a lot more - make him far more central to the plot
rather than just kinda tacking him on there. Trust me,
that ending would've hit a lot harder if you'd been
traveling with AZ rather than just by chance meeting
him.
Next Time: What kind of card is that? It is a mystery~
|
Otaku |
Welcome to another week of card reviews! This week put
us in a bit of a pickle: on one hand we just finished
the first weekend of City Championships, so it is
tempting to review what won… except we don’t know yet.
You see, someone needs to compile a list of cards to
review for the following week no later than the Saturday
morning (we’ll say 10 AM CST for an international
reference point) of the previous week. By the time
you’re reading this, odds are the results of the first
weekend are at least “sort of” known, but we needed to
write this CotD before then… and some of us may be
writing all five of this week’s CotDs before! So we are
going to focus on some of the useful supporting
(including but not limited to Supporters) cards we have
left to review in XY: Phantom Forces, plus
something else I just threw in for variety.
First up is indeed a Supporter: AZ. In fact,
this is the last Supporter left in the set that isn’t a
reprint (don’t hold your breath for new reviews of
Professor Sycamore, Shauna or Tierno).
His effect is to return one of your Pokémon to your
hand (your choice, of course): other attached cards are
discarded. The big question is does this apply to all
Stages of an Evolution, and fortunately this has indeed
been answered. From
The Pokémon Trading Card
Game Rulings Compendium Black And White:
AZ
(Phantom Forces)
Q. When playing the AZ supporter, do I put all Pokemon
stages into my hand, or just the Basic or highest stage?
A. You put all of the Pokemon cards into your hand,
including all Stages and Mega cards. (Phantom Forces
FAQ; Nov 13, 2014 TPCi Rules Team)
This makes the card not quite a Supporter version of the
old Scoop Up but also not quite a Supporter
version of Super Scoop Up or Scoop Up Cyclone.
It also explains why in some decks you may prefer to
use Cassius; even though it sends the Pokémon to
the deck (requiring more effort to get the target back
out) it sends all cards attached to said Pokémon as well
(so Energy and Trainers are also salvaged). You can use
AZ to heal a Pokémon, get rid of attack effects,
get a Pokémon out of the way or to reuse “coming into
play” Abilities. All of these effects are valuable in
general, but also often already present in decks via
other cards being run. This brings up concepts like
reliability, utility and versatility.
AZ
is all or nothing: you give up a Supporter and get its
effect. You can’t just shed the damage counters and/or
Bench the target Pokémon to ditch effects resting on it
or just get it out of the way: the Pokémon goes into
hand and while you don’t lose Evolutions, for better or
worse you’ve got to go through the process of Evolving
(possibly without important Items like Spirit Link
cards or Rare Candy). If you have Energy
attached, you lose it along with attached Trainers.
Burning a Switch and a Max Potion is two
cards versus one, but you also reap the benefits that
come from running them in general and you’re not giving
up a Supporter. Plus the target leaving play isn’t
always a benefit, even apart from concerns over
discarding Energy and attached Trainers.
Cassius,
Scoop Up Cyclone and Super Scoop Up help
demonstrate how reliability is difficult to define. Cassius
is also a Supporter but it sends the target Pokémon and
all cards attached to it to your deck; Scoop Up
Cyclone is an Ace Spec but sends everything attached
to the target Pokémon (plus itself) back to your hand. Super
Scoop Up is Scoop Up Cyclone but trades being
an Ace Spec for being a “tails fails” card, where it
does nothing if you can’t get “heads” on the mandatory
coin flip. Like AZ you can’t just get the end
result of the effect without the entire aspect and like
AZ this is why they can’t really compete with
Max Potion in decks that can move Energy around or
cope with the Energy discard. So AZ finds itself
with a niche, but one that is crowded. Does it have a
place there?
Yes it does, largely thanks to VS Seeker (and to
a lesser extent Battle Compressor). High counts
of of AZ increase the odds of it getting in the
way: drawing them after using a Supporter, being unable
to use them up before playing a Professor Juniper
or Professor Sycamore, or drawing AZ
instead of the Supporter you really needed. VS
Seeker isn’t any more useful when you’ve got the
Supporter you most need to use in hand already, but it
gives you the option of trading it in for an AZ
or a draw supporter, a Lysandre etc. If you run
(for example) two AZ and four VS Seeker,
you can bounce something of your own up to six times
without sending it to the deck instead and having to dig
it back out (Cassius), burning your Ace Spec slot
(Scoop Up Cyclone) or relying on a coin flip (Super
Scoop Up) plus have the option of digging out
a different Supporter instead that is more appropriate
to the situation.
If your deck needs a lot of bounce you can run
some combination of all of the above, or perhaps just
turn to Lysandre’s Trump Card to keep using which
every specific option is most useful. This again both
helps and hurts AZ; it too can benefit.
Obviously you won’t be playing it the same turn you use
Lysandre’s Trump Card and the only things your
strategy (using both) can do is run your opponent out of
are Prizes or time. You still wouldn’t be using it just
for the healing aspects, as again Max Potion
beats out the whole group under similar circumstances.
This niche is most definitely about spamming
coming-into-play effects. Something like Jirachi-EX
is counterproductive (if you want to give up a Supporter
to get a Supporter, use Skyla). It is also quite
a pain for Stage 2 Pokémon or Mega Evolutions since
Rare Candy and Spirit Link cards are lost
without more combos. You should probably have AZ
handle Basics or Stage 1 Pokémon instead of Stage 2s,
unless the Stage 1 form of a Stage 2 line is important.
As I write this, I can think of three candidates that
could allow AZ to show some value.
The first is Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces
33/119) and part of that is because of Golbat (XY:
Phantom Forces 32/119): both having coming-into-play
Abilities that place damage counters on your opponent’s
Pokémon. I’m not sure if there is a “good” deck to
build around them, but AZ seems to fit them the
best as drawbacks of the other options are more
significant here. Forretress (XY: Flashfire
60/106) similarly may prefer being able to reliably
bounce to the hand without having to be searched out
from the deck, burn your Ace Spec or rely on a coin
flip. The third candidate is the one I find the most
promising: Dragonite-EX. Though you should still
be running Super Scoop Up alongside it, and
possibly Cassius if you want the option of
salvaging a Pokémon Tool, giving up your Supporter for
the reliable bounce is worth it since the deck is all
about keeping a few Energy in play, moved from
Dragonite-EX to Dragonite-EX via its Ability…
which also forces the opponent to deal with a fresh
Dragonite-EX. You still probably won’t max it out,
but if Super Scoop Up fails it is good to know
you can cash in a VS Seeker to still keep the
combo working. In all cases, the deck will need to
augment its ability to draw with things other than
Supporters.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5 - This is a composite score as the card is a
potentially useful but regularly suboptimal general
play, and can even backfire: if you forget and play it
when you’ve only got one Pokémon in play, you lose. As
we look at more and more specific decks, it gets better
and better, but I think is best as the emergency back-up
option for when your copy (or copies) of Super Scoop
Up fail and can trade in VS Seeker for a
clutch, guaranteed bounce.
Expanded:
3/5 - Same score but slightly different reasons. Again,
in general it isn’t useless but it won’t often be the
optimum play. The difference here is that for
Evolutions, they regain access to Devolution Spray
(making AZ even less needed) but also certain
combos for spamming Items, which indirectly helps AZ
while helping out the more obvious candidates. For
example, Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers
62/108) can use its Junk Hunt attack to safely reclaim
Devolution Spray and/or Super Scoop Up…
but VS Seeker is also a legal target, and you can
get back Roller Skates and or Bicycle if
you need to VS Seeker for AZ but also want
to draw.
Limited:
4.9/5 - Nearly a must run, the exception is when you’re
building a deck around a lone big, Basic Pokémon: the
+39 deck means it becomes a stylish way to concede
(which might tempt a few more flamboyant players to run
it anyway). For “regular” decks, you often aren’t going
to have to worry about having other Supporters, you’ll
probably have space, denying Prizes is more effective
here, and those cases of overkill I listed earlier, like
being stuck using it in place of a Switch? Those
other options aren’t present in this set so that concern
is also nullified. Unlike some Supporters where I’ve
given high marks because “you might as well”, here it is
worth running over some other useful cards.
Summary:
AZ was a far more difficult review than I
expected. Even with recent tricks, giving up a
Supporter for this effect is quite expensive, and most
of the decks I can think of which would use it are still
going to want to use something else instead. At the
same time, accepting its the kind of card you won’t run
more than two of and that is reserved for very specific
usage (occasionally being handy in general), it does its
job. Not being familiar with the character AZ. I looked
him up and now am a torn about this card in another,
rather silly way: without spoiling too much, his
backstory would have made it thematically appropriate to
allow the effect to bounce either one of your Pokémon or
one of your opponent’s of your choice, but besides being
pure fancy on my part, it would then have been more than
a bit broken.
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