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Welcome to the
runner up entry for our Top 10 Cards Of 2014 Countdown!
If you decided just to jump to this review, know that
the CotD crew submitted individual Top 10s that were
averaged out to create the rankings for the Top 10 list
we actually reviewed. As with our Top 10 lists for
individual sets, reprints are excluded: without this
rule cards like Double Colorless Energy and VS
Seeker would have not just made the list, but
probably placed quite high. For my own list, my main
guideline was card impact. I evaluated each card
according to breadth of impact (how widespread its
usage/response to its usage was), depth of impact (how
deeply it affected the decks that used it/needed to
counter it) and time of impact (how long did it affect
how we played in 2014).
The second
overall best card of 2014 is… Seismitoad-EX!
Some may be shocked it didn’t rank higher, but I’ll
explain what went into my own ranking for it. The
review crew’s first CotD for Seismitoad-EX can be
read
here, but don’t forget its second review
(already)
here if you need a refresher: my apologies
as rereading them reveals I either didn’t read my own
reviews before submitting or did a bad job of it as the
typos (including where I obviously changed thoughts mid
sentence) are frequent and painful. The first review
was an extremely early look at the cards from XY:
Furious Fists due to the earliest released scans,
while the second is our actual Top 10 list for the set…
where Seismitoad-EX was again number two. It
also appears I was mistaken about Benching an opponent’s
Seismitoad-EX that just used Quaking Punch ending
the Item blocking effect. So… has anything else of
relevance changed since that last review?
Quite a bit,
but I’m not sure if the net difference is noticeable in
terms of something like a CotD score. Seismitoad-EX
is still a 180 HP Basic Water-Type Pokémon-EX saddled
with Grass Weakness and a Retreat Cost of three and
lacking any form of its own Resistance. Grenade Hammer,
as predicted, is rarely used (from what I can tell,
especially in serious competitive play) but Quaking
Punch has made it a card that shaped the format;
suddenly all the powerful Items we have been getting and
continue to get almost make sense as with this kind of
easy, splashable Item lock you never know when you’ll be
punished for using them.
Breath: All decks are affected by the risk of
their Items being blocked, but it is a bigger concern
for some decks more than others, which will be addressed
in Depth. You don’t see Seismitoad-EX in all
decks, but if something runs Double Colorless Energy
or has another compatible form of Energy acceleration,
its quite likely to appear. Overall, its got a
noticeable effect on every deck played.
Depth: It really is important to remember how
much losing access to Items affects a deck. It rarely
stops everything a deck can do… but then again before
its reveal I was working on a deck where most of the
Supporters weren’t draw power but other useful effects
like Lysandre, while cards like Bicycle
and Roller Skates helped pick up the slack.
Needless to say, I had to give up on that idea, but the
point is that such Trainer Engines (especially now that
we have Battle Compressor and VS Seeker
and Lysandre’s Trump Card) might have been
realistic without the fear of Item lock via Quaking
Punch and most decks had to adjust their builds with
such an easy and potent Item lock in mind. Garbodor
(BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) partners up so well with
something that protects Pokémon Tools like Quaking
Punch, making it just that much harder to counter
either. I wish more of my decks could pack
something to easily croak us some toads but when two key
resources are missing, most such counters become too
clunky. I often get that feeling of righteous
indignation (okay, sour grapes) when I lose because my
opponent managed an Ability/Item lock for more than just
a few turns because I choose not to play a simple
beatdown deck that wasn’t reliant on two almost
fundamental aspects of the game. Also if you were
wondering, yes I forced in not one but two Bucky O’Hare
references.
Keeping Seismitoad-EX from dominating the format
is the raw power of other cards compared to its own
offense while it locks down at least your Items; even
with Hypnotoxic Laser, Virbank City Gym
and Muscle Band, its barely doing an effective
110 per turn. That is well within the competitive
sphere of course, but if your opponent can remove the
Poison from their Active (even by just retreating) that
knocks it down to just 80. Without a Hypnotoxic
Laser it is just 50… and of course Quaking Punch
alone is just 30. Its Grass Weakness didn’t prove too
bad overall, though perhaps it has oddly helped VirGen
decks; it doesn’t like losing access to Items either,
but Virizion-EX is Water Resistant and can still
acceleration Energy even under a total lock and even
without a G Booster or Muscle Band
Genesect-EX scores a OHKO.
Of course, I would be remiss not to point out that while
Stage 2 decks were already hurting and expected to
struggle post rotation to the current Standard Format,
Seismitoad-EX and the threat of Item lock
blocking both common search and Rare Candy seem
to have helped to all but eliminate them from the
competitive scene.
Timing:
This is probably the only area where Seismitoad-EX
isn’t one of the best and as one of the newest cards on
my list, tied with Strong Energy for eighth and
ninth place (Battle Compressor was the only even
newer card to make mine) in just this one section. If
Seismitoad-EX had released earlier it would have
scored higher and if it had released later the entire
list would likely be different. For one thing,
Seismitoad-EX (and its prominence) are part of why
other hopefuls in XY: Furious Fists failed to
live up to expectations (or had expectations lowered).
Had it released in XY: Flashfire the
Charizard-EX and Pyroar (XY: Flashfire
20/106) decks wouldn’t have enjoyed the time they did
have on top, and who knows if we would have bothered if
the best they could do is where they are at now. Miltank
(XY: Flashfire 83/106) likely wouldn’t have had
its brief time in the sun; the decks that used it well
were necessarily Item heavy after all. An even earlier
release would have shaken things up even more, at least
relative to what happened Yveltal-EX being denied
Dark Patch and all and again, an even earlier
weeding out of most Stage 2 decks. In the end though,
Seismitoad-EX only got to be hugely important for
half a year.
Ratings
Standard:
4.35/5 - With the shifts in the card pool and some
rulings I had wrong at the time of this last review, I
am only giving the card a slight boost in rating.
Fortunately while the lock it enables is devastating,
Seismitoad-EX doesn’t hit quite hard enough, so a
sufficient amount of decks can still set up and
overwhelm it if someone tries to rely on it… and as just
a nasty opener, its still a good but less imposing card.
Expanded:
4.5/5 - I might be wrong, but I think there are just
enough key Items being relied up here (I know I love
having access to Level Ball) that that I’ve got
to up the score a little.
Limited:
4.8/5 - Slightly lower than I last scored it because I
forgot that with the Fighting- and the Grass-Type
support, you still might have enough reason to risk
running say Lucario-EX or Heracross-EX
should you be so lucky as to pull a second Pokémon-EX. Lucario-EX
has built in draw while Heracross-EX has built in
damage reduction with its first attack and exploits
Weakness. Other Grass-Type attackers might be a slight
problem, especially Leafeon (XY: Furious Fists
7/111) because Eevee (XY: Furious Fists
80/111) makes it easier to get Leafeon out. All
in all though, Quaking Punch to block what few Items the
opponent has and then shift to Grenade Hammer for a
barrage of 130 damage shots with no drawback due to your
lack of Bench.
Summary:
Seismitoad-EX has had a major impact on the game
and is worthy of being our second place finisher, though
it only made my list at number six. Sounds terribly low
but again, it missed the first half of this year plus
while its fairly general usage, it still isn’t as easy
to fit into most decks as Lysandre, Startling
Megaphone, or tomorrow’s card. I also feel it
important to mention I don’t like the direction it takes
the game, but at the same time realize its probably
keeping some other problem cards in check.
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