aroramage |
Welcome back to our Top 10 list for the new Phantom
Forces set, or more specifically welcome to our Top 5
picks for the Phantom Forces set! Today we're taking a
look at the other Steel EX in the set, a fan favorite in
Aegislash-EX! Last week we reviewed Dialga-EX, noting
how good it was with the support and its Ability to stop
EXs from striking back - but Aegislash-EX can do more!
Much more!
For starters, let's take a look at his attack, Slash
Blast. You'll note that this is a completely Colorless
attack, but this is also a Hydro Pump-esque attack; so
while it does cost 3-for-40, it does more damage if
you've got Metal Energies attached to it - 20 more for
each one, to be exact. We've seen examples of Hydro
Pump-esque attacks be successful when combined with the
right support - just take a look at Blastoise and
Keldeo-EX! And luckily for him, Aegislash-EX got just
the support he needs to make his 3-for-40 become a
3-for-100! Never mind any other boosts and the plethora
of energy you could attach to him - keeping in mind
counters like Mewtwo-EX and Yveltal-EX exist.
Or can they? Aegislash-EX has more than just a mighty
offense, with an Ability that could easily make him one
of the best defenses there is too: Mighty Shield. With
it, Aegislash-EX no longer takes any damage from your
opponent's Pokemon with Special Energy attached - at
all! Remember how in the last set we saw the rise of
Fighting decks because of a little something called
Strong Energy? Remember how we started out the XY block
with the re-release of Rainbow Energy? Have you been
paying attention and seen that DCE has been reprinted in
this set? That means we've got a LOT of Special Energy
floating around in the format, which means an unwary
opponent may find that they won't be able to touch
Aegislash-EX at all!
Of course, Aegislash-EX's Ability isn't full-proof;
he still takes damage from anything without a Special
Energy attached, and Mewtwo-EX/Yveltal-EX aren't always
guaranteed to have one on them (usually they don't;
Mewtwo-EX may have a DCE, but Yveltal-EX only really
needs a Darkness and another Basic to work his Evil
Ball). And even for all his strengths, he can still be
cut off offensively by Pyroar (FLF) or have his Ability
shut-down by Garbodor (LTR) - the latter may even have
already shown up in Fighting Decks to beat the former,
and Aegislash-EX won't be immune to that!
Still, as far as a colossal Offense-Defense headliner
for Metal decks, Aegislash-EX fits the bill far better
than any other Metal-EX in Standard or Expanded, making
him the perfect candidate to let the machines rise up
and take control of the format! Or at the very least put
a damper in the plans of any Fighting deck not running
Garbodor.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (a strong and very capable offensive
force with a powerful defense to bring Metal decks just
what they need)
Expanded: 4/5 (right about the same here, though
keeping in mind Rayquaza-EX doesn't usually have a
Special Energy on him)
Limited: 4.5/5 (though there are only 2 Special
Energies in the set, having an attack that can deal 100
damage at the lowest is almost a guaranteed victory in
this format - never mind the additional support to speed
things up!)
Arora Notealus: I think everyone liked Aegislash the
moment they saw he was a ghost sword and shield. Really,
the whole evolutionary line was awesome, and the fact
that he's a powerhouse in the video games AND he's
becoming a powerhouse in the TCG makes me happy that
he's not just a gimmick anymore.
Next Time: Wait, who are you again? You work for Team
Flare?
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Otaku |
We begin the second week of our Top 10 Promising Picks
of XY: Phantom Forces with our fifth place
choice! As a reminder, reprint cards were not eligible
for the Top 10 list, which was created through each
member of the review crew submitting their own Top 10
list to Pojo, who then averages them out to produce the
master Top 10 list we use for the review order. The
official release date for this set in the U.S. was
November 5th, so XY: Phantom Forces cards aren’t
tournament legal until November 21st; however we’ll be
scoring them as if they were.
Aegislash-EX
(XY: Phantom Forces 65/119) takes the fifth place
spot. As per usual, being a Pokénon-EX is mostly a
drag: giving up an extra Prize when KOed, not being able
to use certain support cards and being vulnerable to
anti-Pokémon-EX effect. Pokémon-EX have (so far) been
endowed with more HP than their non-Pokémon-EX
counterparts, even bypassing the maximum printed amount
for anything other than Mega Evolutions and Wailord
(BW: Dragons Exalted 26/124). This isn’t
automatic as some Pokémon-EX are quite “tiny” by modern
standards (Jirachi-EX). Pokémon-EX often have
better attacks and/or Abilities than their regular
counterparts as well, but again this isn’t a guarantee.
The one inherent advantage is those that would normally
be an Evolution (like Aegislash-EX) are instead a
Basic Pokémon, enjoying the inherent advantages Basics
have over Evolutions: space (one slot=one copy), speed
(no waiting to Evolve) and synergy (many effects simply
favor Basics).
Aegislash-EX
is a Metal-Type, and as we already mentioned various
past reviews, like that of Dialga-EX (click
here
if you need a refresher or missed it), this set provided
a lot of direct and indirect support for the Metal and
the Psychic-Type, and in the case of the Metal-Types
they are probably going to be heavily played both
because it is (overall) good support plus
provides new “toys” for those looking for a bit of a
change, even if they want to use some older cards.
Metal Weakness is out there and until now its usually
been one of the “safer” ones to have, relatively
speaking. Now though, while It still isn’t as dangerous
as Fighting Weakness, its up there… which is good for
this card! What isn’t as good is that Metal Resistance
has become a “thing” again on many Lightning-Type
Pokémon released in the XY-series. Resistance is far
easier to cope with than Weakness, so especially with
the Type support its good to be Metal.
As for the card’s own Weakness and Resistance… it has
both! Before celebrating the presence of the oft
missing Weakness, lets cover the potentially dangerous
Weakness: Fire. Why do I say “potentially dangerous”?
Fire-Types aren’t as popular as they could be, but if
we get another good Fire Weak deck (in addition to
VirGen) it might be enough that players consider more
Fire Pokémon at serious events again. Fire-Types
actually have some useful tricks and solid attackers,
and as recently as the pre-XY: Furious Fists
days, Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106)
utilizing Fire decks were a major presence. With the
potency of Blacksmith (that now can be reclaimed
via Vs Seeker) they might reignite any moment
(and not necessarily with the same Pokémon line-up).
Psychic Resistance is good for throwing off X-Ball
calculations (and Mewtwo-EX still seems to be a
common play), so while it won’t often be critical, its
handy. Finishing off the Attributes is the Retreat Cost
of [CCC]: most of the time you won’t want to pay it and
might even not be able to, so make sure you’ve got an
out for when Aegislash-EX needs to get to the
Bench. It was probably a must anyway given the current
format (and two or three before it), and in Expanded you
get the bonus of Heavy Ball compliance.
So what does Aegislash-EX do? It has an Ability
called Mighty Shield and it might live up to its name:
attacks against Aegislash-EX do no damage if the
attacking Pokémon has a Special Energy attached… and
Special Energy are likely to remain popular (and potent)
even with Enhanced Hammer returning. A few decks
won’t really care (they use few if any Special Energy)
while others will be totally walled, with most falling
somewhere in between and thus able to get something
ready (eventually) that won’t trigger Mighty Shield. Of
course there are also things like G Booster that
will bypass Mighty Shield even when Genesect-EX
has Special Energy attached. The attack on Aegislash-EX
is not as good as the Ability, but neither is it without
merit. Slash Blast follows a familiar formula of costing
[CCC] and doing a set amount of damage plus more for
each of a specific Energy-Type attached: in this case
its 40 points of base damage plus another 20 per [M]
attached to Aegislash-EX. Of course, without
(potentially resource risky) combos, you’re going to be
doing well to get to 2HKO territory… but if your
opponent can’t damage you back, that is likely enough.
So what decks should run this card? Okay, let us get
the obvious out of the way: Bronzong (XY:
Phantom Forces 61/119) can use this as one of the
many potential attackers. Do I think it is the best?
After seeing Dialga-EX in action a few times
now… I’m not sure. The decks running it that I either
played or saw didn’t run Aegislash-EX or at least
chose never to play it down. With Bronzong
helping to stack Metal Energy cards from the
discard pile on it you can power it up quickly but
again, only to about 2HKO level. If you’re
running something like Keldeo-EX plus Float
Stone so that you can send a surviving one to the
Bench to load up more than once, you can eventually
build to that OHKO level… but at 40 points of base
damage, you’ll need seven total Energy (or six with a
Muscle Band) to OHKO 170 to 180 HP Pokémon-EX. When
its Ability is working or its hitting Weakness (which
are the only times you should be relying on it)... the
damage you get with three or four Metal Energy
attached should be enough.
Less likely to actually work is combining Aegislash-EX
with Klinklang (BW: Plasma Storm 90/135).
Klinklang [Plasma] (or rather its Ability)
protects your Metal-Type Pokémon from damage by the
attacks of Pokémon-EX. Stacking that with Special
Energy protection, and your opponent has to use
non-Pokémon-EX fueled by only Basic Energy cards to do
the deed. Even if they have a Lysandre (or
something that can attack the Bench) handy, unless
you’ve got a non-Metal-Type in play, Pokémon-EX are
still only able to attack for effects and not damage.
Do I think it is a strong play? No, but there is a
strange sort of appeal to it… and in Expanded you’ve got
the option of running Klinklang (Black & White
76/114) with Gear Shift, so that you can move [M] Energy
around. While even clunkier, you could even try to work
in a small Bronzong line (1-1 or 2-2) for a tiny
bit of Energy acceleration. The deck basically
auto-loses to Pyroar (Intimidating Mane version)
and is in trouble if your opponent can keep a
Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) safe with Garbotoxin up
and running… but I find the concept so tempting that
even though I don’t expect much in the way of success, I
want to try it.
Perhaps I should look at an unlikely but still more
plausible niche that falls somewhere between the past
two examples. Certain decks could just use a wall
against Special Energy users. Energy transferring decks
might even attack with it if it would prove beneficial,
but mostly it would be a shield while you set something
else up to score OHKOs. If not clear, I am talking
about using this strategy against decks that have little
or no chance of scoring a OHKO without Special
Energy cards; once Aegislash-EX has finished
stalling (possibly backed by Max Potion) you get
it out of the way and start taking Prizes. For decks
using hit-and-run tactics, its a similar deal except you
are even less likely to ever try and power it up to
attack.
Ratings
Standard:
3.75/5 - Like Dialga-EX it is good when properly
supported, but much less so on its own. It could be
used as a wall without attacking if you have room for
such a thing; but that is more “What to do with it when
my Energy acceleration isn’t available” then “A reason
to run it in everything”.
Expanded:
3.5/5 - Didn’t I come up with a deck for Expanded that
wasn’t also Standard legal? Yes, yes I did, but it was
also a deck I don’t expect to work reliably and even
factoring it in, this format has one or two older decks
run mostly or entirely on Basic Energy cards and at
least one of those - Rayquaza-EX backed by
Eelektrik (BW: Noble Victories 40/101) - is
another deck that will just OHKO Aegislash-EX
through its Ability.
Limited:
3.5/5 - This set has two Special Energy, so sometimes
the Ability can trigger, and you could try to work it
into a regular deck as always, but I don’t know if it is
worth the hassle there (unless your deck was mostly
running Metal Energy to begin with). It should
be a suitable +39 candidate, though as usual the slow
start will give your opponent a window to build up
enough damage to take you down before you can take four
Prizes.
Summary:
A shield and a sword indeed, Aegislash-EX is good
at either… but in a format where cards that see play
need to be great at one or the other. I had this as my
number four pick on my own list and in short, by now I
already believe I overestimated it. Unlike past Pokémon
with similar attacks, Aegislash-EX (in the deck
most likely to run it) can’t shoot for a OHKO via raw
power (and Energy attachments) in a single turn. On the
other hand, its overall use still strikes me as matching
Dialga-EX. They are like two sides of the same
coin: Dialga-EX has some defensive capacity
thanks to its first attack, but its not that great at it
while Aegislash-EX has a magnificent defense but
its lone attack falls a bit short. I think both belong
in Bronzong decks… alongside some other
attackers.
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