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Our second candidate this week has no connection to the first save
being from the same set: Glaceon (XY: Furious
Fists 19/111). It does have connections to Eevee
(XY: Furious Fists 80/111) - reviewed already
here
- and Sylveon (XY: Furious Fists 72/111) -
reviewed
here;
I won’t be going into those cards (or other Eeveelutions)
since they were already addressed (yes, the Eevee
review covers all Standard and Expanded legal Eeveelutions
in brief). Also be aware that these reviews aren’t
going to really factor in XY: Phantom Forces; I
don’t have enough data to do anything but speculate and
even I don’t trust my past speculations enough to try
and anticipate where the game will be once that set is
legal for Organized Play tournaments.
Glaceon is a Water-Type Pokémon, and that’s useful for hitting some
Fighting-Types and most Fire-Types for Weakness; right
now this is mostly a boon for smacking Landorus-EX
and Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106) for
double damage, maybe some splashed in Fire-Type
attackers meant to punish the likes of Genesect-EX
and Virizion-EX. Water-Types have some support,
but most of it seems to be Evolution based and
Evolutions aren’t doing the greatest right now. The
future might be promising, however; while no new Type
support is coming, XY: Phantom Forces contains
Metal-Type support; much like the popularity of VirGen
decks, something strong and Fire Weak will likely
encourage the play of more (almost always Water Weak)
Fire-Types.
Being a Stage 1 is a drawback but it isn’t impossible to overcome
and in this case the previously mentioned Eevee
can speed things up so that you’re not out a turn to
Evolve (though its still two cards for one Pokémon).
The 90 HP is small; not the worst we’ve seen on Stage 1
Pokémon, but it means only a deck that isn’t fully
set-up or that isn’t trying to win via a straight up
assault is going to fail at the OHKO. The Metal
Weakness is another area where I’ll take a stab at
predicting future trends, but mostly because I’m
actually relying on old ones. Right now Metal Weakness
is one of the safer ones (relatively speaking) but XY:
Phantom Forces means new support for Metal-Types and
people like to play with those new toys even if they
don’t prove worthwhile in the long run (and some look to
have real potential). The lack of Resistance is
disappointing but unlikely to be critical, and the
single Energy Retreat Cost is very good.
Glaceon has two attacks; for [W] Blizzard does 30 points of damage to the
opponent’s Active Pokémon and 10 to each Benched
Pokémon. I really liked this attack when I first saw
it, hoping to use it for inexpensive spread shenanigans,
but doing damage to Benched Pokémon is easily thwarted
by both Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) and the Stadium Mountain Ring. Of course
you can counter those counters, and even with them
existing, for just [W] that is an excellent attack. For
[WCC] the second attack - Ice Edge - does 60 damage with
an additional 30 on a successful coin toss. Simply put,
you should be getting at least the 90 before the
coin flip, plus something I have been a bit slow to
realize and remiss for not stressing sooner, three
Energy on a probable OHKO Stage 1 (even one that is a
bit easier to get into play) is itself a bit riskier, so
to be competitive in the current environment, you’ve got
to do something really special. Still, Ice Edge has its
uses, mostly against Water Weak Pokémon when its worth
“overpaying” for the OHKO.
So does Glaceon have a use? Yes and no; it is the only
source of spread for Eeveelutions but because
there is only so much room for Eeveelutions, you
can’t afford to run all of them. There are even two
other options for Glaceon: BW: Dark Explorers
30/108 (and its reprint BW Promos BW90) and
BW: Plasma Freeze 23/116). They have the same
Attributes as today’s card, save for a Retreat Cost of
two on BW: Plasma Freeze 23/116 (that version’s
Ability will cause to function as a free Retreat Cost).
BW: Plasma Freeze 23/116 and its Ability are
great if you’re running enough Team Plasma Pokémon (Team
Plasma Pokémon pay [CC] less to retreat), though with
its attack only doing 60 plus Sleep for [WCC] it isn’t
really worth it as a “pivot” Pokémon in a deck with few
or no other Team Plasma Pokémon. Otherwise BW: Dark
Explorers 30/108 and BW Promos BW90 might
have slight value as an inexpensive attacker, as for [C]
it does a 10 (+30 on a successful coin toss) or a
reliable 40 for [WC] while moving an Energy from itself
to something on your Bench. If it hit just a bit harder
with either attack so that you didn’t have to layer on a
Silver Bangle, Hypnotoxic Laser and
Virbank City Gym in play to OHKO 170 HP Water Weak
Pokémon-EX, it actually might have worked as a situation
specific glass cannon.
So while the other two Glaceon aren’t overly likely to crowd
it out, what about the other Eeveelutions? That
was why the answer was “yes and no” for Glaceon
usage; the niche spot for “Water Weakness exploitation”
is occupied by Vaporeon (BW: Plasma Freeze
20/116); unless a deck runs no other Team Plasma support
this is clearly the best Water-Type attacker as it can
power-up in a single turn (via a manual Energy
attachment and Colress Machine/Plasma Energy)
and can use Deoxys EX or Muscle Band or
Silver Bangle to buff its Gold Breaker into OHKO
territory against Water Weak Pokémon-EX. It still
delivers a solid shot to most other Pokémon-EX (Virizion-EX
is annoying with its Water Resistance) but must rely on
such boosting against non-Pokémon-EX: not ideal, but
much more useful than what Glaceon offers. As
stated, I tried going the spread damage route while
skipping most of the other Eeveelutions but
either you’re at the mercy of Mr. Mime or you’re
building a deck more suited for Gourgeist (XY
57/146). Dusknoir (BW: Boundaries Crossed
63/149; BW: Plasma Blast 104/101) is pretty happy
with Glaceon but Seismitoad-EX is making
it painful to play Stage 2 Pokémon… and without the
ability to re-arrange that damage it likely won’t accrue
fast enough to take the needed KOs.
Ratings
Standard: 2/5 - Perhaps a
bit generous but Glaceon is a really solid spread
attacker; if it placed damage counters for hits to the
Bench and Seismitoad-EX wasn’t making Evolving so
difficult, Glaceon might have proven competitive.
Expanded: 2.25/5 - The
addition of Level Ball is not to be ignored, plus
a few of the worthwhile, returned Pokémon are lower HP
Bench-sitters, though such decks will almost certainly
have Mr. Mime or Mountain Ring to deal
with Bench damage.
Limited: 4.9/5 - Only skip this if you are certain you can build a
mono-Basic Pokémon (“+39”) deck… and even then make sure
its one of the better choices for such a task.
Everything else, make space for Eevee and some
Water Energy.
Summary: Glaceon is a card that is both a disappointing and
inspiring; close to being an appropriately powerful card
worth competitive play, it misses out in part due to
counters meant to handle far more abusive cards and the
raw power of several other more abusive cards… and that
only happens because the design team seemed to
preemptively “nerf” Glaceon, giving it a great
lower Stage, a lot of combo potential, a good spread
attack… but an overpriced follow-up second attack that
lacks any synergy beyond “it hits harder than the other
attack”.
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