aroramage |
Hey guys, welcome back to yet another week of Pokemon
cards from Furious Fists! Today's card is Dedenne, the
world's first Electric/Fairy type, and I'll be honest, I
thought about putting this guy on my Top 10 List a few
weeks ago. Does this little guy really have that much
going for him? Let's see how!
Dedenne is a small non-evolving Basic at 70 HP, but he's
got two attacks that are both 1 Colorless Energy in
cost. First thing that comes to mind is his ability to
be splashed into literally any deck, and that's an
unusual thing for Pokemon cards. You'd expect that kind
of splashability out of a Trainer card or a Special
Energy like Rainbow, but rarely does it come from a
Pokemon; one of the more recent exceptions might be
Seismitoad-EX with his Item-locking attack. But do
either of Dedenne's moves help put him in that niche?
His first move, Entrainment, is a "Call for Family"
variant that nabs 2 Basic Pokemon from your deck and
puts them on your Bench. We've seen this before on a
number of Pokemon, the most famous of which being Emolga
(LTR) who has no Retreat Cost unlike every other Pokemon
that wields this attack. Dedenne is no exception, as he
has a Retreat Cost of 1, and that's why Emolga remains
the best Caller currently; all he has to do is grab 2
Basics like the Pokemon-EX, put them on the Bench, and
he's done.
Dedenne does have something that Emolga doesn't though,
and that's where his second attack comes in: Energy
Short. This attack costs the same as Entrainment and
does 20 damage for each Energy on the opponent's Active
Pokemon. When I'd first read that, I misread it as a
Mewtwo-EX X Ball variant that dealt 20 damage for each
Energy attached to both Pokemon - which would have been
phenomenal! But this is where Dedenne falls short, since
its text limits it to just the opponent's Active
Pokemon, which unless you're running into something like
Keldeo-EX that uses up a lot of Energy to bring out
super-powerful attacks, chances are you're only doing 60
damage at the most (120 on Electric-Weak Pokemon like
Yveltal-EX).
Dedenne could've been fantastic tech against Yveltal-EX
otherwise, but his attacks don't do quite enough. Maybe
30 damage per Energy would've been seen as too much, and
if it were on the level of X Ball, that would be
understandable, but right now Dedenne just doesn't match
up to his competitors like he could have. Never mind
that he's weak to what is a very popular Type right,
whereas Emolga is Resistant to it. Maybe one day Dedenne
could be in the spotlight, but for now he's gonna have
to crawl back into the burrows.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (two cheap attacks that are just done
better by other Pokemon)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (I don't see him doing much more here in
Standard)
Limited: 3/5 (a nice surprise against an opponent with a
bunch of Energy on their Active, and it can inflict
decent damage onto them too)
Arora Notealus: Dedenne's our Gen VI "Pika-clone," but
he can communicate to others via radio waves. I'm
willing to bet he was used as a portable radio tower for
a number of things, maybe even that mysterious "Pokemon
war" that Lt. Surge alluded to so many years ago...
Next Time: You are getting veeeeeerrryyyyyy
sleeeeeeepyyyyyyy~
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Otaku |
Dedenne
(XY: Furious Fists 34/111) is our review to begin
the week. It is a Lightning-Type, which is not very
well supported save that exploiting Lightning-Type
Weakness is still pretty good. Being a Basic is still
the best but having 70 HP is not; at this size its a
highly probable OHKO against most competitive decks
unless their set-up is incomplete. Fighting Weakness
means the most common attackers such decks open with
have to almost completely whiff on opens to fail for the
OHKO; a single Strong Energy or Muscle Band
means a 20 for one attack becomes 40 which Weakness
turns into 80. The Metal Resistance is welcome, though
I do not know how useful it will really be with the
current card pool or the cards HP; a Metal-Type deck
that can manage 90 in one turn (a typical feat) is still
scoring a OHKO. Metal Resistance may prove better after
XY: Phantom Forces becomes legal, given that the
set bolsters Metal-Types in addition to the main focus
of Psychic-Types. The single Energy Retreat Cost is
very good, though a free Retreat Cost would not only
have been better, but will be somewhat relevant… but I
have to set up for why that is.
Dedenne
has two attacks, both of which require just [C] to use;
any Energy card that lacks an attachment restriction
gives you full access to Dedenne, which is
especially important for a Basic that doesn’t Evolve as
they are more likely to be splashed into off-type decks
than an Evolution line that, by its nature, is more
resource intensive. The first attack is Entrainment,
which snags two Pokémon from your deck and Benches them.
This kind of attack used to be fairly good and is still
handy, but the same first turn rule that protects
Dedenne from being KOed before it can attack also
means if you open with it and go first, its probably
just going to be a sacrifice, barely buying you any
time. The second attack does a respectable 20 points of
damage per Energy attached to the Defending Pokémon.
This does mean that you cannot score any damage against
something with no Energy attached, but for the price
this is still very good.
Not too long ago, we reviewed Hawlucha (XY:
Furious Fists 63/111); if you missed it or need a
refresher,
here
you go. The two cards have many similarities; and each
has something the other lacks; both can frustratingly
lack a good offensive attack due to built in
restrictions (Hawlucha can’t damage anything that
isn’t a Pokémon-EX, Dedenne anything lacking
attached Energy) and are useful because they do multiple
things well, instead of doing anyone thing extremely
well. If Dedenne had a free Retreat Cost, making
it a pivot Pokémon, it could easily have been a staple
(give or take some specific decks that would have no use
for it). Exploiting Lightning Weakness isn’t as big of
a deal as it was pre-rotation, but it is still present
on a decent amount of cards. Those that attack for a
single Energy and/or that are not Pokémon-EX aren’t
going to sweat it, but fortunately I am thinking mostly
of Yveltal-EX. Even without Weakness, trading a
Dedenne for either the first or second half of a
2HKO against a Mewtwo-EX can work out in your
favor.
I still fixate on that Retreat Cost because it, coupled
with Fighting Resistance, are why I can still see
running Emolga (BW: Dragons Exalted
45/124; BW: Legendary Treasures 49/113; RC23/25).
The card lacks a potentially potent offense and
requires [L] if you wish to do damage, but if you just
are looking for something to help set-up and provide a
pivot Pokémon, it does that quite well. As I value
Energy Short as much as I value Entrainment, I still
think Dedenne is the real winner, but there are
just enough times in my own use of the card that I’ve
really needed a free Retreat Cost (without any sort of
combo) to perhaps make me focus on it a bit too much.
So in Standard, if you need something small that any
Energy intensive Pokémon (and especially the Lightning
Weak ones) will not like while also giving you the
option of getting some Basic Pokémon on your Bench via
attack, Dedenne is well worth considering. Not
all decks need both aspects, but most can make use of
one. The card actually improves in Expanded as it can
be searched out via Level Ball; Level Ball
lessens the need for Entrainment, but makes the card
much more useful as a tech attacker, which I consider to
be a net gain. In Limited, the only reason to skip this
card is because you pulled a Pokémon-EX worth running as
your only Basic Pokémon in a deck. Even with the focus
on Fighting-Types making the Weakness a huge liability,
Entrainment and Entrapment (and just being a decent
sized Basic for this format) make it a must run outside
of that specific instance.
Ratings
Standard:
3.5/5
Expanded:
3.75/5
Limited:
4.9/5
Summary:
A card that performs well across the board, not only
among the formats but within them as well; those are
generic scores and not something deck specific,
though exact build will vary performance by up to a full
point of difference. The main reason not to run this
card is your deck is so full of even better cards that
there just isn’t the room for it… and even though I have
scored it fairly well, that is indeed going to be the
case in many decks. It is an Uncommon, so getting at
least one is a must and having more than that a wise
decision; being relatively attainable means you might as
well be prepared in case the metagame shifts back to
something like the Yveltal-EX dominance we saw
towards the end of the previous format.
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