aroramage |
When spooky scary things come to mind, aren't they
normally lit up by candlelight? When you think about it,
it's kinda...well, spooky. Welcome back to another card
of the day, which today naturally is the mysterious
Chandelure! You might wanna keep a good hold on your
soul - he might just snag it when you're not looking!
His main attack is Cursed Drop, which is rather
interesting as it spreads out 60 damage on all your
opponent's Pokemon in any way you like. I always thought
these kinds of attacks were interesting, since you could
choose whether to stack them all on one big threat or
work them onto multiple targets to set-up for KOs
galore. It's a shame the attack costs 3, but at least
with Dimension Valley that gets lowered to 2. Then
again, I don't think you'd wanna make him your main
attacker, and he's not gonna stave off the opponent's
onslaught.
Or could he? Chandelure has an Ability, Fainting Spell,
which may make the opponent reconsider their attacking
option. It's a 50/50 chance of dragging the opposing
Pokemon down into the discard pile with Chandelure -
think Destiny Bond, only it works half of the time and
without the Speed guesswork. Now it's not gonna decide
games most of the time, and it's probably not gonna keep
your opponent from attacking - after all, if
Chandelure's gone, then the threat of Fainting Spell
isn't a factor, and even if they do lose one attacker
and 1-2 Prizes, they've probably got more in the wings
ready to go. Either way, you're gonna need something to
keep up with that Chandelure.
Maybe a Pumpkaboo or Joltik to feed on that Lampent's
Night March? Assuming you didn't just skate right past
to the Chandelure with Rare Candy.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (I like the design of this card, giving
you options while forcing your opponent to contend with
chance-based conditions; shame it's a 50/50 though)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (probably would rate higher given Level
Ball can search out Lampent with ease for evolving, but
he's about as effective here as ever)
Limited: 3/5 (while slower here, he does have enough of
a presence for set-ups and KOs, so maybe a thought for
support)
Arora Notealus: Remember that tidbit about hanging onto
your soul? That's cause when Chandelure burns you, it's
not your body it's burning - it's your soul! At least,
that's what the Dex says...kinda wonder how they figured
that out...
Next Time: Like a shadow in the night, he flies until-!!
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Otaku |
Chandelure
(XY: Phantom Forces 43/119) is our Wednesday
review this week. That purple card background tells us
what the symbol in the corner confirms; this is a
Psychic-Type. They got some support in XY: Phantom
Forces which is neither useless nor obviously
mindblowing; I think that is probably for the best in
the long run. In terms of Weakness and Resistance,
assuming the card does damage you’ll enjoy a x2
multiplier against popular Pokémon like Mewtwo-EX
and Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) as well as a good chunk
of Psychic-Types and of Fighting-Types in general…
though Psychic Weakness is hardly universal among either
of those TCG Types as besides the dual-Types that used
to regularly provide abnormal (and sometimes quite
useful) alternate Type/Weakness/Resistance combinations,
both the TCG Psychic- and Fighting-Types are made up of
three distinct video game Types that don’t always share
the same Weakness as the video game Type for which the
TCG Type is named after. Resistance is normally
infrequent but against Psychic-Types it is almost
universal on Darkness-Types and Metal-Types, though
Yveltal-EX happens to be a notable exception.
Chandelure
is a Stage 2 Pokémon. Sadly this is a serious issue as
Stage 2 Pokémon are very hard to use right now; the
short version is that Stage 2 decks have more
complicated set-ups and are more dependent on Items than
other Stages so not only do you have the crazy fast pace
the game adopted years ago and refuses to abandon, but
Seismitoad-EX means that Item lock is a regular
part of the game. Chandelure also has 130 HP;
enough to have a reasonable chance of surviving one hit
if Weakness isn’t a factor. “Reasonable” in this case
means something along the lines of “My opponent isn’t
running a deck designed for OHKOs and isn’t running or
at least getting their full set-up or able to exploit
Weakness”; 130 won’t seem like much given the resources
going into getting Chandelure into play.
Darkness Weakness ensures that some popular attackers
can threaten it with less than major efforts - a minimum
strength Evil Ball by Yveltal-EX will fall just
10 points of damage shy of scoring a OHKO, and quite a
few cards can make up that shortfall. Resistance
normally isn’t a major factor, but while 130 HP isn’t
much it is high enough that an additional -20 comes in
real handy in key match-ups. The Retreat Cost of [CC]
isn’t bad but it isn’t good either; thankfully a single
Mystery Energy zeroes it out, along with many
other effects, and even if you don’t do that most decks
should have at least a few options to change out the
Active.
Chandelure
enjoys an Ability and a single attack. The Ability -
Fainting Spell - triggers when Chandelure is KOed
by damage from an opponent’s attack. This is a little
trickier than it sounds; besides obviously preventing
you from using your own card effect to KO your own
Chandelure, it means effects (including Special
Conditions and damage counter placement sans actual
damage) won’t trigger Fainting Spell. Damage
originating from something other than the attack of an
opponent’s Pokémon (your own attacks, Abilities,
Trainers, etc.) won’t trigger either and if there is a
way for an opponent’s attack do do damage during your
turn (there is in Unlimited) that wouldn’t trigger
Fainting Spell either. For practical intents and
purposes, the main concern is Hypnotoxic Laser
finishing off Chandelure between turns via Item
inflicted Poison. Still your opponent is probably going
to trigger this effect more often than not, in which
case you get to… flip a coin. On “tails” the Ability
does nothing but on “heads” the attacking Pokémon is
KOed as well. Pretty unreliable, but when it works that
is a pretty useful effect.
The attack that goes along with it is Cursed Drop to
place 6 damage counters how you like on your opponent’s
Pokémon, which means a single target can receive all six
or you can split it up how you see fit. The Energy cost
is [PCC] which is pretty terrible, all things
considered. Not only will it take time to power-up, but
you’re talking a 3HKO against anything with more than
120 HP, which includes not only Pokémon-EX but a lot of
attacking big (plain) Basic Pokémon and Evolutions.
There is some synergy between the attack and Ability as
you can avoid damaging something you hope is being KOed
by Fainting Spell, but you are really overpaying… even
with the obvious combo of Dimension Valley to cut
the cost down to [PC]... which still is ultimately
overpriced factoring in the realities of the game.
There are a couple tweaks that might make this work
better, but that’s Create-A-Card territory and today I
don’t feel like indulging.
So let’s move onto related cards and then combos and see
if we can make things work a little better… and hinting
at such things, I’ll actually be covering Litwick
in detail, even though it is somewhat prolific; though
its a Gen V Pokémon it has a total of seven different
versions in the TCG. Not seven releases in which some
are reprints, not with only some released outside of
Japan, but a full seven releases: BW: Noble Victories
57/101, BW: Noble Victories 58/101, BW Black
Star Promos BW27*, BW: Next Destinies 18/99,
BW: Plasma Storm 21/135, BW: Plasma Freeze
14/116 and XY: Phantom Forces 41/119. Only the
last three are Standard legal, but as the Pokémon itself
is so recent you can use any of these in Expanded. All
are Basic Pokémon with a Retreat Cost of [C] and no
Abilities. BW: Noble Victories 57/101, BW:
Noble Victories 58/101, BW Black Star Promos
BW27* and XY: Phantom Forces 41/119 are
Psychic-Types with 50 HP and Darkness Weakness while
BW: Next Destinies 18/99, BW: Plasma Storm
21/135 and BW: Plasma Freeze 14/116 are
Fire-Types with 60 HP and Water Weakness. XY:
Phantom Forces 41/119 is the only version with
Resistance, specifically to Fighting.
In terms of attacks they are… surprisingly better than
most Evolving Basics though still underpowered. For
[CC], BW: Noble Victories 57/101 can use Searing
Flames for 20 damage and a chance of inflicting Burn;
not great but a Double Colorless Energy plus
Muscle Band will allow it to make a surprise OHKO
against a Trubbish while using a Silver Bangle
would score 100 (possibly with Burn) against the likes
of a Mewtwo-EX (against a Mew-EX, you
might even get an effective OHKO). BW: Noble
Victories 58/101 can use Teleport Burst for [P],
scoring 10 points of damage while getting itself to the
Bench. BW Black Star Promos BW27* has Call For
Family to search out and Bench a Basic Pokémon from your
deck at a cost of [C] as well as Will-O-Wisp for [PC]
that does 20 points of damage; its the first attack I
care about as that can allow it to aid in set-up even if
it won’t likely survive the process. BW: Next
Destinies 18/99 has Flare for [R] which does… 10
points of damage. BW: Plasma Storm 21/135 has
Surprise Attack, also for [R] and it does 20… but fails
if you get “tails” on a mandatory coin flip. BW:
Plasma Freeze 14/116 can also attack for [R]; this
time it is Singe which also requires a coin flip to
work, but this time it inflicts Burn. For [RC] it
simply can use Live Coal for 20 points of damage. XY:
Phantom Forces 41/119 has just one attack, Trip
Over, that costs [P] and is good for 10 damage, plus
another 10 if you get “heads” on a required coin toss.
Lampent
only gives us five total options - BW: Noble
Victories 59/101, BW: Next Destinies 19/99,
BW: Plasma Storm 22/135, BW: Plasma Freeze
15/116 and XY: Phantom Forces 42/119 - but again
for reasons you likely have already deduced, I’ll be
covering them in detail again, but they have enough
differences I can’t apply any broad statement to them
other than all are Stage 1 Pokémon. BW: Noble
Victories 59/101 is a Psychic-Type with 80 HP,
Darkness Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [C]
and two attacks: Luring Light for [C] lets you switch
the Defending Pokémon with something on your opponent’s
Bench (handy) while for [PC] its Will-O-Wisp hits for 30
(poor). BW: Next Destinies 19/99 is a Fire-Type
with 80 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat
Cost of [C] and just one attack: Ember does 40 for [RC],
but you have to flip a coin and if it is “tails” then
you discard an Energy from it. These two are Expanded
(and Unlimited) only, for the record; the next three are
legal in all three constructed formats. Surprisingly,
BW: Noble Victories 59/101 was reviewed before
here.
BW: Plasma Storm
22/135 has a lower 70 HP but the same Water Weakness,
lack of Resistance and single Energy Retreat Cost, then
further shakes things up by having the Ability “Freefloating”
that zeroes out its own Retreat Cost if it has no Energy
attached to itself, plus Will-O-Wisp again, this time 20
for [RC]. BW: Plasma Freeze 15/116 is another
Fire-Type, back up to 80 HP and still having Water
Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [C], but it
has two attacks: for [CC] its Live Coal hits for 20 and
for [RCC] its searing flame hits for 40 and inflicts
Burn (no coin flip required). XY: Phantom Forces
42/119 is back to being a Psychic-Type and unfortunately
back to having just 70 HP and Darkness Resistance,
enjoys Fighting Resistance but then also gets the minor
inconvenience of a Retreat Cost of [CC]. Its attacks
are Cursed Drop for [P] to place 3 damage counters how
you wish on the opponent’s Pokémon (why does an
additional [CC] only place three more damage counters on
Chandelure from the same set then?) and the thing
that ties this into Monday’s CotD, Nightmarch for [PCC]
which if you somehow forgot, does 20 damage times the
number of Pokémon in your discard pile with their own
copy of Night March. I little less surprising to me
since it has an Ability, BW: Plasma Storm 22/135
was reviewed before
here.
So as you definitely should realize by now, we are going
to look at ways to allow Chandelure to use the
attacks from its lower Stages… as well as satisfy my
often unreasonable desire to be thorough (at
least before my other desire to be lazy kicks in
and supersedes it). Speaking of being thorough, we
might as well go through the other options for
Chandelure as well: BW: Noble Victories
60/101, BW: Next Destinies 20/99, BW: Next
Destinies 101/99 and BW: Plasma Freeze
16/116. BW: Noble Victories 60/101 are BW:
Next Destinies 101/99 just alternate versions of the
same card, and have the same Stage, Type, HP, Weakness,
Resistance and Retreat Cost as today’s version.
When this version is Active, it can use its Cursed
Shadow Ability to place three damage counters on your
opponent’s Pokémon how you wish but Cursed Shadow is a
once-per-turn effect. Fortunately not in the universal
sense; if you have more than one Chandelure in
play with this Ability, so long as you can get more than
one Active in a turn (such as by having one Active, then
retreating to another copy), you can use each copy’s
Cursed Shadow. The attack is Eerie Glow, which does 50
points of damage for [PPC] plus both Confuses and Burns
the Defending Pokémon. This card has actually been
reviewed twice;
here
for the original and
here
for the Secret Rare reprint. I seem to recall it having
a solid deck, at least for a time, in terms of
competitive play, though its pretty poor now unless a
different version makes good in a manner that could
justify a TecH copy (hint: I don’t have a suggestion
like that).
BW: Next Destinies
20/99 is a Fire-Type Stage 2 Pokémon with 120 HP, Water
Weakness, no Resistance and a Retreat Cost of [CC]. The
HP is just a tiny bit worse, the Water Weakness a little
safer, but neither are really major traits to worry
about. The first attack is Flame Burst, good for 30 to
the Defending Pokémon and another 30 to up to two of
your opponent’s Benched Pokémon (your choice if there
are more than two present). Technically a 90-for-1
attack isn’t as good as it might sound since it doesn’t
put enough pressure on the Active and only on the Bench
with proper combos. Inferno, with a cost of [RC] does
80 with the option of discarding all of the Energy
attached to this Chandelure to inflict Burn, a
somewhat safe choice given Chandelure isn’t too
likely to survive being attacked. I believe this saw a
tiny bit of competitive play as the one attacking
Chandelure paired up with multiple copies of BW:
Noble Victories 60/101 (and/or BW: Next Destinies
101/99). This might be why it also received two
reviews: first
here
and then
here.
Don’t worry about running this one.
That just leaves BW: Plasma Freeze 16/116 is a
Team Plasma Pokémon, with the benefits and penalties
associated by their support and counters. Back up to
130 HP but sporting Water Weakness and no Resistance
(plus the usual Retreat Cost of [CC]), this version also
goes back to having an Ability: Flare Navigation is a
once-per-turn-per copy Ability (at least this one
doesn’t require it be Active) that allows you to search
your deck for a [R] Energy card to attach to one of your
Pokémon, with the small additional drawback of placing a
damage counter on the recipient. For [RRC] its Absorb
Life attack hits for 70 while healing 30 from itself, a
decent combo with its own effect; if you had to you
could power up entirely but then heal all damage. I had
hope for this card but it never saw much success nor do
I expect it too enjoy it in the future. The Energy
acceleration and making yourself a bit easier to KO (or
rather making sure your opponent isn’t KOing you with
Poison damage between turns) does combo somewhat with
today’s card, but splitting the line and having to work
in Fire Energy (or focused on Fire Energy
and run a source of [P] Energy) doesn’t seem worth it.
So with all that out of the way (and realizing after
midnight that I never went back and finished this), I
suspect the best way to play Chandelure is to use
Dimension Valley plus Celebi-EX so that it
can use the attacks from its lower Stages, the most
obvious being Night March because while setting up is
incredibly difficult, the reward is the chance to both
OHKO Pokémon-EX with your attack and then OHKO them with
your Ability. Yes, a bit anticlimactic after all that
build up; the Litwick are relevant because
sometimes Night March won’t be ready and but some other
effect like searching out a Basic, hitting for small but
reliable damage or hitting and heading to the Bench are
lifesavers. Soon we’ll have Shrine of Memories
(though it’ll be a bit longer after that before its
legal for tournament play); you can get rid of the
Lysandre bait that is Celebi-EX and use it to
access the attacks of lower Stages, but in doing so you
have to give up your main Energy acceleration (or rather
attack cost reduction) via Dimension Valley. The
other other option is to try and run a good hit-and-run
style attacker and just send Chandelure up as a
sacrifice; Donphan (BW: Plasma Storm
72/135) for example. This seems far less effective than
other options, though.
Ratings
Standard:
1.5/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
So after a thorough dissection, even though Fainting
Spell was something to fear when an earlier incarnation
of it appeared on a different Pokémon in a different
format, the terrible attack and risk involved giving
Chandelure access to a good attack seem like too
much to strive for in a format where Item and/or Ability
lock are popular. Maybe try this for some fun, if you
love truly complicated decks or all-or-nothing coin
flips or both… unless it is Limited where the short
version is the HP lasts longer, the attacks are being
made against lower HP targets, hitting the Bench is at a
premium and it will be hard for the opponent to bypass
Fainting Spell.
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