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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

 

Miltank

- Flashfire

Date Reviewed:
Jan. 9, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.5
Expanded: 2.5
Limited: 4.0

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst. 
3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Welcome to the last card of the week, and similar to Raichu from the beginning, she had her own time to shine! Sadly though, it was much shorter and much briefer, but you'll see why as we take a look at Miltank!
 
So what does a Basic Pokemon that's not an EX manage to do that at least gives it consideration for one of the best cards of the year? Well let's go over what it's not: the 100 HP, which while fairly nice for a non-EX isn't gonna save you from the massive amounts of damage many MANY Pokemon can achieve rather quickly with Muscle Band, HTLBank, and more notably, Strong Energy; her Fighting Weakness, which very much thanks to the rise of the Fighting Types BECAUSE of things like Strong Energy; and definitely not Hammer In, her 3-for-60 vanilla strike.
 
That means Miltank's got one powerful ally to go with, her first attack Powerful Friends. Now normally, it's a pathetic 1-for-10 attack, but if you've got a Stage 2 buddy hanging around on your Bench, you can ramp up your attack by an extra 70 damage, hitting as a 1-for-80 POW! This was the kind of attack that, in the midst of a sea of EX powerhouses, was bold enough to say, "Hey, here's a reason to try out a Stage 2!"
 
Blastoise, Emboar, Flygon, Hydreigon, Empoleon - there've been several noteworthy Stage 2s in the game as of late, and there will always continue to be Stage 2s, so Miltank will at the very least see casual play. And if it weren't for the intensified presence of Fighting types, she'd probably get teched into more decks on a tournament level - then again, she might already be teched! These days, while Stage 2s aren't the primary focus, the ones that run tend to be supportive, meaning they're usually hanging around on the Bench anyway, so if you wanted to take advantage of that but not use a hefty EX as an attacker, Miltank will at the very least punch very hard!
 
Rating
 
Standard: 3/5 (powerful attack with Stage 2s around, but Fighting type presence means she won't be around long)
 
Expanded: 3/5 (at least there's a few more Stage 2s to work with)
 
Limited: 3.5/5 (with a few Stage 2s around, it'll be a little slower to work with, but still very much worth it)
 
Arora Notealus: Giving Miltank's own proclivity to provide a healthy helpful beverage with her milk as support, it's no wonder she got an attack that would be connected to other Pokemon in some way. Course she'd be better around babies, according to the Dex entries, which would probably translate into this as Basic Pokemon, which I don't get why-ohhhhhh, EXs, right.
 
Weekend Thought: Ever use these cards? Maybe using them right now? What have your experiences been with some of these cards?


Otaku

Our final honorable mention this week is Miltank (XY: Flashfire 83/106), originally reviewed May 15, 2014.  Yet another time when I wasn’t around to review the original card so without further ado: 

Miltank is a Colorless-Type Pokémon, which means you never have to worry about Resistance but you never get to exploit Weakness, and that damage doubling bonus is usually quite important for decks.  The only Type support I can think of is Aspertia City Gym, which is certainly better than nothing but isn’t much.  As a Basic it enjoys a format built around Basics, where Evolving is a serious drawback.  Miltank has 100 HP, enough to survive a hit but usually not when the opposing deck has a substantial set-up… unless your own Fighting-Type Weakness is being exploited.  This was a problem when the year began and just grew more pronounced after XY: Furious Fists was released.  The lack of Resistance is disappointing but at the same time is common, so it isn’t really a detriment so much as a missed opportunity.  The Retreat Cost of two was actually worse when Miltank released as Heavy Ball; a higher cost would have made Miltank easier to search out while a lower one would be lower (its own reward).  It still isn’t good and it was never really bad (most decks pack something to aid or bypass manually retreating), but now there isn’t that missed opportunity. 

Miltank has two attacks and I’ll get the second one (Hammer In) out of the way because its “emergency use only”; [CCC] for 60 is about 30 points below acceptable for competitive play, but since it can use most forms of Energy acceleration and isn’t even worse, sometimes one might drop a Double Colorless Energy onto a Miltank that already had an Energy and go for a quick hit.  The real star is why you would run Miltank at all: Powerful Friends requires [C] and only does 10 damage but if you have a Stage 2 in play, it does an additional 70 points of damage (80 damage total).  With a Muscle Band or Hypnotoxic Laser this is usually enough to 2HKO even competitive Pokémon-EX, and possibly OHKO some smaller-but-still-played Pokémon.  Even without the boost, it will usually set-up for the 2HKO.  So what has changed?  Well besides Fighting-Types getting popular, Seismitoad-EX has made it harder to get Stage 2 Pokémon reliably into play; a format where the aggressive attackers hit harder, faster and where the control decks gain a 180 HP Pokémon-EX that can block Items for [CC] while still scoring 30 points of damage really hurt Stage 2 decks; they are once again all but extinct. 

Breadth: Miltank is nearly a must run for any Stage 2 deck.  There were (and likely still are) exceptions, but for most this was either your opener, closer or even main attacker.  Even when Stage 2 decks were finally becoming more common, they still were the minority, and there usually wasn’t anything “special” decks were inclined to add to counter it. 

Depth: Miltank added an easy to play and power-up attacker for Stage 2 decks; nothing more and nothing less.  Countering it also wasn’t usually a matter of extreme depth; adjust for such hits because often enough Miltank wasn’t adding a new capacity to a deck, just reinforcing the capabilities of the existing deck.  There are a few decks that really did rely on it, though, but overall it wasn’t that deep of a card. 

Time: This is the area where Miltank performs the worst; while it debuted before the halfway point of the year, it basically was only a serious contender from the time of its release until XY: Furious Fists became playable; at most a third of the year. 

Ratings 

Standard: 2/5 - Even now the only real problem for Miltank is finding a Stage 2 partner that can set-up quickly, reliably and hopefully contribute just a little something beyond that to the deck.  There are many options that are almost-but-not-quite there in the light of Item lock, especially that of Seismitoad-EX.  When this card first came out, I would likely have scored it as a four out of five. 

Expanded: 2/5 - As for Standard. 

Limited: 4.5/5 - Obviously something to leave out if you are attempting a +39 deck, but here you would even consider it if you lacked a Stage 2 because 100 HP, using any Energy and 60 for three are decent for filling out your deck.  If you do have a Stage 2 you can fit in, then it becomes amazing, hence the high score. 

Summary: An interesting way of helping Stage Pokémon that I enjoyed running for a few months, Miltank suffers because once again Stage 2 Pokémon suffer.  Part of this I think is how Stage 2 Pokémon lines are made; cards like Miltank and Rare Candy are something of a crutch for them but their real issue is that they can’t stand on their own two (or however many) feet.  As something of a proxy for the various Stage 2 Pokémon that accompanied it but weren’t making the list and for its short season of success, Miltank took the 10th place slot on my own list.


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