Emma Starr |
Today, we have Latios EX, and with a cool new
Mega form, does his base form still pack on the heat?
With a standard 170 HP, the common but nice weakness to
the not-used-to-often Fairy, and the uncharacteristic
Retreat Cost of two (I mean, have you seen him and
Latias in SSB? How would he need two Energies to
retreat?!), he seems to be right on par with a lot of
the other Dragon type EXs we’ve seen in this set. So,
let’s examine his attacks.
For one Psychic Energy, you do 40 damage, but the
real uniqueness is in the effect. Unlike any other
Pokémon in the game before, Latios can use this on your
first turn (if you go first, that is). Being the first
effect of its kind, although it’s not much damage, it
could still take down some of the weakest Basics, if
you’re lucky. Latios EX can certainly be a very nice
lead because of this, but be aware that it’s only other
attack costs 4 energy, and you’ll still need 2-3 turns
to power it up completely, whether you’re using Double
Dragon Energy or not. So, although it’s situational
effect is nice, you still have to rely on your chances
of going first, and having Latios EX in your starting
hand, or enough Sycipers, Ns, or other forms of
draw/search support to get him in. Ultra Balls always
work nice for this as well, if you don’t mind discarding
two cards. You could also bump this up to 60 damage if
you combine this with a Muscle Band, which actually can
keep the damage more respectable until you can use
Latios EX’s second attack. But really, it’s still a
pretty decent for a first-turn (literally!) attack.
Light Pulse does 110 damage for one Water, Two
Psychic, and one Colorless Energies. You also get the
added effect of all effects of attacks not doing
anything to Latios EX, other than damage. But obviously,
these effects have to target Latios EX, so Pokémon like
Electrode (ROS 22) can still re-arrange energy, and Mega
Gallade EX can still attack you if Latios EX or anyone
else is on the bench. But things such as Beedrill’s (PC
3) Allergic Shock won’t work, Jirachi’s (ROS 42) Doom
Desire can’t kill you, and Thundurus EX can’t paralyze
you. So, it’s definitely a neat bonus that could come in
handy, especially with all these little quirks that this
set seems to be experimenting with (seriously, Jirachi
can be pretty scary if used right!). However 110 damage
is still kind of low for an EX attack, especially after
we saw how Zekrom was able to do 100 for four energies
just a couple days ago, but if he still has the Muscle
Band on that I mentioned earlier, the damage will be
bumped to 130, which really isn’t too shabby. So, will
his Mega form deliver the power we hope for? You’ll have
to stay tuned to find out! ;)
Standard: 3.8/5 (The effect of the first attack
is rather nice, but the second attack is somewhat
situational, and will most likely require Double Dragon
Energy, if you don’t run Psychic-Water.)
Expanded: 3.8/5
Limited: 3.5/5 (Again, the first attack can
provide to be quite useful, though it will be stuck at
doing 40 due to no access to Muscle Band. And the lack
of Syciper or Ultra Balls can be worrying as well, since
chances are you’ll only be pulling one of these, if any
at all, unless you have truly insane luck. Big damage on
EXs are usually pretty good, though.)
|
Otaku |
Latios-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 58/108,
101/108) is our next-to-last card for the week and I
won’t even pretend we aren’t looking at M Latios-EX
tomorrow:
I will still be discussing the Mega Evolution but I’ll
try to stick to the correct perspective and save the
details for tomorrow. So since this is part of Dragon
Week Part II, I’ll yet again state that the Dragon-Type
is a solid Type; it isn’t one of the Types with a major
competitive presence right now, but it has the support
it needs that it realistically could be. What it lacks
are a lot of Dragon Weak Pokémon; only the BW-era
Dragon-Types themselves, missing one of the major
bonuses enjoyed by some of the better Types. It also
lacks anything being Dragon Resistant, but that is a
bonus, albeit a very slight one.
The next two
obvious things are that this is a Basic Pokémon and a
Pokémon-EX; the former is pure advantage as Basics enjoy
the least complicated (and time and space consuming)
method of getting into play: simply put them into play
if you have an open Bench slot (or Active slot, if it is
during the opening set-up). The latter is technically
pure disadvantage; although Pokémon-EX usually have
attributes and effects that are superior to their
“regular” brethren, it isn’t guaranteed and we’ve had
some iffy examples in the past. Had Latios-EX
not naturally been a Basic Pokémon, then like
yesterday’s
Flygon-EX it could have counted that as an
inherent bonus. There are some inherent drawbacks
though; as per the rules text on the card, Pokémon-EX
give up an additional Prize and while not built into the
card, built into other cards are beneficial
effects that specifically exclude Pokémon-EX and
detrimental effects that specifically apply to them.
Latios-EX has 170 HP the lower of the two
typical HP scores for Basic Pokémon-EX, it will reduce
its survival chances but not in a major way; not because
170 is so durable but because right now nothing is truly
safe. You should be able to take a single hit and keep
going most of the time, but decks that are focused on
the OHKO are more than likely going to take it and 2HKOs
should be assumed to happen unless you take steps to
prevent them or your opponent’s deck suddenly flames
out. Another repeat, the Fairy-Type Weakness is still
“not good” but one of the more tolerable Weaknesses to
have: the Fairy-Type is not in widespread usage (at
least in an offensive capacity), mostly seen in Fairy
Transfer decks at the competitive level. In those
decks, this is going to enable one or two supporting
attackers to score a OHKO with slight overkill instead
of a 2HKO with slight overkill while the “big” attackers
get by with fewer resources than they otherwise would
have required. No Resistance is common so I won’t be
docking the card’s score for lacking it, but had it been
here, it might have been worth a small bonus. The
Retreat Cost of [CC] is high enough you’ll want to try
and avoid paying the full price but low enough that when
you have to, you likely will be able to afford it. It
also conveniently is as high as you can get where a
single copy of Hydreigon-EX can still drop its
Retreat Cost to zero.
Latios-EX has no Ability or Ancient Trait but
does have two attacks. The first (Fast Raid) is one of
only two attacks we’ve seen so far that have a clause
stating said attack may be used the very first turn of
the game. This is not just important from a gameplay
standpoint but from a design one as well; does this mean
that the designers are dedicated to maintaining the
first turn rules or is this a sign they are thinking of
bringing first turn attacks back? Either way it
concerns me because the rest of the attack is [P] for
40. Simple but effective… and potential trouble in the
long run. I have actually tried in the past to write
articles explaining why, but for now I ask that you
simply accept that this returns the capacity to donk*
Pokémon with HP scores of 90 or less to the game (Muscle
Band, Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City
Gym are factored into that range). If the idea of
Pokémon is to have a fun game between two players,
winning before the other person even gets a chance to
take a turn seems very much antithetical to the Spirit
of the Game.
So far this
card hasn’t caused a lot of problems, likely because
there are other (of what I would consider to be) problem
areas that for better or worse, mean this isn’t the best
deck to play right now and relevant to scoring it
because if you are the statistical “norm” you’re only
going first about half the time… so even if your deck
has no other Basic Pokémon than this card, you’ll only
benefit from the clause half the time. So what about
the card’s second attack, “Light Pulse”? It needs
[WPPC] to hit for 110 damage, with the added bonus of
protecting Latios-EX from the effects (but not
damage) done to it by attacks from your opponent’s
Pokémon during your opponent’s next turn. Besides
damage still getting through, effects done to anything
other than Latios-EX still happen; this
won’t protect your Bench, the field or your hand, etc.
The damage is a bit low for the Energy required: not
only does the attack demand four Energy, but only one of
the requirements is Colorless and two different,
specific Types are listed as well. 110 is enough to
OHKO smaller things and 2HKO a decent amount of the
larger ones… all of the larger ones that lack protection
if you can get and keep a Muscle Band attached
and the effect can be quite handy, so in the end I’d
call it a solid attack; not quite good, definitely not
great, but far from being bad.
There is
another Latios-EX that you can play in either
Standard or Expanded: BW: Plasma Freeze 86/116
(and 113/116). It is actually quite similar to today’s:
for game relevant features, only the Weakness and the
attacks are different. Being from the BW-era it has
Dragon Weakness which is more dangerous than the
Fairy-Type. The first attack (Mach Flight) requires
[PC] and hits for 40 points of damage; it also has an
effect that prevents the opponent’s Active from
retreating. Its second attack (Luster Purge) requires
[PWC] and hits for 150 damage but also discards all
Energy attached to itself. This card was originally
reviewed
here
about two years ago: I didn’t get a review in but
baby_mario and Ness did and they were not kind… but they
were pretty accurate.
However two years can be a long time for a
card pool and in this case the differences are
significant. Now we have Double Dragon Energy to
power up Mach Flight with a single manual Energy
attachment and fewer decks running tricks like Keldeo-EX/Float
Stone (probably because we also see more counters
for said tricks). This also means it is much easier to
power up Luster Purge… in fact no matter what other
Energy is being run in the deck, Double Dragon Energy
can cover the specific Energy-Type requirements for both
attacks. We didn’t have Muscle Band back then
nor did we have Mega Evolutions (or Wailord-EX)
that were difficult enough to OHKO that even the
unboosted 150 looked nice for securing a 2HKO. If you
are focused on M Latios-EX, this card will
compete with today’s Latios-EX… however the two
cards are surprisingly complimentary, with today’s
version being useful for fast attacks while this older
one is nice for the bigger, relatively inexpensive hits.
So even in a deck focused on the new Latios-EX,
the old one can prove useful.
Which brings us
to M Latios-EX; this Mega Evolution keeps the
same Type but jumps the HP up to 220 while actually
lowering the Retreat Cost… to free! It has no
Ancient Trait (...no Mega Evolution released so far has
had an Ability) but instead has the usual, single
attack: in this case, it is “Sonic Ace”. It requires
[PWC] (the same as Luster Purge) and then has you
discard two Energy attached to itself (less severe than
Luster Purge), but the reward is 120 damage to the
opponent’s Pokémon of your choice. In a metagame where
players really like Jirachi-EX and Shaymin-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) that can make
for a sick, easy finish. It also is a way to take out
injured Pokémon hiding on the Bench or get around
problematic Active Pokémon apart from a switching cards
like Lysandre. So again, even in a deck
focused on Latios-EX, M Latios-EX can be a
nice option to have… preferably with Latios Spirit
Link.
So what does a
deck focused upon Latios-EX look like? I am not
sure: it hasn’t been tearing up the competitive scene
and the one noteworthy finish I could find wasn’t that
high and had a lot of stuff I never tested with the
card. I have been testing this card but not extensively
- I was quite excited (and anxious) about it but so far
it hasn’t had much of an impact. Probably because the
most abusive way to use it, going for donks or
incredibly fast, early KOs also requires a lot of Items
and Item lock is still significant even after
Lysandre’s Trump Card was banned (as many of us
assumed it would be). Losing Lysandre’s Trump Card
hurt because this was a deck that tried to throw as much
of itself as it could at the opponent: get a Latios-EX
into play, power it up, throw on Muscle Band,
Hypnotoxic Laser, Virbank City Gym and (in
Expanded) Plus Power. Of course, decks focusing
on all but the smaller Pokémon-EX aren’t going to be
donked. Instead you’ll be rushing to 2HKO and then as
your resources run low, 3HKO and even 4HKO. You can see
the problem; if you’re not too good at planning in the
long term it might still be appealing, but you’re
basically trying to get lucky (pardon the expression). Super
Scoop Up and/or Max Potion can help you avoid
giving up Prizes and in re-using resources.
So, for those
looking at more substantial offerings the divide seems
to be between backing Latios-EX up with Crobat
(XY: Phantom Forces 33/119) or Altaria (BW:
Dragons Exalted 84/124; BW: Black Star Promos
BW48; BW: Boundaries Crossed 152/149). Crobat
is a Stage 2 line, though Golbat (XY: Phantom
Forces 32/119) is also contributing since these two
are being used primarily for their Abilities… each of
which places damage counters on one of the opponent’s
Pokémon when you Evolve something into them from hand.
This is compatible with some of the other damage
boosting tricks and together gives you a shot at taking
out some of the big stuff in a single hit, or more
reliably in two hits. With Altaria, you are
simply upping the damage done by your Dragon-Types.
While unlikely to happen in game, a full four
Altaria Benched and working jumps the damage on Fast
Raid to 100. Muscle Band is still an easy
inclusion further bumping it to 120, while Light Pulse
can take out a lot of stuff in a single hit.
In either case,
Latios-EX (BW: Plasma Freeze 86/116,
113/116) and M Latios-EX compliment the involved
strategies. Mach Flight can help trap something up
front to finish it off while a boosted Luster Purge can
get big enough to take out anything without protection
in one hit, though the upper end requires an ideal
set-up. Just taking out almost anything with 190 HP or
less (a single Altaria and Muscle Band)
even at the cost of discarding all Energy attached can
still be a game winning play. Crobat and
Golbat can enable similar OHKOs and can instead hit
something on the Bench, avoiding overkill but they are
harder to re-use (Altaria just keeps working so
long as a Dragon-Type is attacking). M Latios-EX
works better with Crobat and Golbat as
they can all snipe the same target but still enjoys
Altaria when you are hitting the opponent’s Active
and sometimes… that won’t be a wasteful move. Also
something for both builds, make sure you run one or two
Hydreigon-EX. Why? Besides M Latios-EX
being the only Dragon-Type that doesn’t usually benefit
(it already has a free Retreat Cost), you need
Hydreigon-EX for its Shred attack. This means
either working in some [D] Energy or being totally
reliant upon Double Dragon Energy, but it too
works with the other damage buffs and saves you from
Safeguard Pokémon and various other protective effects
that can be problematic.
Almost none of
this is available for Limited play and… that is okay,
Latios-EX is still likely the only true “must run”
card in the set. Why? It may not be nice but this is
the poster child for a +39 deck. For those not familiar
with Limited play, you don’t bring your deck to the game
but instead will be provided with cards to build your
deck there. Usually this takes the form of six unopened
booster packs; Pre-Releases are probably the most common
Limited Format event. Basic Energy cards are also
provided, for the record. This format only allows for
40 card decks and four Prize play most of the time;
running 39 non-Basic Pokémon plus Latios-EX means
you always start with it. You can build the deck so
that you cannot whiff on having an Energy for the turn
either (apart from your opponent’s card effects).
So… Latios-EX
has 170 HP and can always hit for 40 damage before your
opponent can attack you. Even if you fail to pull (and
draw) a Double Dragon Energy you should be able
to switch to Light Pulse no later than your fourth turn,
protecting you from attack effects (though again, a
ridiculously lucky opponent might somehow constantly
Paralyze you until they KO you). Is this a guaranteed
win? No. Even without the extreme versions, your
opponent might just pull something like Jirachi (XY:
Roaring Skies 42/108) and get it out, powered up and
attack with Doom Desire and have Doom Desire resolve
before you can take four Prizes. They might actually be
running Fairy-Types (and Fairy Energy so they can
attack) as well. Your opponent might slow you down long
enough that they can power-up something too big for you
to OHKO that hits hard enough to finish you off (or even
take you down in a single hit)... but you have great
odds of taking four Prizes (or scoring a Bench out)
before then. Even the other Pokémon-EX an opponent may
also be running in a +39 deck need some luck (though not
as much as the other decks) to KO Latios-EX befor
Latios-EX takes out their own Pokémon-EX.
Ratings
Standard: 3.5/5
Expanded: 3.7/5
Limited: 5/5
Summary: Latios-EX brings donks back to
Pokémon, and the only reason we aren’t noticing is
because we’ve got some insanely fast, insanely big
attackers that are a bigger presence (and concern).
This puts it in a somewhat odd position of being pretty
good but just not as good as the likes of Seismitoad-EX,
Yveltal-EX, etc. Throw in some of the faster
Mega Evolutions and I’m not sure if I should be relieved
or disappointed this card isn’t dominating tournaments.
For now I guess enjoy it for casual play, perhaps
seeing if you can find whatever missing element is
needed to make it a contender in competitive play.
*A donk
is a win achieved via a OHKO of your opponent’s lone
opening Pokémon, before he or she has had a chance to
play. I have both used and encountered it being used
for any win coming close to this but believe it best to
stick closely to the definition I just gave as we have
other terms for winning by KOing an opponent’s last
Pokémon in play (Bench Out) later in the game. Under
older rules, it was possible to take out more than one
opening Pokémon at a time (perhaps it still is in
Unlimited) but that might call for a new term because
that just takes things to an even greater extreme.
|
aroramage |
So now we come to Latios-EX, which
was up for consideration in the Top 10 list a little
while back. I find it's a little hard to judge cards
when they're revealed cause sometimes it's not super
obvious what it's all about...well, unless you're
looking at a common card with a 1-Energy vanilla attack
that does 10-20 damage at best. Sometimes though you get
cards that need a second look, so here's Latios-EX's!
His first attack, Fast Raid, is
pretty simple: a 1-for-40 that's vanilla on any other
turn aside from Turn 1. We've seen an attack pretty
similar to this with Deoxys, only that attack did no
damage, drew two cards, and had the advantage of
Dimension Valley. Latios-EX just does damage. That's not
necessarily a bad thing though, since it grants him a
lot of advantage on that front. After all, an early
strike could decide the entire pace of the game and put
a lot of pressure onto your opponent from the get-go.
Ultimately, you'd be building up
from Fast Raid up into Light Pulse, which does 4-for-110
damage. Not too shabby, and it safeguards you from your
opponent's attack's effects. So ultimately he's an anti-Seismitoad-EX
Dragon...which is a shame since Seismitoad-EX has been
on the decline thanks to Lysandre's Banned Card. There
are a few other attack effects that Latios-EX could
prevent though like Exeggutor (PLF), so it's still a
nice effect to have.
So Latios-EX had a big game early
on then, may have declined a little since then, but soon
he'll probably come back up again because of what I
suspect to be a rise in a new Grass archetype with the
next set. Aside from that, he's a solid choice for an EX
- not the greatest option in the world, but far from the
worst.
Now if we just attach a Muscle Band
here...
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (again, a solid
choice for an EX, and definitely far from the worst you
could grab)
Expanded: 3/5 (same here)
Limited: 4/5 (once again, his
solidity is backed up by a smaller card pool overall;
few things outside of that lucky guy who pulled M
Rayquaza-EX and all its components will match well
against Latios-EX)
Arora Notealus: Apparently Latios
is a lot like your average pilot - he can fly in the air
really fast, is super intelligent, and can understand
human speech! Hehehehe...oh come on, you thought it was
clever, admit it!
Next Time: LATIOS, MEGA EVOLVE
TO...
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