aroramage |
Hello all once again and welcome
back from the great Thanksgiving break!...for America!
Hope you ate lots of turkey and didn't end up getting
trampled at the Black Friday sales, and here's to making
sure the servers are stable enough to handle the Cyber
Monday Madness! Still if you're here, that means you're
eager to look at some cards, and we're taking a quick
look at some Trainers before...well, you'll see.
So we start off with the
interesting piece of tech that is the Assault Vest. It's
based off of the item that, when held, increases the
holder's Special Defense while limiting them to only
attacking moves. It's made its way onto various tanky
Pokemon to make them tankier and has even transformed
some others into tankier Pokemon, so needless to say,
it's made a big impact competitively. So how does that
translate over into the TCG? Why with a defensive power,
of course!
Specifically, Assault Vest can
reduce the damage from attacks that the holder takes by
a certain amount, kinda like the Hard Charm Tool. In
fact, the two are rather similar in a lot of ways: both
reduce damage by a certain amount, essentially making
them damage reducers, and they both go active only after
Weakness/Resistance have been accounted for. That being
said, there is a major difference between the two; while
Hard Charm is a general blanket that covers 20 damage
from any attack, Assault Vest shaves off a hefty 40
damage...from anything attacking with Special Energy.
At first, that seems to be a bit of
a hindrance. I mean, what decks even use Special
Energy-OH WAIT, ALL OF THEM DO!! You've got DCE, Rainbow
in some decks, but there's also Strong, Mystery, Shield,
Wonder, Double Dragon, all kinds of new Special Energies
in a wide varieties! And sure, not all of them are going
to see usage, but most decks these days run some form of
Special Energy in them - which means Assault Vest can
act as a better Hard Charm than...well, Hard Charm!
That being said, it is going to
take up a valuable Tool space which could be used for
stuff like Muscle Band or other useful Tools, but if the
space can be made for it, it's not a bad piece of tech.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (a very relevant
card, though space in decks tends to be pretty tight -
I'm just saying, I think M Tyranitar-EX would enjoy this
if he can have it)
Expanded: 3/5 (more Special
Energies, though not a whole lot more, are around here)
Limited: 4/5 (well, it's not likely
to be around, but you do have Burning Energy and Rainbow
Energy in this set, so it's likely to happen with one
player)
Arora Notealus: Assault Vest is
pretty much the definitive tank equipment - when you've
got one of these on, it's go time! And no one's gonna
stop you!...unless your bulk is frail to begin with, in
which case you really shouldn't be tanking otherwise.
Next Time: YOU ARE MY FRIEND,
AHHHHHHH~
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Otaku |
So during the short gap between major holidays and Top
10(ish) lists, we are going to start delving more into
XY: BREAKthrough. With enjoyable
interruptions on the horizon, I see no reason not to
cover Trainers first, or at least the most general ones
likely to affect multiple decks, at least if they are
any good. We begin with Assault Vest (XY:
BREAKthrough 133/162), which is not only a Trainer,
not only an Item but specifically a Pokémon Tool.
Its effect is that damage from attacks done to the
equipped Pokémon are reduced by 40 if the attacking
Pokémon has any Special Energy attached. Before we
consider other card interactions, this seems like a
pretty solid effect: -40 to damage (even after apply
Weakness/Resistance) can really matter. It won’t
make anything truly OHKO proof, but there should be
quite a few situations where a OHKO becomes a 2HKO, a
2HKO a 3HKO, etc. if your opponent can’t find a way
around it. The effect itself provides just such a
work around; if your deck doesn’t rely heavily on
Special Energy, Assault Vest just sits there
doing nothing but taking up a Tool Slot. The
Pokémon in question also needs an appropriate amount of
HP; if something only had 30 HP to begin with,
Assault Vest won’t make a difference against a deck
that is dealing out even modestly sized 80 point blows.
It doesn’t have to be a massive amount of HP though that
can certainly help; making something smaller a less easy
OHKO can still be useful. In fact, bigger is not
always better as like most cards, Assault Vest
can ultimately fail to matter because unfortunately for
you, your HP plus the protective bonus weren’t greater
than the damage being done over the same amount of turns
it would take if Assault Vest wasn’t present.
It might still matter if you have a particular combo or
effect to trigger/block but it might simply be wasted
effort. Even if it should matter, Items can
be discarded by a few different effects, including
Startling Megaphone, an Item that wipes all Pokémon
Tools from your opponent’s side of the field,
Startling Megaphone, another Item capable of
discarding Pokémon Tools but this time hitting only up
to two which can be on either side of the field and
Xerosic a Supporter that can only discard a single
Pokémon Tool but can also hit targets on either side of
the field, and can also do the same to a Special Energy
instead of a Pokémon Tool. We’ve been in a stretch
where these haven’t been as common, which helps
Assault Vest should it convinue to last.
Pokémon Tool lock and more general Item lock are also
concerns and almost as important are the number of decks
that either don’t run any Special Energy or run only a
few. Assault Vest does you know good if
Seismitoad-EX is blocking Items with its “Quaking
Punch” or your opponent is able to slap a Pokémon Tool F
down before you can done the Assault Vest.
These are not problems unique to Assault Vest,
but are still relevant versus other cards you might wish
to include. Getting directly to the matter of
other Pokémon Tools, the competition is pretty steep
against the likes of Muscle Band for a universal
+20 to your damage done or Float Stone for a
perfect free Retreat Cost and the exact metagame will
determine if something like Hard Charm with a
universal -20 to the damage you’re taking would be
better.
Still, I’ve been running into this just a bit more often
and it seems like a solid (though not spectacular)
addition to the Expanded and Standard card-pools. Try it
out and see if it might be worth the room in your local
metagame; fortunately even a single copy for when you
only sometimes need to try and soak some damage is
adequate for general usage purposes. There may be
some specific decks (such as stall or those already
regularly scoring OHKOs) where multiple copies will be
appropriate. In Limited it isn’t high priority but
can be handy if your opponent pulled (and is using) a
Rainbow Energy or Burning Energy.
Ratings
Standard:
3.15/5
Expanded:
3.05/5
Limited:
4.25/5
Summary:
Assault Vest has decent general usage right now
due to the prominence of decks built around Special
Energy, but there are plenty that use few to no Special
Energy cards against which it would be useless.
Even in when the opponent may trigger it, other factors
will determine if it proves useless or crucial.
Still it makes for a nice option to have available.
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