aroramage |
And now we've got the mighty
Flareon-EX! And I never thought I'd say that exactly.
Such is the way of the TCG.
Flareon-EX actually has a neat
little trick up his sleeve though. His Blaze Ball attack
starts out as a weak 3-for-50 hit that does an extra 20
damage for every Fire Energy attached to Flareon-EX.
It's basically his version of Secret Sword from Keldeo-EX!
In fact...looking between the two, Flareon-EX is
basically a Fire-typed version of Keldeo-EX. Same HP,
same Retreat Cost, everything!
...well, except the Ability.
Flareon-EX's Ability actually works
more for his own gain than Keldeo-EX's did. Flash Fire
allows Flareon-EX to take Fire Energy from other Pokemon
and attach it to himself - at the rate of one per turn.
That's basically just like attaching a second Energy to
him every turn, powering up Blaze Ball even faster than
before! Man, he really is the second coming of Keldeo-EX!!
...is what I'd say if it weren't
for a couple of other factors to consider. Right now,
there's not really any Fire acceleration in Standard
outside of Blacksmith, so even with Flash Fire, Flareon-EX
isn't going to be that fast if you don't have a way of
dropping more Fire Energy into play. On top of that, his
Ability is basically replacing the main reason that
Keldeo-EX himself was played for: Rush In, which would
switch Pokemon around and remove Status Conditions for
almost no cost with Float Stone attached.
That being said, Flareon-EX will
probably see some explosive play in his own deck, but I
wouldn't be rating him high on my list of cards.
...unless we're doing a list of the
CUTEST FREAKING CARDS EVER PRINTED, OMG THIS
FLAREON-EX!!
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (a solid offensive
threat that just has the burden of being apart of a Type
that doesn't have as much support to its name at the
moment)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (at the very least,
he pushes out ahead with stuff like Emboar to work with)
Limited: 3.5/5 (again, great card
in a closed environment)
Arora Notealus: I have no idea why,
but I feel like I'm missing something from Flareon-EX.
Maybe it's the comparison to Keldeo-EX that's throwing
me off, but honestly I'm sure he's a great card in his
own right.
Next Time: Our final Eeveelution-EX
of the week!
|
Otaku |
Flareon-EX
(Generations RC6/RC32, RC32) is our penultimate
card this week, at least in terms of scheduling.
Nearly all Grass and Metal Types are Fire Weak, while
true fire Resistance is a relic only found in Unlimited.
The most common of the handful of anti-Fire Type cards
you might encounter tend to fake Resistance, with
examples like Parallel City and Hariyama (XY:
Furious Fists 52/111). Fire Type support
doesn’t have a lot of mind blowing tricks, but it does
have Blacksmith for some quick Energy
acceleration and solid plays like Scorched Earth
for extra draw (and getting Fire Energy into your
discard pile). In Expanded you have Emboar
(Black & White 20/114; BW: Black Star Promos
BW21; BW: Next Destinies 100/99; BW: Legendary
Treasures 27/113) for mass Fire Energy acceleration,
but unlike its aquatic equivalent Blastoise (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 31/149; BW: Plasma Storm
137/135; BW: Plasma Blast 16/101), Emboar
lacks a shortcut like Archie’s Ace in the Hole,
which is one of the reasons (probably the main reason)
Deluge decks made a comeback. The Type has some
solid attackers but the ones with some recent-ish credit
as either main or supporting attackers are
Charizard-EX (XY: Flashfire 12/106; XY:
Black Star Promos XY121), Flareon (BW:
Plasma Freeze 12/116), Entei (XY: Ancient
Origins 14/98), and Entei (XY: Ancient
Origins 15/98). That is still something, but
none of these are as impressive as say what I’d be
bringing up for the Water Type (like Keldeo-EX or
Seismitoad-EX). Overall though the Fire
Type is reasonably good, just not crazy good like the
Fighting Type (yeah, still probably the overall best
supported Type).
Pokémon-EX give up
an extra Prize when KOed, are targets of specific
counter effects, and are excluded from certain
beneficial effects; everyone knows this but besides me
being my obsessive ol’ otaku self that insists on
stating the obvious lest I forget it, unless a
Pokémon-EX has an effect to specifically alleviate these
issues they are guaranteed by the standard Pokémon-EX
clause or the card pool. The better attributes
and/or effects Pokémon-EX get in exchange for coping
with these drawbacks are not guaranteed though
most I can think of have always had at least
substantially better HP or one solid effect. Yet
as you know if you’ve been reading the other CotDs this
week, Eeveelutions - as the name implies - are
Evolutions of Eevee but these Pokémon-EX versions
are instead Basics. Not only do you not have each
Eeveelution competing with the others for
Eevees from which to Evolve you don’t have to Evolve
them at all, and Basics are, have been, and until
something drastic changes will remain the best Stage to
be. Flareon-EX does cash in the the HP bonus,
going from 90 or 100 to 170, the lower of the two
typical Basic Pokémon-EX HP scores but still enough to
often soak a hit and survive. The Water Weakness
is dangerous because of not only multiple established
Water decks (some of which are still currently
competitive) but because it isn’t a difficult Type to
splash into many decks (Keldeo-EX, Seismitoad-EX,
etc.). No Resistance is typical and not too big of
a deal in this case, so we’ll move onto that Retreat
Cost of [CC] which - you guessed it - is low enough you
can probably pay it but high enough you ought to pack
some alternatives to doing so at full price, if at all.
Flareon-EX
has an Ability, breaking the pattern established by the
other Pokémon-EX Eeveelutions. Said Ability
is “Flash Fire”, parsed as two separate words (unlike
the set name) and allows you to move a [R] Energy from
one of your Pokémon in play to itself, once per turn and
before you attack. Once per turn isn’t very
strong, but it does work on any source of [R] Energy.
Its attack is “Blaze Ball” and… you know how I keep
bringing up Keldeo-EX? Its attack is
“Secret Sword” for [CCC], which does 50 damage plus 20
per [W] Energy attached to itself; Blaze Ball is the
same thing but the bonus comes from [R] Energy. I
bring up this comparison because yes, this makes Blaze
Ball a very good attack; you need Energy acceleration
and/or a deck where it makes sense to splash Flareon-EX
into it to make it worth using, but we may have just
those things. Flash Fire is not as good as Rush
In, but while it also isn’t as good as say Fairy
Transfer on Aromatisse (XY 93/146), that’s
a Stage 1 Bench-sitter with 90 HP while Flareon-EX
is a Basic Pokémon-EX with 170 HP, meant to attack.
Multiple copies can even fake some of the better tricks
of other Energy transfer decks; if you have an Active
with [RRR] attached but need to heal it with Max
Potion, three Flareon-EX could “save” all of
those Energy. Since a Blacksmith and manual
Energy attachment can get said Active ready to swing
again, you’re now three Energy ahead instead of just
breaking even.
So where ought you
to use Flareon-EX? Therein lies the rub;
since Emboar just isn’t Blastoise in terms
of fast, reliable setups, nor is Flareon-EX
Keldeo-EX with its generally useful Ability and
killer attack, following their lead won’t give you even
close to their results. After all, in the case of
the Max Potion example (with basic Fire Energy)
you would just play the Max Potion and then use a
Fisherman or Superior Energy Retrieval to
get it all back into hand, at which point Emboar
can use its “Inferno Fandango” Ability to rain it back
down. Fortunately it already has been used
with some success so I don’t have to get creative.
It managed one Top Eight finish in the Masters Division
of a State Championship paired with Giratina-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98) and Reshiram (XY:
Roaring Skies 63/108). Not only is Giratina-EX
a fearsome attacker in its own right, but you can use
Reshiram and its Turboblaze Ability to attach to
Giratina-EX, then move that Energy with Flash Fire
to Flareon-EX. There is also a deck labeled
as just “Flareon-EX” in the results and I don’t know
what it contained. As such, I’ll just go with the
idea that I’ve seen discussed (but not run) elsewhere:
Team Magma’s Camerupt.
If you don’t recall
what that is, it released as XY: Double Crisis
2/34, that nostalgic mini-set. Its “Burning Draft”
Ability allows you to attach a [R] or [F] Energy from
your discard pile to itself. At the time we
thought it might make Camerupt-EX s serious
contender, but while Team Magma’s Camerupt did
make it a functional deck, it did not turn it into a
strong one. Flareon-EX of course can move that
one [R] Energy per turn to itself with Flash Fire, and
if you have multiple pairs (and enough Fire Energy
in the discard pile), you can even work on up to two
more at a time. Four Fire Energy in a
single turn (one from hand, two from Blacksmith,
one from Burning Draft => Flash Fire) gets Blaze Ball
hitting for 130 damage. You’ll need two more [R]
Energy (or one more [R] Energy and a Muscle Band)
to threaten similarly sized Pokémon-EX (and smaller), or
two more and a Muscle Band/Fighting Fury Belt
to take out the 180 HP targets, but if Flareon-EX
isn’t taken out in a single turn, you’re working on
multiple at a time, or both that stops being
farfetched. If your opponent can’t trash your
setup or shut off Abilities, you might even get Blaze
Ball taking out Mega Evolutions. While not as fast
as it could be, it also isn’t as fragile as some others
either; if Abilities go down, a manual Energy attachment
and a Blacksmith still get Blaze Ball into
2HKO range for anything lacking protection or HP buffs,
even Wailord-EX.
So as you can tell,
this card has a place in Standard and possibly in
Expanded as well (no results from major events to
reference). Needless to say all the same cards are
legal and then some more. Maybe some old favorites
like Entei-EX are worth busting out with
Flareon-EX behind them. Of course, Deluge
decks are still a thing here. If you can pull this
for Limited, its great with other cards or on its own.
The Ability is useless if you do run it solo, and it
will take three turns for Blaze Ball to build, but
unless something goes your opponent’s way (Water Type
attackers, fast offense, Crushing Hammer
pulls/draws/flips, etc.) you’ll rapidly take four OHKOs
and win while still having a few HP to spare. Of
course, Generations events in Limited are
probably hypothetical; I don’t think there were any
official Pre-releases for it so unless
the-powers-that-be decide to start this is only
happening because you (or your local tournament
organizer) would make it happen… and Generations
has a somewhat odd release so I don’t know if that is
even remotely possible.
Ratings
Standard:
3.75/5
Expanded:
3.5/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Summary:
When I began this review, let alone when I schedule
Flareon-EX, I didn’t realize it would be this good.
I mean I thought it had enough promise that we had
already covered it; I had to substitute it in shortly
before sending out said schedule when I realized we
hadn’t taken a look at it yet. I didn’t notice it
among the results from States.
Flareon-EX just missed getting reviewed as part of our Top 3 picks from
Generations, scoring three voting points and taking
fourth place. That is probably why I thought we had
already covered it; I had it as my personal third place
pick, and if it wasn’t a close race between it,
Jolteon-EX, and Revitalizer, it should have
been. Kind of wishing I had saved it for Friday; I
don’t know if tomorrow’s card will be as impressive. |
