aroramage |
Our other noteworthy addition is
Yveltal BREAK, who comes in alongside his own reprint
from the XY set. And hey, that one saw a lot of play, so
will Yveltal BREAK leave the same impact? Or would there
be a better version he'd work with? Let's find out!
Yveltal BREAK's only addition
outside of more HP is his attack, Baleful Night. It's a
3-for-120 strike that throws on more damage to the
opponent's Benched Pokemon to the tune of 30 damage.
Course, this only really affects those Pokemon with
damage counters already on them, but that's still really
good! Stacking on damage on damage, it's always a great
thing. And even 30 damage is a lot - if Rough Seas
proved anything, it's that 30 is a magical number in its
own right to hit every turn.
So which Yveltal is the best to
pair up with BREAK Evo? Honestly, the Yveltal (BKT)
looks the most appealing here, at least in terms of
partnering up. His Pitch-Black Spear attack is the only
thing that can hit Benched Pokemon, though it's geared
mainly towards Pokemon-EX. At the very least, Fright
Night could keep your opponent from being able to
effectively Mega Evolve with Spirit Links or use
Fighting Fury Belt to power their attacks, but aside
from that, Yveltal (BKT) isn't that appealing.
On the other hand, the Yveltal (XY)
reprint is a classic must-have in any build, and so just
by that token, it's more likely to be this one that runs
with the BREAK. Oblivion Wing is too good a charge-up to
ignore, but it doesn't lead into Baleful Night at all.
And compared to Darkness Blade, well Baleful Night is a
straight upgrade. So while it's not a perfect fit the
way Xerneas BREAK is, I do think Yveltal BREAK could see
play in the popular Yveltal builds that have somehow
remained a constant presence in the game since XY
started.
...oh yeah, don't use this with the
promo. It's not going to do much better.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (high damage output
is relatively balanced all things considered)
Expanded: 4.5/5 (the extra half
point is for the Dark support that comes from here)
Limited: 5/5 (cause all we needed
for Yveltal was more Darkness)
Arora Notealus: So evil bird of
death or rainbow deer of life? Which BREAK Evo is
better? Only time will really tell, but for our list,
Yveltal just barely beat out Xerneas.
Next Time: But he did tie with our
3rd place pick...
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Otaku |
Just missing out on
the top three of our countdown is our number four pick
Yveltal BREAK (XY: Steam Siege 66/114).
As a Darkness Type it will only be able to exploit
Weakness on some Psychic Types, while all Fairy Types
other than BREAK Evolutions have been Darkness
Resistant. There are also some specific
anti-Darkness effects, but none are worth using
competitively. For good Darkness Type support
(Pokémon or Energy) you have to look to Dark Patch
in Expanded, maybe half of Reverse Valley or all
of Shadow Circle. The Type’s real strength
comes from some fantastic Pokémon that belong to it like
Yveltal-EX, Zoroark (XY: BREAKthrough
91/162), etc. Being a BREAK Evolution is just what
I said
yesterday:
the simplified pecking order is Basic, Stage 1, BREAK
Evolution of a Basic, then the rest. Mechanically,
the BREAK Evolution of a Basic Pokémon is a Stage 1 that
cannot actually make use of effects that specify they
work on a Stage 1. You can make use of cards that
work on Evolutions in general; for example Wally
can search out an Evolve a Yveltal into
Yveltal BREAK, and without waiting a turn to Evolve
normally, at the cost of your Supporter (note
that this is not me recommending this course of action).
Yveltal BREAK has 150 HP, enough to likely
survive a hit; this is on par with a Stage 2 and only 20
to 30 points shy of typical Basic Pokémon-EX.
Weakness,
Resistance, and Retreat Cost will be supplied by
whichever Yveltal you choose to BREAK Evolve
from, as will any Abilities or attacks on that card. Yveltal
BREAK itself brings the attack “Baleful Night” for
[DDD]; it does 120 damage which is good for the Energy
that is going into it, plus 30 damage to each of your
opponent’s Benched Pokémon that already has any damage
counters on it. 120-for-three is pretty good; not as
impressive when it requires three specific Energy (at
least they are the same Type), but still good. The
effect is potentially good, as it can do between
zero (opponent has no Bench or at least nothing damaged
on the Bench) and 240 more points of damage (Sky
Field is in play and opponent has eight Pokémon on
the Bench each with some damage already present).
Without some deck specific combos, you are unlikely to
get much of a bonus, though it does make it questionable
for your opponent to try and hide something injured on
the Bench. There are multiple ways of getting some
damage or damage counter based spread going; here the
hang up is that past successful examples may not be the
most efficient under these circumstances while cards
that can do it fast and easy haven’t proven particularly
strong in the past. We have multiple proven ways
of protecting the Bench right now in both formats, which
is also an issue to discuss further.
However for now
we’ll consider our options for Yveltal: XY
78/146 (reprinted as XY: Black Star Promos XY06,
Generations RC16/RC32, and XY: Steam Siege
65/114), XY: Black Star Promos XY32, and XY:
Steam Siege 65/114. All are Darkness Type
Basic Pokémon with 130 HP, Lightning Weakness, Fighting
Resistance, and Retreat Cost [CC]. Yveltal BREAK
inherits these bottom Stats, so we should detail them.
Lightning Weakness is another of those “bad but not the
worst” Weaknesses floating around The biggest danger
comes from there being too many useful targets already
popular in competitive play with Lightning Weakness; if
Yveltal BREAK joins their ranks there may already
be counters players are familiar with and if Yveltal
BREAK does not join their ranks, those
counters are already out there for other stuff like
Yveltal-EX and Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring
Skies 77/108, 106/108). Fighting Resistance is
greatly appreciated; both general and Fighting-specific
support provide access to buffs that either ignore
Resistance or add 20 damage to effectively neutralize
it, your opponent is still committing additional
resources to the KO. Plus as Fighting Types often
are about stacking bonuses, this is another bit of math
your opponent has to keep straight; if they whiff or
waste resources on overkill, that benefits you.
The Retreat Cost of [CC] is low enough you can often
afford it up front (sometimes it won’t even matter in
the long run), but high enough you sometimes just as
often cannot. Include some outs to Retreating at
full cost.
XY
78/146 (and its many other printings) has two attacks,
“Oblivion Wing” and “Darkness Blade”. The former
does 30 damage while attaching a [D] Energy from your
discard pile to one of your Benched Pokémon. The
latter does 100 damage and requires you flip a coin;
“tails” means this Pokémon cannot attack the next turn,
“heads” simply means no drawback. Oblivion Wing
has proven quite useful for setting up other attackers,
especially in the Standard Format that has long since
lost access to Dark Patch; Darkness Blade is
overpriced or underpowered given that it is
100-for-three, there is a significant drawback effect
that applies approximately half the time, and the Energy
requirements aren’t friendly Double Colorless Energy.
However the nature of the format has minimized
most of this; between the times when this Yveltal
would be OHKO’d anyway, when a player can reset the
attack effect, and/or when you just need something that
is not Yveltal-EX to attack, Darkness Blade will
do. This card has proven quite good in its own
right, and while it has only been reviewed
once before
it was as the fifth place pick from the original XY
expansion.
XY: Black Star
Promos
XY32 also has two attacks, but this time they are Air
Crash for [DCC] and “Wings of Destruction” for [DDCC].
Air Crash does 50 damage and gives you a coin flip to
discard an Energy from the opponent’s Active.
Wings of Destruction does 80 damage, plus another 40 if
your opponent has Xerneas or Xerneas-EX in
play. The good news is that both of these attacks
are priced to make use of Double Colorless Energy
but a 50% chance of discarding an Energy attached to the
opponent’s Active is not worth doing 40 damage less than
the preferred going rate of 90-for-three.
Pokémon-specific counter attacks rarely work well, and
Wings of Destruction is no exception; for the energy
involved you really need a base damage of 120, not 120
after the Pokémon-specific bonus. What is
more, remember that all Xerneas and Xerneas-EX
we have currently received are Darkness Resistant, so it
will only be an effective 100 damage: even if both
Xerneas and Xerneas-EX were seeing heavy
play, this just wouldn’t be worth it. While
looking at Xerneas (XY: Black Star Promos
XY31) and its similarly priced and worded “Light of
Life” attack, it brings up a good question: is the
wording open enough that other naming variations based
on the appropriate Pokémon will trigger the damage
bonus? Really not sure as I can read the
parenthetical inclusion of the Pokémon-EX counterparts
to either mean anything with the correct Pokémon in its
name, or just the usual versions plus their Pokémon-EX
counterparts. Good thing it probably won’t matter
for competitive play. This version of Yveltal
did not get a review from us in the past.
XY: BREAKthrough
94/162 brings an Ability and a single attack to the
table. The Ability is “Fright Night” and while
this Yveltal is Active, Fright Night prevents
Pokémon Tools effects from applying. It also has
the attack “Pitch-Black Spear” which costs [DCC] and 60
damage to the opponent’s Active, plus another 60 to a
Benched, opposing Pokémon-EX of your choice (if there
are any at all). Fright Night is the main
attraction, as there are just so many important Pokémon
Tools it can short circuit; all the stuff we tend to
normally think about like Fighting Fury Belt, but
also things like Spirit Link cards.
Remember things like “Garbotoxin” on Garbodor (XY:
BREAKpoint 57/122) or “Tool Drop” on Trubbish
(BW: Plasma Storm 65/135) will still be able to
count a negated Tool as being present, so Garbotoxin
kicks in and shuts off Fright Night (so that the Tools
then regain their effects) and Tool Drop still does
added damage. Fright Night affects yourself as
well as your opponent; that is Fright Night only working
while this Yveltal is Active is a neutral trait;
you can still make use of Tools on other cards or even
this Pokémon while it is Benched, but your opponent can
also use this to manipulate the effect as well with
commonly played cards like Lysandre. Also
while I like the name, Pitch-Black Spear suffers because
sometimes your opponent won’t have anything on the Bench
to hit (60-for-three is bad) and even if they do, you’ve
got to get lucky for them to have an Active and a
Benched Pokémon you can take down quickly. We
reviewed this version
here,
where I mention that had our top 10 for XY:
BREAKthrough been a top 15, this would have been the
15th place review.
So should you run
Yveltal BREAK and if so, which Yveltal
should you run with it? Or is it another BREAK
Evolution that is just going to be used as a pseudo-Tool
to upgrade its lower Stage. The answer is “Yes” to
all of these things. The most likely use for this
card is to simply upgrade XY 78/146 and XY:
BREAKthrough 94/162. Fighting Fury Belt can
give XY 78/146 more HP than Yveltal
BREAK and buff both of its attacks, but being able
to still take advantage of Basic support means still
being subject to Basic counters like (Jolteon-EX
and its “Flash Ray”), and Darkness Blade is barely less
expensive than Baleful Wind, plus has that nasty
drawback that is just “tails” away. BREAK Evolving
won’t directly up the damage of Oblivion Wing or
Darkness Blade but it provides a more modest HP bump
while leaving room for a Muscle Band or other
Tool. With Muscle Band Baleful Wind can
swing for 140 to the opponent’s Active alone. Muscle
Band is still a common enough deck sight and
Lysandre is still a staple, so 140 HP against a 140
to 170 HP target means you then use Lysandre on
the next turn to bring up a new target, and with one
attack either take two KOs (and three or four Prizes)
or set up for another KO from Bench damage the next
turn. XY: BREAKthrough 94/162 cannot make use of
Fighting Fury Belt while it is Active, so
Yveltal BREAK is more valuable to it.
Pitch-Black Spear can hit two targets at once and
potentially set up for Baleful Wind, but the time and
resources it takes for big bonus damage means this is
not a major selling point. Fright Night still is
though and with something that can 2HKO most opposing
Actives. These Yveltal are already run
together, which is good for Yveltal BREAK.
If you want to
focus on Yveltal BREAK, then you can add in
various forms of spread. Crobat (XY: Phantom
Forces 33/119) and Golbat (XY: Phantom
Forces 32/119; Generations 31/83) have been a
common source of this, but I am uncertain if they are
worth it here. You’re adding more Lightning
Weakness to a deck that will most likely include not
only Yveltal/Yveltal BREAK itself, but
Yveltal-EX and Shaymin-EX. Stages 2s
are still space intensive as well, but the big thing for
me is that the unless you burn a turn attacking with
Golbat or just get a great setup, you’re only
affecting one or two Benched Pokémon at a time. I
do not know if I have any good alternatives, but some
that have at least a tiny bit of potential on paper are
Forretress (XY: Flashfire 60/106),
Spinda (XY: Primal Clash 115/160), Team
Magma’s Secret Base. Forretress is a Stage
1, so still another Evolution line, but its “Thorn
Tempest” Ability places a damage counter on all of your
opponent’s Pokémon, including his or her Active. A
2-2 line should suffice, though be careful not to pull
off the spread too soon. You may invest more
heavily as well; Thorn Tempest hits the opponent’s
Active as well as the Bench, so you have more
opportunities of hitting key numbers for OHKOs and
2HKOs. Forretress doesn’t have a great attack,
but for [CC] its “Iron Crash” does 20 plus 20 per [C] in
the Retreat Cost of the opponent’s Active; if a deck
already has Double Colorless Energy then this can
occasionally be a decent attacker.
Spinda
can use its “Uproar” attack for a single Energy to do 10
damage to each of your opponent’s Pokémon; enough to get
going and while Spinda is probably going down in
one hit afterwards, this is much less complex and
requires as little as a single card slot (though I
recommend two for better reliability). Using an
attack though makes it slower. The final option
that occurred to me is Team Magma’s Secret Base.
This is perhaps the lowest impact option of all.
It won’t work on Team Magma’s Pokémon but that is
unlikely to matter. What will matter is your
opponent will always have a chance of discarding your
Stadium before Benching Pokémon. Their opening
Pokémon won’t be affected at all and neither will any
Evolutions put directly into play. So for Standard
and Expanded play, seems like Yveltal BREAK
should see at least a little play and maybe a bit more
if Baleful Wind pays off. Expanded might make it
better; you’ll have Silver Bangle to bump up
damage against Pokémon-EX even more, plus tricks like
Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym to
further damage the opponent’s Active. For Limited
play, XY: Steam Siege 65/114 is a great pull;
you’ll have to also have it to use Yveltal BREAK
which (along with needing a Darkness Energy heavy
deck) are the only drawbacks to the card. Baleful
Wind won’t often get its damage bonus, but that could be
because your opponent knows the usual Limited tactic of
retreating something badly injured to avoid giving up a
Prize won’t work; 150 HP and 120 damage should suffice
regardless.
Ratings
Standard:
4/5
Expanded:
4.25/5
Limited:
4.5/5
Summary:
Yveltal BREAK isn’t a brilliant card, but it has
a firm foundation with Yveltal (XY 78/146)
being more or less a staple for Darkness Type decks in
Standard play, and still often used in Expanded. Yveltal
(XY: BREAKthrough 94/162) isn’t a slouch either
and is sometimes used with the original Yveltal.
Building on what already works doesn’t guarantee it will
see play, but it means reasonably good HP and an
additional attack should get it some play. Still
not worth the scores I just gave it; this is based on
the idea that some successful deck will evolve around
Yveltal BREAK and its Baleful Wind as the focus and
not just a bonus.
Yveltal BREAK
received 12 voting points, beating out Xerneas BREAK
by just one point. Of those 12, half came from me
ranking it as my fifth place pick. This was enough
to let it edge out my fourth place pick, Xerneas
BREAK and in hindsight I think I am glad it did. Yveltal
BREAK tied with
tomorrow’s
third place finisher; with two lists and cards that
appeared on each my usual tiebreakers wouldn’t work, so
I hedged a bet on the game post rotation. We’ll
discuss whether or not I was correct tomorrow.
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