aroramage |
Volcanion-EX started out a major
contender since his debut appearance in Steam Siege. Not
only did he have a powerful Ability and a decent attack
in Volcanic Heat, but he was brandished two Types at the
same time: Fire and Water, giving him versatility in
what he could hit for Weakness.
That being said, he was far better
suited to hang around a Fire deck more than a Water
deck, despite all the recent Water support in BREAKpoint,
and indeed he and his non-EX form became their own
archetype of deck! Using EX's Steam Up Ability to power
up regular Volcanion's attacks - including Power Heater,
which can use the discarded Fire Energy to power up
Benched Pokemon, and Steam Artillery, which does
3-for-100 but can hit for 130 using Steam Up - really
helps bolster the deck as a whole, and in turn makes for
a powerful engine in its own right.
Of course while his non-EX form is
a great partner, it's not the only one. Volcanion-EX can
power up other Fire Pokemon as well to inflict more
damage...provided they're Basics. Charizard-EX,
Ninetales-EX, Entei (AOR), Camerupt-EX, these are just a
few noteworthy options in terms of what can be used
alongside Volcanion-EX. And it's probably going to be
the case that we see more Fire Basics worthy of his
attention.
Ideally, Volcanion-EX will pop up
from time to time in decks with a need for a big Fire
Basic as their attacker, but outside of that, he'll
probably be okay. Volcanic Heat isn't too great an
attack, although he can hit 160 with a Steam Up on that,
so that's pretty handy. He can hit hard when he wants
to, and with his buddy he can 2HKO everything in the
game, so maybe it's best to keep an eye on him for a
while.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (still a powerful
entity in his own right)
Expanded: 4.5/5 (and he's got
access to powerful Fire support in Standard)
Limited: 5/5 (I wonder if he'll
play a major role in upcoming decks?)
Arora Notealus: Volcanion-EX has a
lot of potential for sure, and hopefully he'll continue
to play a big role in Fire decks to come. After all,
it'd be a shame for him not to see play when it's so
obvious what good he can do, ya know? Let's see some
good Fire Basics!
Next Time: A stinking pile of
garbage? In my Top 10?
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Otaku |
We begin the week
with our fifth place pick for the top 10 cards of 2016,
Volcanion-EX (XY: Steam Siege 26/114,
107/114, 115/114; XY: Black Star Promos XY173).
This card was our
number one pick
in our XY: Steam Siege top 10, so it makes sense
it would place high for the year, right? Maybe;
after all one of our other number ones this year ended
up being
a dud. Let’s unpack this and see what Volcanion-EX can do,
has done, and is likely to do in the future.
Being a Pokémon-EX
agrees with Volcanion-EX; giving up an extra
Prize when KO’d, being vulnerable to anti-Pokémon-EX
effects, and being excluded from certain beneficial
effects hurts (well, not so much that last one), but
this card gets a lot for the trade off. It is one
of the new dual Type Pokémon, being both a Fire and a
Water Type; while this mechanic is not restricted to
Pokémon-EX, Volcanion (XY: Black Star Promos
XY145; XY: Steam Siege 25/114) and Volcanion
(XY: Black Star Promos XY164) are straight Fire
Types, making me think that Volcanion-EX only got
the privilege due to it being a Pokémon-EX. Volcanion-EX
can exploit the Fire Weakness found on most Grass and
Metal Type Pokémon, as well as the Water Weakness found
on most Fire Type and some Fighting Type Pokémon.
Fire Resistance doesn’t exist naturally in Expanded or
Standard play, while Water Resistance is confined to
BW-era Grass Types (and then not all of them, just
many). There are anti-Fire and anti-Water Type
effects, but most haven’t proven that good and the one
that has - Parallel City - requires you shrink
your own Bench size down to three in order to use it
that way. Both Types offer some worthwhile Pokémon
Type-specific support, Energy Type specific support,
shared Type-specific support, and a stable of useful
other Pokémon belonging to one of the two Types.
Being a Basic
Pokémon is the best, both now, then, and for the
foreseeable future due to minimal resource (including
time) requirements to hit the field combined with how
certain mechanics favor the Stage. Not a
Pokémon-EX derived bonus, though, as of course all
Volcanion are Basics. Both regular
Volcanion only have 130 HP, so the 180 found on
Volcanion-EX is a definite benefit of being a
Pokémon-EX. Again no bonus for the bottom stats.
Water Weakness is shared by the regular Volcanion;
it isn’t good but it isn’t (and wasn’t) the worst a
Pokémon could have… though at times it comes close.
Lack of Resistance is the worst Resistance, but it is
also what most Pokémon sport, plus getting around
Resistance isn’t too terribly hard for most decks to
deal with between multi-Type decks and/or just
overwhelming the -20 it provides to damage. The Retreat
Cost of [CCC] is chunky and will require you dedicate
some deck space to deal with it. Reversing my
usual review order, let us look at the card’s lone
attack because - like the bottom stats, again being a
Pokémon-EX doesn’t seem to be much help. “Volcanic
Heat” costs [RRC] and does 130 damage, but it
also places an effect on Volcanion-EX itself
preventing it from attacking on your next turn.
The usual tricks can get around this restriction, but it
means Volcanion-EX is at best breaking even for
its efforts.
At last we come to
what makes this card, the Ability “Steam Up”; it is a
once-per-turn-per-copy Ability, so if you have multiple
Volcanion-EX in play each can use its Steam Up
Ability on your turn. At least provided you meet
the cost; each usage of Steam Up requires you
discard a [R] Energy from hand, and nothing counts as
[R] in your hand other than basic Fire Energy
cards. The payout is excellent though; this places
an effect on your side of the field that grants a 30
damage boost to the attacks of your Fire Type Basic
Pokémon. Let me stress, you do not have to
pick a particular Pokémon to buff; you don’t have to
commit to a particular plan of attack when using Steam
Up. You don’t attack with a Fire Type Basic
Pokémon you won’t get the damage bonus, but any
Basic Fire Type enjoys the damage bonus from Steam Up,
even if it wasn’t in play when Steam Up was used.
Spamming Basic Pokémon to your Bench isn’t too terribly
had, so this isn’t just a simple +30 damage bonus we are
talking about; two can mean +60, three +90, and a full
four count means +120 damage! Attacks minor,
moderate, and major can reach the next level, though
obviously the largest wouldn’t need a boost in the first
place.
Volcanion-EX
sees play in two successful, competitive decks at the
moment. One is partnered with Volcanion (XY:
Black Star Promos XY145; XY: Steam Siege
25/114), where (thanks to Steam Up) its “Power Heater”
attack hits surprisingly hard and can prep up to
two additional attackers on your Bench. Sometimes
it includes one of the other worthwhile Basic Pokémon
attackers, but at least in my experience it’s just the
Volcanion-EX and support Pokémon. The other
place where Volcanion-EX shows up, it… just sits
on the Bench. What? Well since it is both a
Fire and a Water Type at the same time, it adds 60
damage to “Rainbow Force”, the attack that makes
Xerneas (XY: BREAKthrough 107/162) the star
of its own deck. So why isn’t Volcanion-EX
higher on the list? Well considering I just took
the deck for a spin (using someone else’s proven list
because mine ended up being terrible), it is probably
because more than one current, popular deck has an
answer for it. Decks that punish Basic Pokémon
reliance, heavy Pokémon-EX reliance, Ability reliance,
Item reliance, and/or Water Weakness are likely to douse
its flame.
Still if you
already have or can obtain the needed cards for a decent
price, this is a nice deck to have in your stable for
Standard play. I’m not seeing it pop up as much
for Expanded though, possibly because there are still
nasties like Seismitoad-EX hopping around,
whether starring in its own deck or as a guest opener in
something totally off Type otherwise. This
Volcanion-EX can be a mighty pull in Limited, but
not in a +39 deck. Though you could use this
as your only Basic in your 40 card Limited Format deck,
not only is it slow to start but Volcanion-EX can
only attack every other turn.. So yeah, that 180 HP
won’t last that long. Go ahead and back up other
Fire Type attackers with it, though… not that you’re
likely to have a chance as most Limited Events are
Pre-Releases, and the ones for XY: Steam Siege
are long gone.
Ratings
Standard:
4/5
Expanded:
3.25/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Volcanion-EX is breathed new life into waning
Fire Type decks, or at least ones focused on Basic Fire
Type Pokémon. Its Steam Up Ability is crazy good,
giving it a great deck for Standard play.
Unfortunately even regaining lost Fire Type support like
Blacksmith doesn’t seem to elevate it above the
crowd in Expanded, though you probably can still get a
solid, functional deck out of it.
Volcanion-EX
secured fifth place with 14 voting points. This
means it beat out
sixth place
M Audino-EX by a healthy six point margin, and
only missed tying our
fourth place
finisher
by by two points. Some of that did come from me,
but I only had Volcanion-EX as my seventh place
pick; it is a great card but for a specific deck.
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