aroramage |
And now we finally come down to the
first BREAK Evo revealed, Marowak BREAK! Was he really
that great, or was he just a preview of things to come?
,,,definitely the latter.
Marowak BREAK, like every other
BREAK Evo, is meant to go on top of a Marowak you
control, and of course he inherits whatever that Marowak
had aside from HP, which gets a nice increase to 140 HP.
There's only the BREAKThrough version available in
Standard, though Expanded does nab the copy from Dragons
Exalted. But is it really worth it to BREAK Evolve to
Marowak BREAK?
It's certainly an interesting
option, given that he gains the power of
REVENGE!!...well, Bone Revenge. It's a 2-for-20
miserable attack, so it's already not that appealing,
but it does have an effect that increases the damage.
For each Prize card your opponent's taken, Marowak BREAK
will get to deal an additional 40 damage to the Active
Pokemon, so potentially you've got an additional 200
damage coming your way, enough to KO even a few M
Pokemon-EX! Add on some Muscle Band and some Strong
Energy, and you're ready to OHKO anything they've got!
But there's a pretty big problem
with that - your opponent needs to have taken most of
their Prizes to really make that OHKO go off. It's much
more useful as a late-game sweep maneuver, but early
game it's going to be difficult to deal a lot of damage
with Bone Revenge. You also wanna make sure you're not
falling too far behind, cause even Marowak BREAK isn't
the ultimate salvation to a deck on the losing end. So
in some games, he's the guy that breaks the tie in your
favor, but in a few others, he's just a spiteful striker
so your opponent doesn't go 6-0.
The other thing is that Marowak
BREAK comes with all the weaknesses of running a full
Stage 2 line-up without the benefits of a Stage 2
set-up, i.e. you've got to run Cubone and Marowak to run
Marowak BREAK, which means the moment Cubone hits your
Bench, your opponent will know exactly what you're up
to...unless you're not using Marowak BREAK for some
reason, but hey, I don't judge.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (that being said,
he's got a niche appeal to him, similar to Misdreavus
from yesterday)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (now that I think
about it though, you might be able to pair the two
together into a "give your opponent an advantage and
then destroy them with your stuff" kind of deck)
Limited: 3.5/5 (it's like the
ultimately deck of revenge!)
Arora Notealus: I really do wanna
hear the reasoning for BREAK Evo. I mean, you think of
past sets like the Delta Species sets where they explain
why there's a certain mechanic introduced into the game.
Wouldn't it be interesting to find out why BREAK
Evolutions are occurring? Not to mention I'd like to see
some more support on them to make them
more...competitively viable.
Next Time: A double tag team match
up of the strongest Psychic Pokemon!
|
Otaku |
Next up
to bat is Marowak BREAK (XY: BREAKthrough
79/162). It it wasn’t clear the card states that
this is a BREAK Pokémon three times: in the name, in the
Stage reference in the upper left corner, and then in
the additional rules box under the HP and Type. As
the BREAK Evolution of a Stage 1, this card takes the
effort of a Stage 2 Pokémon to get into play but without
the inherent benefits since it doesn’t count as a Stage
2 for various card effects (or a Stage 1 for that
matter). So far no cards reference BREAK
Evolutions (either for beneficial or detrimental
effects), so other than generic references to being an
Evolved Pokémon, the Stage isn’t too big of a deal in
terms of combos. Marowak BREAK does enjoy being
a Fighting-Type: Strong Energy is probably the
best of the Type-specific Special Energy cards,
Korrina and Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick are
great Supporters, Fighting Stadium is a very good
Stadium, Focus Sash is a good Pokémon Tool, and
on top of all of that we have some good, solid
Fighting-Type attackers (and the occasional
Bench-sitter) to take advantage of it all. The
Fighting-Type can elevate a mediocre card to good, a
good card to very good, a very good card to great and a
great card to “Should that be legal?”.
Marowak
BREAK
has 140 HP, enough to soak the upper end of mid-level
attacks. Plenty of decks can still shoot for the
OHKO, but this is still reasonably good, though you are
paying for it when you consider time and cards invested.
Weakness, Resistance and Retreat Cost will be supplied
by whatever Marowak you BREAK Evolve from so
we’ll move onto the last thing the card offers, the
attack “Bone Revenge”. At a cost of [FC], it
begins with a weak 20 damage, but the effect states that
for each Prize your opponent has taken, Bone Revenge
does an additional 40 damage. One Prize means a
decent 60 damage, two Prizes a good 100, three a very
good 140, four a great 180, and five an amazing 220!
Yes, the odds of sneaking in the last one can be low if
your deck is typical and includes quite a few
Pokémon-EX, but at two Energy, two or more Prizes taken
means you’re getting a good (or better) return.
Plus as a BREAK Evolution (again) you’ll have access to
whatever is on the Marowak you BREAK Evolve
supplies. You don’t have to necessarily even have
Marowak BREAK in play the entire time if regular
Marowak can actually hold its own.
Before
we cover the Marowak from which to BREAK Evolve,
it all begins with Cubone. Unless you use
Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick, which can put
Marowak into play directly, but not
Marowak BREAK as it would be an incomplete card.
Still, we’re covering Cubone: BW: Dragons
Exalted 60/124 is available in Expanded, while
XY: BREAKthrough 77/162 is available in either
constructed format. Both are Basic Fighting-Types
with 70 HP, no Ancient Trait and no Ability. BW:
Dragons Exalted 60/124 has Water Weakness, Lightning
Resistance, Retreat Cost [C] and two attacks: “Headbutt”
for [C] to hit for 10 and “Beat” for [CC] to hit for 20.
XY: BREAKthrough 77/162 has Grass Weakness, no
Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC] and just one attack
(Whimsy Tackle) that hits for 50 damage but
requires a coin flip and “tails fails”. You’ve got
no choice in the matter for Standard, but in Expanded I
might go with BW: Dragons Exalted 60/124 for the
lower Retreat and (if desperate) the weak but reliably
damage at a relatively low cost.
Marowak
has two options as well: BW: Dragons Exalted
61/124 in Expanded and XY: BREAKthrough 78/162
for either. Both are Stage 1 Fighting-Types with
100 HP, no Ancient Trait, no Ability but two attacks. BW:
Dragons Exalted 61/124 has Water Weakness, Lightning
Resistance, and Retreat Cost [C]. Its first attack
is “Bone Lock” for [F], which does 30 damage and
prevents the Defending Pokémon from retreating during
your opponent’s next turn. Its second attack is
“Vortex Chop” for [FCC] to hit for 60, plus 30 if
the opponent’s Active has any Resistance. The
first attack isn’t bad but the second should be hitting
90 before the effect, not after. XY:
BREAKthrough 78/162 has Grass Weakness, no
Resistance and a Retreat Cost of [CC]. Its first
attack is “Sharpshooting” for [F], which allows you to
select one of your opponent’s Pokémon and hit it for 30
damage (no Weakness or Resistance for Benched targets).
Its second attack is “Bone Windmill” at a cost of [FC],
hitting for 60 damage and if the opponent’s
Active is a Pokémon-EX, you can switch it (Marowak)
with one of your Benched Pokémon. These aren’t
brilliant, but they are at least adequate, maybe even
good (but not great) attacks. So can these be
built up into a functional, perhaps even formidable
deck?
Maybe.
I’m not seeing any Marowak BREAK in the Top 4
finishers from Cities for the Masters Division
(according to
The Charizard Lounge), but there are two Marowak BREAK decks that finished in
the Top 8 and a third Marowak (XY:
BREAKthrough 78/162). While I don’t have
lists, I did get my stomped by a deck using that
Marowak, with Marowak BREAK as a cleaner.
The trick was using damage buffs and Bone Windmill
strategically. Unless I could afford to burn a
Lysandre I couldn’t touch a Marowak/Marowak
BREAK, give or take attacking with a non-Pokémon-EX
to prevent switching out. Splitting resources like
Strong Energy and Muscle Band between two
or even three Marowak/Marowak BREAK
results in just enough damage from Bone Windmill to
really add up, so that most fall into 2HKO or 3HKO
range. Marowak BREAK and its Bone Revenge and
140 HP are there to smack back an opponent that does
start taking Prizes. This could be the next
Donphan (BW: Plasma Storm 72/135)... but if
it is, then just like that card it isn’t performing as
impressively shortly after release. In Limited
play, this seems like a great pull because it isn’t too
hard to splash into decks and Fighting Weakness is
abundant. Bone Revenge is weaker here because
there aren’t as many Prizes to take, but as per usual
average HP and damage output is lower so it still comes
out ahead.
But
wait there’s more!
We aren’t sure when or if we are getting it, but in
Japan there is a promo Marowak, which has the
same attributes as XY: BREAKthrough 78/162 but
with an Ability and single attack. The attack (Bonemerang)
is only so-so: [FC] to flip two coins for 60 damage per
“heads”. The Ability (Bodyguard) appears to
protect you and your hand from the effects of attacks,
which I believe should allow you to ignore an opponent’s
Seismitoad-EX supplied “Quaking Punch” and its
Item lock. Hard to say what Seismitoad-EX
will be doing by then, but if something is riding high
by messing with players/their hands via attack effects,
this Marowak tag teams with XY: BREAKthrough
78/162 and Marowak BREAK for a deck that will
bring it low, and earn itself a spot at the table.
Well, that is my (optimistic?) guess, and if we never
even get it, then obviously it will prove false!
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
2.8/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Marowak BREAK caught me by surprise, as it isn’t
incredibly potent in its own right and neither does it
have an already strong Stage 1 to BREAK Evolve from, but
it has a lot of little things going for it that allows
it to be on the happy side of average. Future
releases might make it something great, but for now it
managed a few decent finishes and that is enough to make
it still worth testing out in my eyes. Guess I’ll
have to get a few copies.
|
