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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Lucario #47 & #63

- Fates Collide

Date Reviewed:
July 15, 2016

Ratings & Reviews Summary

See Below

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Alright, let's get the small-fry out of the way, I wanna talk about the big deal here. 

Lucario (47) is the Fighting-Type between the two, with a low Retreat Cost and two vanilla attacks: Beatdown at 1-for-40 and Magnum Kick at 3-for-70. Beatdown's pretty good for a 1-Energy attack, even with vanilla, and boosting that up the way Fighting-types can makes Lucario a decent pick. Magnum Kick though doesn't build up into much, and I'd be hard pressed to say I'd recommend him over the other Lucario. 

Yes, that's even considering all the Fighting support. 

Rating 

Standard: 2/5 (he's decent only cause of the support) 

Expanded: 1.5/5 (he's good only cause of the support) 

Limited: 3/5 (this Lucario WANTS his support) 

------

And now for Lucario (63)...oh man, Lucario (63). 

Let's start with his first attack, Vacuum Wave: it's 1-for-50. That's really really good, and while the stipulation that it's unaffected by Weakness or Resistance is a little bit of a punch in the gut compared to Beatdown, it's still really solid. If he was Fighting-type like his brother, he'd be amazing, but I think that's probably why they defaulted to making him Steel-type instead. 

Even more so because of his second attack, Fight Alone. This is the one that caught my attention, personally, because Lucario now has the ability to push through any Pokemon with ease...for the right amount of attention. It's a bit of a "high risk, high reward" kind of attack rather than a "catch-up" maneuver; basically it does 2-for-30, and then for every Pokemon your opponent has MORE than you, it adds on an extra 60 damage. So if they've got 1 more Pokemon, that's 90, at 2 more it's 150, at 3 more it's 210 all the way up to 330!! 

Course at 2-3 more, that's already plenty to work with, inflicting major damage and even KO-ing some Pokemon-EX at that point. Combined with something like Fighting Fury Belt, Lucario can become very dangerous! On the other hand, that does expose yourself to a potential loss if your opponent can KO Lucario, especially if you don't have any other Pokemon. Sure, you've KO'd that big beefy Pokemon-EX they had, but then they just beat up Lucario and now you've lost! Therein lies the risk. 

Still, it's a pretty solid attack outside of that, and if you use it to finish your opponent off at the right time, Lucario can easily win you the game. 

Rating 

Standard: 2.5/5 (a solid attack and a powerful one make Lucario pretty powerful overall) 

Expanded: 2.5/5 (come to think of it, sniping might be dangerous Lucario) 

Limited: 3.5/5 (since if you snipe something good, Lucario might just become more powerful) 

Arora Notealus: I really like the artwokr for (63) a lot! With him staring up towards Mega Alakazam in the background. I think it actually compliments (47)'s artwork really well too, where it looks like he's powering up to the next level...like some kind of...DBZ character...hmmm... 

Weekend Thought: WOW, that was a lot of cards to go through! What did you think of them all? Enjoyed a few? Want to try some of them out yourself? Or are you gonna pass on a couple? Who's the fairest of them all?


Otaku

We finish the week with another two-in-one review: Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 47/124) and Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 63/124)!  Right away we have an obvious difference as XY: Fates Collide 47/124 is a Fighting Type while XY: Fates Collide 63/124 is a Metal Type.  I bring up the Fighting Type often because as far as I’m concerned it has the most going for it.  Yes, even though it isn’t the source of any current top decks; it still has Focus Sash, Korrina, Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick, and Strong Energy for direct support and several strong single Energy attackers of varying Stages that are good for damage and often effects as well!  Colorless, Darkness, and Lightning Types all have quite a bit of Fighting Weakness, though also Resistance (which is spread out among the Types): good thing double damage matters a lot more than just soaking 20.  There are anti-Fighting Type cards but they just aren’t worth using.  The net result is pretty amazing.  What about Metal Types?  Forgive me not typing it up again but this review should be pretty lengthy as is: the detailed version is here from when we looked at Genesect-EX (XY: Fates Collide 64/124, 120/124).  In a few areas they outdo Fighting Types but in the areas that count most the Fighting Type outperforms there.  Yes, even though the Metal Type now has a strong, established deck again while the Fighting Type doesn’t; that owes more to the current metagame not being favorable to the best Fighting Types we have right now, but not for anything Type specific.  Go figure. 

Both Lucario are of course Stage 1 cards, so they aren’t as easy to implement or well supported as Basic Pokémon, but they are fairly reasonable to run and several are prominent in the game, whether on the Bench as support or as the main attacker.  Both have 110 HP, which is around that point where it becomes a toss up as to whether it can safely soak a hit or not; honestly it might be time to shift those guidelines up again.  So in short, it is precarious but at least there is a real chance unlike with most things that are smaller.  Weakness does remove almost all hope of surviving a hit (at least without help), and neither the Psychic Weakness of XY: Fates Collide 47/124 nor the Fire Weakness of XY: Fates Collide 63/124 is anywhere close to safe, but between what does well for those Types and the HP scores, the Weakness mostly allows less substantial setups to still manage the OHKO.  XY: Fates Collide 63/124 is the only one with Resistance, so it “wins” in that regard; that -20 against Psychic Types may even do it some good given how defensive the Metal Type tends to be already.  XY: Fates Collide 47/124 has the edge in Retreat Costs as its is only [C] while XY: Fates Collide 63/124 needs [CC]; the latter isn’t burdensome but the former is just that much better. 

XY: Fates Collide 47/124 has two attacks; for [F] it can use “Beatdown” for [F] to do a flat 40 damage while [FCC] buys a perfectly vanilla “Magnum Kick” which does 70 damage.  The costs are staggered well to go from one to the other, with Beatdown having great damage for the Energy invested while Magnum Kick is a bit weaker than I prefer, but still serviceable.  For what it is, it isn’t bad, but it doesn’t thrill me either.  XY: Fates Collide 63/124 also has two attacks, and the first one (Vacuum Attack) has a similar Energy cost, just [M] instead of [F] to match Type.  It does 50 damage while ignoring Weakness and Resistance; at first that might sound better but given how much more useful hitting Weakness is than ignoring Resistance, the improved damage leaves me thinking it is only as good as Beatdown and if this was a Fighting Type, I’d say the card was weaker for it.  “Fight Alone” is the main attraction anyway; for just [MC] it does 30 plus a bonus that ranges from zero damage to 240!  Why so much?  Well it depends upon how many Pokémon each player has in play; if you’re running XY: Fates Collide 63/124 and have less Pokémon in play than your opponent, the damage bonus is 60 a head.  The damage is all done to the opponent’s Active, though.  Fight Alone is pretty sweet, but requires a risky deck built around it to fully exploit. 

Lucario has to come from someplace unless you use Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick (and that isn’t an option for XY: Fates Collide 63/124 anyway); our choices for Riolu are BW: Next Destinies 63/99 (reprinted as BW: Legendary Treasures 79/113), BW: Black Star Promos BW33, BW: Plasma Storm 75/135, BW: Plasma Storm 76/135, XY: Fates Collide 45/124, and XY: Fates Collide 46/124.  All are Fighting Type Basic Pokémon with Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Ancient Trait, and no Ability.  Only XY: Fates Collide 45/124 and XY: Fates Collide 46/124 are Standard legal.  BW: Next Destinies 63/99 has 70 HP, can use “Punch” for [C] to do 10 damage or [FC] to use “Quick Punch” for 10 plus a coin flip worth 20 more damage on “heads”.  BW: Black Star Promos BW33 drops to 60 HP, can use “Run Around” to run away to your Bench for [C] or “Hook” to do 30.  BW: Plasma Storm 75/135 has 60 HP can Punch for [C] to do 10 (again) while for [FC] it can use “Kick” for 20.  BW: Plasma Storm 76/135 gets back up to 70 HP and brings back Kick but it costs [CC] while still doing 20, or can use “Feint” for [FCC] to do 40 while ignoring Resistance.  XY: Fates Collide 45/124 is another with 70 HP, but only one attack this time; for [C] you get “Double Smash” to flip two coins good for 10 damage per “heads”.  Finally XY: Fates Collide 46/124 drops down to 60 and only has one attack (Smash Punch) which needs [F] and a successful coin flip to do 30 (“tails” does nothing).  I’d go with a 70 HP version is possible, but don’t sweat the attacks.

There are of course some other Lucario to address: BW: Next Destinies 64/99 (reprinted as BW: Legendary Treasures 80/113), BW: Plasma Storm 77/135, BW: Plasma Storm 78/135, BW: Black Star Promos BW85, and the revealed-but-not-released XY: Black Star Promos XY140.  All these Lucario are Fighting Type Stage 1 Pokémon with Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, and no Ancient Trait.  All but BW: Plasma Storm 77/135 have 100 HP (it only has 90) and an Ability (it has two attacks).  Only the new promo will be Standard Legal (apart from today’s Lucario of course).  So BW: Next Destinies 64/99 has Retreat Cost [C], the Ability “Reflexive Retaliation”, and the attack “Aura Sphere”.  Reflexive Retaliation places two damage counters on the opponent’s Active should this Lucario be damaged by an opponent’s attack (even if Lucario would be KO’d).  Aura Sphere costs [FF] to do 50 to the opponent’s Active and 20 to one of his or her Benched Pokémon (your choice).  The Ability might be better if this card could tank and/or the format wasn’t so fast while the attack does decent damage for the Energy and spread can be great… but by splitting that damage up you’re not hitting key amounts for anything most games.  The then review crew members covered it years ago here; they did not score it well which makes sense due to the differences in card pool and even the first turn rules of the time.

BW: Plasma Storm 77/135 also has a Retreat Cost of [C] and is another vanilla attacker, like XY: Fates Collide 47/124.  Its first attack (Kick) requires [FC] to do 30 while for [FCC] its “Mach Cross” does the same 70 as Magnum Kick.  We actually did review this one here and I did not care for it at all.  So with the first attack and HP, BW: Plasma Storm 77/135 is clearly outclassed.  BW: Plasma Storm 78/135 has a Retreat Cost of [CC], an Ability and an attack.  The Ability “Dual Armor” which allows it to be both a Fighting and Metal Type so long as it has any [M] Energy attached.  That is actually a really good Ability, though it is better as simply a card trait.  For [FCC] its “Hurricane Kick” does 60 damage, plus 30 per Prize your opponent had taken.  It actually had a deck that was known but never overly successful, as you intentionally gave up some Prizes and had a slow start because after a bit you were hitting fantastic damage amounts: one Prize meant 90, two meant 120, three meant 150, four mean 180, five meant 210, and six meant… you already had lost.  We reviewed this version here and liked it but didn’t score it strongly because the format was harder on Stage 1 at the time.  This one might have some potential still in its own deck or as a partner for one of today’s; we’ll discuss that soon. 

First the two promo versions.  BW: Black Star Promo BW85 has a Retreat Cost of [CC], an Ability, and an attack because the designers must like that combination.  This time the Ability just lets you draw two cards when you Evolve one of your Pokémon into this particular Lucario from hand.  The attack (Fast Punch) has the now familiar Energy cost of [FCC] so it takes a little help to get it up and running fast (does that count as irony?).  It does 60 damage with a coin flip for an extra 30 when even if it had done a flat 90 it would just be decent for the investment.  XY: Black Star Promos BW140 has a Retreat Cost of [CC] with two attacks.  The first is “Bone Rush” which costs [F] to have you flip a coin until you get “tails”, then does 30 damage times the number of “heads”.  For [FFF] it gets “Mach Claw” to do 90 damage while ignoring Resistance.  Even with Resistance to Fighting Types being the most abundant Resistance, “No Resistance” is far more common so I’d rather the attack just did another 20 damage.  While it does hit harder than some of our Lucario, it needs a lot of luck or requires meeting a far less friendly Energy cost.  I’d skip both promos.

So with all that out of the way, what to do with either Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 47/124) and Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 63/124)?  The Fighting Type version is probably best used to teach people how to play, and it is in the Battle Ruler Theme Deck.  It just doesn’t do enough with its second attack to be worth it outside of Limited and in Theme Decks, and even in the Theme Deck it faces competition!  In Standard or Expanded, you could run Carbink BREAK for a similar resource investment.  Our Metal Type friend has people trying to make it work.  You can’t shoot for maximum damage all the time, but you can get some solid amounts while trying to stream Lucario after Lucario.  Seems to fragile for my tastes, even with the Metal Typing offering some potential damage soaking tricks.  Then again, Metal is probably one of the Types that call for a big Bench given the multiple useful Metal Type Bench-sitters.  It and BW: Plasma Storm 78/135 have some overlap, but not enough to really compliment each other.  We really need a good opening Lucario or Lucario BREAK, which we don’t have.  It too is better in Limited, where it can safely sit on the Bench as your cleaner until needed… and until your Bench is thinned out. 

Ratings 

XY: Fates Collide 47/124 

Standard: 1.65/5 

Expanded: 1.5/5 

Limited: 4/5 

Theme: 3.5/5 

XY: Fates Collide 63/124 

Standard: 2.5/5 

Expanded: 2.25/5 

Limited: 4.25/5 

Summary (Both): Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 47/124) seems like a waste outside of as a teaching tool while Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 63/124) screams combo me but I’m not sure with what as it also says “No Bench!” which is just insane (though a single Benched bit of back up is workable).  I like ending on something stronger, but then again we did do a twofer so hopefully you enjoyed. 

XY: Fates Collide 63/124 actually caught everyone’s eye while we were working on our Top 15 lists (yes, Top 15 - my habit of including extras is spreading XD).  It didn’t end up making my list, but between the others amassed 10 voting points, allowing it to take 15th place on our extended Top 10 list for XY: Fates Collide.  8th and 9th place each had 11 points and were Carbink (XY: Fates Collide 50/124) and Bronzong (XY: Fates Collide 61/124), respectively.  It beat out 16th place Aerodactyl (XY: Fates Collide 76/124) by one point.  Honestly, thinking we had some other cards that ought to have been here, but this set has a lot of stuff that looks kind of good but so far hasn’t made a lot of difference.


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