aroramage |
Finally wrapping up this week with
a double dose of healing love! Audino gets the EX
treatment, and she's so far the only Generation 5
Pokemon with a Mega Evo. I wonder why exactly though?
Well I'm not gonna say Audino-EX is
the best Pokemon-EX we've had. Probably one of the
lesser ones. I dunno about you, but when my first attack
is like Drain Slap, a 1-for-20 hit that heals a strict
20 HP, I'm not looking to be the very best. I'm
certainly not looking to be some kind of Mewtwo-EX or
Rayquaza-EX, I can tell you that much.
And don't think that Do the Wave is
gonna make me more optimistic over Audino-EX's chances.
It's 3-for-60 and does 10 more damage for each of your
Benched Pokemon, maxing out at around 110 damage (or 140
in decks running Sky Field). It's hard to really
advocate a move like this, cause on the one hand it's
got potential with a lot of Bench-sitters and back-up
attackers to be good, but on the other it's got such low
damage output that it's hardly worth using as the main
event.
Audino-EX is a very basic
Pokemon-EX - and no, I'm not saying that cause she's a
Basic. The reason for this is cause she was released in
Japan alongside her Mega Evolution in a Mega Battle
Deck, which is kinda like a pre-built starter deck for
players new and old. So in short, Audino-EX is a starter
Pokemon-EX, or "baby's first EX".
I don't know what else you were
expecting from Audino.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (the healing's
paltry, and Audino-EX isn't really a fighter)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (if her first
attack was instead an Ability to heal off 20 damage on
each of your Pokemon per turn, I'd take that over the
Drain Slap)
Limited: 2.5/5 (really should've
been a Bench-sitting Rough Seas if you ask me)
------
Now does her Mega Evolution do much
more for Audino-EX? Probably not, seeing as it was also
released in the Mega Battle Deck. But maybe something to
boost off of the extra bulk she's got will work just as
well.
Magical Symphony, aside from being
a lovely name for anything, costs about the same as Do
 the Wave and already does 110 damage, which is all Do
the Wave could've done at its best. I consider that to
be an improvement already. On top of that, if a
Supporter was played this turn - which in most cases,
you probably will have played a Supporter - M Audino-EX
will snipe away at a Benched Pokemon for 50 more
damage.
Honestly, this is a pretty decent
Mega Evolution. She's even got the Spirit Link to work
with, which is a massive boon for any Mega Evo. It's
also a really nice power-up compared to Audino-EX, which
I think makes her a good example of how powerful Mega
Evolutions can be. What the deck and these two cards
don't tell you though is how certain Megas are picked
out more as options, considering they'll take up deck
space and either need more to be devoted to them or else
won't see play, and in M Audino-EX's case, I think she's
going to see a little less play given the current
environment of Mega Evos.
Don't get me wrong, she's a fine
Mega Evolution herself, and if you need to build a
budget deck around her, I'm sure there's a way to do it.
But in terms of competitiveness, I think she falls short
of some of the more powerful Mega Evos, who in turn have
lost out to decks like Night March and Vespiquen simply
because of the format. She's a bit of a
middle-of-the-road Mega - not too strong, but not too
weak either. A solid one in her own environment.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (she's just the
right amount of good to not be strong or weak)
Expanded: 2/5 (and that's really a
good spot for her)
Limited: 3/5 (if you can get the
regular Audino-EX as well, she'll be amazing in Limited)
Arora Notealus: This little line-up
really makes me want to have Mega Battle Decks in the
States - not of course for their amazing cards or
anything, but because of these little teaching moments.
I think they'd be a big hit if the Pokemon TCG folk
decided to build these more often than their traditional
Starter Decks - make a couple of new cards up and then
add on a few of the cards in the set and so forth to
support them and go from there. It'd be neat!
Weekend Thought: What do you think
of this week's cards? Do you think things like the Mega
Battle Decks ought to be sold off in America as well?
Did you like seeing two cards being reviewed together
over the last couple of weeks? I bet you did, really
working you to the bone aching for more card reviews!
|
Otaku |
We end the week
with another doubleheader: Audino-EX (XY:
Fates Collide 84/124) and M Audino-EX (XY:
Fates Collide 85/124)! This time I’m going to
try covering what they have in common first, then
covering the specifics of Audino-EX followed by
M Audino-EX.
Both are Colorless
Type Pokémon; no enjoying Weakness, no worrying about
Resistance, some solid support, some rarely used (and
not particularly effective) Type specific counters.
Due to their nature, there isn’t any real bonus to
running a “Colorless” deck apart from actual Colorless
support; this is intentional by the designers as they
wished for Colorless to work just as well with
everything else as with itself (again, apart from
actually running Colorless Type support). Both are
Pokémon-EX so they give up an extra Prize when KO’d
(always matters), are the target of certain
anti-Pokémon-EX effects (sometimes matters), and can’t
access certain support effects (rarely matters).
Both are Fighting Weak, which can be quite dangerous as
the Fighting Type often produces cards that hit hard for
just a few Energy, with many notable examples needing
only one. This would be enough of a concern on its
own, but the Fighting Type also specializes in damage
bonuses, and stacking them with the more generic options
available to all the Types. Doubling all the
damage bonuses can threaten Audino-EX (or less
likely, M Audino-EX) with OHKO for one Energy!
Both Pokémon have no Resistance or Ability; the former
isn’t a surprise and the latter isn’t unusual either.
Both have a Retreat Cost of [CCC]; high enough that
sometimes you won’t be able to afford it up front and
usually not in the long run either. You’ll need
alternatives to manually retreating at full price
(preferably with some redundancy), though it means
Heavy Ball and Heavy Boots work with this
card. Last for things in common, all Energy costs
are [C]; typical of Colorless Types but some do change
things up.
Now for where the
cards differ. Audino-EX is a Basic Pokémon,
which means it is as good as it gets for deck space
needs as well as effort and time to hit the field.
It means Audino-EX lessens your chance of
mulligans as it can be your opening Pokémon, naturally
works better with certain effects (often by virtue of
one of the traits I just stated) and can take advantage
of Basic Stage support; there is specific support
for almost all Stages but BREAK Evolutions (unless I
missed something) but the Basic Stage support has proven
to be among if not the best. The only drawback
comes in the form of useful effects that counter Basics.
Audino-EX has 180 HP, the higher of the two
common amounts for Basic Pokémon-EX and one of the
all-but-guaranteed benefits of being a basic Pokémon as
this is about twice what you normally find on an
Audino. This is at the point where OHKOs
happen because your opponent either got a proper setup
for a deck focused on scoring KOs, got lucky in some way
(weakness, coin flips, whatever), or both. Happens
often enough that you shouldn’t assume it won’t but not
often enough you should assume it will. The first
attack is “Drain Slap” for [C], which lets Audino-EX
(or something that copies this attack) to hit for 20
damage while healing 20 from itself; not great, but
decent for a low Energy attack. For [CCC] it
brings back a classic from almost the earliest days of
the game, “Do the Wave”. Damage is 60 plus 10 more
for each of your Benched Pokémon in play, so a range of
60 to 110 (or 140 with Sky Field). The
attacks work decently together; nothing brilliant but
with tricks like Double Colorless Energy you can
use Drain Slap once then jump to Do the Wave.
M Audino-EX
is a Mega Evolution; on top of the things that went with
being a Pokémon-EX, Mega Evolutions have their own Stage
specific support and counters. They function like
Stage 1 Pokémon except with the big burden of the Mega
Evolution rule, which ends your turn when you Mega
Evolve unless you have an Audino Spirit Link
attached, of course. M Audino-EX has 220 HP, the
lowest of the three typical amounts (220, 230, and 240)
found on Mega Evolutions, though there a few with even
less. The good news is 220 is still big enough
that OHKOs are unlikely for all but the hardest hitting
decks, tricky or impossible for those without good
damage yields or which are not exploiting Weakness.
The only remaining unique trait is the card’s attack.
Like all Mega Evolutions, there is only one attack on
the card and this time it’s “Magical Symphony”.
For [CCC] this attack does 110 damage, and if you played
a Supporter this turn, you also select one of your
opponent’s Benched Pokémon and do 50 to it. Good
damage return for the Energy as Supporter usage is
almost a given most turns, but splitting it up is a
mixed blessing. As is the attack can only score
OHKOs against smallish targets, though at least
Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/180) is among them. It also can’t 2HKO larger
Mega Evolutions or Wailord-EX without help,
though thanks to the damage spread M Audino-EX
may be able to help itself. Still there is a good
range where it will score 2HKOs against larger targets,
and that could be enough to make it work in a deck.
So how do Audino-EX
and M Audino-EX work with each other?
Filling your Bench isn’t too unusual right now, as most
decks will have a Shaymin-EX or two, maybe
another Bench-sitter, and a spare attacker so we are
already over halfway there. Barring bad luck, you
won’t get picky about playing a Supporter until end
game, when you may need to conserve what you have left
available so that means both conditions for the big
attacks are present in most decks. Less general is
using Sky Field to up the damage for Do the Wave.
Many (perhaps most) decks can make use of a larger
Bench, so the main reason this is narrows down the field
is that there are many potent Stadiums various decks
want or even need to keep on the field. Audino-EX
may be worth using alone, as I can think of at least two
decks that want a larger Bench but might also need
another attacker, and where its Colorless nature could
prove useful. M Audino-EX seems more like a tag
along for Audino-EX; Mega Evolve so you can shift
to a steady rate of damage against the opponent’s Active
and try for some decent Bench damage. For example,
110 is enough to take out any Night March Pokémon - as
well as any Mew (XY: Fates Collide 29/124)
or Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98)
which may be backing them up - while also taking out
another Night Marcher on the Bench. If you can use
Lysandre to force up a Shaymin-EX, the
Bench hit could take out a Mew or Joltik (XY:
Phantom Forces 26/119) for three Prizes all at once!
So the big problem is that while Audino-EX won’t
be hard to slip into such decks, finding space for its
Mega Evolution and Spirit Link card as well
becomes demanding.
So one deck that
might consider Audino-EX is the infamous M
Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 76/108,
105/108) decks. They already want to fill their
fields to fuel its “Emerald Break” attack and are also
Colorless, so the deck will have Sky Field and
possibly some Colorless Type support like Altaria
(XY: Roaring Skies 74/108, XY: Black Star
Promos XY46) or Winona. This is where
deck space probably hurts M Audino-EX as it would
otherwise seem like a good fit. There is also
Rainbow Road, the deck built around Xerneas (XY:
BREAKthrough 107/162) and its “Rainbow Force”
attack, which does more damage based on how many Types
of Pokémon you have in play. It runs Double
Colorless Energy and often a few other tricks to
accelerate that should work for Audino as well,
while running Sky Field and wanting to fill its
own Bench. Unfortunately such a deck is likely to
be using Shaymin-EX for the Colorless role, and
again space is likely to be too tight for M Audino-EX
at all. You can also try to focus on Audino-EX
and M Audino-EX for a deck as well, but I didn’t
notice such a deck taking any big wins or even making
top cut in recent major events. If you try this
approach, Sky Field is still a must because the
best way to enhance M Audino-EX (yes… the Mega
Evolution) is a Bench full of cards that help with
damage spread. Exactly which ones are worth it I
can’t say, but you’ve got Absol (XY: Roaring
Skies 40/108), Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces
33/119), Dusknoir (BW: Boundaries Crossed
63/149; BW: Plasma Blast 104/101), Forretress
(XY: Flashfire 60/106), and others that inflict
or move around damage counters but are not so
good that you need to just use them instead (like
Trevenant BREAK). You might also include
Energy acceleration, added draw, or many other bits of
support on your Bench.
I’m not seeing a
huge difference for these two between Standard or
Expanded play. The biggest factors are Night March
and deck space, especially for M Audino-EX, and
those don’t really change between Standard and Expanded.
In Limited even with the Fighting presence in this set
Audino-EX is a great pull; whatever else you run
you can include it. Just don’t be silly and try to
run it on its own, since then it will be… actually not
terrible, but thanks to being Fighting Weak in a set
with a big Fighting presence, it would be a bad idea
even if it had a stronger solo attack. Instead
just slap it into a deck built around your next
strongest pulls and enjoy having a “boss monster” to
throw at any non-Fighting Types (or slow Fighting
Types). M Audino-EX will not get many Bench hits
here as most Supporters you will be running probably
came from your Evolution pack (...why are recent
announcements treating the Evolution pack as a new thing
when they advertised it for this set? I miss
something?). If you’re at an event without the
Evolution pack, you’ll probably be lucky to have one
Supporter. You’ll need a lot of luck already to
get two Ultra Rares (Audino-EX and M Audino-EX)
and hopefully an Audino Spirit Link, though of
course the latter is not required since this is a slower
paced format. Because of that slower pacing, even
the flat 110-for-three will be worth the card
investment. With both of these cards, just
remember that when they go down, you are giving up half
your Prizes as Limited Format events start with four
Prizes, not six.
Ratings
Audino-EX
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3.25/5
Limited:
3.5/5
M Audino-EX
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Audino-EX and M Audino-EX are pretty solid
cards, but in a format full of monsters that lead you to
assume the designers play favorites or were instructed
to intentionally violate game balance when designing
certain cards because strong cards sell packs. Audino-EX
backed by Sky Field can Do the Wave for 140
damage, but that means even if you skip Audino Spirit
Link and slap a Fighting Fury Belt or
Muscle Band on it, Do the Wave won’t OHKO opposing
Pokémon-EX; you’ll need additional help. Change
the specifics but M Audino-EX is in the same boat
with its Magical Symphony; while it wouldn’t be trying
for a OHKO, it might be trying for a muti-KO every few
turns.
Basically these two
do what they do well, but there are cards that just do
it better; why Do the Wave when you can Emerald Break
with M Rayquaza-EX? Well, being a Basic
that can fill a support role versus a Mega that takes
over the deck is a legitimate reason, but there isn’t a
huge demand for that. Audino-EX didn’t make any
of our Top 15 lists, even though this seems like a case
where the Evolving Pokémon ought to be the focus and the
Evolution just a useful trick. M Audino-EX did
however snag four voting points, showing up low but
making it onto more than one list. So had we not
capped the collective Pojo list at a Top 10, it would
have clocked in as our 22nd place finisher. Not
overly prestigious, but better than missing out
entirely. It tied with Genesect-EX (XY:
Fates Collide 64/124, 120/124) and thankfully, I
realized I should break the tie in the favor of the card
we later discovered we had badly underrated (…Genesect-EX!).
It beat Omastar (XY: Fates Collide 18/124)
and Wormadam (XY: Fates Collide 44/124) by
one point. 21st place finisher
here,
23rd place finisher
here,
and 24th place finisher
here.
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