aroramage |
Now this Wormadam is different
because she actually is a Fighting-type, meaning she can
get all that Fighting-type support like Strong Energy
and Maxie's. Unfortunately, that's about all the
positives, as she's got a little less HP than her Grass
counterpart, and that's not the only thing holding her
back.
Sand Spray is unimpressive, being
1-for-30 vanilla. If anything, boosts to her Fighting
from Strong Energy are what will help that the most. And
then there's Twin Bursts, which is 3-for-60 but can add
another 60 damage if Mothim is on your Bench. This
combines well with having Mothim at least, allowing you
to deal 120 damage if he's on the Bench, and you'll be
able to shift damage on Wormadam off thanks to Mothim's
Ability.
Unfortunately, that's where it all
ends. Her HP is low enough to get OHKO'd pretty easily,
her attacks NEED to be boosted in order to be effective,
and without Mothim, she's effectively useless.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (I'm guessing this
puts her at a "meh" level anyway)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (the fact that
she's reliant on having another "meh" Pokemon in play to
be good is pretty "meh")
Limited: 2.5/5 (or something like
that)
Arora Notealus: I wonder what made
them pick between the different Cloaks for Wormadam.
There's the Leaf Cloak, the Ground Cloak...
Weekend Thought: Any thoughts on
building a Wormadam deck? I don't know if you would, but
if it was me, these all do seem pretty essential. Not
sure if I'd throw all of them in, though, I'd rather
build around the Fighting version that WORKS. Throw a
Mothim or two in though, but man, that's hard since they
all evolve from Burmy.
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Otaku |
First a correction: Wormadam (XY: Fates
Collide 3/124) has 120 HP, while I claimed it only
had 100. 120 is definitely an improvement, but as I was
trying not to be overly precise in the review anyway, I
don’t think it would have significantly changed the
scores. With how busy all of us involved with the
Pokémon Card of the Day have been, I am uncertain when
(or if) a corrected CotD will go up.
We finish up our weirdly themed week with Wormadam
(XY: Fates Collide 44/124). If you skipped
the rest of this week, understand that I’m trying not to
repeat myself unnecessarily, so you really need to read
the
Tuesday,
Wednesday,
and
Thursday
reviews because of how interrelated it all is.
Today’s Wormadam is a Fighting Type, which could
be quite significant; it means more chances to exploit
Weakness and access to support the other Wormadam
(and Mothim) can’t use, but which might be worth
it anyway. There are some anti-Fighting Type
effects but they are pretty obscure, and while Fighting
Resistance is one of if not the most common, “No
Resistance” far outpaces it, plus -20 damage isn’t too
bad to deal with so the Type is definitely a net
positive. Being a Stage 1 means an extra card and
turn of waiting to reach Wormadam, but as
Burmy is a Grass Type you could skip the wait by
running Forest of Giant Plants in addition to
Wally. 110 HP gets into that ambiguous place where
you can’t be sure if the Pokémon is more or less likely
to be KO’d in a single turn. I would rather have
it than 100, but I’d rather it was much higher.
Grass Weakness is a threat, though this is due to the
existing Grass Type decks scoring more reliable
(sometimes more rapid) OHKOs. Grass Types usually
don’t burn out so it was already going to be reliable.
Lack of Resistance is disappointing but typical, while
the Retreat Cost of [CC] matches the other Wormadam
and is high enough you don’t want to pay but low enough
you probably can and still recover.
Now for the attacks, “Sand Spray” and “Twin Bursts”.
The former requires [F] and does 30 damage while the
latter requires [CCC] and does 60, plus an additional 60
if Mothim is on your Bench. These may
actually be adequate. 30 for [F] is just a hair weaker
than what we see on cards like Lucario-EX and
Zygarde-EX, which each have attacks for [F] which do
30 damage plus something else (ignoring Weakness
or conditional extra damage, respectively). You
toss in some Fighting Type support and you can get this
Wormadam doing around 90 damage for one Energy.
That same support can get Twin Bursts to around 180
damage, OHKO territory for most Basic Pokémon-EX (let
alones maller targets). The Energy costs are again
staggered so that you can attack a source of [F] Energy
to use Sand Spray then a Double Colorless Energy
to jump to Twin Bursts the next turn. This
Wormadam is still most likely to be OHKO’d back the
next turn, and while 120 for a three Energy attack with
a relatively easy to meet condition (Mothim
Benched), there are other Pokémon with which you can
just do more with the same resources. So… is there
something that can make this all work?
Maybe. How about Focus Sash? This
familiar
Pokémon Tool is not quite a staple for Fighting Type
decks. Plenty of builds go without it, but really
if you have room for even a single is great against an
opponent unlikely to have an answer as it denies them a
Prize (maybe for a turn, maybe longer depending upon
what else you do) while at the same time keeping
whatever resources you have up front in play. Of
course there are multiple answers to it: Startling
Megaphone and Xerosic can be worked into most
decks as at least singles, and in Expanded not only do
you also have Tool Scrapper but Hypnotoxic
Laser also works as Poison will finish something off
between turns after your regular attack already
triggered Focus Sash. Assuming Focus
Sash triggered; the most generic counter is to just
accept it won’t be a true OHKO and try to find something
useful to damage the target, with decks that can place
damage counters via an Ability also not having much
problem with it. Quite a few decks are light on
these tricks though.
I’m still not entirely sure how to use Mothim and
the Wormadam cards the best, but I suspect you
back them up with Vileplume (XY: Ancient
Origins 3/98). That might seem like it will
clash with Focus Sash (and to an extent it will)
but we are going to make good use of AZ.
First, we will be using Forest of Giant Plants
even if I wish we could use something else as well.
Try to lead with today’s Wormadam (XY: Fates
Collide 44/124) and a Focus Sash, the latter
played shortly before you also play Vileplume.
Now next turn when Wormadam has some damage on
it, obviously we’ll be moving them off. Where
depends upon how much. If Focus Sash was
triggered and discarded itself, unless you want to
change main attackers, move the damage to Vileplume
and use AZ to bounce the entire line back to your
hand. Play all the Items you need to use now that
Vileplume is off the field, then before you
attack just drop said entire line back down. At
some point you will be bringing up an alternate
attacker, probably Wormadam (XY: Fates Collide
59/124). Remember not to rush unless victory is
highly probable because the only Wormadam likely
to survive being Active is one with a Focus Sash
and no damage counters on it, neither of which will
apply to our Metal Type friend.
This approach can work in either Standard or Expanded,
with the obvious flaw that you’re probably just better
off running Vespiquen/Vileplume instead. I assume
(as I have for the rest of these reviews - I wasn’t able
to test) it will work better in Standard, but just for
the usual reason of less competition. It also may
be more accurate to state “will work less poorly in
Standard” as again, this is pure Theorymon without even
having watched another player try it. In Limited
Wormadam (XY: Fates Collide 44/124) should
be good pull. Some of the Evolution Packs already
containing Fighting Type Pokémon means you already had
that Weakness covered, but also being better able to
form a solid Fighting base for your deck. This is
also assuming you can’t get a Mothim with it; the
two together (and some fodder to which to move damage
counters) are brutal in this format!
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
2.75/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Wormadam (XY: Fates Collide 44/124) is the
final piece of the puzzle, or rather it and Fighting
Type support like Focus Sash are, because
together with the pieces we already covered, we could
make a functional deck. Competitive?
Probably not.
However when I first saw the card, I let my inner Johnny
run wild and was unduly hyped for it. I even had
it as my 13th place pick for my Top 15 list of this set,
which made it our 24th place finisher with four points.
That sandwiched it between Omastar (XY: Fates
Collide 18/124) and Omastar BREAK, tying with
the former and beating the latter by a single voting
point. As you can tell by now, it is a decision I
regret.
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