Otaku |
Note:
Yes I missed a review
yesterday,
but as is often the case when I fall behind I do still
make time to eventually get the review written; it
should be posted around the time this one goes up.
Sorry for the delay!
Mega Catcher
(XY: Fates Collide 104/124) is a new Item that
allows you to select one of your opponent’s Benched Mega
Evolutions and force it into the Active slot. This
is a pretty simple, straightforward effect with one
pretty significant problem: how many Mega Evolutions are
Bench-sitters? I can’t think of a single Mega
Evolution that isn’t meant to be used as some sort of
attacker; none of them have Abilities, only that single
attack. Primal Groudon-EX (XY: Primal Clash
86/160, 151/160) builds on the Bench, but its “Ω
Barrier” Ancient Trait will protect it from Mega
Catcher. So the main use of Mega Catcher
is going to be if your opponent Benches a Mega Evolution
early, or retreats one before you can KO it. This
is not a worthless effect, however it is very
specialized. What is more, the only advantage of
using this over Lysandre is that it doesn’t eat
up your Supporter for the turn in exchange for being so
specialized and vulnerable to Item lock.
Either the biggest or second biggest problem for Mega
Catcher is the vast amount of competition it faces
for deck space. If I want an Item version of
Lysandre, I can run Pokémon Catcher; yes it
requires a coin flip but it can target anything on the
Bench. It I just want a useful Item, there are
cards like Startling Megaphone, Enhanced
Hammer, Target Whistle, etc. that are likely
to come in handy right now. Even as TecH there are
a lot of other single card plays that can be used to
help with particular matchups, and they needn’t even be
Items, so the amount of competition Mega Catcher
faces is staggering. About the only place to
include it is in Limited, “just in case” and because
even with Evolution Packs, you might have the space.
Ratings
Standard:
1.5/5
Expanded:
1.35/5
Limited:
2/5
Summary:
Not really a summary today, but another way of
explaining it all is that Mega Catcher has the
opposite pros and cons of Omastar BREAK (which we
looked at
last week).
Omastar BREAK has an Ability that allows you to
force an opponent’s Benched Pokémon-EX into the Active
slot. While still a restricted target, that is far
less restrictive and far more common a thing than Mega
Evolutions, especially hiding out on the Bench as many
Pokémon-EX that see competitive play have Abilities that
justify using them as more than just attackers. Omastar
BREAK required a lot more effect to put into play;
so its effect was useful except it was too hard to run.
Mega Catcher is easy to run, but its effect just
isn’t useful enough.
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