Lurantis – Pokemon Card of the Day

aroramage

…Crystal Wall was boring anyway. 300 HP is great, but taking up a Tool slot isn’t, so meh.

You wanna know what’s better than making sure one Pokemon can’t get KO’d as easily? Making sure all of YOUR Pokemon can get KOs for you MUCH more easily! And that’s my transition into Lurantis. Starting with the basics, Lurantis is a Stage 1 with 100 HP and the 3-for-80 vanilla Solar Beam.

…yep, that’s the basics alright. But that’s not the end of the Lurantis story.

Lurantis has with her the Ability of Sunny Day, which has the unique property of enhancing your Pokemon’s attacks, increasing the damage they deal by 20 BEFORE Weakness and Resistance apply. That’s pretty important, as it means you’re effectively adding 20 damage normally but 40 damage if they’re Weak to it! The only catch is the Pokemon have to be Grass or Fire to be affected by this Ability, cause if they’re not it doesn’t count.

Luckily Lurantis fits nicely into Grass decks, though the loss of the Forest of Giant Plants may make running her more of a tech option without a full-powered force to work with. Tapu Bulu-GX in particular benefits nicely from this, as does Golisopod-GX, but even Volcanion decks could use Sunny Day for their own advantage. The only catch with running Lurantis in your deck is that it and the small Fomantis you run to evolve into this are prime Guzma targets, so make sure you’re very careful when you’re playing with her. Other than that, it seems to me like Lurantis makes for a good way of racking up damage in Grass and Fire decks, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her popping up as a 1-1 line-up at the least just to hit those extra numbers.

Rating

Standard: 3/5 (a pretty good choice for decks looking to add on some more damage)

Expanded: 3/5 (and especially with older decks – just cause the forest ain’t around doesn’t mean you can’t smack em against the trees!)

Limited: N/A (course this is a promo card, so it might be a little tricky to get your hands on)

Arora Notealus: Yep, that’s right – Lurantis is a few months old, actually. It came out in a special blister pack for Guardians Rising back in May! So if you’re wondering why this looks familiar, it might be that you saw one or two running around the World Championship venues! Or maybe you’ve got a buddy in your local card shop that plays this in their own deck – nifty, eh?

Weekend Thought: Think that Crystal Wall isn’t the worst ACE SPEC ever? See the potential of other cards from this week? Wondering what you can stick Lurantis in to maximize on Sunny Day?

21times

Lurantis (SM 25) snuck into the meta as a Promo card back in May.  I’m pretty sure it was released on the same day that Guardians Rising dropped, but it was definitely not part of the Guardians Rising expansion, so it largely went unrecognized in many of the online reviews for that expansion.  This single prize version of Lurantis sees use for its ability Sunny Day, which increases damage from all Grass and Fire Pokemon by twenty (to your opponent’s active Pokemon only).

This card provides a fantastic bump for Tapu Bulu GX (SM 32) and Golisopod GX (Burning Shadows, 17/147).  Bulu, with Sunny Day Lurantis on the bench, can actually hit 230 damage with a Choice Band (Guardians Rising, 121/145), which is enough to actually OHKO a Gardevoir GX (Burning Shadows, 93/147).  Golisopod GX, with its First Impression, can reach all the way up to 170 damage with a Choice Band, which is enough to OHKO a number of Basic EX and GX Pokemon.

I don’t know how useful it is for other Grass Pokemon.  For Grass decks that use Venusaur’s (Shining Legends, XX/73) Jungle Totem ability, you’re probably better off teching in energy or Choice Band instead of Lurantis.  Genesect (Shining Legends, 9/73) would definitely get more of a boost from additional energy, and M Beedrill EX (XY158) relies more on the poison and paralysis than the actual damage it does, although an increase of twenty damage would be a fifty percent increase in the base damage on its attack.

And since the most common Fire Pokemon in the meta today are Basics that benefit greatly from Volcanion EX’s (Steam Siege, 26/114) Steam Up ability, Lurantis clearly is an inferior option for them.  You can run two big daddy Volcanion EX’s for every Lurantis, and Steam Up boosts damage by thirty instead of twenty.  Lurantis might be a good supporter for Salazzle GX (Burning Shadows, 25/147), but I can’t think of any other Stage 1 or 2 Fire Pokemon that have impacted the meta in a significant way.

Rating

Standard: 2 out of 5

Conclusion

Lurantis can definitely help some of the major decks out in the meta right now, and I believe many players simply forget about it when they put their Grass decks together.  However, I think the number of decks out there that it really makes better is somewhat limited even within the Fire and Grass typings, so I just can’t give it that great of a score.

Otaku

We finish the week with Lurantis (SM: Black Star Promos SM25), a card I meant to have us review prior to the World Championships, but things happened so we are only, at last, getting to it now. Lurantis is a Stage 1 Grass-Type Pokémon with 100 HP, Fire Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], the Ability “Sunny Day”, and the attack “Solar Beam”. Sunny Day adds 20 damage to what the attacks of your Grass-Type or Fire-Type Pokémon inflict upon your opponent’s Active Pokémon. Solar Beam costs [GGC] and does 80 damage. Lurantis Evolves from Fomantis, where Sun & Moon 14/149 is our only options. We also have Lurantis-GX to consider; it also Evolves from Fomantis but doesn’t count against Lurantis with respect to the 4 Copy Rule.

As I’ve stated a few times already this week, the second best Stage of Evolution to be at present is Stage 1: being a Basic would be better, but it isn’t crippling and might even open up a valuable combo (more on that, later). Being a Grass-Type isn’t great, but neither is it bad. 100 HP isn’t going to survive being up front while it is your opponent, barring an opponent with a poor setup or a deck not focused on attacking your Active Pokémon in the first place. It is big enough that at least Bench hits and spread aren’t always going to score a OHKO, either. The Weakness might hurt more than I’d expect; the Fire-focused decks I see shoot for big damage but in a manner that makes them happy when they can spend less and still achieve a OHKO. -20 damage against a single Type would be a small bonus if it were present, but Lurantis has none at all, so we’ll move onto the Retreat cost of [CC]. Not good, but also not bad, you can probably pay this if you must, but sometimes you won’t be able to afford it up front and usually not in the long term.

At last, we come to what the card does; Sunny Day is not the only damage boosting Ability in the cardpool, and such effects have surprisingly mixed results even in the recent history of the game. The most important factor is whether or not it helps something score meaningful KO’s at least one turn more quickly than such an attacker would have on its own. +20 damage isn’t much, but it may still be enough to turn a 3HKO into a 2HKO, or 2HKO into a OHKO, especially as the damage bonus can stack with other damage bonuses (be they from other instances of Sunny Day or other cards entirely). Working for either Grass- or Fire-Types may also prove quite relevant; most such effects only work for a single Type unless they are restricted based on something else, such as the “Power Connect” Ability of Deoxys-EX working for any Team Plasma Pokémon regardless of its Typing. Speaking of which, it is nice that there is no costs or additional conditions to meet for Sunny Day. As for Solar Beam, it may be adequate; 80-for-three when the Energy cost isn’t acceleration friendly or it lacks a bonus effect isn’t good, but one Sunny Day makes it “okay”, two makes it “solid”, three makes it “good”, and all four makes it “very good”.

Fomantis is a Basic, Grass-Type Pokémon with 60 HP, Fire Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], and two attacks. For [C] it can use “Synthesis” to attach a [G] Energy from your deck to one of your Pokémon, while “Leafage” costs [GC] and does 20. Leafage is pure filler, though at least it isn’t too outrageously overpriced. If you’re attacking with an Evolving Basic, you probably are more worried about your setup than you are your current damage output, anyway. Synthesis doesn’t get you any units of Energy ahead and seeing as only basic Grass Energy count as [G] while in your deck, you’re probably not ending up with better quality Energy, either. Still, if it is stuck up front you can avoid ultimately having lost an Energy attachment, and sometimes a Fomantis will be an acceptable meatshield for the turn, even though it won’t survive being attacked.

Lurantis-GX is a Stage 1, Grass-Type Pokémon-GX with 210 HP, Fire Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], and three attacks. First up is “Flower Supply” for [G], which does 40 damage while allowing you to attach two basic Energy cards from your discard pile to your Pokémon. Next is “Solar Blade” for [GGC], which does 120 damage while healing 30 from the Pokémon using it (typically, Lurantis-GX). Up last is the GX-attack, “Chloroscythe-GX”, which costs [G] and does 50 damage times the amount of [G] Energy attached to the Pokémon using it. Other than needing [G] instead of [C], Flower Supply is Synthesis done right (and making it cost [C] might have made it a little too good). It does damage, it attaches two Energy and not one, it attaches from the discard pile and it’s on a strapping Stage 1 Pokémon-GX instead of a fragile Basic. Solar Blade has a similar cost to Solar Beam but does 40 more damage while healing 30. Normally, self-healing isn’t a big deal, but again, this is on a hearty Stage 1 Pokémon-GX so it has a decent chance of shifting KO turn counts. In short, Lurantis-GX is a good Pokémon, and actually had a fairly good deck or three when it first released.

Which is relevant to today’s Lurantis because the most obvious use is to use it to backup various Grass-Type decks, some past, present, and (maybe) future. Lurantis-GX should fit into most such decks, I think, though it probably isn’t necessary for all of them. I don’t think Sunny Day adds enough to Lurantis-GX for the two to become a new deck, given the added difficulty splitting your Fomantis creates.  The correct additional backup might prove me wrong, however. Decidueye-GX, Golisopod-GX, Venusaur (Shining Legends 3/73), Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98) are all possible candidates for existing deck foci that may be enhanced by even a 1-1 or 2-2 Lurantis line. Some old “duds” like Exeggutor (BW: Plasma Freeze 5/116) might be worth dusting off as well. The second obvious use it to check out Fire-Types, less most Basic Fire-Type Pokémon as they probably are better off with Volcanion-EX and it’s “Steam Up” Ability. The third option is to use Flareon (XY: Ancient Origins 13/98) and its “Flare Effect” Ability to make any Stage 1 Pokémon into a Fire-Type, and thus able to use Sunny Day. That’s a lot for your Bench and losing Abilities causes the whole combo to fall apart, but we now have a huge amount of cards old and new to reconsider.

With all that being said, I don’t have any concrete examples for you, which could just mean people haven’t gotten around to really trying it out or could mean people are holding off for larger events… or it could mean that Lurantis just isn’t worth it in either Expanded or Standard play. Even if it is that third option, I think it is something to remember as time goes on, because it’s the kind of forgotten effect that can surprise the designers a few years later. As a promo, it isn’t legal for Limited play, but if it were, it would be a fairly solid pick so long as you could afford [G] Energy so Lurantis itself could attack or you were backing up any half-decent-for-Limited Grass- or Fire-Types.

Ratings

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3.25/5

Limited: N/A

Conclusion

My scores might seem high given I lack even a fleshed out casual deck where Lurantis has proven awesome… because they are high under these circumstances! Sunny Day does just enough that I think the main reason we haven’t seen this card in action is that Forest of Giant Plants was banned and other metagame changes have been, if not difficult for it, scary enough that people have looked elsewhere.

Vince

Today’s card of the day is Lurantis SM25 promo. A grass Pokemon with 100 HP, weak to fire, and a retreat of two, it has an ability and an attack.  Sunny Day helps Grass and Fire Pokemon do 20 more damage. It stacks, too, so you could potentially get to deal 80 more damage, assuming all four Lurantis stays in play.  SolarBeam does 80 for GGC, which is boosted by its own ability, so 100 for GGC isn’t bad, but still falls short of 2HKOs on some of the Pokémon with 210 or more, unless you stack multiple Lurantis with the Sunny Day ability.

This ability is very useful! There are very good grass and fire Pokemon in the Standard and Expanded card pool than I can fit in this review, regardless of mechanic. I guess the only flaws would be its 100 HP, being dragged active to be KOed, and ability denial.

This card isn’t from an expansion, but this card can be found in some one card/one booster pack usually in the retail store counters. Definitely worth buying these!

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3.5/5

Limited: N/A

Retro

Coming Soon