Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX – Cosmic Eclipse Pokemon Review

Vince

After dealing with the top 11 countdown of Cosmic Eclipse, it’s time to look at Honorable Mentions of cards that didn’t make the list. This time, it’s the pretty-in-pink Tag Team duo: Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX. Except that they’re Colorless type, which can be a natural fit for any decks. As far as this card goes, they have two attacks which could be applicable under the right circumstances. Jumping Balloon costs three energy for 60 damage, plus 60 more damage for each of your opponent’s Pokemon-EX/GX Pokemon in play. And Puffy Smashers costs a single energy and puts the opponent’s Active Pokemon to sleep. And if they have four extra energies attached to this Pokémon in addition to the cost, then for 5 energy, you get to deal 200 damage to one of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon.

So far, Jumping Balloon isn’t an attack to rely upon depending on which decks you face. Some decks could be focusing on using EX/GX Pokemon as their main attacker; you could be OHKOing any EX/GX Pokémon if they have at least 4 of them in play because that adds up to 300 damage. Others are filled with non-EX/GX Pokemon; 60 damage for three energy is awful. It is this kind of variance that hurts general usage. For the GX attack, this is a decent one-time deal as it could buy you another turn (unless your opponent switches their Pokémon), and 200 damage is enough to take out smaller GX targets like Dedenne-GX or a Benched Blacephalon-GX but falls short of OHKOing bench sitting 210 HP Pokemon-GXs unless they’re partially damaged. And then there’s other factors like retiring an existing mechanic and promoting a newer one. Pokemon-V will not help raise the damage output of Jumping Balloon due to not being a Pokémon-EX or even Pokémon-GX despite giving up at least 2 prize cards.

I can safely assume that Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff can be classified as TecH, as they excel at taking out a portion of the meta but is rendered unneeded against others. It is even harder to capitalize on Jumping Balloon due to the low chance of pulling GX cards for the Limited format. But if they pull at least one GX, then you would at least deal 120 damage, and that might be decent enough to 2HKO targets.

Ratings:

• Standard: 2.75/5
• Expanded: 2.5/5
• Limited: 3.5/5

Otaku

Welcome to a Runner-Up Week… more or less.  Up first is the card that would have taken 12th-place if our countdown had started that high: Mega Lopunny& Jigglypuff-GX (SM – Cosmic Eclipse 165/236, 225/236, 226/236, 261/235).  As a TAG TEAM Pokémon, this card will have to deal with all the pros and cons of being a Pokémon-GX, plus those of being a TAG TEAM.  For example, giving up three Prizes when KO’d, but being a Basic Pokémon even though one of the Pokémon in this duo is normally a Stage 1.

This duo is represented as a [C] Type; no Weakness or Resistance to worry about in Standard or Expanded, and also no relevant support or counters.  240 HP is as low as we’ve seen on a TAG TEAM Pokémon but it also proved to be enough for a card like Pikachu & Reshiram-GX.  [F] Weakness can be dangerous but, at least for now, isn’t crippling.  No Resistance is typical, though any would have been appreciated.  The Retreat Cost of [C] is good; easy to pay, recover from paying, and to zero out completely with various effects.

[CCC] pays for the regular attack, “Jumping Balloon”.  This attack does 60 damage plus another 60 for each of your opponent’s Pokémon-EX/GX in play.  If your opponent has no such Pokémon in play, you get a poor – but not worthless – 60 damage.  Just one Pokémon-EX/GX on your opponent’s side of the field and you’ll do 120-for-three, a good-but-not-great amount.  Beyond that, you get a great return… and three Pokémon-EX/GX isn’t exactly abnormal against many decks.  Four would mean 240 damage, and five 300 damage… those aren’t likely but they do happen!

“Puffy Smashers-GX” is this card’s GX-attack, and the base version only costs [C] but just leaves your opponent’s Active Asleep; that is horrible for a GX-attack!  If you can pony up an extra four Energy (any Type), though, Puffy Smashers-GX also bops one of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon (your choice) for 200 damage.  In the Standard Format, there is no Guzma or Lysandre, so this is handy.  The Energy cost for the bonus effect is neither good nor bad; you’re getting (approximately) what you’ve paid for.

Now we put it all together, and we’ve got something we’ve seen before with the likes of Salamence-EX; it requires [RCC] to do 10 plus 50 per Pokémon-EX your opponent has in play.  Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX does it better, but it needs to given the power creep we’ve seen since then.  We’ve already seen this in Japan, at least in their Standard Format.  I only have a single event’s results handy, and they have Double Colorless Energy, so it is not exactly the same, but it is close enough that I expect it to have a similar role here.

As for the Expanded Format, I’m still not sure what it is like after SM – Cosmic Eclipse joined it and the new bans hit.  If things aren’t too radically different, the good news is we still have Double Colorless Energy and Max Elixir there, but the “bad” is we have plenty of non-Pokémon-EX/GX focused decks.  If those decks are in ascendance, Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX probably aren’t worth the risk.  As for the Limited Format, definitely run Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX if you pull them.  Possibly in a +39 (Mulligan) deck on their own, but even if I was running something else; even against non-Pokémon-GX, they’ve got decent damage and good HP.

Ratings

Standard: 4/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 4/5

As my glowing review and high scores suggest, Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX made my Top 11.  They were my sixth-place pick… but as with most of these CotD’s, I can easily see why they didn’t fair so well with the others, but I’m glad we got them reviewed so soon after the actual countdown.  I haven’t worried about voting points lately, but I will point out they were part of a three-way tie with 10th and 11th place, missing those due to tiebreakers!