Hello, and welcome to the final day of this Supreme
Victors week, and we end on a card that has received a
lot of hype, and one you will see me have a rant about,
yes, it's Staraptor FB Lv.X! First, the basics of the
card, and it has 100 HP, which is actually a little on
the low side. It's the lowest for an SP Lv.X, and is
just slightly higher than the lowest for an Basic Lv.X
(90 HP for the pixie Lv.Xs), so I wouldn't count on it
surviving anything really. x2 Lightning Weakness is
annoying simply due to the fact that Luxray GL Lv.X (RR)
is likely to be a popular tech, who will be able to OHKO
this card (well, so long as the deck has at least 1
energy can be provide Lightning anyway). -20 Fighting
Resistance is nice, but since the main Fighting Pokémon
that's likely to see any play is Machamp (SF), I don;t
actually see it being that useful. No Retreat Cost is
perfect though, there is no other word for it. Finally,
it's an SP Pokémon, so has access to all that lovely SP
support.
Abilities now, and it's need good ones to make up for a
fairly bad frame, and these are the reason why it's been
hyped, and why I'm about to launch into a rant. Fast
Call, it's Poké-Power, allows you to search your deck
for a Supporter and put it in your hand. Sounds nice,
getting a Supporter that you may need for the turn.
However, before you start adding a 1-1 (or 2-2) line of
this to every deck you have, I want you to think about
something: how many Supporters do you actually play in
your deck? 4 Roseanne's Research, possibly 4 Bebe's
Search (unless it's an SP deck, at which point maybe 2
maximum), 4 Cyrus's Conspiracy in SP decks, a maybe a
little draw, probably Cynthia's Feelings or Looker's
Investigation. That's maybe 12 Supporter you are
running, but probably less (I personally play 7 in my
latest deck, if you wanted to know (which you probably
don't)), and really, since you are probably running
Claydol (GE) or Uxie (LA) (or both) already, you'll
probably draw into what you need, be it what you were
going to search for with your Supporter or the Supporter
itself, so why do you need Staraptor FB Lv.X? I think
very few people have complained about losing a game due
to not having the right Supporter at the right time
(unless it's Roseanne's Research early game, but
Staraptor FB Lv.X isn't exactly going to help you there
now), so as far as I can tell, there is very little
reason to play this card for Fast Call.
So maybe the attack makes it good then? Er, no. Defog is
a rather bad CCC for 40 damage base (or CC and an Energy
Gain, but that hardly makes it better). However, if
there is a Stadium in play, you may discard it to deal
70 damage instead. It's still not enough to even get me
remotely excited about this attack. Not every deck plays
Stadium cards, so you are going to have to fill your
deck with Stadiums to power the attack, which is
something which, unless you are also running Skuntank G
(PL), I don't actually see being that helpful. Get 2
Stadiums out in 2 turns in a row, and I suppose you are
2HKOing most of the format, but you have to be able to
do that, and there is no reliable way of searching for
Stadiums in this format (not unless they reprint Scott
anytime soon) bar Honchkrow G (PL), and even he isn't
that great.
As you may be able to guess, I'm not a big fan of this
card, on it's own at least. However, I suppose there is
at least 1 combo that makes the card semi-playable, and
that is Porygon 2 (GE). He allows you to use an extra
Supporter per turn, so you can search with Staraptor FB
Lv.X, then use it straight away, then if you have
another Supporter in your hand, you can use that as
well. Now, you will need plenty of Supporters in your
deck including plenty of drawing Supporters, which I'm
not a big fan of doing since it takes up too much deck
space. It also takes up too much bench space. 2 spaces
as opposed to the 1 of Uxie or Claydol. I suppose the
only thing that is quite nice about the Supporter engine
with Staraptor FB Lv.X is that it gives you mega deck
thinning, giving you better chance of drawing what you
need when you do properly draw cards. Claydol and Uxie
can't do that to quite the same extent, but you can draw
plenty of cards to decrease the chance anyway.
Counters, and really, it's actually quite hard to
counter. You can't reduce the damage output that easily
since Staraptor FB Lv.X discards it's main way of
increasing damage, so you can't discard them before hand
to reduce the damage. It does also actually counters
Flygon (RR) quite nicely, getting rid of their own
Stadiums before Flygon can Sand Wall it away and have a
turns worth of protection. I suppose there are only
really 2 ways of countering Staraptor FB Lv.X. The first
is the same for almost every SP Pokémon, and that is to
use Machamp (SF), since it can just Take Out every un-Unown
G'ed (GE) SP Pokémon. The other counter, and this one is
specific to Staraptor FB Lv.X is Luxray GL Lv.X, since
it can Bright Look a benched Staraptor FB Lv.X active,
and then OHKO it.
Ratings:
Modified: As you maybe able to guess, I'm not a big fan
of the card. For Fast Call, you have a choice to either
use it with Claydol/Uxie, or on it's own. With Claydol/Uxie,
you probably aren't running that many Supporters in your
deck, so your probably better trying to draw into what
you need, and if you are running it as it's own engine,
you need far too many Supporters to make it worth while,
and it'll take up way too much space in your deck to
really be that useful. Defog is just plain horrid. 70
damage maybe be a 2HKO against most, but you have no
real way of getting Stadiums out consistently to make
the 2HKO when you need it. I suppose it might be
alright, but it's not a Claydol/Uxie replacer, not by a
long way. 2.25/5
Limited: Fast Call is still pointless here, since you'll
get few Supporters here to make best use of it, though
if you do get any, it'll be helpful to be able to search
for them. Defog is also pointless, since players will
get few Stadiums here, though again, if you face someone
with Stadiums (or got loads and shoved them in your
deck), then it'll be helpful, and 70 damage will OHKO
most of what you find, but may have to settle with 2HKOs
(and one of those attacks probably won't even need a
stadium to be discarded). Getting Staraptor FB Lv.X out
will be quite hard though since you'll probably only get
a 1-1 line, so I'm undecided if it's actually worth
using, or if it'll be a waste of deck space. 2.75/5
drtomoe123 Professor
League Leader
Staraptor FB
Lv. X Supreme Victors
Secret Rare
Getting further
into the Lv. X cards from Supreme Victors, we've seen
some really interesting cards. Blaziken FB Lv. X is
probably going to take over Infernape 4's duties, and
there could be some Electivire FBs running around come
Battle Roads, along with the occasional Rayquaza C Lv. X
deck, and maybe even a Charizard G Lv. X here and there
(I mean, even though the card is only mildly playable,
and really only with Typhlosion and Heatran, it's still
Charizard!). However, today's card is primarily useful
because it's set to become THE non-Uxie/Claydol draw
engine.
And I think it's
pretty worth it.
Of course, basics first. It's got 100
HP which isn't too good for a SP Lv. X, right around the
same level as Gallade 4 Lv. X (but it won't matter
because you don't want Staraptor in the Active spot to
begin with). Its 2x Weakness to Lightning allows it to
be completely fried by Luxray, which is unfortunate. The
-20 Fighting Resistance is typical, and it protects
against the Machamp (with Unown G, of course) and even
the Mankey match-up, which may be a popular Lv. X tech
from now on (especially with the way it KOs Luxray!).
Retreat Cost, however, is GREAT. Send out Staraptor FB,
level it up, and then you get to take advantage of it's
Power on the bench. What power? Let me get to that...
Staraptor FB Lv. X's Pokemon Power,
Fast Call, is why people are hyping up this card. It
allows you to search your deck for any supporter and add
it to your hand. That's great to begin with, but it gets
even better when you combo it with a card like Porygon 2
(GE), and then you can use the supporter you just pulled
immediately. While this really isn't a true replacement
for Claydol/Uxie, it still manages to be really close as
long as you have a wide range of Supporters in your
deck.
Unfortunately, that's about where the
card's usefulness ends. The Lv. X's Defog attack does a
potential 70 for 3 Colorless IF there's a Stadium in
play, but then the Stadium must be discarded, so you'll
probably be stuck doing the base 40 most of the time
unless you're playing a deck/against a deck that runs
tons of Stadiums. Either way, if it's your stadium, you
probably won't want to get rid of it, so you'll only
want to use it if you're playing against something with
huge stadium usage, such as Broken Time Space-centered
decks. Regardless, it's not too much of an attack, and
Staraptor FB's attacks aren't anything to write home
about either, unfortunately.
Ratings:
Modified: 4/5 This card could
potentially be one of the big draw engines after the
next rotation, which is still a bit of time away,
because it still just doesn't stand up to Uxie/Claydol.
However, when paired with Porygon 2, this card becomes a
BEAST because of its Poke-Power. Use it, get friendly
with it, but just keep it on the bench and only bring it
out and attack when you need to.
Limited: 3/5 Most Lv. X's are great in
this format if you can get one of the normal cards and
the Lv. X...which is usually hard to do. The card is
pretty average here because of the lack of Supporters in
decks. Still, it's no pushover, and I can say that
because a deck with this card killed me in my most
recent pre-release.
Joshy
Staraptor Lv. X
Staraptor FB Lv. X is a card that doesn't impress me
much. Its got an okay power, and 100 HP with free
retreat. Other than that it doesn't do much. In order
for its attack to really do anything you're going to
have to play a stadium (because I don't see your
opponent playing one anytime soon if you have this out).
It would be a lot better if its power could search for
any card, or even a trainer/support/stadium - but no. I
just feel there are such better search cards out there
and this one can take a while to get to.
Weakness to electric shouldn't be too bad, just fear the
random raichu. Fighting resistance is pretty good. And
free retreat is the best you can get!
Rating:
Modified: 2/5
Limited: 4/5 - like it better here since it can search
fast.
CopyrightŠ 1998-2009 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or
otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or
products featured on this site.
This is not an Official Site.
