Hello, and welcome to the beginning of the new week,
which contains the Supreme Victors preview cards, as you
may have already guessed due to us reviewing Regigigas
FB today! The basics of this card first of all, and it
has a rather nice 100 HP, which for an SP Pokémon is
very good (the tied best, I believe), so it's likely to
survive a hit or two. x2 Fighting Weakness is to be
expected, and will not be good if Machamp (SF) stays
popular after the release of SV. No Resistance is again,
expected, so there really isn't much to say about it. 4
Retreat Cost, however, while it may be expected due to
the fact that Regigigas is a heavy Pokémon and normally
has high Retreat Cost, it doesn't make it good, or
indeed, something you want to deal with. Multiple
Switches and/or Warp Points are mandatory if you want to
use this card. Also, there is the fact it's an SP
Pokémon, so has access to all of the usual nice SP
support, like Energy Gain and, well, you know the rest.
Abilities now, and while the basics of the card are, on
average, alright, this is where things take a slight
turn for the worse. First off is Drain Punch, which
starts of as it means to go on. CCC (or CC and Energy
Gain) for 30 is dreadful, and the effect doesn't make it
much better. You get to remove a damage counter from
Regigigas FB for each Energy attached to the Defending
Pokémon. OK, it may sound nice, giving it a bit of
tanking ability with it's large HP, but just think about
how many damage counters you will be likely to be
removing. Against energy hogs that are generally comboed
with Sceptile (GE), you may be removing a million damage
counters (slight exaggeration there maybe), but against
most Pokémon, you'll be removing a maximum of 3 or 4
damage counters if you are lucky. OK, it can stall for a
bit, but really, most Pokémon will do enough damage to
get around the healing Regigigas FB can do.
Rainbow Lariat is better. It does cost a massive CCCC or
CCC and Energy Gain, but it's damage output isn't too
bad, if a little hard to get to max damage. It does 20
damage for each different typed SP Pokémon you have in
play. It does mean you can't really play an Uxie (LA) or
have a Claydol (GE) sitting on the bench else you have
it reduce your damage output. Mind you, 100 damage is
hardly bad. The other downside is that your have to have
a load of different typed SP's in your deck. There are
some types that are well covered, and you may have some
difficulty choosing a Pokémon for certain types (Psychic
pops to mind here), but most of the time, it'll be
because there aren't enough good SP's of a certain type.
Grass, Fire and maybe even Fighting typed SP's maybe
numerous, but few are actually useful enough to be
played with this card. OK, you don't have to play every
type with this card, but it'll probably help if you can.
So, combos, and the main one is to use it with as many
different typed SP Pokémon as possible. Some maybe quite
obvious, like Dark is likely to be represented by
Weavile G (PL), or Houndoom G (PL), Psychic by Skuntank
G (PL) or Crobat G (PL), Metal by Dialga G and Lv.X (PL)
or Bronzong G (PL), but others are less so, like
Fighting. It may seem intially like Lucario GL (RR)
would be a great choice, but are you really going to
need a x2 Weakness against anything? And if you aren't
going to use it, what other Fighting SP would you use?
There are plenty of other such annoying decisions to
make for this card, and the wrong one, which is easy to
do, will probably make the card alot worse.
Counters, and first up are Pokémon the get rid of bench
Pokémon, like Dusknoir (DP) and Palkia G Lv.X (PL) will
be annoying for this card since it'll reduce the damage
output of Regigigas FB, making it easier to deal with.
Also, Pokémon with few energies needed for it's attack
and can deal plenty of damage for their lower energy
cost will get round Drain Punch, as if it'll actually be
used. However, the main cards Regigigas FB will few are
Fighting types, especially if they are named Machamp and
is from the Stormfront set. Yeah, Unown G (GE) will stop
Take Out, but Hurricane Punch will only need 2 heads to
OHKO it, so it's not going to stop much.
Ratings:
Modified: Drain Punch is weak and it's healing won't do
alot of good in the long run. Rainbow Lariat is better,
but requires a full bench of different typed SP Pokémon
to get the maximum effect out of it, and the deck you'll
specially make for this card will have to contain every
type of SP Pokémon possible to be most effective. That's
not necessarily a good thing. It's also easy to counter,
and if Machamp stays popular (which it probably will),
it'll get even worse. I've seen some decks to try and
make this card work already, and in my opinion, I doubt
they will. 1.75/5
Limited: You will get plenty of different typed SP
Pokémon here, so Rainbow Lariat will probably be quite
powerful and nab a OHKO or two, but it's massive energy
cost will mean you'll never really want to use it. Drain
Punch could lead to some nice tanking (and pssibly a
hilarious never ending battle between 2 of these), but a
Fighting Pokémon will probably be this guy's downfall
again. Better here than in Modified though. 3/5
Steel_Winger
Welcome back to the Pokemon COTD! Hope everyone had a
great Independance Day!
Sneak peaks of cards from the upcoming Supreme Victors
set have been released, and today we're going to look at
one: Regigigas FB.
Starting with the basics, Regigigas FB has 100 HP, which
is great on a basic, SP or otherwise. It's a
Colorless-type, so it can do some good damage against
Flygon, in theory. It has a x2 Weakness to Fighting-type
Pokemon, so Machamp will obviously be a problem, even
with an Unown G attached to this guy. There's no
resistance to anything, which can be expected at times,
and it has a retreat cost of 4. Four!? ... Actually,
that's not much of a problem because of Poke Turn. Being
an SP Pokemon, it can utilize that and all of the other
support for SP Pokemon.
Regigigas FB has no Poke-Powers of Poke-Bodies, but it
has 2 attacks. The first, Drain Punch, does 30 for 3
energies of choice. That's not enough power for a costly
attack; use Energy Gain with this guy at all costs.
Drain Punch also lets you heal it for 10 times the
number of energies attached to the Defending Pokemon.
Usually, you'll be healing 10-20, optimally 40 against
anything running Sceptile (GE). In most cases, It'll
hardly be enough to stave off Regigigas' chances of
sticking around.
The second attack, Rainbow Lariat, does 20 damage for
every type of SP Pokemon you have in play at the cost of
a whopping 4 energies of choice (3 with Energy Gain, but
still quite a bit even then). This attack can be useful
in an SP Toolbox build, but only with a full Bench. A
lot of people tech Dialga G and its LV. X, and Crobat G
as well. Still, it is a costly attack, and Regigigas FB
will likely be taken down before it can get a chance to
use this attack.
If you're going to use this card. I have seven words for
you: Energy Gain, Filnt's Willpower and Poke Turn.
Ratings:
Modified: 1.5/5 There are plenty of better SP Pokemon to
play with than this guy. You think being owned by
Palmer, the Tower Tycoon would make it battle worthy.
Not so in the TCG unfortunately.
Limited: 1/5 Regigigas FB = Slow Start, which is
actually its ability in the video games. You know
Bastiodon GL from Rising Rivals? This is his counterpart
from Supreme Victors. Destined to shine... in the trade
binder.
