We end the week with the 6th
most promising pick of BW: Dragons
Exalted and the first non-Pokémon to
make it,
Tool Scrapper!
Stats
Tool Scrapper
is a Trainer, specifically an Item, so
unless you’re getting blocked by
Madkinesis or Disconnect, as long as it
can be played for effect you can use it.
Interestingly, I just realized no
card refers to Trainers in general, at
least not yet.
Lillipup (Black & White
80/114) and
Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers
62/108) can retrieve one or two Items
(respectively) from the discard via
attacks, but I see nothing else
currently legal that refers to Items.
Effects
Tool Scrapper
is amazing because unlike some other
Trainers, translators got the name
right!
Oh, it also revisits a concept
not seen since
Windstorm; an Item that can discard
Pokémon Tools.
Tool Scrapper can discard up to two
Pokémon Tools; if you only want to
discard one, you can discard just one
and you can even target your own if for
some reason you’d want to.
A two-for-one is potent and
valuable, especially for something we
are used to being able to safely drop as
soon as we get it.
In a format where the draw power
is often
Bianca,
N,
or
Professor Juniper, you almost
have to drop such cards when you get
them.
Usage
Before addressing Tool Scrapper usage,
let’s run through the Pokémon Tools we
currently have:
-
Dark Claw
-
Eviolite
-
Exp. Share
-
Giant
Cape
-
Rescue Scarf
-
Rocky Helmet
Dark Claw
hasn’t seen a lot of play, but if
Tool Scrapper becomes a common
sight, it actually helps it;
Dark Claw can benefit you the turn
you play it so even if your opponent
discards it after you attack, it has
acted like a double
PlusPower… and if what it is
attached to isn’t very big, discarding
may be a waste of time anyway.
An odd little niche, really.
So what about
Eviolite?
It is just so useful that I don’t
think it is going away; it will be the
card that practically
makes your opponent play
Tool Scrapper.
Most big, Basic Pokémon buy
themselves an extra turn with it.
Even 180 HP doesn’t last long against a
deck going full tilt in this format, so
this is quite huge (pardon the pun) when
Pokémon EX are slugging it out.
When something that is supposed
to be tanking, even if only a little
bit, gets KOed early it takes a lot of
skill to keep your strategy from falling
apart, and even then its obviously using
the next best option.
You’ll notice quite a few Pokémon
EX hit for at least 90 points of damage
with at least one attack, or average it
over the course of two turns; in fact
the only ones that don’t are
Kyogre EX (BW: Dark Explorers
26/108, 104/108) and
Registeel EX (BW: Dragons Exalted
81/124, 122/124).
Now not all can reliably hit for or
average 90 points of damage per turn, at
least without some help, but you get the
idea; when slugging it out Pokémon EX
versus Pokémon EX, discarding an
opponent’s
Eviolite means big advantage.
Without
Eviolite, while only after your
opponent has taken five Prizes,
Shaymin EX (BW: Next Destinies
5/99, 94/99) can OHKO any other Pokémon
EX!
Rayquaza EX (BW: Dragons Exalted
85/124, 123/124) could try to overpower
something relying on
Eviolite or
Giant
Cape,
but this saves an Energy card unless it
was trying to slam
Wailord (BW: Dragons Exalted
26/124).
Exp. Share
is also odd in that I think it benefits
from a format with
Tool Scrapper.
Exp. Share does
nothing for you when it is attached
to your Active (it won’t trigger, even
if a Benched Pokémon with basic Energy
attached is KOed).
For the decks that aren’t running
on re-usable forms of Energy
acceleration,
Exp. Share is almost a reverse
Crushing Hammer.
Plus, playing around it can be
exactly what you want; I’ve had
opponent’s take out something because of
its
Exp. Share fearing it when it was
built up… even though that just bought
me another shot with something fully
powered in the Active slot.
Exp. Share really needs to be taken
care of as soon as possible, because it
can build potentially huge levels of
advantage in the right deck.
Plus now you can hit an
opponent’s Pokémon Tool while shedding
your own
Exp. Share from your Active,
allowing you to attach a more useful
Pokémon Tool like
Eviolite or
Giant Cape!
Giant
Cape
will likely become the “lesser” version
of
Eviolite, the one run because a deck
needs to bulk up its Evolutions as much
as protect its basic Pokémon.
They are as vulnerable as any
other Pokémon Tool, and it can be
tempting to view it harshly since it
means your opponent technically scores a
KO via
Tool Scrapper, but remember the
Pokémon in question would simply have
been KOed via the previous attack
anyway, so you’re really just down one
Item a piece (unless they nail two
Pokémon Tools at once with
Tool Scrapper) and where you’d have
been anyway in terms of Prizes.
Still this makes it rather
passive and you don’t truly get the
benefit of it (outside of some very
specific exceptions) until your Pokémon
has taken damage equal to its printed
max HP or printed max HP+10.
It can function as useful “bait”
for
Tool Scrapper, since if your
opponent takes out other Pokémon Tools
instead,
Giant Cape is still quite useful
once it becomes “safe”.
Rescue Scarf
is mostly useful for Evolutions,
especially fragile Evolutions that you
just need to keep “resetting-up”.
Basic Pokémon could just be
brought back via
Revive, and if something is big
enough you are probably better off
slapping
Giant Cape on it instead.
If that narrow window for
Giant Cape to make a difference
isn’t practical, then
Rescue Scarf saves you having to use
Super Rod to send the Pokémon back
to the deck and draw or search them out
before getting them back into play. This
can be really, really important for key
decks… but unless you toss it on a
Pokémon that
KOs
itself, your opponent will get a shot at
discarding it before it can trigger.
Rocky Helmet
doesn’t strike me as being as useful as
the other Pokémon Tools; it only
triggers when you are attacked for
damage.
That is handy, but between
massive HP scores, massive damage output
for attacks,
Tool Scrapper, non-damaging attacks
(mostly as part of set-up), and Pokémon
that can heal obscene amounts of damage
with
Max Potion
without missing a beat due to
combos, it becomes only a mild irritant.
I gave those concerns in order as
I perceive them, so
Tool Scrapper isn’t even the biggest
problem for the card.
So after all that, I am thinking all
decks will want to at least use
Tool Scrapper as TecH.
Does your deck rely on Abilities?
A
Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124) only shuts them down while it
has a Pokémon Tool attached, so your
opponent would need
three functioning
Garbodor in play to be safe from a
single
Tool Scrapper.
If they only have one, you can
probably discard a valuable Pokémon Tool
off an attacker at the same time.
As demonstrated by going through
them, discarding most Pokémon Tools in
the average match can lead to a Prize
and/or slow down your opponent’s set up
which can
save you a Prize.
Tool Scrapper really is a powerful
card, with only one weakness; it might
be a bit too good.
If it makes Pokémon Tools too
risky to play, why run them at all… in
which case why run
Tool Scrapper at all?
It creates one of those
waxing/waning cycles that threaten to
arbitrarily stick at a certain point,
because if you don’t predict it
correctly, you’re pretty much out of
luck.
I like the idea of a format where almost
every Pokémon has a Pokémon Tool
attached, and
Tool Scrapper discourages that… to a
point.
With decks running tight before
BW-On even truly begins, a lot of decks
will be doing good just to include that
single TecH copy of
Tool Scrapper.
Unless your opponent is good at
spacing out Pokémon Tool usage, more
than one copy is overkill anyway; most
decks I see only run about three Pokémon
Tools on average.
That is why I think you’ll see
just that one, clutch copy in decks, if
you see it at all… and yet like
Sigilyph (BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124) it may shape the entire format
by influencing how decks are built.
Reading my words, it may sound like I am
really being hard on
Tool Scrapper, especially with what
seemed like “generous” reviews of some
of the lower cards.
I can only explain what my
testing has born out; one
Tool Scrapper is often all you’ll
need.
While you won’t be able to
reliably drop it on a particular turn,
and most decks are running only about
three Pokémon Tools, those Tools are
usually important to that respective
deck.
With future releases, we’ll even
find snagging that lone
Tool Scrapper reliably becomes
easier.
Unlimited doesn’t care about
Tool Scrapper; even if you aren’t
dealing with a deck that wins or locks
you first turn, you have
Windstorm.
It is an Item that not only can
discard up to two Items (like
Tool Scrapper) but may instead
discard a Stadium or a Stadium and an
Item.
As for Limited play, this set has
two Items, and that is just enough for
me to recommend running this unless you
have some truly phenomenal pulls; it is
nearly an auto-run.
Most matches you either won’t
need it or it won’t show up at the right
time, but if you think it is sweet
scoring a KO by discarding a
Giant Cape in constructed, try here
where it your opponent probably doesn’t
have any real fallback options!
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
3.75/5
Limited:
4.95/5
Summary
If we get some more great Pokémon Tools,
and we might be,
Tool Scrapper could become more
important.
In fact, even with what we have,
I personally find that certain of my
decks don’t follow the norm but instead
run more like six Pokémon Tools.
I believe that is an exception
and not the rule, but if that situation
reverses players may simply find they
are making room for both and trying to
“draw out” an opponent’s copy (copies?)
of
Tool Scrapper early.
On my own list of Initial BW:
Dragons Exalted Rankings, this
caused me to rate
Tool Scrapper in 14th
place, below almost every card we’ve
already looked at.
That is because, while it will be
important, I just don’t think decks will
have either the room or the need to run
more than a single copy.
Being a piece of staple “TecH” is
still a great accomplishment, and just
like players will need to build their
decks and adjust their strategies for
Sigilyph, so too will they need to
anticipate
Tool Scrapper.
In fact, they are even more
likely to run it than
Sigilyph.
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Exactly what is up is a bit
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