Welcome to another week of CotDs, dear
readers!
For those reading this that
celebrate, I hope you enjoyed your
Thanksgiving Weekend and took some time
to appreciate what you have.
I personally was blessed to spend
more time with family, including some
from out of state.
Today we look at
Landorus (BW: Legendary Treasures
85/113).
Why are we looking at this card?
It is simple; before finding out
we were only reviewing three cards the
previous week, I listed some suggestions
that were one part cards worth looking
at again (as they were all reprints of
older cards) and one part delicious puns
or similar bits of holiday humor.
Landorus was honestly more for the
humor because its first attack,
“Abundant Harvest”, seemed fantastic for
a Thanksgiving Day review.
Yup; that didn’t happen and good thing
too as I wouldn’t have finished a review
in time anyway.
So is there any “real” reason to
look at this card?
Obviously, you’re about to find
out.
We’ll begin with two very
positive traits; this is a Basic,
Fighting-Type Pokémon.
Being a Basic is still the best
due to the easy of play and being a
Fighting-Type still means hitting three
of the now 11 Pokémon-Types for Weakness
if they follow standard the standard
template and aren’t based off of
dual-Type Pokémon.
Landorus
rocks a 110 HP; this is just 20 below
the printed maximum for Basic Pokémon-EX
that lack a “gimmick” like being a
Pokémon-EX.
It isn’t enough to guarantee
surviving a hit, but it is more likely
to survive than not unless a shot is
being boosted or the deck already falls
into the “OHKO” range for just about
anything.
Water Weakness is not good, but
fortunately it is a lot better than it
would seem because Water-Type decks
often employ off-Type attacks, already
will be using attacks that score a OHKO
before Weakness, or still will fall
short after Weakness (such as attacking
with a
Keldeo EX that has no source of
Water Energy attached).
When writing this review, I almost
skipped the card’s Resistance; besides
being more than a bit absentminded to
begin with, I hope it is understandable
that Resistance, as it is so often
absent or fails to make a serious
impact, truly is easy to miss.
Lightning Resistance is certainly
better than nothing and will make it
hard for such Pokémon to OHKO
Landorus.
Unfortunately for
Landorus, at the moment there aren’t
a lot of strong, Lightning-Type
decks/attackers.
I’ve heard some debate on whether
or not
Thundurus EX is still worth it in
Team Plasma decks, and maybe it is just
an information failure on my part, but
that is the only Lightning-Type attacker
of note currently on my radar.
Finishing off the bottom stats is
a good Retreat Cost of just one; this is
relatively painless to pay and anything
that lowers it at all turns it into a
free Retreat.
Landorus
has two attacks, the aforementioned
Abundant Harvest and Gaia Hammer.
Abundant Harvest requires (F) and
allows you to attach a single basic
Energy card from your discard pile to
Landorus itself.
This was okay when it first came
out but especially now that the player
going first can’t attack on the first
turn, you can’t speed into an
overall-game-turn-3 Gaia Hammer.
Going second and hitting Gaia
Hammer on Turn 4 just isn’t as
impressive… and we still need to talk
about Gaia Hammer itself.
For (FFC) the attack does 80
points of damage to the Defending
Pokémon plus another 10 points to every
Benched Pokémon (for both players).
The good news is that you can use
Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) can protect your own Bench from
that spread damage.
The bad news is that this appears
to be a popular play right now and so a
lot of the time, you’re just getting 80
for three with either a Bench-sitter or
Bench damage.
Does
Landorus have anything else going
for it?
Not really, but the first half of
the evaluation shouldn’t be forgotten;
no, not just that I selected this card
because the attack name sounded
seasonal, but that this is a Basic
Pokémon that isn’t a Pokémon-EX and is a
Fighting-Type.
Sure, a
Darkrai EX powered up with a
Dark Claw attached or the
Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym can effectively OHKO
Landorus… but
Landorus can do the same thing back
only substituting the
Dark Claw option for
Silver Bangle.
It also can use
Silver Mirror (as can many things)
to more safely harass Team Plasma decks.
The main problem for
Landorus is that it isn’t fast
enough on its own, and I can’t think of
any good, reliable combos that solve
that problem.
There are the usual eclectic
combos that require too much effort for
the reward or unreliable, to the point I
am resisting the urge to list them
because it just means another three
paragraphs telling you to tinker with it
but not to get your hopes up.
My own hopes initially rose
because the various recent changes make
Landorus EX a little less dominant,
which I had hoped would open things up
for other Fighting-Type Pokémon… but now
I am thinking “no”.
If you want to use this card in
Unlimited, you can make a rock solid
beatdown deck, either backed by
disruption or packing acceleration.
The catch is that most support
will make the deck more vulnerable to
the surviving First Turn Win decks.
For Limited play, I like the card
because everything about it becomes
better.
Just remember to mind that Bench
damage you’ll be doing to yourself, and
don’t bother trying to +39 it or run too
light on
Fighting Energy; you won’t have an
easy way to get Energy into the discard
so
Landorus won’t survive long enough
to take four Prizes without a lot of
luck, and while Abundant Harvest can
fetch needed
Fighting Energy, it also requires
one to be used.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2.75/5
Modified:
3/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary
I just explained in some detail why
Landorus isn’t a “good” card, but I
still gave it an average-to-good score:
what gives?
The card really isn’t bad; in
fact it’s a solid, perhaps even a good
example of design.
Landorus suffers because we’ve got a
lot of overly fast, overly powerful
Pokémon that outperform it while
negatively affecting game balance.
Attaching a basic Energy card from your
discard pile with a single Energy attack
should not be too slow, but that’s
because you’re supposed to be able to
use it first turn even when you get to
go first.
Likewise, a 110 HP Pokémon (at
least within the context of past
formats) should be a tricky OHKO,
sometime functionally impossible the
first
two to four
turns of the game.
