Today we look at
Meloetta (BW: Boundaries Crossed
77/149).
In the video games it has two
forms; “Aria” and “Pirouette”; today’s
card represents it “Aria” form.
Stats
Type:
Meloetta is a Psychic-Type Pokémon;
in the video games it is the unusual
combination of Normal/Psychic.
The good news is that it will hit
Mewtwo EX (BW: Next Destinies
54/99, 98/99; BW Promo BW45) and
Sigilyph (BW: Dragons Exalted
52/124) for double damage, while the bad
news is that
Darkrai EX (BW: Dark Explorers
63/108, 107/108; BW Promo BW46)
is Resistant.
There are other Pokémon in either
category, but those two will make up the
bulk of such encounters, so those are
the only ones I’ll name.
As a Type, Psychic Pokémon do have some
support in the form of
Gardevoir (BW: Next Destinies
57/99, BW: Dark Explorers /108).
I was very pleased to learn that
James Proctor managed a Masters Bracket
Top 8 finish with a
Gardevoir backed deck at the
Missouri Regional.
Gardevoir has an Ability (Psychic
Mirage) causes basic
Psychic Energy cards to provide (PP)
instead of just (P) when attached to
Psychic-Type Pokémon; we’ll see how much
help that can be for
Meloetta in the appropriate
sections.
Stage:
Meloetta is a Basic Pokémon, the
best a Pokémon can be right now.
She can tap Basic-Pokémon-only
support like
Prism Energy,
Eviolite, and
Skyarrow
Bridge,
plus enjoys the natural benefits of not
being an Evolution; being fast and
simple to play.
Hit Points:
80 HP isn’t enough to guarantee
surviving one hit, though outside of
Weakness or combos it usually can
survive your opening turn.
This isn’t good, but it isn’t
impossible to work with; most Basic
Pokémon that aren’t Pokémon-EX struggle
to survive one hit anymore.
It does make the card a legal
target for
Level Ball, at least.
Weakness:
Psychic Weakness is pretty bad, and a
bit odd; given the Type pairing in the
video games for the Aria form,
Meloetta has Weakness to Bug-Type
Pokémon (half of the TCG Grass-Type) or
Dark-Type Pokémon (renamed
“Darkness-Type” in the TCG).
Instead the standard model of
making Psychic-Type Pokémon weak to
their own Type took over.
Grass-Type Weakness would be the least
accurate would be the best from a game
play standpoint but lead to a lot of
inaccurate Weakness, while Darkness-Type
Weakness would be just a little better
than Psychic-Type Weakness.
Meloetta is so small
Darkrai EX would OHKO it anyway, but
Mewtwo EX needs the Weakness for a
minimalist X-Ball to score the same
OHKO.
Resistance:
No Resistance is disappointing as usual,
and while it doesn’t ruin the card
(lacking Resistance is the norm), it is
a bit annoying given that in the video
games,
Meloetta is Psychic Resistant and
flat out Immune to Ghost-Types… two of
the three Types that make up the TCG
Psychic-Type.
I assume this was not utilized
due to the long ago decision to make TCG
Psychic-Types Weak to each other instead
of Resistant.
Retreat:
A Retreat cost of just one makes
Meloetta fairly light on its feet;
most of the time you can afford this,
and without it being especially
burdensome.
Plus as a Basic Pokémon,
Skyarrow
Bridge
can drop it to “free”.
Effects
Attack#1:
Psychic is the first attack, and hits
for 10 points of damage plus 20 per
Energy attached to the Defending
Pokémon.
This is a less splashable half
“X-Ball”, the attack that made
Mewtwo EX so famous.
The mixed blessing is it is the
half that depends upon the Defending
Pokémon, which you have minimal
influence on, but also means you don’t
have to invest a lot in
Meloetta to use it well.
It is a good attack overall; it can be
next to useless against targets with no
Energy (like a Bench-sitter used for its
Ability), and has merely adequate damage
against something that hits for a
single.
Damage is good against something
that has two Energy on it, and just gets
better as we climb.
Attack#2:
The second attack, Echoed Voice, may fit
the music theme but it is poorly
performed.
You’re paying enough for an easy
70 to 90 points of damage, but you get
50 that can hit for 100 if you keep
using the attack over and over again.
This mechanic hasn’t proven
strong enough on other cards due to
Pokémon Catcher (and soon
Escape Rope) making it so simple to
remove the “condition” of having used
Echoed Voice the turn before; when a
Pokémon is sent to the Bench, that
effect is gone and damage is reset.
It is a somewhat baffling a design
choice; other than fitting the flavor of
the card it has no business being on an
80 HP Basic Pokémon with a popular
Weakness.
Meloetta doing well to use a three
Energy attack once even with various
forms of Energy acceleration; giving the
attack such a low damage output makes it
highly improbable that it would ever do
a better job than Psychic.
Even with the damage cut, a
single Energy requiring version would
have been better, but no version is
really going to be “good”.
Usage
Card Family:
This is the only
Meloetta we have in English; as such
there are no cards to list here.
There are three more versions in
Japan,
but I wasn’t impressed by them.
A Pokémon-EX version of the card
is coming out in
Japan
as well, but that has little relevance
as they don’t count as the same Pokémon.
Modified:
Meloetta has seen some use, and not
just at lower levels of Organized Play.
It
can punish the Energy hungry and/or
Psychic Weak.
It showed up in the
aforementioned James Proctor’s deck, and
I presume it was for countering opposing
Mewtwo EX and
Sigilyph, as I already pointed out
Echoed Voice isn’t worth using and
Psychic Mirage (from
Gardevoir, which backed that whole
deck) isn’t needed for a
Meloetta relying on its Psychic
attack.
This would require some care as
Mewtwo EX can OHKO
Meloetta with just the minimum
Energy required for X-Ball; drop
Meloetta before it is needed, and
even with no Energy it is probably a
goner.
Sigilyph can also OHKO it even when
Meloetta has no Energy.
This is starting to sound bad,
but
Meloetta does well attacking those
two.
Mewtwo EX isn’t a OHKO unless it has
four Energy attached (unlikely, but it
happens), but if it had enough Energy
for X-Ball then
Meloetta slams it for at least 100
points of damage, allowing you to
sacrifice one
Meloetta for a second to bring
Mewtwo EX down.
Sigilyph
fairs much, much worse than
Mewtwo EX.
With no Energy attached, it is
still a 2HKO and in most decks won’t be
able to attack back before the second
shot finishes it.
If
it has two or more Energy attached,
Sigilyph becomes a OHKO.
With Poison becoming popular and
potent thanks to
Virbank City Gym (BW: Plasma
Storm 126/135),
Meloetta may enjoy seeing some newer
targets soon; video game “Poison-Type”
Pokémon are lumped into the
Psychic-Type, but usually have
Psychic-Weakness.
Moving onto likely non Psychic-Weak
targets, a
Keldeo EX (BW: Boundaries Crossed
49/149, 142/149) is usually going to be
loaded with Energy.
Keldeo EX is unlikely to ever have
enough for a OHKO (at least against a
competent opponent), but for it to
attack it has to have three Energy,
meaning a quick 70 points of damage from
a sacrificial
Meloetta which sets
Keldeo EX up for an X-Ball finisher
by
Mewtwo EX the next turn.
Meloetta
can even be of some use against
Darkrai EX (again, the most likely
Psychic Resistant encounter); a
Darkrai EX with enough Energy to
attack takes a solid 50 points of damage
after Resistance.
This isn’t great, but
Darkrai EX is often packed with
healing and/or Energy removing cards… so
it isn’t used to being hit hard, at
least for long.
Meloetta is again a sacrifice, but
forcing the opponent to burn through
Max Potion or risk push for the KO
next turn might be worth it.
One last use for
Meloetta comes in the form of a deck
with potential that is struggling.
Vileplume (BW: Boundaries Crossed
3/149) is waiting for more Basic Pokémon
like
Meloetta; something a player can
snag with
Level Ball and fuel with a single
Prism Energy or
Blend Energy (in this case,
Blend Energy GRPD)… but which isn’t
just as good or better in other decks,
and isn’t going to give up two Prizes
when KOed.
Unlimited:
Meloetta doesn’t contribute to a
donk or other first turn win strategy,
and Pokémon are often more Energy
efficient and/or protected by
Focus Band… there really isn’t much
room for such a smaller attacker here
unless they do something unusual and/or
have a useful Ability (or similar effect
for older cards).
Limited:
Like most adequately sized Basic
Pokémon,
Meloetta is nearly a must run here.
You do need to have room for some
Psychic Type Energy and it can
neither pull off nor outclass the usual
“39 Basic Energy + Big, Basic Pokémon”
routine that you see with many
Pokémon-EX at Limited events.
If you don’t fail at pulling any
other decent Psychic-Type Pokémon and/or
don’t get too many other great pulls to
crowd
Meloetta out, her 80 HP should last
2-3 turns unless you are throwing her at
something fully Evolved and/or powered
up… and Echoed Voice is actually a great
attack here.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
3/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Summary
Meloetta
performance receives a mixed review from
me.
When it comes to exploiting
Psychic Weakness and/or Energy hungry
Pokémon, she isn’t the best show in
town, but in the right decks she’s the
bargain matinee to
Mewtwo EX’s opening night.
Sometimes that is exactly what
you need; something small that hits hard
and isn’t a Pokémon-EX.
