Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Heatran-EX
(Plasma Freeze)
Alongside the game-breaking, archetype forming EX cards
in Plasma Freeze, we also have our fair share of the
kind of ultra rares that you
never want to see when opening a box. You know, the kind
of cards that go straight into the binder and will only
leave for trading purposes if you are lucky enough to
run into a collector who really
needs that
Full Art Latios-EX. Sadly,
today’s review is about one of those cards.
Heatran-EX
is a Fire Type Plasma EX Basic. Plasma, as we have said
many times before, is a very good thing to be as it
gives you access to some very good support (Deoxys-EX,
Colress Machine, Team Plasma
Ball, etc.). Fire Typing isn’t the best right now as
popular cards like Kyurem
PLF and Keldeo-EX will hit
for Weakness and laugh. Meanwhile, there isn’t a lot
that Fire hurts right now. Grass is practically absent
from the format and Metal decks mostly use Plasma
Klinklang for immunity from
EX attacks. Heatran
does have a
healthy 180 HP, which is pretty much what you would
expect. No less surprising is the hefty retreat cost,
which at least makes Heatran
searchable via Heavy Ball.
None of that would matter though if
Heatran had great attacks. But it doesn’t. The
first, Heat Boiler, costs one Fire and two Colourless
Energy for which you get an underwhelming 60 damage. If
Heatran is affected by a
Special Condition, the output is boosted to 120, which
would be good if it wasn’t for the fact that the
conditional element there is a) hard to achieve and b)
undesirable anyway. For practical purposes, you are
relying on your opponent using
Hypnotoxic Laser and having the Sleep flips go
your way. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to be so
generous unless such a move KOs
Heatran anyway. Even worse is the fact that
Heatran’s second attack,
Dynamite Press
also requires conditions to be met in order to do
decent damage. For the high cost of two
Fire and two Colourless you
get just 80 damage plus 10 more for each damage counter
on the Defending Pokémon, so basically
Heatran is good at getting
two-hit KOs on already damaged Pokémon.
And that’s just not good enough to justify running an
Energy-hungry EX with relatively poor typing, even if it
does have all the Plasma Support. Heatran-EX simply
gives you no reason to build a deck around it instead of
Kyurem PLF or Lugia-EX (for example), and that is why,
unless some unforeseen combo appears in future, he stays
in the binder.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (you can, and really should, do better)
Limited: 4.25 (he’s a big fat tank that can survive long
enough to cause havoc)
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virusyosh |
Hello once again, Pokemon trainers! Today we're going
to review a new Pokemon-EX from the new Plasma Freeze
expansion. Today's Card of the Day is Heatran-EX.
Heatran-EX is a Basic Fire Team Plasma Pokemon-EX. As a
Fire-type, Heatran will have massive troubles with the
very common Water-type attackers in Keldeo-EX, Kyurem,
and Blastoise, already hindering its chances at seeing
play in the Modified metagame. As a Team Plasma Pokemon,
Heatran has access to Team Plasma support, like Team
Plasma Ball, Colress Machine, and others. Finally, as a
Pokemon-EX, Heatran will really have to do something
impressive, as your opponent will take two Prize cards
upon Knocking it Out. Given the balance between bad
typing and good Plasma support, which wins out?
For starters, 180 HP is very good, and should survive a
few hits against anything against Water-type Pokemon.
Unfortunately, Heatran shares the Water Weakness with
its other Fire-type brethren, so Keldeo and Kyurem will
make short work of the volcanic legendary. To round out
the bottom stats, no Resistance is what we'd expect, and
a Retreat Cost of three is huge, so you'll want
something like Switch or Float Stone around to move
Heatran from the Active zone to the Bench.
Heatran has two attacks. Heat Boiler starts off at 60
damage for three Energy, but does 60 more if Heatran is
affected by a Special Condition. 60 damage for three
Energy isn't very good in this format, and on a Pokemon-EX,
it's downright terrible. The secondary effect is nice,
as 120 damage for three is excellent, but your opponent
will likely play around this, waiting to Hypnotoxic
Laser until they can secure the KO on Heatran. That
being said, Pokemon-EX always tend to be good in
Limited, where this attack should perform admirably,
even if you don't get affected by a Special Condition.
Dynamite Press is Heatran's second attack, starting off
at a very expensive 80 damage for two Fire and two
Colorless, while dealing 10 more damage for each damage
counter on the Defending Pokemon if Heatran has a Plasma
Energy attached. Once again, this attack is very
expensive if you don't meet the secondary requirements,
but with a Plasma Energy attached, Heatran will likely
be able to dish out quite a bit of damage in both
Modified and Limited. Of course, given how fast (and
Water-filled) the current Modified metagame is, it's not
likely that Heatran will last very long in the more
popular constructed format.
Modified: 2/5 At my local Plasma Freeze prerelease, a
very good friend of mine made the statement that Heatran-EX
is the worst EX of the BW era, and proceeded to rip a
copy up. While I don't think it's quite that bad, it's
very unlikely that Heatran will see any sort of
meaningful play in Modified any time soon, as it has
terrible typing and expensive, often underpowered
attacks that are reliant on the opponent for dealing
maximal damage. That being said, not all is bad for
Heatran: it gets Plasma support, and has a very high HP
score that can come into play if you aren't facing a
Water-type. Overall, Heatran isn't great, so you'll
likely want to look at other options.
Limited: 5/5 Pokemon-EX are huge Basics that deal a lot
of damage in Limited, so if you pull one, you should
build your deck around them. Heatran-EX, for all of its
shortcomings in Modified, is no different here. Both
Heat Boiler and Dynamite Press are very usable here
(though still slow), and if you can get off any
secondary effects, even better. Just watch out for
Water-types like Kyurem!
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