Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#10 M Heracross EX
Hello and welcome to our regular countdown of the top 10
cards in the new set – this time featuring Furious
Fists! At the time of writing, I have no idea what the
set abbreviation is, so I’ll just use FF until I am
better informed.
We kick off with a look at the card in last place, M
Heracross EX, a card which
offers big opportunities alongside an equally big
challenge.
The opportunities come from M
Heracross’ fantastic damage output. For the
bargain cost of two Grass and a Colourless Energy, Big
Bang Horn (seriously?) does 180
damage: enough to OHKO pretty much anything short
of another Mega. The only other Pokémon that have that
sort of power are the two M
Charizard EX and Black
Kyurem EX, and their Energy costs are very much
higher than M Heracross, who
can even benefit from a handy burst of Energy
acceleration, courtesy of Virizion
EX. But what about those challenges I mentioned? Well,
obviously there is the whole ‘evolving a Mega ends your
turn’ rule, which is frankly a massive pain, but can be
managed if the pay-off is good enough. More of an issue
is the drawback for Big Bang Horn: that 180 damage only
applies if Heracross itself
is undamaged, otherwise the
attack is reduced by 10 for each damage counter on it.
So, any deck that wants to take advantage of M
Heracross EX’s enormous
power will have to come up with a way to keep the damage
away, whether this means building them up behind some
kind of wall such as a Safeguard Pokémon (Sigilyph,
Suicune) or
Pyroar FLF; or making use of
healing cards like Max Potion and Pokémon Centre Lady.
No easy task, but if a player can pull it off, the
rewards are huge, and an M
Heracross that takes four Prizes by
KOing two EXs has more than
paid for itself.
Rating
Modified: 3.5
Expanded: 3
Limited: 4.5
|
aroramage |
Hey guys and welcome to another week! Here we're
going straight from one Top 10 list to another, taking a
look at the Top 10 for the new Furious Fists set! I'll
admit that #10 here wasn't on my list, Mega Heracross-EX,
but that's why I went back to take a look at him. Is
Mega Heracross-EX something to hype up when regular
Heracross-EX wasn't?
First off, we have to understand that as with any
Mega Pokemon in the TCG, this has to be worth ending
your turn to play. In a set with mostly Fighting
support, I didn't think MHeracross-EX could make the
cut, but that's when I looked more into beyond just the
set. Internally-speaking, MHeracross-EX has a single
attack, Big Bang Horn (looooove the name~), which deals
180 damage...wait, 180?! You mean the highest amount for
Pokemon-EX?! This is great!
-whoa, hold on there, slick. You gotta read the fine
print: he loses 10 damage for every damage counter on
him. Suddenly Big Bang Horn looks...less amazing than
before. That 180 damage can be reduced to nothing, and
if the format is what we know it to be, it's not that
hard to push 150-180 damage with the right set-up.
So why the second look? Because we got another
Special Energy aside from our Fighting support: Herbal
Energy. It works similarly, being attachable only to
Grass types and having an additional effect to heal off
30 damage. That's not fanatical, but it's better than
nothing, and considering that you could run Potion and
Super Potion to heal off more damage, MHeracross-EX can
still pummel a good while longer.
But why stop there? We have a more interesting
partner than Virizion-EX - the obvious choice for Grass
support - to pair up with MHeracross-EX: Dusknoir. Now
wait a minute, you might say, why Dusknoir? His Sinister
Hand only moves damage counters around the opponent's
Pokemon! Unless you're referring to Dusknoir (FLF) with
Shadow Vo-ohhhhhh.
That's right, move damage counters off of MHeracross-EX
to Dusknoir, and he can hit for 180 far more frequently
and consistently. Sure, Dusknoir can only handle 120
damage, but that's 120 more damage MHeracross-EX can
take! Never mind what you heal off of that Dusknoir
with, say, Max Potion? And that's the kind of thinking
that puts MHeracross-EX at #10!
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (ending your turn is a big deal, but I
think with the right set-up, you can take
Expanded: 3/5 (I don't think MHeracross-EX would
appreciate his competition, especially with titans like
Rayquaza-EX floating around, but if he can make it past
his first round intact, he can definitely lay the
smackdown on anything in his path!)
Limited: 3.5/5 (still pretty strong here, but I'd
avoid using Heracross' second attack if you wanna smash
everything in sight; gives you more time to enjoy that
180-ish Big Bang Horn)
Arora Notealus: Can we please get a Big Bang Horn
attack in the games? I mean, Megahorn's great, but come
on! BIG BANG HORN!!
Next Time: I heard things were about to get frosty.
|
Otaku |
Welcome readers as we move onto another Top 10 list: the
Top 10 Promising Picks of XY: Furious Fists! Of
course, that’s just the name I am using; I don’t think
we have an “official” one for it. The reviewers
compiled their own separate lists, and Pojo crunched the
numbers to determine the site list. As these cards
aren’t technically legal for competitive play under
NXD-On Modified (the current Standard Format), I’ll be
using this list as the official transition point and
scores will be for Standard (BCR-On), Expanded (BW-On)
and Limited.
We begin with M Heracross-EX available in
“regular” (XY: Furious Fists 5/111), Secret Rare
(XY: Furious Fists 112/111) flavors. As a
Grass-Type, it can have its HP increased by Flabette
(XY: Flashfire 64/106) and Herbal Energy,
a Special Energy that provides [G] and heals up to 30
points of damage when attached to a Pokémon from hand.
Those are probably the only true Grass-Type support
worth mentioning; granted there is much else anyway that
specifically helps out Grass-Type Pokémon and not
others. Being a Grass-Type also means exploiting Grass
Weakness on a few key cards and never needing to worry
about Resistance; it isn’t the most abundant Weakness,
but its out there. Interestingly, in the video games it
is a dual-Type Pokémon, a Bug/Fighting-Type hybrid. The
TCG hasn’t had dual-Typed cards in a while, but being a
Fighting-Type would have given it access to the new
Fighting-Type support. I suppose it was intentional as
this isn’t the only non-Fighting-Type Pokémon that could
have been a Fighting-Type in this set.
Being an M Pokémon-EX means you’ll have to go through
Heracross-EX first, losing an attack due to the Mega
Evolution rules and being worth an additional Prize when
KOed (just like a regular Pokémon-EX). Normally I’d run
through Heracross-EX later in the review, but we
already covered it just a few weeks ago
here:
my opinion on Heracross-EX has gone down and not
up with more time to get a feel for the format; the
overall impression is similar, it is just the numerical
score is misleading. In Japan, a new card called
Gengar Spirit Link (well, after translation) was
revealed; it is a Pokémon Tool that prevents your turn
from ending when you Evolve the also not-yet-released
Gengar-EX into M Gengar-EX. M Heracross-EX
is probably hoping it gets one as well.
M Heracross-EX
has 220 HP; this can be a bit tricky to classify. As
far as I can recall, this is the second highest printed
on any card, though there may be some unplayable promo
with more and of course, some combos can boost HP much
higher. Of course some M Pokémon-EX have 230 and in
both cases, this is seems to be neither “good” nor
“bad”; the time lost due to Mega Evolving can easily
offset being 40-60 points above most competitive
Pokémon-EX in HP, especially if the deck’s strategy
isn’t tanking. Fire Weakness is probably this card’s
biggest concern: in general Fire-Types seem to
specialize in Energy guzzling but hard hitting attacks,
and most decks need to average 90 points of damage per
turn to be competitive, the net effect being a Fire Deck
that has a decent set-up is taking down M Heracross-EX
in a single hit. XY: Flashfire may no longer be
the new set, but the support it provides to Fire-Types
is still quite relevant. 10 more HP would have actually
helped against a few of the more common threats, like a
Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106) sporting a
Muscle Band (a very common approach from what
I’ve seen).
The lack of Resistance is still something I find a bit
annoying, it wouldn’t have been a major help to the card
but it is nice when it is present, and in the video
games its unique Typing provides it with five forms of
Resistance at the half-damage level: Fighting, Ground,
Bug, Grass and Dark. Converting things to TCG terms and
Types, Fighting Resistance would have only provided one
erroneous match-up as the TCG Fighting-Type includes the
Fighting-, Ground- and Rock-Types of the video games and
Rock-Type attacks do normal damage to Heracross. Either
Darkness Resistance or Grass Resistance could have been
used without creating any such errors. The three Energy
Retreat Cost that finishes off the bottom Stats is a
pain if you have to pay it, so try to include to
alternatives to manually retreating at full price (both
the Standard and Expanded formats give you enough reason
to anyway). In Expanded, it does allow you to use
Heavy Ball with this card (which also can target
Heracross-EX).
Like all the M Pokémon-EX, M Heracross-EX has a
single attack, and its a big one. For [GGC] (the same
price as the bigger attack on plain Heracross-EX)
“Big Bang Horn” scores 180 points of damage, less 10 for
each damage counter on it. Overall, this seems like a
good deal; even half-KOed you still get a functional 90
points of damage. If you can attack while completely
uninjured, you can OHKO any non-Evolved, boosted or
protected Pokémon-EX! Just remember that the card’s
total HP isn’t especially relevant; it pays attention to
the damage present on it and not how much HP is left.
An M Heracross-EX with 180 or more damage on it
can’t hit for any damage, and especially given a
strategy built around this card is likely to strive for
OHKOs, there is a high risk of wasted damage and fewer
opportunities for weaker shots to matter. A highly
probable OHKO for three Energy (even if only while near
or at full HP) is still very impressive and tempting.
So how could you run this card? Something I touched
upon in the earlier Heracross-EX review (linked
to above) was plugging Heracross-EX into one of
the various Energy Transferring decks, akin to how M
Kangaskhan-EX was being used in the Aromatisse
decks at the time. As somewhat indicated in that
review, this was a stretch; you would only have a total
of four Rainbow Energy to meet the attack’s
Energy needs and even with Enhanced Hammer gone,
that isn’t enough (and if Enhanced Hammer returns
as some expect based on a relatively recent reprint the
Japanese received, it is even more blatantly not
enough). In Expanded, Prism Energy won’t help
because of course M Heracross-EX isn’t a Basic
Pokémon, though Blend Energy GRPD might allow a
Hydreigon (BW:
Dragons Exalted
97/124; BW: Legendary Treasures 99/113) deck to
give it a whirl.
So looking for more palatable options, Virizion-EX
is a seemingly obvious dance partner; protect M
Heracross-EX from Special Conditions while speeding
up its Energy attachments. The issue with this is that
Virizion-EX itself needs two Energy to attack, so
you run into the problem that plagued M Venusaur-EX
(which has tried that approach): even if you go first,
you don’t get to attack with Virizion-EX until
the second turn, and sometime you’ll have to skip an
attack to Mega Evolve. I would most definitely include
it in a deck with M Heracross-EX, but more for
Special Condition immunity and then the acceleration.
You will either need to include more complicated and/or
high risk tricks like Milotic (XY: Flashfire
23/106) with multiple Energy Switch (and probably
Scramble Switch) or just accept that you’ll need
to build it more or less manually on the Bench. So one
way or the other, the slower start is going to have to
be a thing… but perhaps we can work with that? Open
with a Qwilfish (XY: Flashfire 21/106),
Safeguard Pokémon or other useful “meat shield” and let
them irritate the opponent while you set-up M
Heracross-EX.
Dusknoir
seem like a logical partner for M Heracross-EX.
No, that isn’t a typo; Dusknoir is plural (and
lacking a set reference at that point) because I mean
both of them. XY: Flashfire 40/106 has an
Ability that allows you to move damage counters to it
from your other Pokémon; its 130 HP means you could move
up to 120 to it before clearing it all out with Max
Potion (or other usually less effective tricks),
which should usually be enough to completely refresh
M Heracross-EX between uses of Big Bang Horn. The
older Dusknoir (BW: Boundaries Crossed
63/149; BW: Plasma Blast 63/149) is useful if
your aren’t scoring OHKOs at the moment or if your
opponent has some injured Pokémon, using its Ability as
you would expect, avoiding wasted damage. Running a
Stage 2 also makes Miltank (XY: Flashfire
83/106) an optional attacker as well, though with
Fighting decks currently both popular and well
supported, it is even less likely to have any staying
power and given the point of this build is to use M
Heracross-EX for OHKO, burning Energy attachments
for 80 damage instead of building/maintaining your OHKO
machine is probably unwise.
Yet another approach might be an attempt to spam
Serperior (Black & White 6/114; BW Promo
BW20; BW: Dragons Exalted 125/124; BW:
Legendary Treasures 8/113). Its Royal Heal Ability
removes 10 damage from each of your Pokémon between
turns, and that means M Heracross-EX both lasts
longer and can hit a bit harder after injury. Flooding
your bench with a Stage 2 Pokémon tends to be very
difficult, and while you will heal damage going from
your turn to your opponent’s turn, that is of course
occurring after you just attacked. That
threshold of 90 points of damage would still reduce the
damage of Big Bang Horn by a 50 even after a full four
Serperior (and thus four copies of Royal Heal)
triggered, though in the long run only 10 points of
damage would stick around.
Fortunately this set has another option to consider:
Jynx (XY: Furious Fists 37/111) has an
Ability called “Victory Kiss” which allows you
once-per-turn-per-copy to heal 10 damage from your
Active Pokémon. While that maxes out at only 40 points
of damage healed per turn cycle (instead of 80), that is
coming from four Basic Pokémon. While Max Potion
is not a good healing option, if M Heracross-EX
isn’t going down then you might be able to afford the
single Energy discard for Max Potion, and of
course regular Potion heals an easy 30 points of
damage at no cost save running it. You might also run a
few Herbal Energy so that your Energy attachment
for the turn also takes care of some damage. If for
some reason Virizion-EX isn’t an option, even
Pokémon Nurse might prove worthwhile (it would
provide both healing and Special Condition removal even
when Abilities are disabled). The Trainer cards aren’t
reusable and getting more than two or three Jynx
onto the field ASAP isn’t overly reliable, but as you’re
shooting for OHKOs the entire thing could be functional,
and possibly competitive.
For all the ideas, the big issue remains the slow pace
of set-up and the threat of being OHKOed (especially by
Weakness). There is no good way to deal with Weakness.
The best might be to go with the current trick of
running a strong Water-Type attacker; almost every
Fire-Type is Water Weak, and you’ll also nail some key
Fighting-Types like Landorus-EX for double damage
as well. If you make room for Plasma Energy or a
source of [D] Energy, you could use Plasma Frigate
or Shadow Circle. Mesprit (BW: Plasma
Blast 37/101) and Leavanny (BW: Noble
Victories 3/101; BW: Legendary Treasures
12/113) both have Abilities that cancel out Weakness.
All of these have the issue in that they are resource
intensive and deadweight when not needed; your deck only
has so much room, plus they all have at two additional
concerns.
A good Water-Type will need to be an Evolution in order
to do any good against Pyroar, eating up even
more space and requiring time to set-up. There are some
solid candidates out there, but all have individual
drawbacks I won’t be delving into (since I am not
listing them individually anyway). Stadiums can easily
be discarded by an opponent’s own Stadium most of the
time, and since this can be done before even one attack
has been made it can be a total bust pretty easily.
Both Stadiums in question require Special Energy likely
not useful for any other purpose in the deck, and a
different Stadium may prove just as or more useful. Mesprit
only has its Ability going for it and is an easy OHKO,
plus it requires an Azelf and Uxie in play
to trigger and those two are terrible; three Bench slots
is just too much to ask. The Ability on Leavanny
requires the protected Pokémon have an Energy attached,
so it will cost “extra” to protect things you weren’t
planning on powering up, and of course it is a Stage 2.
Again, out of all of these running your own Stage 1
Water-Type attacker is probably the most reasonable.
Expanded format is unlikely to differ much from
Standard, save there might be an extra OHKO deck or two
to worry about, save as noted above, plus Jynx
might be a bit easier to spam thanks to Level Ball.
Limited is not a good place for M Heracross-EX,
but if you do pull a regular Heracross-EX as well
you might as well include it. I am assuming a +39 style
of deck (a lone Basic Pokémon with 39 non-Basic Pokémon
cards, ensuring you start with it) and that you’re
pulling from XY: Furious Fists boosters alone:
most of the Trainers this set aren’t going to make sense
in such a deck, leaving room for M Heracross-EX.
Only drop it when you’re certain you can push for the
win; Heracross-EX can’t have enough damage on
itself before it Mega Evolves to prevent Big Bang Horn
from hitting for damage, but your opponent will get in
one more attack before you can use it. If you’re going
for a less gimmicky build, this can make for a pretty
amazing “secret weapon”... plus Jynx is in this
set (though sadly as a normal Rare and not a Common or
Uncommon).
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5 - The capacity to OHKO almost anything that sees
competitive play is staggering, but unfortunately so
Fire Weakness right now.
Expanded:
3.25/5 - Slightly more options than in Standard, but the
same problems that plague it there remain an issue here,
plus a few new ones. In the end I expect them to even
out.
Limited:
4/5 - A must run but not an automatic perfect score; it
is entirely possible you’ll pull something more valuable
to whatever deck you’ve assembled than squeezing this
in, even in a +39 build where it can backfire horrible
if the opponent can get in a good shot after you Mega
Evolve.
Summary:
If this had been one of the first Mega Evolutions we
received, we would have had higher expectations of them.
Instead M Heracross-EX was almost certainly
timed so that it released after its Weakness Type had
become strong and when fast Fighting decks in general
will make it harder to tank. This is definitely a card
to keep your eye on, and even if a truly competitive
deck never arises from it, it is likely to become that
“fun deck” that you must be weary of during the first
few rounds of an event; if you’re not able to OHKO it
and a tanking strategy works, it will become scary
indeed.
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