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#9 Xerneas
The #9 slot on our countdown goes to the very first of
the new Fairy Type to get a review here. The Type brings
something interesting to the game, not least because of
its unique Resistance: now we actually have something
that will take less damage from
those Dark Pokémon that have been so
uber powerful for the last
couple of years. Fairy also seems to be getting a
lot of
support (much more so than the poor old Dragons got when
they debuted in 2012). Today’s card is part of that
support.
If it seems strange that I am calling a 130 HP Legendary
Basic a piece of theme support, well, yeah . . . it
feels that way to me too. Nevertheless,
Xerneas’ primary role is to
act as a starter/Energy accelerator for all things
Fairy. Maybe that’s just what it takes to be a viable
starter in this format. Xerneas
achieves starter status by virtue of its first attack,
Geomancy, which costs a single Fairy Energy and allows
you to choose two Benched Pokémon
and attach a Fairy Energy from your deck to each of
them. Normally I’m not a big fan of using attacks to
accelerate Energy, but in this case I’ll make an
exception because a) two Energy
is pretty good, and b) Fairy decks have
Aromatisse XY which can
manipulate that Energy to your advantage with her Fairy
Transfer Ability.
Right now, it doesn’t feel like Fairy decks are in the
best position to take advantage of that as far as
attacking is concerned. Xerneas
himself has a decent enough 100 for three attack in
Rainbow Spear, but that is only really back up attacker
material (sign of the times, I’m afraid). The big
version of Xerneas isn’t
bad, but it’s not one of the more stellar EX’s. However
there’s nothing to stop you using the Fairy Energy to
pay for attacks that have Colourless costs, such as
Mewtwo EX’s X Ball or
Yveltal’s Evil Ball and I
suspect that’s what we shall be seeing until we get a
really good Fairy attacker.
Basically, if you want to run Fairies (and they do seem
like they could be competitive), this is the card you
will love to see in your opening hand.
Rating
Modified: 3.5 (Pokémon want you to play their fancy new
Type)
Limited: 4.5 (extremely solid all round and Energy
acceleration is especially amazing here)
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