Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Chesnaught
EX (Promo XY-18)
As you would expect, all the XY starter/evo
lines got their own EX cards, appearing in the
Kalos Power tins. Not sure
that the word ‘Power’ is completely appropriate, but if
they called them ‘Tins of Mediocrity’, they would be
unlikely to fly off the shelves.
Why so mediocre? Well Chesnaught
may be a big EX with massive HP (not that it will help
him much against Pyroar or
Charizard), but everything
else about the card is just very underwhelming. From the
over-priced, flip-dependent Pin Missile, to the pricey
and self-damaging Wild Tackle, there is nothing that
would induce you to use Chesnaught
ahead of the many uber-strong
EX cards that we already have. Even if you wanted to use
Grass to take advantage of the new Herbal Energy (for
some reason), the Type has better EX cards available in
the shape of our old favourites
Virizion and Genesect.
Another EX for collectors, rather than players.
Rating
Modified: 1.75 (not good enough for an EX)
Limited: N/A (promo)
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aroramage |
Hello again and welcome back, beautiful wonderful
readers! Today we're continuing on down the line of
promos with the final evo for our Gen VI Grass starter,
the mighty Chesnaught-EX! Does Chesnaught's official
debut as an EX trump his other Stage 2 guys, or does it
just fall short of that line that makes a good EX?
Well to be honest, he's rather...mediocre, especially
given the cost of his strikes. Pin Missile is a hefty
3-Energy for an attack that does 40 damage for every
heads you flip out of 4 coins. That's a range of 0-160
damage, and chances are you're going to average out
about 80 damage with that attack; that's pretty decent
for a 3-Energy strike, sure, but the attack itself is
far too reliant on coin flips to be consistent. You
could end up dealing 160 damage one turn and then
flubbing on the next with 0, or you could just be
terrible and get 0 damage constantly until Chesnaught-EX
gets KO'd.
His Wild Tackle isn't much improvement. For an extra
Grass energy, he now does 120 damage with a small 20
damage recoil. Considering the output, 20 recoil isn't
much (as opposed to Charizard-EX promo's Brave Fire
doing the same damage for 30 recoil), but keep in mind
20 damage is the difference between not being KO'd by a
Muscle Banded Charizard-EX (FLF12) using Wing Attack and
definitely being KO'd by it!
Now comparing it to the Chesnaughts we've gotten, he's
definitely better than the Starter Set version (which is
meant to be a beginner's learning tool anyway), but is
he better than his Ability-loving Stage 2 cousin from
the XY set? That Chesnaught had Spiky Shield, which
could inflict 30 damage onto attackers even if
Chesnaught got KO'd, and it had a slight recovery move
in Touchdown, though the damage output of 90 is less for
the same amount.
Given what's coming up in Furious Fists, I'd say the
Stage 2 Chesnaught has more going for it than its EX
counterpart; they both have roughly the same health and
weaknesses, and while Chesnaught (XY) can't stack up as
much damage as Chesnaught-EX can with the same energy,
its Ability will more than make up for it. Never mind
that once the Stadium supporting Evolutions comes out
(oh yeah, that's what we're looking at) the Stage 2
Chesnaught will have slightly more HP than Chesnaught-EX
and Herbal Energy to really play the tank!
Overall, this is just another mediocre Pokemon-EX, but
if nothing else he's a great collectible for those who
love their Chesnaughts.
Rating
Modified: 2/5 (decent damage output, but ultimately he's
going to fall short of his Stage 2 counterpart despite
requiring less resources)
Expanded: 2/5 (not that there's much more support for an
EX in the first few BW sets anyway)
Limited: N/A (oh yeah, that's right, promos don't get
played in Limited...)
Arora Notealus: Chesnaught seems to have this theme of
reaching out with his claw hand going through his cards
right now. Where's my Chesnaught holding a football and
using Tackle?
Next Time: It's a witch, it's a witch, oh the witch is
back!
|
Otaku |
As a reminder September 3, 2014 will mark the official
annual rotation, when the Standard format shifts from
the 2013-2014 Modified (BW:Next Destinies to
XY: Flashfire, BW Promo BW33+, McDonald’s
Collection 2012, and all XY Promos) to the
2014-2015 Modified (BW: Boundaries Crossed and
later, BW Promos BW55+, McDonald’s Collection,
and all XY Promos); nothing from XY: Furious
Fists will be legal for sanctioned Standard play
until that time. If I believe I can make a sufficiently
educated guess, I’ll score for both Modified Formats and
the new Expanded Format (Black & White and later
sets, all BW Promo and XY Promo series
cards, all McDonald’s Collection cards) that also
begins then.
Today we look at Chesnaught-EX (XY Promo
XY18). I have a certain fondness for Chesnaught in
general simply because I am a fan of Marvel Comics
“Juggernaut” character (well, circa the 1990s and early
2000s) and green is my favorite color. Yeah, I’m simple
like that. I won’t let that unduly influence the
review, however.
Being a Grass-Type is solid; while not the dominant
Weakness for Water- or Fighting-Types, since Black &
White it seems like the card design team has done a
decent job of splitting Weakness between the respective
“sub-Types” of the TCG so that things weren’t too
uniform. Popular and potent Pokémon like Blastoise,
Keldeo-EX and Suicune all sport Grass-Type
Weakness, but nothing still Modified legal sports Grass
Resistance. Grass-Types have some direct and some
indirect support, though its nothing compared to
Darkness- and Fire-Types (soon to be Fighting- and
Fire-Types). Of course, being a Fighting-Type (in the
video games Chesnaught are Grass/Fighting hybrids) would
likely have been better, especially given how much
XY: Furious Fists is helping them.
Being a Basic is still the best since Evolutions still
don’t get worthwhile Evolving Pokémon and the other
potential “fix” of making the final Stages stronger has
been tried before and it doesn’t work too well. Being a
Pokémon-EX is a drawback in that it means Chesnaught-EX
will give up an extra Prize when KOed, can’t tap certain
pieces of support, and is the target of certain counter
cards, though it also means the designers are allowed to
give it better than normal stats and effects… like its
180 HP, the max printed on Basic Pokémon-EX and 50
higher than anything any current Basic has printed on
it. There are a few cards that top it that are still
legal, but those are all either via combos that don’t
usually see play, are M Pokémon-EX or are Wailord
(BW: Dragons Exalted 26/124).
Fire attacks will cut through its HP like butter; Fire
Weakness means a simple 90 damage does the deal. The
slight silverlining is that a lot of Fire-Types are
going to overkill it and at least potentially waste
resources doing so, but obviously not as much as if they
were pushing for a OHKO of something not Fire Weak with
180 HP. The lack of Resistance is unfortunate but
doesn’t hurt the card too much, still Darkness- or
Lightning-Type Resistance - the only two that easily
convert to the TCG due to TCG Types often being two or
more video game Types - would have been kind of awesome
though not overly useful. The Retreat Cost of four is
probably the worst it could have, but the format is such
that even with a free Retreat Cost, you would want a
method of changing out your Pokémon without manually
Retreating, and most decks will have that and/or
something to zero-out such costs, so in the end its a
minor inconvenience. Plus until it rotates out, you can
enjoy Heavy Ball.
Chesnaught-EX
has two attacks. The first is the oh-so-familiar Pin
Missile; this version requires [GCC] and gives you four
coin flips, good for 40 points of damage per “heads”.
There are 16 possible results that result in five
different damage totals: 1 out of 16 (6.25%) yields zero
damage (abysmal), 4 out of 16 (25%) yields 40 damage
(bad), 6 out of 16 (37.5%) yields 80 damage (a little
low), 4 out of 16 (25%) yields 120 damage (good) and 1
out of 16 yields (6.25%) yields 160 damage (great).
That’s mean, median, and mode damage of 80 points, and
the going rate is about 90 for three so that you can get
a 2HKO against Pokémon-EX without an assist. The second
attack is much simpler; Wild Tackle requires [GGCC] and
does 120 points of damage, plus 20 to itself. You’ve
paid enough to get 120 straight out, and with a drawback
at this price, you really need 150 to justify the effort
of then adding 20-to-30 damage semi-reliable for OHKOs
of opposing Pokémon-EX, so while the attack isn’t
especially bad, its not good. In fact, both attacks
feel pretty mediocre, and would have been acceptable if
the other attack was amazing or the card had a good
Ability.
About the only Grass-Type Pokémon-EX that isn’t clearly
better than Chesnaught-EX is probably Celebi-EX,
sometimes used in combos. Genesect-EX and
Virizion-EX are clearly superior due to their
Abilities and great attacks. Shaymin-EX is a bit
less clear, but ultimately I’ll take the end-game glass
cannon and questionable Energy acceleration it offers
over Chestnaught and its French-vanilla attacks.
Venusaur-EX would be even with this except it
can Mega Evolve, so it too just seems more useful. As a
promo, this can’t even hope to be used in Limited,
though if it were re-released into a set or something, I
would definitely run it but not in the typical +39 build
unless I was feeling especially daring. A little bad
luck with the coin flips can allow your opponent to
overwhelm even its 180 HP, and while the self-damage
isn’t large, coupled with your opponent’s actions it
could easily become deadly. Once you take at least one
Prize (preferably two), it would likely be safe to send
this hypothetical Chesnaught out to take the
remaining Prizes rapidfire, turn after turn (after
turn?).
Ratings
Modified (NXD-On): 1.75/5 - Definitely not up to snuff; so many other Grass-Types do
a better job.
Modified (BCR-On): 1.75/5 - Definitely not up to snuff; so many other Grass-Types do
a better job.
Expanded (BW-On):
1.75/5 - Definitely not up to snuff; so many other Grass-Types do a
better job.
Limited:
N/A - If reprinted as something used in Limited events,
I would give it a 4/5 but remember, just make room for
the basic Grass Energy you need to meet the few
Grass-Type Energy requirements (even if nothing else in
your deck uses it), but don’t try to just +39 it.
Summary:
Even though I scored it low, I don’t want to give the
wrong impression; Chesnaught is probably fairly
well balanced, its just that most of what we used is
overpowered for how the game currently works. If this
card had released in place of Mewtwo-EX back in
BW: Next Destinies, it probably would have been
good enough to see some play.
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