Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Vivillion
(XY)
Today we take a look at Vivillion,
the obligatory flying insect/butterfly thing that we get
in every Generation, from the classic
Butterfree to the more
recent Volcarona.
What we have is a Stage 2 Grass Pokémon with an average
130 HP, so you know it will have to work super hard to
get any play time. Stage 2s are difficult to use in a
format dominated by fast, powerful Basics and those that
see play tend to be Bench sitters with ridiculously good
Abilities (like Blastoise
BCR) or very low cost attackers like
Empoleon or
Garchomp . . . and even they
struggle to stay competitive.
Vivillion,
sadly, doesn’t even come close in either category. It
has no Ability for a start, and the attacks are
underwhelming. Conversion Powder is cheap enough for a
single Grass Energy, but all it does is give you the
option of inflicting either Poison or Sleep on the
Defending Pokémon. You can get both with
Hypnotoxic Laser, so no need
to waste an attack for that. Colourful Wind is a bit
more interesting: it does 30 damage
for three Energy of any Colour, but for each different
Type of Basic Energy attached to
Vivillion, it will do 30 more (note that it needs
Basic
Energy, so Rainbow won’t increase damage).
In theory, then you could be hitting for a massive
amount of damage, given that we now have nine Basic
Energy Types, but in practice it will be difficult to
achieve . . . well anything really, as it would take far
too long to power up Vivillion
to a reasonable level. Ho-oh EX’s very similar Rainbow
Burn attack might offer less of a reward for your
efforts, but at least it can attach its own Energy via
the Rebirth Ability (not that it is used much as an
attacker anyway).
Vivillion
is a bit better than yesterday’s card, but still falls
into the ‘unplayable novelty’ category.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (impractical)
Limited: 2 (slightly more suited to this format, but I’m
still not sure it’s worth it)
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HEZ
Intro to
Unlimited 150 |
Vivillon.
Standard.
Today is another Stage 2 Bug Pokémon and Vivillon is
an interesting one. Being a Stage 2 is kind of crippling
to any Pokémon’s playability, it would either need an
incredibly cheap, powerful attack (i.e. Emploeon) or a
really good Ability (i.e. Blastoise) to see competitive
play. It’s just the Potential for huge power with
Colorful Wind that stands out, for 3 different energy
you can do 120 damage with no other drawback. If you can
somehow get 5 on it its 1 hit KOing 180 HP EXs. This is
never going to happen but you can dream…
Besides, I don’t think Vivillon was really meant to get
played, its main attraction is its gimmick of having a
different pattern in different countries, making it
appealing to obsessive collectors looking for a
challenge.
Unlimited 150.
Vivillon can probably do a little better in this
format but like I’ve said about all the generation VI
Stage 2s, it will probably have to wait for a few more
versions of itself to come out before you can start
building around it otherwise you’ll be stuck with a
1-1-1 line.
As it stands, there’s Ho-Oh (Secret Wonders) that has a
similar (though weaker) attack on a Basic Pokémon. If
they just print a Vivillon similar to Beautifly from
Dragons Exalted with Color Pick (search you deck for 3
different energy and attach them to a Pokémon) then
perhaps we’ll see a heavy hitting Vivillon deck in the
future.
Ratings.
Standard: 2
Unlimited 150: 2 (it’s just waiting for some support in
its line!)
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