Breloom
(XY: Furious Fists 50/111) is a
Fighting-Type which is still great,
enjoying the various support cards from
its set and striking many Colorless- and
most Darkness- and Lightning-Types for
double damage, with just the extremely
mild irritation of Resistance popping up
more often than for most other Types
(but still not being common). Being a
Stage 1 stings, but while it slows it
down it isn’t impossible to work around.
The 100 HP is a serious concern; unless
a deck is giving a poor performance or
is a bit unusual in its strategy, this
is a fairly probable OHKO. The Psychic
Weakness is part of the reason why;
Mewtwo-EX just needs a Double
Colorless Energy and a Muscle
Band (or one or more Energy on
Breloom itself) to take the OHKO.
The lack of Resistance is disappointing
only in that as a Grass/Fighting hybrid
in the video games, its damage halving
Electric or Dark Resistance easily
translate into Lightning or Darkness
Resistance in the TCG: no Type
conversion clashes. With 100 HP, it
wouldn’t do much good though. The two
Energy required to retreat is enough you
won’t want to pay it, though it isn’t
too terrible if you absolutely must; the
metagame is such that you probably
should have a decent amount of retreat
alternatives or assist cards to make it
more manageable anyway.
Breloom
has two attacks, which means it had
better fit at least one of two
categories to see competitive play: the
glass cannon the “trigger” support
Pokémon. Tuesday’s Electivire (XY:
Furious Fists 30/111) was nearly
both though ultimately just the latter
(click
here
if you need a refresher). I don’t
recall it, its Attributes or one of its
attacks being cited elsewhere, so it
isn’t a trigger. Lets see if it works
out as a glass cannon. For [CC] its
Giga Drain hits for 20 points of damage
and the attack heals an amount from
Breloom equal to what you did to the
Defending Pokémon. So without any other
effects, its just 20 damage and 20
healed… on a Pokémon that is unlikely to
survive a single hit. I am glad there
wasn’t a flat amount healed (I’ll take
the slight risk of whiffing against
Resistance) but this is an attack for a
bigger card, even though Giga
Drain and its ilk rarely show up on such
Pokémon. Even then, let the attack do
at least 10 or 20 more points of initial
damage (even with more HP healing isn’t
all that strong).
For [FFC] Sky Uppercut hits for 70
points of damage while ignoring
Resistance. We’ve been over this
before; ignoring Resistance is usually a
total waste. The same time Resistance
was locked in at -20 to the affected
Type was about the same time this run of
power creep began, give or take a few
sets. What this means is that not only
is this effect only useful for select
match-ups, but having no effect while
doing 20 more points of damage creates
the same occurrence for said match-ups
while giving you universally better
results all around. So… while
technically this is better than no
effect at all, I am sorely tempted to
view it as an intentional nerf: instead
of the attack hitting for another 20
damage all the time it only applies
versus Resistance.
These two attacks don’t complement each
other; hitting the opponent with one and
then the other merely results in the 90
damage in one hit that something sturdy
enough to score a 2HKO needs to strive
to reach for a shot in competitive play.
For a glass cannon, that means it isn’t
even hitting half as hard as it probably
should! The Energy costs don’t
complement each other either; Giga Drain
is Double Colorless Energy
compliant but Sky Uppercut is not, and
you’re going to be lucky to get two
attachments onto this card. It almost
seems like someone on the design team
does not like Breloom;
this tiny bit of attack synergy such a
thing would add wouldn’t have made this
card, but at least it would have looked
like it was trying a little.
Wait… maybe Shroomish can save
this card! The choice rarely made but
sorely needed to improve the balance
between Stages of Evolution is to make
the Evolving Pokémon more than mere
stepping stones, after all. The one
legal Shroomish (for Standard and
Expanded) is XY: Furious Fists
6/111. It is a 60 HP Grass-Type Basic
Pokémon with Fire Weakness, no
Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [C] and
one single attack that does 10 points of
damage for one of any Energy. This is a
vanilla stepping stone, unless you
really fancy how a Grass-Type becomes a
Fighting-Type (which also means
Shroomish can’t have Strong
Energy attached, be searched out via
Korrina, etc.).
I am sorry to say that I am not getting
any good ideas for how to use this card;
I admit I am not exactly straining my
brain in trying to force something, but
usually after running some basic
scenarios I can come up with at least
some farfetched deck that can take
advantage of something. It is quite a
pity that the dumbing down of the game
means a card that should have been able
to exploit its Dual-Type nature is not
only a mono-Type card, but doesn’t even
have some interesting off-Type attacks
or else have both attacks be purely
Colorless.
Ratings
Standard:
1.25/5 - It doesn’t do everything wrong,
just most of it.
Expanded:
1.3/5 - I’ll give it a twentieth of a
point more since Level Ball can
fetch Shroomish here; ironically
Breloom itself is too big in this
one instance.
Limited:
3.25/5 - It is a serviceable Stage 1
Pokémon, able to work completely
off-Type though not very well. Most of
its score comes from the usual benefits
of being a Stage 1 in a format where you
may very well be staring down Evolving
Basics that your opponent just can’t
Evolve and had to run as filler. In
short it isn’t bad but it isn’t truly
good, though the healing may also prove
a touch better here; your opponent can’t
wear it down with a weenie rush. If you
aren’t running any Fighting Energy
at all I’d be tempted to skip it, and
obviously don’t compromise a mono-Basic
Pokémon build for this card.
Summary:
Breloom is back in the format,
but sadly as filler. The card doesn’t
get everything completely wrong, but it
underperforms across the board and
whether it was in the name of keeping it
“simple” or quickly getting a Breloom
into a set without testing but with no
worry of it being overpowered, it still
is so disappointing that it probably
wasn’t worth it.
