aroramage |
From the depths of the fiery pit emerges a half-man,
half-chicken, all-terrifying speed-boosting maniacal
Mega Ultra Chicken Fighter 4: Turbo Edition! Or
something like that. Welcome back guys, today we take a
look at the Gen III terror known as Blaziken! Blaziken
is a Fire/Fighting in the games, with a Mega Evolution
as one of the first ones to be revealed. He'll probably
show up in future sets (wink wink) with his Mega Evo in
tow (double wink wink double), but for now, let's take a
look at what he offers today.
Here in Furious Fists, a Fighting-type supportive set,
Blaziken is a Fire-type. While it is a bit disappointing
to see this, Blaziken does have support from the
Flashfire set to work with. Granted none of it is damage
boosting like Strong Energy, but it's something!
Blaziken also gets a couple of attacks, the first of
which is Clutch. For DCE, Blaziken charges in for 50
damage and prevents the opponent from retreating. We've
talked about the trouble with keeping anything from
retreating since the days of Keldeo-EX, but the 50
damage is a nice smack for 2.
Then we come to Blaziken's second attack, Burning Shot.
It's a hefty 4 Energy, 2 of which must be Fire, and it
comes with the cost of discarding 2 Energy on top of
that. What this means is that 1) you're still left with
Clutch even after using Burning Shot once, so Blaziken's
not rendered useless by using it, and 2) this attack
must do something amazing if it costs 4 Energy and
discards 2. And it does!
150 damage to ANY Pokemon.
This is extremely powerful, as it can KO most Stage 2
Pokemon. Throw on a little spread damage or HTL or
Muscle Band (yes, Muscle Band works if you target the
Active Pokemon, but if you go for the Benched, it's just
150), and you're KOing some of the smaller EX. To give
you an idea of the scope of this Pokemon, let's run down
the names of a few Pokemon in the format:
Garbodor. Blastoise. Pyroar. Jirachi-EX. - all KO'd by a
Burning Shot ANYWHERE
Genesect-EX and Virizion-EX - KO'd while Active
Mewtwo-EX. Yveltal-EX. - KO'd while Active and with
Muscle Band.
Lucario-EX. Black Kyurem-EX. Lugia-EX. - KO'd while
Active and while holding Muscle Band and using HTL w/o
the bank
Now that I have your attention, Blaziken does have a few
issues. For one, the discard is a heavy cost to keep up
with turn after turn. While you can probably get away
with utilizing Blacksmith and Emboar for consistency,
it's not a strategy I'd try using. There's a lot of cost
to consider, but given the potential benefits, it might
just be worth it. I mean, that's at least 2 Prizes you
can get out for 1! Against the right strike, that's
guaranteed at least 1 Prize, so in a sense you break
even or get ahead of your opponent. You could even catch
up to your opponent with Blaziken!
Blaziken may have started a new Fire deck, and while
it's going to take a lot to make it run well, the
results are pretty clear: Blaziken isn't going to just
sit and wait his turn. He's gunning for any EX he can!
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (he may be costly to play, but the pros I
think outweigh the cons)
Expanded: 3/5 (oh yeah, those tips from above? They
still work here)
Limited: 4/5 (while he's going to be slower to run, he
can devastate an opponent who's not prepared for him)
Arora Notealus: I kinda wanna imagine Blaziken just
leaps up into the air, uses Burning Shot, and descends
on either the Pokemon out or just on one of the
Trainer's Pokeballs. Then he just looks up, and his eyes
just say, "NO!"
Weekend Thought: Would you run the cards from this week
in a deck? What strategies do you think can be used
between them?
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Otaku |
We finish out this week with a card that is almost
a blast from the past: Blaziken (XY: Furious
Fists 14/111). Why do I call it that? It bears a
striking resemblance to Blaziken-ex (EX: Team
Magma Vs Team Aqua 89/95), which was reviewed twice
by the Pojo CotD Crew,
here
and
here.
I’m not sure why it was reviewed twice so close
together (the dates are only about two and half months
apart), but I did weigh in on the first one. I don’t
want to bog things down too much, so I’ll avoid making
step-by-step comparisons.
Blaziken
is a Fire-Type in a set focused on Fighting-Types…
perhaps because its actually a Fire/Fighting-Type in the
video games? Being a Dual-Type in the TCG would likely
be amazing (especially as both of these Types are well
supported and hit key Weakness) but that mechanic was
(sadly?) abandoned so long ago (and almost always used
for a gimmick and not to represent actual video game
hybrids). Still, hitting almost all Grass-Type and
Metal-Type Pokémon for double damage is pretty slick and
you never have to worry about Resistance (unless you’re
trying to mess with cards no longer legal for Standard
or Expanded). Fire-Types, as stated are still well
supported; Blacksmith in particular can provide
some amazing Energy acceleration without an overly
complicated set-up.
Blaziken
has 140 HP, giving it solid odds of surviving a hit.
Far from a guarantee, but attacks that aren’t
exploiting Weakness or need to be hitting for quite an
impressive amount. Even with the typical easy boosting
from Muscle Band or the Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo, that’s 120 or 110 points of damage.
The Water Weakness will matter but it isn’t as bad as
it might be. Seismitoad-EX is a bigger concern
for blocking Items (and to lower Stages): an actual
Blaziken can survive even Quaking Punch boosted by
Muscle Band and the full Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo, though only just. Keldeo-EX
just needs one source of [W] Energy or a Muscle Band
for its Secret Sword to carve out a OHKO and Kyurem
(BW: Plasma Freeze 31/116) a.k.a. Kyurem
[Plasma] will find even its Frost Spear just needs a +40
boost before Weakness to score the OHKO… and while that
is high for most decks, its just a solid setup for
something that can use Deoxys-EX on top of
Muscle Band. That sounds pretty bad… but its not
the same as being vulnerable to Psychic-Types like (Mewtwo-EX
or Deoxys-EX) or Fighting-Types (like Landorus-EX,
Lucario-EX and a whole lot more), and its video
game Type combination actually would allow for those two
Weaknesses (Blaziken are video game Flying, Ground,
Psychic and Water Weak; none is a “perfect” match due to
how the Types transfer between video game and TCG).
Blaziken
lacks any Resistance; as I usually point out Resistance
is just a small bonus right now as attacks hit so hard
and most decks will have at least one “off-Type”
attacker plus various boosting tricks. I would like to
highlight that in the video games, Blaziken take
quarter-damage from Bug-Type and half-damage from
Grass-Type attacks: the two Types that make up the TCG
Grass-Type. They also take half-damage from what
directly translate to the Darkness-, Fire- and
Metal-Types, again making for good Resistance options.
While the Ice-Type isn’t a good option because its
mixed in with the Water-Type in the TCG… that makes you
question it as a Weakness (even if the other options
likely would have been worse). Though a strange
transition point, this brings us to the Retreat Cost of
two; its high enough that paying is going to sting, but
low enough that (especially with access to Energy
acceleration) you probably can if you really need to…
but options to bypass or lower said Retreat Cost is
likely given how important it has been to do so in
general for this format so far, as well as the two
before it. Also relevant is that it means Beartic
(XY: Furious Fists 22/111) can use Igloo Hold for
120 points of damage (after Weakness); any other boosts
means a OHKO and Beartic is popular due to
countering Landorus-EX (in general) and helping
Fire Weak decks deal with Fire-Types, making even a
Retreat Cost a bigger problem than expected.
Blaziken
has two attacks; Clutch is good, though far from enough
to justify running a Stage 2 Pokémon: for [CC] you not
only score a solid 50 points of damage but its effect
prevents the Defending Pokémon from manually retreating.
It is a simple effect that can be surprisingly useful
and if the attack did hit for just 10 points more it
actually would cross the threshold into being
competitive in its own right. As is, with a Silver
Bangle it is good for 80 against Pokémon-EX and 70
against anything with Muscle Band. The obvious
add on (that would still put things into the needed
minimum KO range) of the Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym isn’t as easy as it sounds: making room for
that combo with a Stage 2 main attacker is difficult.
Burning Shot is the attack that usually catches a
person’s eye: while the immense four Energy cost of
[RRCC] is difficult to pay and you’ve even got to
discard two Energy from Blaziken on top of that,
the result is 150 points of damage with the option of
nailing either the Defending Pokémon or a target on the
Bench. Excluding Pokémon-EX there are only three
Stage 2 that have 160 HP in Standard while Expanded adds
a Stage 1 with 200 for only four Pokémon that can
survive the hit without protective effects. Hariyama
(XY: Furious Fists
52/111), which we reviewed
yesterday,
won’t even survive with its Thick Fat Ability unless
something else is tacked on! The fact that most
Pokémon-EX that see competitive play have 170 or 180 HP
makes this less impressive, though against an Active
Pokémon-EX you just need to add Silver Bangle,
Muscle Band with a Hypnotoxic Laser or
Hypnotoxic Laser with Virbank City Gym (Silver
Bangle being fairly easy).
Clutch can pretty easily lead into Burning Shot, though
probably in the opposite manner you would expect;
instead of stranding something up front to set-up for
the 2HKO, you want to strand something that can’t hit
back (or at least, not well) so buy an extra turn of
attacking, with said extra attack going to a Burning
Shot between uses of Clutch. If you are very fortunate,
additional cards and/or luck will allow multiple uses of
either attack. Realistically, more than one attack by
an Active Blaziken is optimistic. Fortunately
the costs of each attack make either a Double
Colorless Energy or two Fire Energy via
Blacksmith enough to fuel Clutch and both
allow a Blaziken to go from zero to Burning Shot
in a single turn. Even the discard cost isn’t too
terrible as a single Double Colorless Energy
covers the entire thing (or two basic Fire Energy
if you anticipate having Blacksmith handy next
turn). There is even a small upside to the downside of
discarding: Evil Ball and X-Ball are only gaining 40
points of damage instead of 80 from the Energy likely to
be attached to Blaziken; that leaves 100 points
of damage for them to cough up on their own if either
wants a OHKO.
No Stage 2 Pokémon is an island; to get to Blaziken
you’ve got to start with Torchic and either use
Rare Candy or go through Combusken. For
Torchic your choices are BW: Dark Explorers
15/108, BW: Legendary Treasures RC5/RC25
(different art reprint of the previous version) or
XY: Furious Fists 12/111. All are Fire-Type Basic
Pokémon with 60 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, a
single Energy Retreat Cost and no Ability. XY:
Furious Fists 12/111 has just one attack: for [RC]
it can do 10 with an extra 30 (so 40 total) on a
successful coin toss. The other option has two attacks,
doing 10 for [R] or 20 for [RC]. In Expanded, BW:
Dark Explorers is also legal, but as it has 10 less
HP and a single attack for [RC] that does 10 points of
self-damage just to hit for 30. I’d prefer the attacks
did something to keep Torchic, but working with
what we’ve got I’ll take XY: Furious Fists
12/111; I shouldn’t be attacking with this card anyway,
but if I am I might as well hope for 40 while at least
doing 10.
If you don’t just skip the Stage 1 via Rare Candy
(and there’s enough Item lock not to bank on that
option), you’ve only got XY: Furious Fists 13/111
for Standard. In Expanded you add BW: Dark Explorers
16/108 as an option. Both Stage 1 Pokémon are
Fire-Types with 80 HP, Water Weakness, no Resistance, a
single Energy Retreat Cost and two attacks… that are
actually on fairly even terms. BW: Dark Explorers
16/108 can attack for [C}, flipping two coins and
scoring 20 points of damage per “heads” or for [RRC] do
70 with a discard while XY: Furious Fists 13/111
can do 30 for [CC] or 50 with a coin flip for another 20
for [RCC]. If you want to avoid Energy discards and/or
make better use of Double Colorless Energy, go
with XY: Furious Fists 13/111.
There is one other Blaziken to pick from in
Expanded: BW: Dark Explorers 17/108. Its
Attributes are the same as today’s version and it even
has two attacks as well. For [RC] it can use Blaze Kick
for 40 and a coin flip: on “heads” the attack does an
additional 30 points of damage and on “tails” it
inflicts Burn. For [RRC] you can 130 points of damage,
but you have to discard an Energy attached to itself.
It didn’t see any successful competitive play that I
know of though we did review it
here…
or at least baby_mario did; don’t know if I skipped it
or just never finished it, but I basically agreed with
him. Of course since that review not only did we get
Blacksmith but we got Silver Bangle,
Muscle Band, Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank
City Gym… and that’s just too much required to hit
180 given how much space an attacking Stage 2 Pokémon
requires. Still it isn’t abysmal: a Blacksmith
plus Silver Bangle means it can go from zero to
an even split between 100 damage or 70 with Burn against
Pokémon-EX. If you really want a Blaziken stick
to today’s: you’re better off with the steeper Energy
requirement but being able to bring the big damage with
just your attack and a Silver Bangle or Muscle
Band (and neither against almost anything that sees
play and isn’t a Pokémon-EX).
Still, imagine if if we had a combination of these two
Blaziken… yeah, we did. Blaziken-ex was a
Pokémon-ex, the predecessors of modern Pokémon-EX. Yes,
rulings insist the two are different in more than just
capitalization; old cards that reference Pokémon-ex
don’t care about Pokémon-EX while modern cards that
reference Pokémon-EX don’t recognize Pokémon-ex. Also
now that we’ve gotten “Evolved Pokémon as Basics” that
is another difference between the two: Blaziken-ex
was a Stage 2 Pokémon, Evolving from Combusken
like a regular Blaziken (though the name
difference meant they didn’t count as the same card).
Pokémon-ex, like Pokémon-EX, are worth two Prizes when
KOed, can’t receive certain beneficial effects but are
also the targets of specific counters (in both cases, I
believe more than modern Pokémon-EX). Blaziken-ex
is a Fire-Type Pokémon with no Resistance a Retreat Cost
of two and two attacks, just like today’s CotD but it
sported 10 more HP and was Weak to Water and
Psychic; yes for a time we had cards that could have two
different Weaknesses (some even had two different
Resistances, but not many).
Its offense was two attacks: Blaze Kick and Volcanic
Ash. Its Blaze Kick is actually a bit weaker than that
of BW: Dark Explorers 17/108; same Energy cost
but it only did 30 damage plus either 20 or the Burn.
Volcanic Ash is just a weaker Burning Shot: same [RRCC]
but you specifically have to discard two [R] Energy and
it only did 100 points of damage. Yet this card was
part of one of the top decks of its time. Why? Besides
the differences in first turn rules and Rare Candy
(I can’t even remember which rules variant was in
effect, but assuming you could play Items, you could
Rare Candy a Basic Pokémon the turn it was played,
into either its Stage 1 or Stage 2 form). Certain
better for Evolutions, but the main thing was it existed
in a deck that had the needed Energy acceleration to set
it up and keep it going and both HP scores and damage
yields were far lower at this time: most Basic
Pokémon-ex and most supporting Stage 1 cards (plus the
occasional Stage 2) had 100 or less HP. Even against
other Pokémon-ex, a Blaziken-ex might go down
swinging, taking out all its support on the Bench so
that a backup attacker just had to deliver the final
shot against the attacker for the game to be over… and
yet Blaziken that are so close (and in many ways
superior) to it can’t hack it in the current format.
If you want to use Blaziken (XY: Furious Fists
14/111)... go for it, just don’t expect to win a
tournament without some serious luck. The main concern
is the deck collapsing under its own weight or the
difficulty in “covering” its Water Weakness. Even
though you can try to trade a Stage 2 for a Pokémon-EX,
coming out ahead in Prizes, the amount of cards invested
is likely to be in your opponent’s favor, and setting up
three Blaziken (and that assumes none are
prematurely KOed) is a daunting task. Still I find
myself wanting to play this card (I don’t think I have
enough on the PTCGO) and see what it can do; it doesn’t
use Abilities and the raw damage makes me wonder if it
could work with the infamous Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) plus some other element
I am probably missing. A Stage 1 with a Stage 2 is even
more difficult than just using Basic Pokémon to back it,
and might be unneeded; Garbodor is so popular
right now I’m not sure how many match-ups you’d actually
need it.
In Expanded, things aren’t much different; you get
Level Ball and Tropical Beach to make set-up
a little easier but that’s about it. In Limited, this
is great if you can pull a line but remember that unless
you get a fleshed out line, its really hard to set-up a
Stage 2 Pokémon in such a format. The HP should last a
long time and the attacks will make it a threat even to
an opponent able running a +39 deck built around a
Pokémon-EX. Well, except for Seismitoad-EX.
Ratings
Standard:
2.25/5 - The only thing really holding it back is the
difficulty of making a Stage 2 work in this format.
Expanded:
2.5/5 - A bit generous perhaps, but just a little help
with setting up can go a long way, though still not
enough to overcome the power and pacing of most big,
Basic Pokémon (not even just Pokémon-EX!).
Limited:
3.5/5 - Keep raising the score according to how fleshed
out a line you pull; I haven’t played at a Limited event
for a while so I wonder if you can still run as many
copies of a card as you want (provided it doesn’t have a
restriction printed on the card, as with Ace Specs)?
Summary:
Blaziken is a bittersweet reminder of how the
game has developed; if the game were a bit more
balanced, it could be a serious contender, but “balance”
is starting to seem more and more like a myth so that
may not mean much. I encourage experimenting with it,
but only if you have the time and patience and
willingness to enjoy the journey as the odds of it
paying off in competitive play are low.
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