aroramage |
So far the best user of an Ancient
Trait has been Primal Kyogre-EX, if only because of its
sheer bulk and power and the ability to fuel up other
Benched Pokemon. Aside from that, Ancient Traits haven't
been real big with the other Pokemon. Finishing the week
though, we're gonna take a look at Nidoqueen, probably
the most promising Stage 2 with an Ancient Trait.
Nidoqueen is the only non-Basic
Pokemon that gets Omega Barrage - the Ancient Trait that
allows a Pokemon to attack twice. This is more of a
design choice than anything, and to be honest it's a
smart one. Can you imagine something like Primal Kyogre-EX
with the Ability to attack twice every turn? That kind
of power is dangerous in the wrong hands, but so far
we've only seen Torchic with this Trait, and
he's...okay.
Nidoqueen takes Omega Barrage and
utilizes it in a much more offensive manner, starting
with Poison Jab, a 1-for-30 that effectively becomes
1-for-60 with Omega Barrage, AND it Poisons the
opponent's Pokemon. Combine that with Muscle Band, and
that's 100 damage - yes that's right, 100 damage - AND
Poison. That's a lot for just 1 Energy! And that doesn't
include things like Virbank being around to up the
Poison damage to 30 or Team Magma's Secret Base
inflicting 20 on play. Needless to say, Nidoqueen
already has an outstanding first attack to utilize.
But why stop there? Nidoqueen then
has a 3-for-70 (read: 140) damage attack in the form of
Dynamite Punch! There is just a slight problem though,
given that it causes recoil. This is a balancing measure
to make sure you're not abusing Nidoqueen's power - it's
very difficult to justify aiming for such a strong
attack when you're dealing 40 damage to yourself
(keeping in mind that's after both attacks, since the
recoil doesn't take Weakness in mind). And on a Stage 2
with only 140 HP to begin with, that's very to difficult
to work with.
She's got a lot of power to wield,
but you can't be reckless with it. OTK-ing your
opponent's Pokemon-EX is only gonna be worth so much,
and given the resources it takes to bring out Nidoqueen
in the first place - as with ANY Stage 2 - and bring out
that kind of damage, it's difficult to judge how much of
an impact she'll make on the format if any.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (really it's the fact
that she's a Stage 2 that deals recoil damage, and
that's not something Stage 2s can afford)
Expanded: 3/5 (this is the best
version of Nidoqueen out at the moment, so she'll be
doing about the same here)
Limited: 4/5 (a little slow to come
out, but that double-strike is very effective here)
Arora Notealus: Nidoqueen cards of
the past have usually had a relationship to Nidoking
cards, whether with Nidoqueen's own Family Bonds or
Giovanni's Nidoqueen's Love Lariat to Nidoking's Power
Gene or Pheromone Stamina. Funny though, since nowadays
not only do the cards not interact often in these ways
but it's not even a good idea to build a deck around 2
Stage 2s like that! Odd how that works.
Weekend Thought: What cards from
this week do you think show the most potential? Are
there are any cards you think would do better? You
playing anything else out of Double Crisis? Or maybe
you're too excited for the next set in May.
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Otaku |
We end the week with something a little more regal than normal… her
majesty, Nidoqueen (XY: Primal Clash
69/160)! Of course, I’m just having fun with her name;
we’ll need to run through the card before we can say
whether or not she’s going to dominate the metagame (or
at least be a part of the ruling court) like one or two
past instances of the Pokémon in the TCG.
She’s a Psychic-Type; this means she can tap some decent support
(though it pales in comparison to say Fighting-Types)
and enjoys hitting most other Psychic-Types and a decent
chunk of the Fighting-Types for Weakness and that sweet
double damage, but has to mind the Resistance found on
Darkness-Types and Metal-Types. She is also a Stage 2
which is pretty painful right now, though not impossible
to play and there are some Stage 2 Pokémon that are
still doing well without some insane shortcut like
Archie’s Ace in the Hole (which is good as there is
no Psychic-Type equivalent). She sports 140 HP which is
enough to survive a hit noticeably more often than not,
though she is still vulnerable to OHKO from some common
cards including the infamous Mewtwo-EX, which
brings us to the Psychic Weakness on Nidoqueen;
it is very dangerous even with Mewtwo-EX having
long ceased being the top attacker in the card pool!
The lack of Resistance doesn’t help the card but as its
the norm it doesn’t hurt either, which leaves the
Retreat Cost of [CC]; pretty middle of the road as its
low enough that you will often enough have the Energy
attached to be able to afford to pay it but high enough
you would prefer not to. Fortunately for now we still
have enough retreat assisting (or bypassing) tricks that
it isn’t overly important anyway.
Nidoqueen has an Ancient
Trait and its one of the promising ones: Ω Barrage!
This allows her to attack twice in a row if you choose.
The first option is her Poison Jab for [P], good for 30
damage and Poison. With Virbank City Gym you can
up this to three damage counters and 10/30/60 damage
against Resistance/neutral/Weakness. The second is
Dynamite Punch for [PPC] which deals 70 damage to the
opponent’s Active and 20 to Nidoqueen herself
(the self-damage doesn’t apply Weakness). So… Poison
Jab is a solid attack but the Poison side of the
attack gains no benefit from hitting the same target
twice. Dynamite Punch is a subpar attack as its
overpriced in terms of Energy required and recoil
damage, but at least since it is self-damage that
doesn’t apply Weakness and not damage counters, if
you’ve got an effect that protects against it,
Nidoqueen can soak it. Granted I am not finding any
such effects off hand (most I can think of like Hard
Charm don’t block self-inflicted damage). Still
three-for-70 with a drawback is fairly poor, but the
Ancient Trait and potential cost reduction from
Dimension Valley can make it a serviceable attack.
After all with a Silver Bangle you take out any
Pokémon-EX with less than 200 HP (albeit with 40 points
of self-damage) or with Muscle Band you can down
anything with 180 HP or less (barring protective effects
in either case). You may have noticed I referenced a
different benefitting each attack; that’s going to
become a theme.
So what about the related cards? First there is Nidoran
♀ and that provides
two options: BW: Plasma Freeze 40/116 and XY:
Primal Clash 66/160. Both are 60 HP Basic
Psychic-Type Pokémon with 60 HP with Psychic Weakness,
no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Abilities, and no
Ancient Traits. BW: Plasma Freeze 40/116 has
Poison Sting for [PC] which does 20 and (if you make the
coin flip) Poison. XY: Primal Clash 66/160 can
Scratch for 10 at a cost of [C] or Bite for 20 at a cost
of [PC]. Neither of these versions is all that helpful
(typical and yet still a bad sign); they don’t aid in
setting up and they don’t bring anything that justifies
running them solo. As I alluded to earlier, even some
fundamental support like Stadiums will have mixed
results; BW: Plasma Freeze 40/116 and its Poison
Sting attack aren’t competitively priced but by those
terms becomes half decent with Dimension Valley
in play or Virbank City Gym so that it acts like
triple Poison when you get “heads” but in reality, you’d
need both to make it “scary” enough your opponent
wouldn’t want to risk exposing anything to important to
take the KO (which indirectly prolongs the lifespan of
Nidoran
♀). I mean, you don’t want to use a two Energy attack on a 60 HP
basic without compatible, competitive Energy
acceleration. XY: Primal Clash 66/160 can tap
Dimension Valley to make the attacks better (but
still poor) with a free 10 damage and 20 for just [P].
Even with a compatible stadium, there just isn’t much
here to work with so unless testing proves otherwise, go
with either or both.
Next up is Nidorina as unless you want to be extra
vulnerable to Item lock, you’ll need to run at least a
few (and anymore now Rare Candy is the one to run
sparingly). Again there are two choices - BW: Plasma
Freeze 41/116 and XY: Primal Clash 67/160 -
and they are both Stage 1 Psychic-Type Pokémon with 90
HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, no Abilities, no
Ancient Traits and two attacks. BW: Plasma Freeze
41/116 has a heftier Retreat Cost of [CCC], and her
first attack is Poison Sting that once again costs [PC]
and does 20 damage with Poison, but this time the Poison
at least is guaranteed. Her second attack is Double
Kick for [PCC], good for two coin flips that do 40 per
“heads”. Primal Clash 67/160 has a Retreat Cost
of [CC] but also upgrades an attack from its lower Stage
set-mate as it can use Scratch for [C] as well but this
time does 20, though its second vanilla attack this time
is Strength with a [PPC] cost and doing 60 damage.
Again, its a toss-up as the right Stadium takes either
from slightly below tolerable to slightly above. Pick
whichever one suits the rest of your build and don’t be
surprised if neither is favored enough to matter.
There are also two other Nidoqueen currently legal: BW:
Plasma Freeze 42/116 and XY: Primal Clash
68/160. If you’d like, you can check out a nearly
two-year-old review for the first of this pair
here
but I’ll be doing my usual and going over them both in
this CotD for comparison’s sake. For example, they have
a lot in common with today’s card so I’ll just highlight
the differences. BW: Plasma Freeze 42/116 has 10
less HP and [C] more Retreat Cost (so 130 with [CCC])
and no Ancient Trait (of course, since that was a new
mechanic in XY: Primal Clash). Her attacks are
Poison Horn for [PC] which inflicts 50 damage plus
Poison and Double Stomp for [PCC] which does 60 damage
with two coin flips good for another 30 per “heads”.
This was why I tried to coin the term “French Vanilla”
for describing TCG cards; this isn’t just straight up
numbers but its not a lot more than that and as those
numbers aren’t record breaking, this card is best
forgotten; even Virbank City Gym or Dimension
Valley can’t get the attacks up to the competitive
level. XY: Primal Clash 68/160 is sort of the in
between version of the other two Nidoqueen; she
does have the 140 HP but with the Retreat Cost of [CCC]
and no Ancient Trait. Her attacks have the same costs
as those of Plasma Freeze 42/116 but are a bit
better: Double Kick for [PC] that is good for 40 per
“heads” and Poison Fang for 60 and double Poison (two
Poison counters between turns instead of one). I
apologize as it is probably getting annoying, but this
card makes you wish you could stack Dimension Valley
with Virbank City Gym; the attack costs are too
high (though again the worst we’ve looked at today) but
pumping up the Poison damage counter placement would be
really helpful. In the end though it doesn’t matter;
stick to today’s version.
So… we can’t discuss Nidoqueen without covering Nidoking
(and company). Nidoran
♂ (BW: Plasma Freeze 43/116), which is a 60 HP Basic with
Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [C],
no Ability, no Ancient Trait (it has become part of the
litany) and just one attack: for [P] it can hit back
for 30 with the appropriately named Hit Back, but only
if there is at least one damage counter on the card. 30
for [P] still isn’t competitive on such a small Basic
but it could be handy… except you either have to hope
your opponent somehow damages it without KOing it or you
have to get the damage on there yourself and then it
should be OHKOed after attacking, defeating the purpose
of trying to Evolve it. Nidorino (BW: Plasma
Freeze 44/116) is a little better, but Nidoran
♀ set the bar low;
a Psychic-Type Stage 1 with 90 HP, Psychic Weakness, no
Resistance and a Retreat Cost of [CCC] plus two attacks
(no Ability or Ancient Trait) it can use Double Kick for
[PC] to do 30 damage per “heads” or Horn Attack for
[CCC] to do a flat 50 damage. At least it could tap
into Dimension Valley.
Then again that might be silly because Nidoking (BW:
Plasma Freeze 58/116) is a Fighting-Type! A Stage 2
with 140 HP, Water Weakness, Lightning Resistance (yay!),
a Retreat Cost of [CCC], no Abilities, no Ancient Traits
and two attacks. For [CC] Love Strike does 20 plus
another 40 per Nidoqueen you have in play. For
[FCCC] its Horn Drill does a straight (or is it
spiraling?) 90. The whole line is disappointing,
flirting with potential (and Nidoqueen) but never
delivering. Even with Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick
to avoid having to actually run two Stage 2 lines in the
same deck, Mega Evolutions are taking HP scores to the
next level and you’d need four Nidoqueen to take
out 180 HP Pokémon-EX that aren’t Fighting Weak. You
could add other buffs if there are room… but even if you
do odds are you won’t have a full four Nidoqueen
in play anyway, so you’re still striking out on the
biggest attacks. What about Strong Energy? Love
Strike can be fueled by a single Double Colorless
Energy; using Strong Energy means an extra
turn building that you probably can’t afford and again
the Strong Energy won’t get a chance to up the
max damage because you’ll struggle to get and keep more
than one or two Nidoqueen into play. For the
curious, you can see a full but two-year-old review of
Nidoking
here.
So… how should you run Nidoqueen? I’ve bumped into it a few
times, and most seem to focus on Dimension Valley
and Dynamite Punch; like I said with a Muscle Band
or Silver Bangle it will take out most threats
with an effective OHKO for [PP]. The goal is to keep
your opponent from building anything that can OHKO
Nidoqueen or if they do, hide behind something else
and hope your opponent can force whatever you’re
building into Nidoqueen up front prematurely.
She’s quite a brutal foe when your deck suffers from
Psychic Weakness, but mostly falls into the “not quite
competitive” range of decks… which doesn’t mean they
can’t beat even a well built deck if they get lucky, you
get unlucky, or they simply play a better game than you.
In Expanded, things don’t get any better but I’m not
sure if they get any worse; the handful of cards that
might help the deck are balanced out by the additional
threats (mostly general), but that’s mostly speculation
on my part. I won’t be scoring it, but it is a bit
nicer for this card in the PTCGO Unlimited Format.
Unlike the true Unlimited Format, the PTCGO’s only goes
back to the HS-era sets, which means access to
Defender (capable of soaking self-damage and damage
from the opponent’s Pokémon) without all the insanity
that you’d encounter in the full Unlimited format.
Limited play enjoys Nidoqueen, though you have
the hurdle of pulling a decent Evolution line and enough
compatible cards as she does need just enough Psychic
Energy that you can’t easily splash her into a deck
where she’s the only one that can use it. If you can
get her up and running that Ω Barrage is likely to end
the game quickly!
Ratings
Standard: 2/5
Expanded: 2/5
Limited: 4/5
Summary: Nidoqueen is mostly kept down by the abundance of decks
that can effectively do what she does (score OHKOs)
without being a Stage 2. Even for Ω Barrage attackers,
there is Medicham (XY: Primal Clash
81/160), which I had initially written off but that
seems to have a Tier 3 level competitive deck (fear the
damage stacking bonuses of the Fighting-Type… I guess).
If you’re a fan or want to try something a little
different, go ahead and build a deck. If you’re trying
to find the next big thing, you’re probably safe looking
elsewhere… unless we suddenly get a new piece of the
puzzle.
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