aroramage |
Yet another user of the Ancient
Trait Omega Barrage, Excadrill does himself a tremendous
favor: he gives us attacks that are not only helpful but
actually work together! After Nidoqueen's power-heavy
strikes, Excadrill is probably the next best user of
Omega Barrage - and he demonstrates how well the Trait
can be used!
Now keep in mind that Excadrill can
attack TWICE each turn while we go over these attacks. I
know that goes without saying, but it's that detail that
makes him good! First off, Dredge, simple 1-Energy
attack, grabs 2 Energies out from your deck and attaches
them to Excadrill. Sure, no damage is done, but it's a
set-up - and it works out in such a way that you can use
Excadrill's SECOND attack IMMEDIATELY after!
And what does Mach Claw do? Deal 50
damage...but hey! At least it's not affected by
Resistance!
...what's resistant to Metal in the
TCG?
You can see how Excadrill's meant
to work: set-up quick with Dredge, and then keep
whacking for 100 damage with Mach Claw every turn
onward. Pump in some Muscle Band and HTLBank, and you're
getting 140 + 30 damage = 170 damage, the lower end of
most Pokemon-EX. It's...well, okay. I mean, Medicham
from last week does have the benefit of having a wild
variety of boosts being a Fighting-type, and I can
understand why they wouldn't want that on Excadrill
(imagine if he could have STRONG Energy and Fighting
Stadium working for him - keeping in mind he'd be able
to Dredge 2 Strong Energy since it doesn't specify Basic
Energy), but still...
As a Fighting-type, Excadrill
would've been ridiculously powerful for a Stage 1 -
which I would actually be okay with! He's only got 110
HP, so unless you were unlucky and didn't quite KO him
after his set-up, he'd be an easy KO of sorts. Not to
mention it'd give people a reason to PLAY AN EVOLUTION
aside from some super-powerful Ability like with Pyroar
(FLF) and Garbodor (LTR). As a Steel-type though...well,
he's still got support, just not with upping that damage
output. And that just shafts him a little bit.
...still like him better than that
Medicham.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (a quick set-up to an
okay attack...maybe that Energy would help
Expanded: 2/5 (about the same here)
Limited: 3.5/5 (once more the lower
damage output here lets Excadrill live and also get
around to dealing damage!)
Arora Notealus: THOUSANDS OF MILES
BENEATH THE EARTH'S SURFACE, AN UNDERGROUND COLONY PLOTS
ITS RISE TO THE SURFACE WORLD. CRAFTING THEIR WEAPONS OF
LAND DESTRUCTION, BEWARE THE RISE...OF THE MOLLLLLE
PEOPLE!!
(coming to a theater this summer
but not really)
Next Time: Wait, you dig with your
what?!
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Otaku |
Excadrill (XY: Primal
Clash 97/160) is a Metal-Type; hitting Metal
Weakness is fairly good but not great (a few Water-Types
but mostly Fairy-Types), Metal Resistance has become a
common thing for Lightning-Types again, and the Type has
solid (but not spectacular) support. Yes, this is
already turning into one of those reviews where I
struggle to properly bound my description of things:
Shield Energy finally got a review
here…
which I can only link to because this is a very, very
late CotD. Probably should have reviewed it and then
this card, instead of reviewing Shield Energy a
week later. The short version is that it allows a
Metal-Type to soak 10 points of damage which is
beneficial but not enough to make it a must play in
every Metal-Type deck. Likewise Steel Shelter is
a solid Stadium but not as vital to Metal-Type decks as
Fairy Garden is to Fairy-Type decks (and once
Hypnotoxic Laser rotates, Steel Shelter will
likely be borderline useful). So that is why I am so
double-minded about the Metal-Type; it has quite a bit
going for and against it.
Being a Stage 1 is not as easy as being a Basic but not as
problematic as being a Stage 2; let us call it an
unhappy medium as the format is very much tilted in
favor of Basics, even though Evolutions do play an
important role in the competitive scene. 110 HP is
again best described as “solid”; while testing this card
I often wished it had 120 or 130 HP (only a few Stage 1
cards exceed 130) because that would have been the
difference between surviving a hit and being KOed, even
while making use of other protective measures, but I
also was often hanging in there by 10 or 20 HP as well.
The Fire Weakness isn’t good (no Weakness is) but at
the moment it seems to be one of the less dangerous ones
to sport; not a lot of high profile Fire-Type decks so
the big concern is counters being run for other
Fire-Weak decks (like VirGen). The Psychic Resistance
doesn’t provide a huge bonus but is still appreciated
and it did come in handy some of the time, if only by
discouraging Mewtwo-EX as a fallback attacker.
The Retreat Cost of [CCC] was an issue, but the format
is such that even if it hadn’t been there, I’d have
needed to build my deck so that Excadrill could
retreat for less, get out of the Active slot without
manually retreating or stayed up front to “tank”. As
such it was only a small issue (plus it meant Heavy
Ball was an option in Expanded).
Excadrill bears an Ancient
Trait - Ω Barrage - allowing it to attack twice in a
single turn (assuming it could attack to begin with).
We’ve seen this on a few cards and at first glance I
thought Excadrill might be the best of them. The
attacks it has to work with are Dredge for [C] which
allows you to search your deck for up to two Energy
cards and attach them to itself and then Mach Claw for
[MCC] which hits for 50 and ignores Resistance. Dredge
is another borderline example; attaching Energy via an
attack has been mixed the last few formats, working for
Basics that often have something else going for them
(like Virizion-EX) but not a lot else. Dredge
gets not only two Energy from the deck but can target
Special Energy, which is most impressive and of course
with Ω Barrage you can attack twice so you could attach
an Energy to an Excadrill that had none before
and then use Dredge to prep for Mach Claw in the same
turn. Mach Claw - like the attacks on all Ω Barrage
users, has been pre-nerfed to prevent it from being
obviously broken. Unlike say Medicham (XY:
Primal Clash 81/160), which we looked at
here,
there aren’t a lot of buffs you can easily apply to
Excadrill. Assuming you could use Mach Claw twice
in a turn, you either need Weakness or Muscle Band
(or Silver Bangle) plus Hypnotoxic
Laser and Virbank City Gym to get to OHKO
range against most Pokémon-EX. It is handy that it
ignores Resistance, though.
You’ve got to use a Drilbur so let’s go over our options,
which is easy for Standard play as there is only one
version availble: XY: Primal Clash 89/160. It is
a Basic Fighting-Type with 60 HP, Grass Weakness, no
Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [CC], no Ability, no
Ancient Trait and a single attack. Said attack is Fury
Swipes which requires [C] and gives you three coin flips
each good for 10 points of damage per “heads”. In
Expanded you have three other options, though it will
seem like more due to reprints. BW: Emerging Powers
54/98, Black & White Trainer Kit: Excadrill Half Deck
13/30 as well as 25/30 and McDonald’s Collection 2012
8/12 are all the same card; there is also BW:
Emerging Powers 55/98 and BW: Dark Explorers
55/108. All three are Basic Fighting-Types with Water
Weakness,Lightning Resistance, no Abilities and no
Ancient Traits. BW: Emerging Powers 54/98 (and
its reprints) have 70 HP, a Retreat Cost of [CC] and two
attacks: Hone Claws for [C] which raises the damage of
your next attack by 30 and Scratch for [F] which hits
for 10. BW: Emerging Powers 55/98 has just 60 HP
and a Retreat Cost [C] with a single attack - Mud Slap -
that requires [FFC] and hits for 40 damage. BW: Dark
Explorers 55/108 has 70 HP and a Retreat Cost of
[CC] with only one attack: it is Scratch once again, but
this time it costs [FF] and hits for 30. All the
attacks are poor so just pick whichever one has better
odds of surviving; probably a 70 HP version unless
Weakness is relevant.
Excadrill also has some
other versions to consider as either complementary or
competition. For Standard play all you need to worry
about is the other Excadrill from this
set, XY: Primal Clash 96/160. It has a lot in
common with today’s version so I’ll just highlight the
differences: 10 less HP, [C] less in the Retreat Cost,
no Ancient Trait and two different attacks. The first
attack is Drill Run for [C] does 20 and (on a successful
coin toss) discards an Energy from the opponent’s
Active. For [MCC] it can use Straight Claw for 60
damage with an optional Energy discard from itself to
add 30 damage (so 90 total). This is clearly the lesser
version (we’d have reviewed it otherwise) but it's
pretty disappointing even without comparing it to others
as the second attack especially doesn’t give you enough
damage for what you’re paying. In Expanded there are
four more Excadrill to consider though again it
looks like more because of multiple printings: BW:
Emerging Power 56/98, Black & White Trainer Kit:
Excadrill Half Deck 17/30 and 30/30 are all the same
card while there is also BW: Emerging Powers
57/98, BW: Dark Explorers 56/108 and BW: Dark
Explorers 57/108.
All four Expanded-only Excadrill are Stage 1 Fighting-Types
with Water Weakness, Lightning Resistance, no Abilities,
no Ancient Traits and two attacks. BW: Emerging
Power 56/98 (and its other releases) have 110 HP and
a Retreat Cost of [CC] while being able to use Metal
Claw for [C] to hit for 30 damage and Drill Run for
[FFF] to hit for 80 while discarding an Energy from the
opponent’s Active. You can read our review for it when
it was new
here.
Interestingly the other three Excadrill left to
cover have 120 HP. BW: Emerging Powers 57/98
also sports a Retreat Cost of [CC], but its first attack
is Dig for [FC] which hits for 30 and on a successful
coin flip prevents all effects of attacks, including
damage, done to Excadrill during your opponent’s
next turn. Its second attack is Earthquake for [FCC]
which does 70 damage to the opponent’s Active and 10 to
each of your own Benched Pokémon. It was reviewed
here,
the day after its set-mate. BW: Dark Explorers
56/108 is a bit chunkier with a Retreat Cost of [CCC]
though that makes Heavy Ball an option. Its
first attack is Tunnel Strike for [F] which does 30 to
the opponent’s Benched Pokémon of your choice. For [FF]
it can use Dig Uppercut which hits for 50 while allowing
you to add a card from your discard pile to your hand.
You can read our dated review of it
here.
BW: Dark Explorers 57/108 jumps up to a Retreat
Cost of [CCCC]; for [FCC] it can use Reinforced Claw to
hit for 50 damage, +30 if you have any Pokémon Tool
attached. Mach Claw requires [FCCC] to hit for 70 and
ignores Resistance. Surprisingly it too received a
review.
None of these are likely to combo with today’s version,
but there might be some slight competition from BW:
Dark Explorers 56/108, though it’s in name only as
it would involve a Fighting-Type deck using an entirely
different strategy.
Excadrill (XY: Primal
Clash 97/160)? Thanks to this review going up late
(oops) I had some time to try it out and its main use
was… meeting the quota for a Metal Evolution Daily
Challenge on the PTCGO. I’m not sure if you can make
good use of this card but the approach I tried was to
combine it with Shield Energy (as you can use
Dredge to attach them from the deck) and some healing
and depending on the situation, a Muscle Band or
Silver Bangle to hit harder or a Hard Charm
to try and soak even more damage. Didn’t work to well.
I don’t think there are enough good damage boosting
options to bother trying the usual Ω Barrage build,
hence why I didn’t; I’d have needed Hypnotoxic Laser
and Virbank City Gym to take out targets with 190
or less HP. Sounds plausible but as you’re not overly
likely to survive attacking, you are still prone to
losing because you can’t stream Excadrill quickly
enough. I didn’t have the cards to try it with
Klinklang (BW: Plasma Storm 90/135) and/or
Klinklang (Black & White 76/114) but if there
is a deck that could make this card work, I think it is
one with at least one of and possible both of these two.
Using Dredge twice you should be able to get all four
Shield Energy (sans those that are Prized) into
play before your second turn ends. Especially if you’ve
got Klinklang [Plasma] protecting you from
Pokémon-EX, you stand decent odds of surviving
everything else. Then you can… switch to a different
attacker, moving the Shield Energy to it.
In Limited play, go ahead and run Excadrill with just about
anything else; as long as you can fit at least a few
basic Metal Energy into the deck, Dredge will
help snag them and the rest of the card is amazing here.
The other Excadrill in this set isn’t as bad
here and that helps this version as - while still low-
you might manage to pull more than a 1-1 line.
Ratings
Standard: 1.75/5
Expanded: 2/5
Limited: 3.75/5
Summary: Excadrill might be the least of the Ω Barrage attackers; it
may hit a bit harder than some and can accelerate some
Energy by “burning” its first attack but it doesn’t have
the same raw damage output and neither is it easy to
bolster the damage to the needed levels. Just maybe it
has a use with Klinklang (BW: Plasma Storm
90/135) and/or Klinklang (Black & White
76/114), but I didn’t get the chance to test and it
still seems somewhat dubious.
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