aroramage |
And now we return you to your
regularly-scheduled card reviews! Today we take a look
at what I think of as "lost potential with potential."
Think of it this way: the card itself has traits that
show it had potential to set itself up for something but
lost it, but the traits are flexible enough to give it a
different kind potential. It's the idea that a card was
designed one way but can be used in another more
effective way - like Eelektross here!
Eelektross starts off with a nice
Ability in Energy Connect, which lets you move Energy
from your Benched Pokemon to your Active Pokemon. It's a
nice way of retooling Energy to guys you've already
played so you don't have to worry about waiting around
to draw another Energy when you need it, so it's got
some good potential and gives Eelektross some good
potential too, since he can move Energy onto himself
should he end up as the Active Pokemon. In fact, maybe
he's got an attack that works with that!
And Electricannon does!...sorta.
The thing is, it's not that great in all honesty, going
for 4-for-80. That's an expensive attack that doesn't do
much, but it can do more! In fact, it can do 50 more
damage for an alright 130! The catch? You have to
discard all of Eelektross' Electric Energies. Which,
given the cost of the attack, is going to be at least 2.
Perhaps in Expanded where you have
access to Eelektrik and his Ability to attach Electric
Energies from the discard pile, this would be alright,
but honestly Eelektross needs to be shelved to support.
He's better off supporting something like Black Kyurem-EX
than being an attacker himself. Which is where the "lost
potential with potential" idea comes in. Now I may not
be clever enough to think of what deck could use a Stage
2 transferring Pokemon, but I imagine there are a few
people who will try.
...then again, Stage 2.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (not really good
here, honestly, but I imagine he's got something that
can be done)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (better here if
only for Eelektrik)
Limited: 3/5 (he's okay here, you
can charge him up quick with the other Pokemon and
probably get away with Electricannon more often)
Arora Notealus: Is it weird that
Eelektross lives in the ocean yet isn't a Water-type and
also has Levitate? Like that'd be like having the
electric eel be able to just fly out of the water and
come after you! Can you imagine if they let that happen
to sharks or something?...wait, Sharpedo's a thing. OH
NO
Next Time: Would you like to
discuss your findings, kind sir?
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Otaku |
Greetings readers; I hope you had a
pleasant Easter! The rest of this month will be the
CotD crew combing through the remains of XY: Primal
Clash, looking for any potential hidden gems.
Originally I’d planned on doing more Type themed weeks
but not only was that going to push back reviews for the
next set but I hadn’t set aside time for XY: Double
Crisis or planned on taking a week off so the good
news for you is that the really long shots have been cut
and we won’t be doing Water Week Part II (though you
might see another Water-Type or two).
We begin this week though with
Eelektross (XY: Primal Clash 65/160), a
Lightning-Type. Hitting the likes of Yveltal-EX,Yveltal
(XY 78/146, XY Black Star Promo XY06) and
a few others in competitive play for double damage is
nice and Lightning-Types can access Rough Seas
(alongside Water-Types) for healing but I’m not aware of
any other worthwhile direct Type support. Indirect Type
support comes in the form of… a lower Stage!? What
madness is this!? We’ll touch upon it in detail later,
but Eelektrik (BW: Noble Victories 40/101)
should be a pretty familiar sight to players active a
few years ago. Not a lot beyond that though and
Lightning-Type Resistance is actually seen on some older
Fighting-Types, including the well known and oft played
Landorus-EX. Still pro within a con,
Lighting-Type Resistance doesn’t seem to show up in the
XY-era sets. All in all a useful but not great Type… if
you’re an attacker or perhaps able to make use of
widespread but low healing effects.
Being a Stage 2 is a huge drawback though
we still see some of them managing to overcome. It
isn’t quite as nice for Eelektross as it is for
something that has a super-shortcut like Archie’s Ace
in the Hole or Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick in
reserve, but having a worthwhile Stage 1 form is a huge
boon here as it takes some of the burden of justifying a
Stage 2 and shares it with the (easier to get into play)
Stage 1 form. If the Basic was handier it would be
better still. The 140 HP is enough to usually survive a
hit but not by much and probably not at all when taking
a blow from a Fighting-Type due to the Weakness.
Fighting-Types are pretty great at inexpensive, cost
effective and reliable damage so its a pretty dangerous
Weakness to have right now. Eelektross sports
Metal Resistance; it isn’t going to save it a lot but it
certainly beats nothing and and can come in handy on
occasion. As can the Retreat Cost of [CCC] in Expanded
if you can come up with a deck where Heavy Ball
gets more than just this Pokémon; most of the time
though it will be a drawback because it can really set
you back. Most decks will have reason to run Retreat
Cost lowering effects or something to bypass manually
retreating entirely and even if not as well get to,
Eelektrik helps out again here (expounded upon later
if you needed it).
Eelektross has the Ability “Energy Connect”, which allows you (as
many times as you like on your turn, before your attack)
to move an Energy from one of your Benched Pokémon to
your Active. On its own its slightly useful but there
are both smaller combos and larger combos that can make
it at least potentially pay off. The attack is
Electricannon, which requires a chunky [LLCC] to use and
hits for just 80 points of damage. That isn’t very
good, though it does have an effect allowing you to
discard all [L] Energy attached to for +50 damage. Four
for 130 is a solid base before considering the
discard cost or that you’re dealing with a space
intensive Stage 2 and not a big, Basic that leaves you
enough slots free to tack on Muscle Band or
Silver Bangle plus Hypnotoxic Laser with
Virbank City Gym and turn that into an effective 180
to 190 damage. Yet again though, this will be mitigated
somewhat by Eelektrik (in Expanded play, anyway).
Also just making sure that you have two non-[L] Energy
meeting the [CC] portion of the attack cost helps as
well. Still, it is clear that this card’s only real
hope is the Ability.
Alright, time for the lower Stages and its
almost exciting since we know it helps (even if it won’t
have a lot of surprises). First we cover Tynamo;
your options are BW: Noble Victories 38/101,
BW: Noble Victories 39/101, BW: Dark Explorers
44/108, BW: Dark Explorers 44/108, BW: Dark
Explorers 45/108, BW: Plasma Blast 31/101 and
XY: Primal Clash 62/106 with only the last two of
the list being Standard legal. All are Basic,
Lightning-Type Pokémon with Fighting Weakness, no
Abilities, no Ancient Traits, and one attack. BW:
Noble Victories 39/101 and BW: Plasma Blast
31/101 have just 30 HP, the lowest printed on actual
Pokémon and not cards that function as Pokémon. Such
low HP means they have to be amazing to bother with…
except the rest only have 40 so even though its the
difference of a OHKO versus a 2HKO from Bench hits, with
the Bench protection available versus the split where
most decks either don’t hit the Bench at all or can
almost as easily take out 40 as 30, this stops being
clear cut again. All of them have a Retreat Cost and no
Resistance except for two: BW: Noble Victories
39/101 has no Resistance but also no Retreat Cost while
BW: Plasma Blast 31/101 has the typical [C]
Retreat Cost but also what has again become the typical
Metal Resistance on Lightning Types as of the XY-era
sets. None of the cards have good attacks but this
isn’t a simple “so choose the one you like” situation.
Moving onto their attacks, BW: Noble
Victories 38/101 has Thunder Wave for [L], doing 10
damage with a coin flip to inflict Paralysis and
actually ended up being somewhat important for a short
time in the format when both the tiny bit of damage and
Paralysis mattered but for now its back down to the
usual “at least it does damage” and “Paralyzing can buy
you time.” BW: Noble Victories 39/101 has a
vanilla 10 for [C] via Tackle, but we are at that
extreme margin where you still look at the free Retreat
Cost and consider that you might on that incredibly rare
occasion (if running this off-Type) desperately need to
attack for just 10 damage at a cost of [C]. BW: Dark
Explorers 44/108 has Charge Beam which can also do
10 damage for [C] and on a “heads” attaches an Energy
card from your discard pile to itself… normally a good
thing but it is a mandatory flip so if you have another
effect that attaches Energy from the discard pile to
something else (Eelektrik), that can backfire. BW:
Dark Explorers 45/108 has Spark for [L], which does
10 damage to the opponent’s Active and one of the
opponent’s Benched Pokémon of your choice and while
(again) rare, sometimes that is handy and we just aren’t
seeing that much potential all around.
Moving onto our Standard legal options
(yes, the Tynamo are getting a third paragraph)
we get to BW: Plasma Blast 31/101 which has Razor
Fin for [L], hitting for 20 and no effects. Normally
with the 30 HP that would make it easy to dismiss but I
really, really, really like being able to hit Yveltal
and Yveltal-EX a bit harder; I mean with a
Silver Bangle you can get a quick 100 damage in
(with Muscle Band good for 80). If we had one
obvious stand out that would not be something on which
to hang your hat but we don’t; we have a sea of “meh”
offerings to try and find reasons to like or dismiss. XY:
Primal Clash 62/106 has Water Splash for [C], doing
10 (+10 if you get lucky on the required coin flip)
which again is “okay” and it also was the one with Metal
Resistance which is also “okay” but not great (even with
Resistance 40 HP doesn’t last long, if at all). So
after all of that, I have to recommend you actually
check and see; a format still seeing heavy Landorus-EX
play versus one seeing mostly Yveltal-EX and/or
Seismitoad-EX favor different Tynamo
(though ever so slightly). If you really don’t want to
and just want a simple answer, I’d go with BW: Noble
Victories 38/101 for Expanded play and XY: Primal
Clash 62/106 because when in doubt for an Evolving
Basic, go with HP, Resistance and/or protective effects
(Paralysis in this case).
So for Eelektrik, use BW: Noble
Victories 40/101… but I would be remiss (especially
after covering Tynamo in so much detail) if I
didn’t cover the others. So your choices are BW:
Noble Victories 40/101, BW: Dark Explorers
46/108, BW: Plasma Blast 32/101, XY: Primal
Clash 63/106 and XY: Primal Clash 64/106.
All are Stage 1 Lightning-Type Pokémon with Fighting
Weakness, while all but XY: Primal Clash 63/106
and XY: Primal Clash 64/106 lack Resistance (they
are again Resistant to Metal) and Plasma Blast
32/101 gets sports just 80 HP with a Retreat Cost of [C]
while the rest have 90 HP and a [CC] Retreat Cost;
neither of these differences are majorly significant. BW:
Noble Victories 40/101 is the obvious winner because
history established its Dynamotor Ability, which allows
you (once per turn per Dynamotor) to attach one [L]
Energy card from your discard pile to one of your
Benched Pokémon. This creates an easy to use and
obvious combo with today’s Eelektross, even
though they aren’t even from the same block of sets.
Its Electric Ball Attack is pricey at [LLC], especially
as it only hits for 50, but I’ve seen it come in handy
in the past even if only - you guessed it - on rare
occasions. Dynamotor can help reclaim Energy you had to
“waste” on either attacking or retreating it.
BW: Dark Explorers 46/108 has two attacks instead of an Ability and
attack. The designers might have actually been trying
with this one; it can use Headbutt for 20 damage at a
cost of [C] which is decent and its Shock Bolt attack
hits for 80 at a cost of [LLC], enough to set-up for a
2HKO by something else or itself if you can spare a buff
(most of which weren’t available when the card first
released). It has the nasty drawback of discarding all
[L] Energy attached, like today’s Eelektross,
mitigated if you ran it alongside BW: Noble Victories
40/101. Our first Standard legal option is Plasma
Blast 32/101 tries to keep itself alive a little
longer despite its HP deficit; its Retreat Cost is just
[C] so its easier to get back to the Bench and while it
only has two attacks and both are repeats. The first is
Thunder Wave and this time it does 20 plus the flip for
Paralysis, still at a cost of [L]. Its Headbutt
requires [CC] and hits for 30, which is pretty
underwhelming though lamentably not the worst we’ve seen
on Evolving Stage 1 Pokémon.
The first of the two newest options is
XY: Primal Clash 63/106 and for [CC] it can Gnaw for
20, while for [LLC] it can Buzz Flip for four coin flips
(each good for 30 per “heads”). These are disappointing
but if we didn’t have an obvious Ability Eelektrik
to use instead, even a low damaging (but all Colorless)
attack and a flippy attack might end up being the best.
Of the five possible outcomes, obviously zero damage
and 30 damage are awful, but 60 is actually better than
two of the Eelektrik can do while 90 and 120 are
better than any other version. Glad we aren’t as
desperate as we were with Tynamo. XY: Primal
Clash 64/106 enjoys an Ancient Trait but its α
Recovery - if you use an effect to heal Eelektrik,
its heals twice as much - this is far less useful than
the other Ancient Traits we have seen and is rarely
going to matter on something with just 90 HP. It does
finally break the pattern with its Thrash attack
requiring [LCC], so this version could use Double
Colorless Energy for its three Energy attack.
Thrash is again decent by comparison since it has a
slightly more reasonable cost to do base 50 damage, but
the coin flip for the attack causes a split of “tails”
resulting in 20 damage to itself while “heads” means +20
damage (so 70 for 3). Again, just use BW: Noble
Victories 40/101.
No, we’re not done yet; there are other
Eelektross to cover as well! The other options are
BW: Noble Victories 41/101, BW: Dark Explorers
47/108 and BW: Plasma Blast 33/101. All three
have the same Stage, Type, HP, Weakness and Retreat Cost
of today’s Eelektross, though none have Abilities
or Ancient Traits but instead have two attacks. BW:
Noble Victories 41/101 can use Acid for [CC], good
for 30 damage an effect that prevents the Defending
Pokémon from retreating during your opponent’s next
turn. For [LLC] it can use Wild Charge for 90 damage to
the opponent’s Active and 10 to itself; neither attack
is worth it for a Stage 2. BW: Dark Explorers
47/108 can use Suction Heal to do 40 damage while
healing as much damage from itself as it did to the
Defending Pokémon… unfortunately the attack requires
[LCC] and even when it released it wasn’t guaranteed to
survive a hit, with odds of survival lower than back
then. Slurp Shakedown is horribly overpriced and/or
underpowered as it requires [LLCC] to switch the
opponent’s Active with the opponent’s Benched Pokémon of
your choice and doing 60 damage to the new Active.
BW: Plasma Blast 33/101 spices things up a bit by being a Team Plasma
Pokémon. Honestly it isn’t too bad and has seen some
play in decks already running the Dynamotor Eelektrik.
Crash and Burn requires [LC] to use and does 30 damage
times the amount of Energy you discard from your Pokémon
in play (you can discard up to all of your Energy in
play). With Eelektrik and Dynamotor backing it,
it could sometimes get a nice big hit and be a decent
finisher. For [LCCC] it can use Thunder Tempest for
four coin flips, good for 50 damage per “heads”.
Obviously no heads is awful and just one is almost as
much of a waste, but two is just a little disappointing
while three is good and four is great. I know I
wouldn’t want to rely on such a flippy attack and even
if I wanted to I can get the same cost and damage from
Zapdos (BW: Next Destinies 41/99; BW:
Legendary Treasures 46/113) and its Thundering
Hurricane attack. So just as the Dynamotor Eelektrik
stands out above the rest, so to does Energy Connect
Eelektross.
With all that said, there isn’t actually
much else to say. In Expanded this is your new friend
in Dynamotor decks. Yes, this costs you one at least
potential Eelektrik but it saves you the hassles
of getting your current, expended Active out of the way
of the one you just prepped as well as needing to
predict what to prep for the next turn. Tricks like
using Max Potion aren’t as effective as they are
in say Fairy Transfer decks, but they become a lot
easier as you can either Bench something, move any
remaining Energy off of it and then heal or
simply heal it while it remains Active, Dynamotor to
your Benched Pokémon and then Energy Connect the Energy
back to your Active. You might even find some use with
Dark Patch, though I suspect it will still just
be easier and/or more effective to build Darkness decks
to that you are attaching to something you’ll easily
promote or use an Energy Switch. There may even
be some combos with Ho-Oh-EX that are also worth
considering.
So what about in Standard? Well there are
some cards like Team Magma’s Camerupt that can
attach to just itself from the discard… but now you’re
running a Stage 2 line and a separate Stage 1; you could
have up to four Team Magma’s Camerupt plus one
Eelektross on the Bench, keeping an Energy hungry
Active going but making for a fragile and card heavy
set-up. If we had a Basic Pokémon that attached
to itself from the discard via an Ability like
Ho-Oh-EX or Slugma (HS: Undaunted
67/90) we could have a pretty potent deck. For Limited,
this is a great card to pull; its attack is really good
here as is the Ability, as it allows you to basically
change your mind about what you were building on the
Bench, which is important for when a lucky draw does or
doesn’t show up as hoped or when your opponent drops
something you could exploit… but only if you had built
up Pokémon A instead of Pokémon B. The extra
Eelektrik in the set is somewhat helpful as well,
even if its rarity means it won’t increase odds of a
fuller Evolution line by that much. Just mind the
Fighting Weakness and remember that if you intend on
attacking with Eelektross you’ll need a good
supply of Lightning Energy.
Ratings
Standard: 2.75/5
Expanded: 3.5/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
If you can get it going and partner it up with the right
cards, Eelektross is amazing… but as the scores
should indicate that’s a big “if”. A card worth having
to experiment with and enjoy in more casual play and not
to completely dismiss for competitive play, but one that
may ultimately not amount to much (even in Expanded) and
needs thorough vetting before a player takes it to a
major tournament.
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