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Hello readers!
This week we’re going to look at a few of the cards
that nearly made the final Top 10 list for cards lost
due to rotation. First up is Landorus-EX (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 89/149, 144/149). It snagged the
number four slot for our BW:
Boundaries Crossed Top 10 and then earned a
re-review due to its performance at the 2014
U.S. Nationals about 1.75 years later. I actually had
it on my personal Top 10 of 2012 list (in the number
four slot again) but it missed out on the
official Pojo list.
So I’ll run
through the card as usual… hey, someone might be new and
if that is the case, some of what was said in those
older reviews might be confusing as times have of course
changed. What regrettably hasn’t changed is that
ultimately being a Basic is the best Stage; I think
balancing out at least the core Stages is feasible, but
I know it isn’t easy. As it has been for at least the
last several formats, the natural advantage of a Pokémon
consisting of a single card instead of being made up of
multiple cards that have to be played in conjunction
with each other and in the proper order is hard to miss…
though at least unlike when Landorus-EX was new
there aren’t literal pieces of Basic-specific support
cards available in Standard. Being a Pokémon-EX is
technically a disadvantage, strange as that may sound.
The benefits associated with being one aren’t intrinsic
while the drawbacks are: unless the designers
specifically include an effect to override the rules’
text on the card stating it is worth two Prizes when
KOed, prevent the various detrimental card effects that
target Pokémon-EX and/or somehow force the beneficial
effects that normally state they aren’t available to
Pokémon-EX to work anyway then those three are
guaranteed. Most of the time though a Pokémon-EX
will have better attributes and/or effects than their
“regular” counterparts at right away we can see that
Landorus-EX cashes in on this.
It is a
Fighting-Type and while it was very good when the card
was introduced, it is great now, arguably the best Type
(though XY: Ancient Origins may be about to
change that). What makes Fighting so formidable? True
back then and now is that many Colorless-Types and most
Darkness- and Lightning-Types are Fighting Weak.
Glancing at current popular and successful Pokémon of
the first two of those Types might make me appear a liar
as you’ll see Pokémon like M Rayquaza-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 76/108; 105/108) and Yveltal-EX
which are Colorless and Darkness-Types (respectively)
and are Fighting Resistant; such Pokémon are among the
exceptions that prove the rule as they are not only
potent in their own rights but because they are each
Fighting Resistant instead of Fighting Weak like their
kin, it has helped to elevate them even further above
their kin. Fighting Resistance like this is one of the
most common forms of Resistance but Resistance
itself is uncommon (“no Resistance” is the most common
state for Pokémon in the contemporary TCG) and the
Resistance mechanic of -20 is far easier for the
attacking player to deal with (whether confronting it
head-on or bypassing it with an alternate attacker) then
the x2 damage of Weakness is for the defending player.
All of this was largely true at the time when
Landorus-EX was reviewed that first time, but then
XY: Furious Fists was released a year ago and
actual, direct Fighting-Type support like Fighting
Stadium, Strong Energy and Korrina
pumped them up even farther.
Landorus-EX has 180 HP: at the time of its release
that was as good as it got for Pokémon-EX though now
both Mega Evolutions and a few fellow Basic Pokémon-EX
exceed this amount. Also relevant is that to the best
of my ability, average damage yields for decks seems to
have risen though perhaps it is just because I remember
the older decks that were capable of OHKOing nearly
anything back there in addition to their successors
still available in Standard. Still 180 isn’t an easy
thing to OHKO and that is actually quite important (as
we’ll soon discuss) to what is currently the premiere
Landorus-EX deck. The card’s Water Weakness is also
the card’s literal Weakness; while at times it hasn’t
been too bad at other times (including now) it
has been a serious hurdle as it elevates minor attacks
into solid hits and solid hits into OHKOs, with the
Water-Type being one that regularly cashes in on this
instead of having massive attacks elevated into
overkill. Landorus-EX does enjoy being Lightning
Resistant; this doesn’t offset its issues from Weakness
but it definitely helps. Like the Water-Type exactly
how much as varied in accordance to how often that -20
affects the turn count for the KO. The hefty Retreat
Cost of [CCC] has never been good though when released
it allowed you to fetch Landorus-EX with a
Heavy Ball and once it became even easier to bypass
or lower it after the release of Float Stone
(whether applied directly to Landorus-EX or an
accompanying Keldeo-EX) and now Korrina
can help set-up that combo or simply fetch a Switch,
Escape Rope or other Item-based means of vacating
the Active slot from your deck.
Yeah, we are
just getting to the attacks now; Hammerhead requires [F]
to hit for 30 to the opponent’s Active and 30 to one of
the opponent’s Benched Pokémon (if any are present) of
your choice. For [FFC] it hits for 80 damage which is a
little low but offsets this by giving you the option of
discarding all [F] Energy attached to itself for an
additional 70 damage for a massive 150 point swing. The
usual pattern applies yet again: these attacks were
really good back then and are great now. While there
are more effects to protect a player’s Benched Pokémon
from damage than when Landorus-EX released, you
now have cards like Muscle Band, Fighting
Stadium and Strong Energy to up the damage,
enabling things like attacking T2 with all three of
those just listed to hit for a 90/30 split! There are
no other Landorus-EX to worry about though there
is one other Fighting-Type Pokémon-EX that both competes
with and compliments Landorus-EX: Lucario-EX.
It lacks Resistance but is Weak to the Psychic-Type
instead of Water, has a slightly better Retreat Cost of
[CC] and it has three good attacks priced at [F], [FF]
and [FFF] instead of two great ones, making it a
different but still formidable attacker. It isn’t
uncommon to see the two tag-teaming in a deck.
Speaking of
decks, to my knowledge the current deck where
Landorus-EX is the star is “Landobats”, a deck that
combined it with Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces
33/119) and Golbat (XY: Phantom Forces
32/119), which was also somewhat special as not only a
more recent example of a Stage 2 Pokémon making good but
also where a Stage 1 form was preferable to a shortcut
like Rare Candy. The two Psychic-Types have
Abilities that place damage counters on the opposing
Pokémon of your choice when you manually Evolve
something into them and coupled with the many damage
buffs available this allowed the deck to deliver a solid
hit to both Active and something on the Bench (or
multiple smaller hits there)... and sometimes make
devastating multi-KOs, even multiple OHKOs. A few other
attacks support Landorus-EX; alternates for when
it just can’t do the job as well. The main deck
specific trick beyond that is to both spam the Abilities
on Crobat and Golbat as well as dump
damage easily while reducing the amount of Energy the
deck requires, Super Scoop Up and Scoop Up
Cyclone (sometimes also AZ or Cassius).
All have some level of drawback but when they work you
can deny your opponent a Prize, redistribute certain
resources that are normally committed to their initial
benefactor and ditch nasty attack effects while changing
out your Active. Prior to this there have been other
strong Landorus-EX decks, though I’m uncertain if
any are still especially relevant, save that Landorus-EX
also shows up often enough as a backup/alternate
attacker in those Fighting-Type decks where it isn’t
headlining, as well as the odd off-Type splash owing to
Hammerhead being fairly affordable.
This is why the
card just missed our actual Top 10; while Landobats is a
formidable deck, it isn’t as strong as it once was.
While not the deck that lost the most due to the
Lysandre’s Trump Card ban, it does hurt that you
can’t spam your resources like you once did and that you
have to mind what you discard. In fact the ban was
otherwise a net gain as one of the two factors that kept
Landorus-EX from making more Top 8 appearances at
U.S. Nationals was likely how the other decks that did
well: ones using either the aforementioned M Rayquaza-EX
or Seismitoad-EX. Those two were hit far harder
by the ban, but they adjusted and they slam Landorus-EX
(and Landobats decks) with two things that wreck its
strategy: OHKOs and Item lock. As more Item lock looks
to be on the way in XY: Ancient Origins,
Landobats might take a hit in future Expanded and were
it not rotating, in future Standard. For now though
Landobats might be one of the current “gateway” decks;
while it isn’t the king of the format, if a deck can’t
hack it against Landobats, it is going to struggle to
find significant success against everything else in the
competitive field.
In Expanded
Landorus-EX actually does gain a few additional
tricks as well as some more potential targets due to
revived former archetypes. In Limited play it’s a
poster-mon for +39 decks; while Water has a strong
presence in the on set to contain it, both Hammerhead
and Land’s Judgment are amazing here, even when you run
just Landorus-EX alongside 39 other cards that
aren’t Basic Pokémon to ensure you open with it (but
lose if it is removed from the field in any manner). If
you are worried about Water-Types outpacing its
HP/damage dealing capacity, you can always run it in a
more fleshed out deck; it doesn’t need too much
Fighting Energy and is still fantastic when you do
get it out.
Ratings
Standard: 4.15/5
Expanded: 4.25/5
Limited: 5/5
Summary: Scoring this card is yet another
reminder why I enjoy having two decimal places, though I
suppose it wouldn’t have been that much different had I
rounded the scores up or down to the nearest tenth of a
point. It is disconcerting seeing something like
Landorus-EX going down in potency… well it’d be
great if it was because the game had somehow lessened
its effectiveness while becoming more balanced, but
instead it is because the pacing is still crazy and
damage output/HP scores have gone up again. Landorus-EX
is a beast, but it is no longer quite as overbearing as
it once was.
By my own
reckoning Landorus-EX would have just made the
actual Top 10 as I had it as my 10th place pick. The
fact that my current preferred deck is still Landobats
has helped me be keenly aware of both its remaining
strengths and contemporary weaknesses. While it might
seem that would bias me too much in its favor, I’m not
playing in tournament series (just on the PTCGO) and
there are certain decks/strategies I loathe (I cannot
really enjoy them even when winning) and as such I’m not
using it because I think it is the BDIF; just the one
I’ve got a good deal of experience with that is still
staying strong.
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Alright so for this week, we
decided to cut down on Monday and Friday and make this a
nice quick three-day week! So for this week, before we
delve deep into the realms of the Ancient Origins set
coming out...tomorrow, we're gonna take one last look at
some of the runner-ups to our Top 10 Cards Lost to
Rotation, starting with Landorus-EX!
When he first came out in
Boundaries Crossed, he became an immediate answer to a
very common deck at the time: Rayquaza, specifically the
Eels part of it. One of the weaknesses of playing with
Eels is the reliance on having to play Tynamo, a 30 HP
Basic. Landorus-EX in turn could smash Tynamo with ease,
KOing not only an Active Tynamo with ease using
Hammerhead but even be able to slap away one on the
Bench as well. If a Rayquaza player is unlucky, that
effectively donks them in a single turn, and thus one of
many reasons that the TCG changed the rules to keep
players from attacking on the first turn of the game
(and why cards like Deoxys and Latios-EX make mention of
being able to attack on the first turn).Not satisfied
with having just one fairly effective move, Landorus-EX
proceeds to bring down the hammer (hehe) upon his
opponents with the power of Land's Judgment! Normally
3-for-80 is okay, but by ridding Landorus-EX of all his
Fighting Energy, it can deal 150 damage - enough, with
the combination of Hammerhead, to KO most Pokemon-EX
that aren't Megas! Pretty powerful stuff!
As time went on though, Landorus-EX
began to see less and less play, as Rayquaza-EX wasn't
the only threat he had to contend with. And when
rotation came around and took his sparring partner away,
it seemed like the end for Landorus-EX...except for
Furious Fists. We all know the Fighting support in that
set was MONSTROUS, but in a BCR-forward format, it gave
Landorus-EX a new tool to play with in the form of
Strong Energy. Now he could effectively hit for 50 + 30
on the first attack with Hammerhead, bringing the turn
player a stronger lead than ever!
Even with all of this, Landorus-EX
himself remained a rather neutral card as the new sets
came by. Neither was he a dominator like he once was nor
was he something to get trampled over (outside of
perhaps Primal Kyogre-EX when he showed up). A solid
card, a balanced EX, Landorus-EX remains a powerful
opponent to face.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (the Fighting support
really helped him out in the long run)
Expanded: 4/5 (still a strong
fighter against Eels at least, maybe stronger with
Strong Energy)
Limited: 5/5 (of COURSE you play
this guy in Limited!)
Arora Notealus: I remember grabbing
a copy of Landorus-EX for my Water/Fighting deck. It was
the kind of deck I wanted to build when I came back into
the game, and over time it's had its ups and downs.
Still, like Groudon-EX from DEX, Landorus-EX was a
powerful player, and I will certainly miss him in the
rotation.
Next Time: Speaking of Water-types!
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