aroramage |
Now Faded Town here is the other
Stadium in the set, and it offers something that, well,
quite frankly can be scary in the right hands.
You probably remember how Rough
Seas has been used to heal off Water-types, and you
definitely recall Virbank allowing more damage to be
inflicted for Poison. Well, Faded Town works kinda like
both of them...in a way. It can affect a wide range of
Pokemon similarly to Rough Seas, and it inflicts damage
similarly to Virbank City Gym - it even occurs between
turns like Poison! But the major difference here: Faded
Town inflicts 20 damage on every Mega-Evolved Pokemon.
Yep. Every Mega-Evolved Pokemon.
Now that's a pretty hefty damage
boost - that's usually 40 damage to most Mega-Evolved
Pokemon by the time it comes back to your turn, a
guaranteed 20 damage just after you play it. And seeing
as most of these Megas tend to have 230-240 HP, it's no
surprise that it can be used dangerously. It's the kind
of card Megas like M Heracross-EX hate and M Tyranitar-EX
love more!
Course, it's also a bit niche. Not
every deck out there is running Megas, after all -
Seismitoad-EX, Night March, etc. are all decks that tend
to focus on non-Mega attackers. But against decks that
do run Megas? This is a powerful tool to have. Stay
close, friends, cause the last place I wanna be is in
the same faded town as M Tyranitar-EX.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (a niche card of
sorts with a lot of relevance right now, and will
probably be relevant later on as more Megas come out)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (about the same
here, Megas are a post-XY thing after all)
Limited: 3/5 (...well, chances are
your opponent isn't going to have a Mega any more than
you are, but hey, if it helps)
Arora Notealus: Where would this
place be in the Pokemon world? Some old abandoned town
on the outskirts of Nuvema Town? Or just in the desert
outside Lumiose City? Or maybe it's closer to whatever
lies between Pewter City and the Indigo League? Heck if
I know, but doesn't it make you curious?
Weekend Thought: You see potential
in this week's card? The devastating stomp of M
Tyranitar-EX making you quake in your boots, or is
Machamp-EX's temper more of a problem? And are you ready
for the cards that made out Top 10 list?! MAYBE YOU
ARE!!
Next Time: And then suddenly, off
to the side, they spotted us!!
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We cover our
final final honorable mention, runner up, the 11th place
card… Faded Town (XY: Ancient Origins
73/89). This is the other Stadium from the set, so both
nearly made our list. Its effect places two damage
counters between turns on all Mega Evolution
Pokémon in play. At first I thought the wording
somewhat awkward, but then I realized the point: instead
of saying “Mega Evolved” it specifically cites the Mega
Evolution Stage and thus will affect a Mega Evolution
put into play though alternate methods like Archie’s
Ace in the Hole or Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick
and of course it is hitting all of them; Active and
Bench, your opponent’s and your own.
Two damage
counters may not seem like much, but it is just a single
damage counter less than the Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym combo inflicts and while hitting a specific
sub-classification of a specific sub-classification of
Pokémon (Pokémon > Pokémon-EX > Mega Evolution)
affecting multiple at time coupled with their presence
in the metagame makes for a very solid effect. This
card is reminiscent of older, past successes like
Desert Ruins and Cursed Stone, which
basically do the same thing but for only a single damage
counter between turns and to Pokémon-ex (note the lower
case suffix) and those with Poké-Powers (a precursor to
Abilities). It is possible that this won’t see much
play, but only if we see a sudden shift away from Mega
Evolutions (highly unlikely) or a shift to where just
about everything runs their own Mega Evolution
(unlikely) or where you just can’t keep a Stadium in
play long enough for it to matter (probably the most
likely, but still not expected).
I don’t know if
intentional, but to me this card helps signify that Mega
Evolutions are still not “behaving” according to plan.
Clearly that is my opinion, but here is why I say this:
I’ve never been too satisfied with the video game to
begin with and would much rather they added depth by
adding actual depth to the individual Pokémon. Seems
like if one takes away the window dressing of
contemporary hardware, you don’t have a lot of
contemporary game design improvement. A lot of it seems
like “busy work” more than really realizing the game as
more than a very restrictive JRPG. Of course that could
just be personal taste; the main thing is the Mega
Evolution mechanic wasn’t something the designers could
gloss over (such as gendered Pokémon and reproduction,
contests, in game baking, etc.). I’ve tried to explain
that it is reasonable for a game that wishes to optimize
its market penetration and has such an easy to please
customer base (seems like most buy TCG product just
because it is Pokémon, not to play or even to really
collect): with Pokémon you’ve got so many Types and
Stages, let alone specific Pokémon and everyone has
their favorites. If you keep things as even as you can,
you can attract the most people.
So when a
particular Type or Stage (let alone specific Pokémon)
dominates the game to the point it impacts how well the
other Types or Stages can be used, it diminishes the
enjoyment of people that just don’t like that Type or
Stage, potentially leading them to quit (or never start)
because “Why play a TCG about Pokémon if I can’t use the
ones I like and still have a sporting chance of
winning?”. I’ve often said that if you want the various
fully Evolved versions of each Stage to be on even
footing, you’ve got to design them that way and then
figure out how to balance out the different approaches
to them; slowing down how quickly a “main attacker”
Basic Pokémon can set-up, maybe making it a bit more
dependent on additional Trainer or Pokémon support to
offset the major card and speed advantage it has on
Evolutions, but without artificially downgrading its
attributes or effects, while Evolutions don’t need to be
“bigger” or “stronger”, but need the time to Evolve plus
lower Stages that provide a return when you use them.
Mega Evolutions have even higher HP scores and often
better attacks their their Basic Pokémon-EX
counterparts, but are also supposed to end your
turn when you Evolve into them, giving an additional
cost. Like how even when dealing with a Pokémon-EX
counterpart to something that is already normally a
Basic Pokémon, it costs an extra Prize but gets better
attributes (usually HP) and effects (either Ability,
attack or both) than what the non-Pokémon-EX version
possesses.
Unfortunately
the game’s pacing was too fast for early Mega Evolutions
to have much of a chance (even the ones that otherwise
looked well designed) and the game seems to be getting
faster, not slower with the first turn rules
being the main “speed bump” to keep things from being
faster still. Spirit Link cards are pretty much
a must for a Mega Evolution to compete but then we get
the opposite problems; the best Mega Evolutions
basically become 2 Prize Stage 1 Pokémon that lose a
Tool slot. Of course losing a Tool slot to a Spirit
Link isn’t so bad when two of the usual benefits of
a Pokémon Tool (improved offense and defense) are both
already built in. Which gets us to our current
situation where we see cards like Faded Town that
makes it just that much easier for attackers in general
to OHKO Mega Evolutions. Fighting-Types already had
Fighting Stadium but now everything else not already
locked into a different Stadium has the option. If your
opponent can’t discard Faded Town immediately, it
gets rather ugly for them but beautiful for you: you are
almost certainly not going to discard it for them, so
instead of two extra damage counters from a between
turns phase you’ll get six extra damage counters: your
turn to your opponent’s turn, your opponent’s turn to
your next turn and your next turn to your opponent’s
next turn! That effectively drops a 240 HP Mega
Evolution to 180.
Plenty of decks
already need their current Stadium (including in their
damage calculations to hit that 180 over one or two
turns) but the ones that don’t can now consider Faded
Town and if someone rushes multiple Mega Evolutions
to the field, you’ll get the benefit of shaving off
their HP at the same time as you erode the Active’s. As
with a lot of current “counters”, expect players to
figure out a way around the drawbacks of damaging one’s
own Mega Evolutions with Faded Town. The
simplest is that most decks don’t rush multiple Mega
Evolutions to the field and nearly all can choose not to
(which is probably why this didn’t make the list as it
does undermine my point about damaging multiple Mega
Evolutions at the same time). So you can run this
alongside your own Mega Evolution, just try to time it
so that your Mega Evolution has already hit the field,
done its job and been KO'd, hits the field after
Faded Town is already been used and discarded
(either by yourself or your opponent) or pack some form
of healing as the extra damage has to lead to a KO with
less effort to really be a benefit. If a deck already
uses and abuses Super Scoop Up or AZ and
bounces an injured Pokémon to hand before it can be
2HKOed, it doesn’t really matter if the Pokémon in
question had 80, 60, 40 or 20 HP left instead of 20
more.
I expect this
to be a major presence in Standard play. I think it
might do even better in Expanded because there are older
decks that have weathered the changing card pool and
metagame without adding Mega Evolutions in; this just
gives them another weapon. In Limited this may be a
must run. This set has Paint Roller so you might
have an answer to an opponent’s Stadium without having
to run a counter Stadium, but while it is unlikely an
opponent will be running four Forest of Giant Plants,
two isn’t that rare so even a deck hoping to get out its
own Mega Evolution may wish to risk a copy of Faded
Town should the other Stadium be a larger threat.
Ratings
Standard: 3.65/5
Expanded: 3.8/5
Limited: 4.8/5
Summary: Faded Town is going to be an
important card; Cursed Stone and Desert Ruins
were also major factors in their day. It isn’t going to
be a staple for all decks but for a lot this just became
the new “default” Stadium and for others it became one
to TecH in or run full on split. So I was a bit
surprised it didn’t make the actual list, but then again
I only managed a seventh place finish on my personal
list. Finishing four places lower seems “too low” and
yet I understand why: even I thought there were six
other cards more important, either for generic use or
because of how influential I believe they will make
specific decks.
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