aroramage |
Well now, HERE we've got the
ever-fabulous M Ampharos-EX on our side! I just love his
fantastic mane of draconic hair...even though it has
really nothing to do with his new Dragon-typing in the
games, but hey, if Altaria can do it, so can Mega
Ampharos!
But I don't wanna get ahead of
myself. I should be grateful Ampharos has an EX! And a
decent one at that, with the ability to add more Energy
onto himself and be able to deal an uncontested 100
damage to the opposing Pokemon. But Ampharos-EX ain't on
the list, and Daddy M Ampharos-EX is here to tell you
why with Exa Volt!
Exa Volt is a brutal attack...okay,
not M Tyranitar-EX levels of brutal, but brutal none the
less! What its 4-for-120 strike lacks in utter
decimation, it makes up for with the power to give a
little extra boost to 170, though M Ampharos-EX does
deal himself 30 damage. Still, that's not a problem
because, unlike some other attacks of this nature, Exa
Volt also throws in another bonus: Paralysis.
Of the many Status Conditions in
the game, Paralysis could arguably be the best one (you
could also argue Poison's the best). Like its brethren
Sleep and Confusion, its main goal is keeping the
opponent's Active Pokemon from attacking, but rather
than flipping a coin at some point to figure out whether
that Active Pokemon will attack, Paralysis just says,
"NOPE," and keeps it tapped until the end of the
opponent's turn. Which is basically just long enough for
M Ampharos-EX to smack it with a less powerful Exa Volt
with no penalties!
...okay, even M Tyranitar-EX, if he
gets tagged, will not be able to stand up to this.
The main ways of countering this
strategy are to either Switch out the Paralyzed Pokemon
(thus curing it of its Status Condition) or else just
wait for the KO to switch in a counter to M Ampharos-EX.
Hopefully, you'll have figured that one out by then,
cause if not, it's gonna be Exa Volt Central all the way
to Loserville!
Smell ya later, guys!
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (a powerful decent
attack, though not as much acceleration at the moment,
and it does damage you back - be careful of that!)
Expanded: 4.5/5 (hello, Eelektrik,
my old friend, I've come to charge with you again)
Limited: 5/5 (ABSOLUTELY)
Arora Notealus: Because in Megas
softly creeping, beating Trainers and just sweeping,
with Exa Volt, a devastating blow, stuns them whole,
there is much for Ampharos...
Next Time: And now for something
completely different...
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First some
Pokémon TCG relevant announcements. Monday it was
officially announced that
Shiftry (BW: Next Destinies 72/99) has been
banned from Expanded play. I made no mention of it
yesterday because I am pretty bad about checking the
official site for news announcements so by the time I
found out, it was Tuesday (and so Tuesday’s CotD was
already finished and submitted). As with Lysandre’s
Trump Card, they went ahead and explained why they
chose to ban this card but also gave the notice that
they were prepared to ban cards as needed if they were
causing trouble in Expanded. Of course, Shiftry
was only “broken” by Forest of Giant Plants plus
the large amount of draw power currently available to
rip through a hyper-specialized deck first turn… but
I’ll settle for Shiftry being gone getting us
from “Condition Red” to “Condition Yellow” or maybe even
“Condition Blue” when it comes to cards/combos/decks
that such the fun out of competitive play.
So today we
look at our eighth place finisher, M Ampharos-EX
(XY: Ancient Origins 27/98, 87/98). It is a
Lightning-Type and XY: Ancient Origins gives them
a bit more support, but the main piece relevant here
would be Flash Energy; it isn’t as potent as
Strong Energy for Fighting-Types, but removing
Weakness is still a solid trick, albeit often available
through other methods not unique to the Lightning-Type.
In terms of Weakness and Resistance, Lightning Weakness
appears on some very high profile cards while Lightning
Resistance that used to appear on certain Fighting-Types
is once again missing so looks like that is now only a
concern for Expanded. Thanks to hitting some important
cards for Weakness and having a decent specific Special
Energy, I’d say the Lightning-Type is looking good
though not great. Being a Mega Evolution carries all
the issues of being a Pokémon-EX (gives up an extra
Prize when KOed, can’t access certain support cards,
object of certain counter cards), the issues of a Stage
1 (requires additional turn to Evolve, additional card
to get into play) and adds in Mega Evolutions having at
least one specific counter-card (Faded Town) and
either having to add in a Spirit Link or giving
up an attack because Mega Evolving will otherwise end
your turn. M Ampharos-EX does benefit from Mega
Evolution support (Mega Turbo) and the fact that
Pokémon-EX which would normally be a Stage 1 or Stage 2
are instead Basics… like Ampharos-EX became (it
would be a lot more difficult if this had to go
on top of a Stage 2).
M Ampharos sports 220 HP; we have Mega Evolutions
with upwards of 20 more HP, so this isn’t bad but it
isn’t the best. Most of the time you should survive a
hit but nothing is immune to OHKOs and this is a little
less insulated against them than the likes of Primal
Groudon-EX (either version) or Wailord-EX.
It is still 40-50 points over most typical Pokémon-EX
and even more over “regular” Pokémon. The Fighting
Weakness is why I was so keen on Flash Energy; it
isn’t a wholly reliable solution as you need an Energy
attachment and effects to discard Special Energy are at
most “Uncommon”. Particularly in the case of
Fighting-Type decks, most run at least a few Korrina,
which means it just takes finding room for even a single
Enhanced Hammer for a solid counter-tactic to
emerge. So don’t let that make you overconfident about
the Fighting Weakness as while Landorus-EX has
shifted to only be Expanded legal we still have Pokémon
like Lucario-EX that can use a Fighting
Stadium/Muscle Band/Strong Energy open
to to hit for [(30+20+20) * 2] = 180 damage. If your
opponent can use a Hex Maniac before hand, the
same set-up allows Hawlucha (XY: Furious Fists
63/111) to score a OHKO! I mean even if you max it out,
you won’t always have Flash Energy. M
Ampharos-EX is a little extra durable against
Metal-Types thanks to its Resistance; it is a small
bonus against only a single Type but it is still
appreciated. The Retreat Cost of [CCC] is not; it isn’t
the worst but it is too high to reliably pay, and
recovering from the loss is painful as well. Pack
alternatives to manually retreating at full price!
As a Mega
Evolution, M Ampharos-EX has but a single attack
(Exavolt) for [LLCC], and the effect allows it to almost
function as two different effects. You can either do
the base 120 damage, or you can hit for an additional
50 (so 170 total) plus inflict Paralysis at the cost of
doing 30 damage to M Ampharos-EX itself. 120 for
four is about what I expect normally, so it wouldn’t be
overly thrilling on a Mega Evolution. The 170 with
Paralysis, even with 30 self-damage is impressive. The
question is if that will be enough. At a glance that
may seem like a no brainer, either:
“Of course it
is enough: if you can’t score a OHKO, you left them
Paralyzed so next turn you score a 2HKO with only 30
damage taken by M Ampharos-EX!”
versus
“Of course it
isn’t enough: the Paralysis is too easy to deal with and
the Energy cost is too much to easily meet. Your
opponent can just drop a Switch or try a Super
Scoop Up to void your efforts while taking M
Ampharos-EX out faster than you can set up another!”
I actually
thought the latter, but upon further reflection I am
thinking the third option you were expecting is most
accurate: even though the attack is a good deal it is
still going to be difficult to meet the cost multiple
times per game. While some decks will be caught flat
footed, too many will either have two solid single Prize
attackers they can sacrifice or they’ll have something
larger that if you Paralyze it, they can get it out of
the way and if you don’t, you’re just not hitting hard
enough for your investment. Speaking of investment, we
should discuss Ampharos-EX because we aren’t
getting to M Ampharos-EX without it and
preferably Ampharos Spirit Link to avoid giving
up an attack.
Ampharos-EX is much like its Mega Evolution: the
differences are that it isn’t a Mega Evolution but a
Basic Pokémon-EX, has 170 HP a Retreat Cost of [CC] and
two attacks (“Thunder Rod” and “Sparkling Tail”). While
I wasn’t thrilled with the [CCC] Retreat Cost I’d rather
it showed up again here for Heavy Ball and
Expanded play because [CC] isn’t enough of an
improvement that you won’t still need adequate retreat
assistance or alternatives. Thunder Rod needs [C] to be
used, and it allows you to look at the top four cards of
your deck, attaching as many of the [L] Energy cards as
you like to Ampharos-EX. The other cards are
then shuffled back into the deck. This attack probably
sounds better than it is; how many basic Lightning
Energy cards (the only ones that provide [L] while
in deck) do you plan on running? I don’t know the exact
odds but you might whiff or you might get up to four
Energy attached. You’re doing this as your attack for
the turn though so there is a real risk you’ll never get
to cash in on that Energy; either from discarding
effects or being KOed. Sparkling Tail is also decent,
needing [LLCC] and only hitting for 100 points of
damage, but also ignoring Weakness (bad), Resistance
(slightly good) and all other effects on the opponent’s
Active Pokémon (good). That might sound like it should
balance out to be more than simply adequate for an
Evolving Pokémon-EX, but whiffing on an opponent’s
Weakness and needing four Energy is a significant
hurdle.
So with that
out of the way, at last we come to how to use this card
and… I don’t have anything concrete. I haven’t
encountered many people using this card and I haven’t
heard or read compelling examples for how to run it. Double
Colorless Energy can shave a turn off of powering
up. Flash Energy will likely be important for
matches against Fighting-Types… but the rest of the time
it’s just a less useful Lightning Energy. The
more special Energy you run, the less effective Mega
Turbo or Thunder Rod will prove, the former being
most relevant. Rough Seas could help you heal
the 30 self damage from the second clause in the attack
but you’ll risk helping Water decks, perhaps a
bit too much. You might consider Vileplume (XY:
Ancient Origins 3/98) to block Items and thus
improve your chances of locking the opponent with
Paralysis, but in doing so you also cut off access to
your own which can be an issue with Mega Evolutions
because Spirit Link cards are so important. This
also eats up room and clashes with support for the other
logical backing: something to move damage counters. In
Standard it would have to be spamming Absol (XY:
Roaring Skies 40/108) while in Expanded you could
try Dusknoir (BW: Boundaries Crossed
63/149; BW: Plasma Blast 104/101). This would
allow you to attempt a soft lock while taking out other
targets. For Limited play, go ahead and run it if you
also pull an Ampharos-EX.
Ratings
Standard: 3.25/5
Expanded: 3.35/5
Limited: 4/5
Summary: Those are scores for a deck actually
built around M Ampharos-EX as opposed to
some other considerations; it looks interesting and
might manage a soft-lock deck or perhaps even a hardlock
deck, but the latter would be rather hard and there
would still be a potential means of escape. It isn’t
bad, it just isn’t all that great. If you go the lock
approach, you might actually suffer for what would
normally be the card’s sweet bonus of double damage
against Pokémon like Yveltal-EX.
M Ampharos-EX tied with tomorrow’s card at 11
points, and I used the fact that it has both general and
deck specific application to break the tie… and not just
the fact that it appeared on my Top 15 list while M
Ampharos-EX didn’t. Though I may sound kind of down
on the card, it is only because it is here in the
number eight slot; I would seem like I was building it
up if it hadn’t made the list so high. Even if I am
correct and this isn’t as good as it seems at a glance,
it still does enough that you might want to pick up a
play set when you can get a good deal and start
experimenting.
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