aroramage |
...oh.
Um...wait, really?
Ummm.....alright then.
So Unown is on the list! At #7!
...yeah.
So Unown here is...well, he doesn't
have that much going for him. He's got 60 HP, his attack
Hidden Power is a 1-for-10 strike that's the lowest of
the low, and he's...well, that's really about it. This
isn't a mistake, right? Wait, read the Ability?
...ohhhhhhhh.
Yeah, Unown here has a bit of a
quirky ability in Farewell Letter. See, if he's on your
Bench during your turn, he can send himself and all
cards attached to him to the discard pile in order to
let you draw a card. So obviously you're NOT gonna
attach anything to him before using Farewell Letter. Oh,
and this isn't a Knock Out, so don't worry about giving
your opponent a Prize - that's the part where Unown
spells out, "H A H A H A H A !"
Still, maybe I'm a little late to
the party and the synapses aren't firing off right or
something, cause Unown...well, he's not THAT impressive.
Sure, running 4 of them will improve your deck's
consistency rather easily, since he basically counts as
a free draw...but so does Shaymin-EX. Who can, you know,
draw up to 6 cards. And be run in any deck, just like
Unown.
...actually, maybe that's the idea?
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (...well, draw power
is as draw power does; perhaps the improved
consistencies of every deck in existence will show me up
otherwise)
Expanded: 4/5 (again, more draw
power is good, and heck, I'm sure there are older decks
that deserve more draw power)
Limited: 5/5 (...yeah, draw power
is good)
Arora Notealus: If you check the
Unowns in the picture, you'll note that they spell out,
"Nanda?" starting on the left and rotating clockwise.
For any of you who speak Japanese, that means, "What?"
Even Unown's wondering what he's supposed to do!
Next Time: And then there was light
shining forth from a ring of...whoa, what the heck are
you?!
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Otaku |
We are only about halfway through the list and I’m
already falling behind! So other than a quick note that
yesterday’s CotD
should go up later today (if it isn’t already up by the
time you’re reading this one) I’m going to try to stay
focused. Yup, laser-like fo- “The
Yadon Song”
has been officially dubbed and released as “The
Slowpoke Song”
?!
Unown
is one of those Pokémon that is all about its
Ability “Farewell Letter”, to the point where even I am
going to cover that aspect of it first: at any
time during your turn, you may activate Farewell Letter,
discarding Unown and all cards attached to it in
order to draw a card (which does not count as
Unown being Knocked Out). So in short the “Symbol
Pokémon” is actually the “placeholder Pokémon” as you
can replace itself with the next card in your deck when
that would prove worthwhile. The rest of the
card helps explain why that is so useful. To begin
with, this is a Basic Pokémon, and this set didn’t
suddenly level the playing field: being a Basic is still
the best. In this case, Farewell Letter would be a lot
less impressive if it were any other Stage because they
require more effort to put into play; it is possible an
Evolution or Restored Pokémon could make good use of the
Ability but that would require some clever design work
(or overly powerful). Just being a Pokémon is also
important because it becomes a universal opener you can
get easily get out of your way, as well as some slightly
more advanced usage we’ll touch upon later. As the card
is, you can just Bench it and leave it there (if you
need something Benched) or discard it from in play via
the Ability (unless those are shut down).
Speaking of Abilities being shut down, that is one of
the benefits of the Type: in Standard the main ways to
shut off Abilities are Silent Lab and Bide
Barricade - the Ability on Wobbuffet (XY:
Phantom Forces 36/119) - but the latter doesn’t work
on Psychic-Types like Unown. The rest of the
Psychic-Type benefits and drawbacks aren’t too big of a
deal but on the off chance you have to attack with it
and that necessitates going out of order again (this
time interrupting another area of discussion) so just a
quick heads up: for [C] it can use “Hidden Power” for 10
damage. Yes, it is filler but every now and then you
still might have to resort to it. If/when you do,
Dimension Valley can save you burning an Energy card
on to attack and hitting something Psychic Weak… okay,
that doesn’t mean much unless they are Psychic Weak and
you’ve got a Muscle Band, but that isn’t as
obscure a thing as you might think. On the other hand a
sufficient buff, you can’t touch something Psychic
Resistant. Again though, this is all rare enough that
for the most part, only the immunity to Bide Barricade
is going to really matter.
The 60 HP is pretty small, though it is enough that
Unown can sometimes just barely hold on against the
usual suspects (incomplete set-ups, decks focused on
attack effects and not damage). It also makes it a
legal Level Ball target and that might end up
being important: Level Ball is replaced in hand
by Unown which is replaced by the card you draw,
so you still maintain your hand size but if
thinning your deck was your goal, it has decreased by
two cards instead of just one. The Psychic Weakness is
a bit of a bother: nothing major but there are a few
somewhat commonly used Psychic-Types (soon to include
Unown itself) that can take an unexpected OHKO due
to it. This would matter more except serious attackers
(not even just the heavier hitters) should manage the
feat before Weakness. Likewise the lack of
Resistance is mostly interesting because if it was there
and the HP were higher, it could make for a mean
wall, but neither is the case so let us move onto the
Retreat cost of [C]: easy to pay and recover from if for
some reason you just can’t get it out of the way with
Farewell Letter.
By now even if you were clueless going into the review,
you should have Unown pretty well figured out.
In decks that remind us why “Turbo” used to be a
general deck descriptor for the most aggressive
strategies, if you find you have the “perfect” build but
have slots leftover, congrats you’ve got something with
which to fill them. Pretty unlikely given all cards you
could benefit from having in those slots, though so
we’ll move onto the major (and more probable) use: decks
that need more Pokémon in them but also need to
be blisteringly fast. The now banned Shiftry (BW:
Next Destinies 72/99) that was turning Expanded into
a bizarre form of 2-player solitaire where one player
does everything while you sit there and hope they mess
up or have bad luck so you don’t lose ran this card
because it helped it mulligan less while adding another
draw option. A draw option with a simple, easily
overlooked synergy for Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring
Skies 77/108, 106/108), Bicycle and other
“Draw until you have X cards in hand” effects. In fact,
it has almost as much synergy with other major sources
of draw power because you can get it out of your hand,
use another draw effect, and then cash in on Unown
to draw another card (or cards if you had multiples).
You can save it for after you use Professor
Sycamore or Shaymin-EX or even something like
Professor Birch.
The natural synergy with most other popular forms of
draw power isn’t going to earn this a place in all
decks, but when you get to decks such as those built
around Flareon (BW: Plasma Freeze 12/116)
or Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98)
it is likely to be a staple. Being useful in general
plus having added specific usage is only bested by
having great general usage, plus Expanded has just a few
more “specific use” options. Unown is a “must
run” for Limited play unless you pull something
like a Basic Pokémon-EX worth running as your only Basic
(to ensure you open with it). Outside of such “=39”
decks you should have some extra space to fill.
Ratings
Standard:
4/5
Expanded:
4.25/5
Limited:
4.9/5
Summary:
First card on this list that I’ve scored so high and it
might seem a bit odd. As is often the case, the score
is reflecting general usage as well as deck specific.
In general Unown is a solid card that in a lot
of TCGs would be a universal staple; here it gets
crowded out of most decks because there are always
things like TecH to fill in the last few open slots of
an otherwise cohesive deck… most of the time. Throw in
the decks where it is at least a somewhat
important piece of support, and I think it earns those
high marks I gave it.
For the collective top 10 list, Unown managed 11
points from voting, enough to tie with M Ampharos-EX
for seventh place but still only four points more than
the 16th place card that didn’t even make our list. On
my personal list I had it in fifth place and both was
and still am worried that I had it too low. Factoring
in its combination of general and specific usage, this
might technically be the best card in the set.
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