aroramage |
You know, Gliscor here comes out
with an interesting attack. It's the sort of attack
you'd think could have the vast potential that something
like Seismitoad-EX has with Quaking Punch. It's just so
good! At least, you'd like to think so except for all
the problems that come with it.
Let's start with the obvious attack
to get out of the way: Poison Jab. Now Poison Jab isn't
entirely bad; though it's a 3-for-60 strike with a coin
flip for an effect, the effect does end up being Poison,
which is probably one of the better statuses to inflict
due to Virbank. Of course, you're usually inflicting
that damage via HTL, so you're never gonna have to worry
about the coin flip and thus should never have to worry
about Poison Jab's effect.
Submission Hold is different. It's
an attack that works similarly to Seismitoad-EX's
Quaking Punch but with several differences. For
starters, it's cheaper at 1 Fighting Energy but deals
only 20 damage. It restricts what your opponent can
play, but it's only Energy on the Defending Pokemon (aka
the one that Gliscor hits with the attack). And lastly
instead of being attached to a big bulky EX, it's on a
meager Stage 1 with only 90 HP.
Gliscor has something going for it,
but in the presence of a behemoth like Seismitoad-EX,
there's just no hope for him. Still he's better than a
lot of the Stage 1s out there, and on top of that he
does get Fighting support, so he does alright. It's a
shame too; in an ancient format, this could've been a
really devastating card to have.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (for now in this
format, he's alright)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (mostly for the
search Items to get him out)
Limited: 3/5 (unless your opponent
has Bronzong ready to tear you apart, Submission Hold
will at least force them to put their Energy on some
other Benchsitter while you hammer away, though you lose
some support)
Arora Notealus: Gliscor's alright
in my book as far as the Gen IV evos go. He could've
been a lot worse! Not sure if I should believe the claim
that, with the right wind involved, he can fly across
the world without ever flapping his wings. Come to think
of it, we've been reviewing a lot of Gen IV evos as of
late, haven't we?
NOTE: So a couple of things got
brought to my attention that I should address. For
starters, my Heatran review mentioned or else may have
implied that Steel Drop destroys Stadiums - which it
doesn't! This makes it even better as it can capitalize
off of the presence of any Stadium in play - yours or
your opponent's! The other thing is my Regigigas review
may have implied something to the effect of "if the
damage getting dealt is 40 or less, ignore it;
otherwise, it deals the amount." This is mostly due to
my wording, which I'd like to clear up that when I said
as such, it was meaning that the first 40 damage being
dealt would be ignored rather than if the total was 40
or less then it would be ignored. PHEW!! Long note!
Next Time: THE CUDDLIEST DRAGON
EVER ARRIVES!!...well, if you wanna cuddle, I mean
you'll have to clean yourself afterwards.
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Otaku |
The week begins its wind down with Gliscor (XY:
Phantom Forces 47/119), for when you can’t decide
whether it is more fun to run a bat or a scorpion! No,
okay well then let’s break the card down. It is a
Fighting-Type, which really is great: many
Colorless-Type Pokémon and most Darkness-Types and
Lightning-Types are Fighting Weak plus XY: Furious
Fist left it as probably the overall best supported
Type. It isn’t all good since Fighting Resistance is
the most common and the most played Darkness-Type
happens to be the Fighting Resistant Yveltal-EX.
Still, -20 to damage is far less a problem than x2
damage is an advantage. Being a Stage 1 though is
definitely a disadvantage, though not crippling; there
are a few that still see play. Its 90 HP is small
enough to be OHKOed by most decks, barring a poor
set-up; slight bonus in Expanded is that you can use
Level Ball to search Gliscor out because of
it, and it’d take at least another 20 to seriously
improve its chances of survival. Water Weakness isn’t
too bad right now; yes it means Seismitoad-EX
will actually see some big hits against Gliscor,
but while there are a couple great Water-Type attackers,
they just aren’t seeing heavy play right now… other than
the aforementioned Seismitoad-EX. Lack of
Resistance is disappointing though not major; most cards
lack it. The single Energy Retreat Cost is pretty good
but with what we’ve seen of the card so far still
somehow feels overpriced to me.
Gliscor
has two attacks, the first of which is Submission Hold
for [F]. This attack hits for 20 points of damage plus
prevents your opponent from attaching Energy to the
Pokémon you attacked with Submission hold. This is a
nifty little effect in that if you can keep your
opponent from changing out their Active (or Evolving
when that is an option), you might be able to create a
soft lock. The second attack has an Energy cost that
works well with that of Submission Hold; Poison Jab just
requires [FCC], so something like a manual Energy
attachment of a source of [F] Energy the turn before
means a Double Colorless Energy brings this
attack online. Unfortunately it hits for just 60 points
of damage and a coin flip for Poison. Either the Poison
needed to be automatic or the damage at least 10
(preferably 20 or 30) points higher. That still
wouldn’t be good, but at least it would be the going
rate and enough to half-KO the typical Pokémon-EX
before factoring in the unreliable Poison damage.
With reliable Poison damage and of course Virbank
City Gym, it would still hit that amount (more if
the opponent failed to get rid of Poison on his or her
own turn).
Gliscor
needs to Evolve from Gligar and we have two
options: BW: Boundaries Crossed 80/149 and XY:
Phantom Forces 46/119. Both are Basic Fighting-Type
Pokémon with Water Weakness, Retreat Costs of [C] and no
Abilities. BW: Boundaries Crossed 80/149 enjoys
70 HP, Lightning Resistance and two attacks: Tail Smack
for [F] doing 10 and Wicked Jab for [FC] doing 20 with a
coin flip for Paralysis. XY: Phantom Forces
46/119 has just 60 HP and no Weakness, plus one attack:
for [CC] it can use Rock Cannon, allowing you to flip a
coin until you get “tails” and score 20 points of damage
times the number of “heads”. Though I do like the
threat factor of “flip until ‘tails’ attacks” and this
one can be fueled by just a Double Colorless Energy
card, 10 more HP, Lightning Resistance and a
slightly-more-expensive-but-can-Paralyze two Energy
attack makes me favor the older BW: Boundaries
Crossed 80/149 version. Speaking of that set,
Gliscor (BW: Boundaries Crossed 81/149) is
the only other Gligar that is Standard or
Expanded legal as well; it has same Type, Stage,
Weakness and Retreat Cost of today’s version, but 10
more HP, Lightning Resistance and of course two
different attacks. For [F] this version can use Poison
Ring, good for 20 damage, Poison and an effect that
prevents the Pokémon you attacked from manually
retreating for a turn; another soft lock. For [FC] it
can use Night Slash to hit for 40 points of damage when
change places with a Benched Pokémon, making it a weaker
Donphan (BW: Plasma Storm 72/135).
Both versions of Gliscor have similar problems;
soft locks don’t tend to be good unless they’ve got
something big backing them. You have a choice between
using Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) to block Abilities or
using Abilities yourself to try and block other options
(most notably manually Retreating). Looking ahead a
little bit, you might be able to do a little of both
once we get Silent Lab, a Stadium that shuts off
the Abilities on Basic Pokémon however besides
Gliscor getting even more competition in general,
some of the Abilities that would prove problematic for
the soft lock are found on Evolutions; for example Fairy
Transfer is found on Aromatisse and that makes
the inability to attach Energy to the Active from hand
relatively meaningless.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5 - Interesting effect on the first attack, but
there isn’t enough you can do with it to make it
effective.
Expanded:
1.85/5 - I’ll give it a small boost for the sake of
Level Ball.
Limited:
4.8/5 - If you didn’t pull a big, Basic to build a +39
style deck around, then as long as you can work in some
Fighting Energy without really undermining your
deck’s reliability, you should probably make room for
this. That isn’t exactly a huge feat; its a solid Stage
1 with a decent Basic form and in Limited, that is
already a good start. Both attacks become better here
because as the format’s name suggests, players tend to
have more Limited options here.
Summary:
The effect of the first attack is interesting, and it
might have been something to fear has it appeared on a
Basic Pokémon-EX, backed by 170 or 180 HP plus either
either a good Ability or second “big” attack. As is,
Gliscor is a toy for those that want to challenge
themselves but not so much other players and should be
enjoyed as such… if that is an appealing facet of the
game for you. I’m torn myself; while I love to come up
with new uses for cards, to me it “doesn’t count” unless
it has at least some competitive merit.
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