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Our final honorable mention this week is Miltank
(XY: Flashfire 83/106), originally reviewed
May 15, 2014.
Yet another time when I wasn’t around to review the
original card so without further ado:
Miltank
is a Colorless-Type Pokémon, which means you never have
to worry about Resistance but you never get to exploit
Weakness, and that damage doubling bonus is usually
quite important for decks. The only Type support I can
think of is Aspertia City Gym, which is certainly
better than nothing but isn’t much. As a Basic it
enjoys a format built around Basics, where Evolving is a
serious drawback. Miltank has 100 HP, enough to
survive a hit but usually not when the opposing deck has
a substantial set-up… unless your own Fighting-Type
Weakness is being exploited. This was a problem when
the year began and just grew more pronounced after
XY: Furious Fists was released. The lack of
Resistance is disappointing but at the same time is
common, so it isn’t really a detriment so much as a
missed opportunity. The Retreat Cost of two was
actually worse when Miltank released as Heavy
Ball; a higher cost would have made Miltank
easier to search out while a lower one would be lower
(its own reward). It still isn’t good and it was never
really bad (most decks pack something to aid or bypass
manually retreating), but now there isn’t that missed
opportunity.
Miltank
has two attacks and I’ll get the second one (Hammer In)
out of the way because its “emergency use only”; [CCC]
for 60 is about 30 points below acceptable for
competitive play, but since it can use most forms of
Energy acceleration and isn’t even worse, sometimes one
might drop a Double Colorless Energy onto a
Miltank that already had an Energy and go for a
quick hit. The real star is why you would run Miltank
at all: Powerful Friends requires [C] and only does 10
damage but if you have a Stage 2 in play, it does
an additional 70 points of damage (80 damage total).
With a Muscle Band or Hypnotoxic Laser
this is usually enough to 2HKO even competitive
Pokémon-EX, and possibly OHKO some
smaller-but-still-played Pokémon. Even without the
boost, it will usually set-up for the 2HKO. So what has
changed? Well besides Fighting-Types getting popular,
Seismitoad-EX has made it harder to get Stage 2
Pokémon reliably into play; a format where the
aggressive attackers hit harder, faster and where the
control decks gain a 180 HP Pokémon-EX that can block
Items for [CC] while still scoring 30 points of damage
really hurt Stage 2 decks; they are once again all but
extinct.
Breadth:
Miltank is nearly a must run for any Stage 2
deck. There were (and likely still are) exceptions, but
for most this was either your opener, closer or even
main attacker. Even when Stage 2 decks were finally
becoming more common, they still were the minority, and
there usually wasn’t anything “special” decks were
inclined to add to counter it.
Depth:
Miltank added an easy to play and power-up
attacker for Stage 2 decks; nothing more and nothing
less. Countering it also wasn’t usually a matter of
extreme depth; adjust for such hits because often enough
Miltank wasn’t adding a new capacity to a deck,
just reinforcing the capabilities of the existing deck.
There are a few decks that really did rely on it,
though, but overall it wasn’t that deep of a card.
Time:
This is the area where Miltank performs the
worst; while it debuted before the halfway point of the
year, it basically was only a serious contender from the
time of its release until XY: Furious Fists
became playable; at most a third of the year.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5 - Even now the only real problem for Miltank
is finding a Stage 2 partner that can set-up quickly,
reliably and hopefully contribute just a little
something beyond that to the deck. There are many
options that are almost-but-not-quite there in the light
of Item lock, especially that of Seismitoad-EX.
When this card first came out, I would likely have
scored it as a four out of five.
Expanded:
2/5 - As for Standard.
Limited:
4.5/5 - Obviously something to leave out if you are
attempting a +39 deck, but here you would even consider
it if you lacked a Stage 2 because 100 HP, using any
Energy and 60 for three are decent for filling out your
deck. If you do have a Stage 2 you can fit in, then it
becomes amazing, hence the high score.
Summary:
An interesting way of helping Stage Pokémon that I
enjoyed running for a few months, Miltank suffers
because once again Stage 2 Pokémon suffer. Part of this
I think is how Stage 2 Pokémon lines are made; cards
like Miltank and Rare Candy are something
of a crutch for them but their real issue is that they
can’t stand on their own two (or however many) feet. As
something of a proxy for the various Stage 2 Pokémon
that accompanied it but weren’t making the list and for
its short season of success, Miltank took the
10th place slot on my own list.
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