aroramage |
Over the next couple of weeks, we
enter a sort of dry spell as we wait for the next set to
come out, but until that time, we find ourselves in the
midst of another rotation period. You may recall we did
something similar last year just before the terrifying
Furious Fists expansion came out in September, and so we
find ourselves in a similar position here in late-July
till Ancient Origins comes out in a couple of weeks. And
MAN, does that set look interesting!
But enough about that! We've got
cards to review, cause unless you're playing Expanded,
you're not gonna be seeing much more of them! To recap:
the last rotation cut us off from Next Destinies all the
way up to Dragons Exalted, leaving us in a Boundaries
Crossed-forward format that has had its own fair share
of ups and downs. Several powerful cards from the
earlier days of BW were reprinted in Legendary
Treasures, keeping them fresh in the format, whereas
newer more powerful - and subsequently more dangerous
cards - began to see play.
Now we're losing a mighty handful
of cards ranging from Boundaries Crossed, Plasma Storm,
Plasma Freeze, Plasma Blast, and the Legendary Treasures
set itself - from Blastoise with his Deluge ability to
Dusknoir's Sinister Hand, from Exeggcute's regenerative
Propagation to Exeggutor's Blockade strike; on top of
that, we're losing some major archetypes such as the
great Plasma deck of olde, VirGen, and even Flareon's
Vengeance. And now we're going over our personal Top 10
cards lost to the rotation, starting off with one of
many searchers, Jirachi-EX.
Jirachi-EX got to see a lot of play
since his release due to his Stellar Guidance ability,
which essentially was a, "Play this to get a Supporter,"
kind of play. And given the variety of Supporters one
could grab, it made sense to have one in the deck as a
staple to getting just what you needed - an "N" for
disruption perhaps, a Sycaper to draw out a new hand, a
Skyla to retrieve another card from the deck, or even a
Lysandre to single out a target. No matter what it was,
if it was a Supporter that saw play, Jirachi-EX would
easily be nearby to snag it.
There aren't too many cards one
could consider staples in this game, but that's what
made Jirachi-EX fairly notable.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (well he is rotating
out, but that's not going to be until after Worlds at
least, which means the official rotation happens
September 1st)
Expanded: 4/5 (his low HP does make
him a huge target after being put in play, but ideally
you're grabbing the right Supporter for your situation
such that you don't have to worry about that)
Limited: 3/5 (I was a bit harsh on
Jirachi-EX for the quantity of Supporters in the set
rather than the quality; you've got Caitlin, a "return X
cards to draw X cards" Supporter, Iris, who boosts your
damage based on how many Pokemon are in play, and
Sycaper. Not a great variety, but they definitely can
help win games in this format - especially Iris!)
Arora Notealus: My first review of
Jirachi-EX came in just after the Nationals last year,
and to be honest, I was nowhere near as well-versed on
the TCG as I am nowadays. That whole week was basically
an introduction to competitive TCG builds for me, and it
was a great learning experience to see what cards made
it to that level of play. If you're looking to get in on
the competitive scene, taking a look at some of the
National decks and even the Worlds decks is always a
good idea to give you an idea of how the pros build
their decks!
Next Time: Now for everyone's
favorite high-flying ace!
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Otaku |
Welcome to our
“Top 10 Cards Lost To Rotation” list! With XY:
Ancient Origins still a few weeks away, the
announcement that the next format would be XY-On (XY:
Kalos Starter Set and a few other odds and ends
included) and the fact I just love it when we do
countdowns, this seemed like a good time to do this.
Granted a better time would have been after Worlds but
I got impatient and the others went along with me
(thanks fellow CotD crew)!
So our list is
composed of cards that will soon only be Expanded legal…
barring possible reprints that we weren’t able to
confirm yet. I don’t know about the rest of the group
but first I painstakingly went through set by set to see
what was lost and realized… that was almost certainly a
waste of time. There are a lot of cards being cut that
never saw even a hint of competitive play in addition to
those that never quite panned out or were relevant but
currently aren’t. I then decided to base my list
primarily on the results of U.S. Nationals; it seemed as
good a “snapshot” as any and so I went through the Top 8
decks of each age group, looking for cards that were
going to rotate out. I looked at both how often they
were used in terms of deck counts and actual number of
copies of the cards played, weighed against how the
decks using them finished and how many of the card could
have been used. After getting it down to 30 cards this
way, I then looked at what lacked a replacement at all
and then what lacked a good replacement. Then my
results were averaged out with the other reviewers who
submitted a list.
First up is
Jirachi-EX (BW: Plasma Blast 60/101; 98/101),
originally reviewed
here
as part of our “Top 12 Promising Picks of Plasma Blast”
and then again
here
as part of a week of cards that played a significant
role at the 2014 U.S. Nationals. I do my usual
breakdown of the card in the second one (missed the
first, apparently) so I’m just going to do a quick
recap. Being a Psychic Resistant, Fire Weak Metal-Type
rarely matters and neither does the attack. The Ability
(Stellar Guidance) is what gets this card played as it
allows you to turn compatible Pokémon search into a
Supporter, though at the cost of having Jirachi-EX
eating up space on your Bench. Its 90 HP makes it an
easy (almost guaranteed) OHKO and as a Pokémon-EX it is
a tasty target, though the silver lining is that when it
first released Level Ball was legal (Level
Ball => Jirachi-EX becoming a popular play in
appropriate decks); it should be noted that Level
Ball is supposed to be reprinted in XY: Ancient
Origins making this combo more relevant again.
So how have
things changed since those older reviews? The main
thing is that Jirachi-EX has some competition
(and of course a replacement for when it does rotate).
At first I thought that Jirachi-EX usage might
be totally eliminated by Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108); after all Shaymin-EX
provides draw power via its “Set Up” Ability, allowing
you to combine it with your actual Supporter use if you
do have one handy and fake being one if you don’t (but
have it or a search option). Several decks have been
demonstrating how amazing this can be. While I tend to
favor Shaymin-EX I have had several times where I
wished I had a Jirachi-EX in the deck, either in
addition to Shaymin-EX or instead of it. We have
some significant Supporters in our decks that we don’t
like to max out, and whether it is getting the perfect
draw card for your current situation or a Lysandre
to press for game, there are times when that is more
valuable than taking a chance on drawing until I have
six cards in hand. In particular is when your hand gets
clogged up (such as against certain locks): Shaymin-EX
can be totally dead in hand or only get a few cards
where Jirachi-EX could again get the exact
Supporter you need, at least so long as said Supporter
is in your deck.
Using both
would be clearly superior except we’ve got the kind of
format where opening with a Jirachi-EX or
Shaymin-EX can cost you the game: not just as they
are both smaller Pokémon that aggressive decks might
donk or pseudo-donk, but because even if you have other
Pokémon in play, giving up two Prizes so easily makes it
hard to stage a comeback. Shaymin-EX can bounce
itself with an attack if you can get it powered up in
time (harder than it sounds depending on the build and
the opponent) but that doesn’t always work out, another
area where it outperforms Jirachi-EX, but at
least personally I know I’m in trouble when I open with
one. Space in decks is tight as ever, so rarely can you
afford both and while I know the math and that the odds
of opening with one or the other (even in a deck where
you aren’t running both) are not great, neither are they
insignificant, especially thinking of it through the
course of an entire tournament and not just the
individual matches or games.
For the
remainder of its time in Standard, Jirachi-EX is
not a card to forget about; you might not end up using
it but it is always worth asking yourself “Should I try
to work one in?”. Level Ball really does help it
to shine a little brighter and in Limited play, you have
to ask yourself if it is worth the risk, which will
include knowing whether or not you have enough
worthwhile Supporters. In the unlikely event you are
engaging in Limited Play with BW: Plasma Blast
boosters, there will be Iris and Professor
Juniper to shoot for; the risk of giving up an easy
two Prizes in a format where you only start with four
and where you have a serious risk of starting with or
drawing into the few Supporters you do pull (and run)
before Jirachi-EX can even show up lowers what
would otherwise be an almost true must play.
Ratings
Standard: 3.75/5
Expanded: 3.85/5
Limited: 4/5
Summary: Jirachi-EX is a card I’ll miss
for Standard play and will not forget when working on
Expanded deck. It isn’t as big as it used to be, but it
isn’t bad just facing direct competition thanks to
Shaymin-EX. Plus additional Ability negation from
Silent Lab and Wobbuffet (XY: Phantom
Forces 36/119), which weren’t available when this
card was reviewed either time past. On my own list, I
had this as #12; 10 doesn’t seem like a huge stretch.
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