Otaku |
Alright, time for a big ol’ Colorless-Type Pokémon: M
Rayquaza-EX (XY: Ancient Origins 98/98)!
Now as nearly all of you know, this is
almost-but-not-quite an alternate art reprint of M
Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 76/108,
105/108): the difference is in the Ancient Trait (well,
and the art but that isn’t game relevant unless it
distracts or confuses your opponent). As such part
this review can double as an “update” on that card.
Back to
the Colorless-Type, nothing is Weak or Resistant to the
Type (unless you are talking the Unlimited Format card
pool); while it is handy not having to worry about an
irritating -20 that throws off damage calculation is a
nice little bonus it pales to the potential of having a
massive advantage in at least certain match-ups from
enjoying double damage. There are two attackers
that hit harder against Colorless-Types - Exeggutor
(XY: Roaring Skies 2/108) and Haxorus (BW:
Dragon Vault 16/20) - but in an underwhelming manner
for all things involved, while for support there is
Altaria (XY: Black Star Promos XY46; XY:
Roaring Skies 74/108) and its Ability that negates
Weakness on your Colorless-Types, Aspertia City Gym
to add 20 HP to Colorless-Types and Winona to
search out three Colorless Pokémon from your deck to
your hand. The vast majority of Colorless-Type
Pokémon are intended to work off-Type and as they have
their own needs, usually work better when paired with a
specific kind of support, so unless you also use some of
the aforementioned Type-specific support they aren’t
going to strengthen fellow Colorless-Types anymore than
they do everything else. Even being easy to splash
into decks isn’t an exclusively Colorless-Type trait; it
is a function of having worthwhile effects that don’t
care about Pokémon and/or Energy Types. Of course,
this is the same as it was when the older Colorless M
Rayquaza-EX released.
Being a
Mega Evolution is a little worse now than when XY:
Roaring Skies debuted. Why? Besides the
addition of Faded Town (a Stadium that places two
damage counters on Mega Evolutions between turns), it
helps to remember that when XY: Roaring Skies
came out, Mega Evolutions themselves had only recently
gone from “occasionally seen fatty” to “regular deck
focus”. XY: Phantom Forces introduced the first
Spirit Link cards and while we got some more in
XY: Primal Clash, there still aren’t really that
many of them now as compared to many other
mechanics. When we only had one really viable Mega
Evolution using a Spirit Link (M Manectric-EX)
it only started us thinking about general
anti-Mega Evolution tactics… or at least for the ones
with Spirit Link cards. Now? Now you
need to know how to deal with the likes if M
Manectric-EX, M Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring
Skies 76/108, 105/108), M Sceptile-EX,
Primal Groudon-EX and Primal Kyogre-EX, plus
a few less effective Mega Evolutions that can still
clobber you when you run into them. Still not a
lot, but definitely more.
Otherwise being a Mega Evolution is all the drawbacks of
being a Pokémon-EX (giving up an extra Prize when KOed,
focus of certain detrimental card effects, excluded from
certain beneficial card effects) plus Mega Evolving ends
your turn the instant you do it unless you’ve got
that precious Spirit Link (in this case,
Rayquaza Spirit Link), which eats up more space in
your deck as well as the Tool slot on Rayquaza-EX/M
Rayquaza-EX, plus some Mega Evolution specific
detrimental effects (Faded Town)... but the trade
off is potentially even better attributes and effects
than regular Pokémon-EX and for sure access to support
like Mega Turbo. M Rayquaza-EX keeps the
220 HP that is a good, score though middle-of-the-road
for Mega Evolutions. The Lightning Weakness should
be a greater risk now; Jolteon (XY: Ancient
Origins 26/98) allows any Stage 1 to exploit
it and the Lightning-Type did get some more support, and
we are seeing more variants of M Manectric-EX
decks or at least as many but still making the top cut.
The Fighting Resistance is still a nice little bonus,
but a lot of the time it won’t make a big difference
even mostly/mono-Fighting-Type decks. The Retreat
Cost of [C] is still great; easy to pay and to recover
from having paid.
We’ll
get to the change in Ancient Trait after seeing if
“Emerald Break” is as good as it once was. [CCC] is
still pretty easy to meet, with various forms of Energy
acceleration and 30 times the number of your Benched
Pokémon is still a solid starting point for damage,
maxing out at 150 unless you use Sky Field, at
which point it can do up to 240 damage, OHKOing all but
the largest (or protected) targets. We keep
receiving more strong attackers, either in terms of raw
power or useful effects, as well as supporting cards
that improve older attackers, eroding some of this
attacks’ edge. We also know that some cards are
coming (or already out but not quite legal) that while
not technically specific counters for Emerald Break,
effectively are (Parallel City). So at last
we come to the one difference between the original M
Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 76/108,
105/108) and the more recent M Rayquaza-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 98/98); “Δ Evolution” versus “Θ
Max”; the former is amazing as it allows you to Evolve
the appropriate Pokémon in play into the Pokémon with Δ
Evolution immediately, even the first turn of the
game. The latter… is a solid trick as it removes
all damage from itself when you Mega Evolve one of your
in play Pokémon into whatever has Θ Max. I am
being kind of general because both Ancient Traits appear
on multiple cards. Both can be total wastes; if
you can’t Evolve immediately (or have a reason to wait
like lacking a Spirit Link) or if you have no
damage on the Rayquaza-EX you want to Evolve,
there is no benefit.
Hands
down, Δ Evolution is superior to Θ Max, however you can
run up to four cards named M Rayquaza-EX so
running both is an option… except I checked the
top cut results from the 2015 Autumn Regional
Championships and I didn’t see a single one bother with
the split. At first I thought that this would be
the Θ Max Pokémon where it really mattered but
the game’s pace has managed to become that tiny bit
faster than it already was; while there are plenty of
matches where you won’t be dropping M Rayquaza-EX
immediately onto Rayquaza-EX, it just isn’t
enough to risk whiffing on a first turn/second turn M
Rayquaza-EX. If for some reason you are stuck
using Rayquaza-EX (XY: Black Star Promo
XY66) or are trying to work the Colorless M Rayquaza-EX
into a deck built around the classic Rayquaza-EX
(BW: Dragons Exalted 85/124, 123/124; BW:
Black Star Promo BW47), then your deck isn’t built
around getting the Mega Evolution to the field ASAp and
maybe it makes enough sense to go with the Θ Max
version instead. Otherwise you’ll rarely have
reason to attack with Rayquaza-EX (and thus an
opening to be damaged before Mega Evolving).
I’m not
actually running through the specifics for the various
Rayquaza-EX and M Rayquaza-EX again; their
roles don’t seem to have changed much since their last
reviews and we’ve got pretty recent CotDs for them. The original
Rayquaza-EX
(BW: Dragons Exalted 85/124, 123/124) is the
oldest of said reviews I’m referencing, so to be clear
it is still a good, solid attacker but there are so many
rivals and the need to more consistently hit the higher
numbers requiring a four Energy discard (to OHKO Mega
Evolutions) also pushes it. M Rayquaza-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 61/108) didn’t live up to the
more optimal expectations, and not even to my more
subdued ones, though it can still clobber the
unprepared. I’ve been discussing M Rayquaza-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 76/108, 105/108) in detail,
but it was reviewed alongside Rayquaza-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 75/108, 104/108) so
here
you go; this Rayquaza-EX remains the preferred
one for Mega Evolving into a Colorless M Rayquaza-EX.
Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 60/108) is
still
only needed if you want to access Dragon-Type support
with M Rayquaza-EX (any version), won’t (or
can’t) use the original Rayquaza-EX and is not
recommended unless you lack its Colorless set-mate.
The worst Rayquaza-EX to use is and I pretty much
say that
here.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
M Rayquaza-EX (XY: Ancient Origins 98/98)
was not needed, though you may enjoy its art. I
had thought it was “different” enough from what came
before to warrant being re-reviewed and I also thought
the it and its set-mates Primal Groudon-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 97/98) and Primal Kyogre-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 96/98). I was wrong on at
least the latter; we could have covered all three at
once. All that being said, it isn’t actually a bad
card; it just is so outclassed by the original version.
If things shift a bit, a single copy might even finally
find its way into a winning Emerald Break focused deck,
but I’m not holding my breath.
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