aroramage |
Now Empoleon's a surprisingly
familiar face, and no I'm not just saying that cause
he's been around since Gen IV. He's actually been around
the last couple few formats as well, as the powerful LTR
version with swift Diving Draw and the powerful and
cheap Attack Command, although it's become significantly
less threatening in recent history. So here to prove
himself a potential threat once more, Empoleon steps up
to the arena and prepares his assault!
...by powering up his brethren
instead.
Truth be told, Empoleon didn't make
it on our list for his stellar 2-for-70 vanilla Hydro
Splash, though that is honestly one of the better
vanilla attacks out there. No, he comes out thanks to
the power of Dignified Fighter, an Ability that
effectively gives all Basic Pokemon an extra Muscle
Band's worth of damage to their attacks. Kind of a
strange thing to claim you're dignified when you're just
powering up your own attacks, but hey, naming
conventions aside, this is a stellar Ability!
As of late, the main attackers in
most decks have been Megas. Whether it's M Manectric-EX,
Primal Kyogre-EX, M Rayquaza-EX, M Tyranitar-EX,
whatever it may be, there have been a load of decks
centered around Mega evolutions and their extreme power,
and the trend isn't going to slow down any time soon.
But once upon a time, the big Pokemon on the block were
Big Basics and regular Pokemon-EX, and while Empoleon's
Ability won't make a lot of the EXs on-par with the
power level of those Megas, it can certainly give a
healthy aid even to those evolving Pokemon-EX!
To give you an idea:
-Machamp-EX's Crazy Hammer can now
OHKO most any non-Mega Pokemon-EX so long as he's got a
Status
-Giratina-EX can lock stuff down
with Chaos Wheel and 2HKO any Pokemon-EX not named "Wailord-EX"
-Lugia-EX, Yveltal-EX, and Mewtwo-EX
can deal another 1 Energy's worth of damage with their
various "Ball" attacks
-Seismitoad-EX can hit for 50
damage using Quaking Punch and stun the Items your
opponent uses
Needless to say, the application
will vary from deck to deck, and you may not need to run
Empoleon in most of these decks, but there's no denying
that an extra Muscle Band is always nice, especially
when it's in the form of a Pokemon that gives it to all
of your Basic Pokemon! Sure, he's a Stage 2, so that
requires a bit more investment than a mere Muscle Band,
but the flexibility of his Ability and the power it
provides could definitely help out a lot of
Basic-centric decks!
...well, certainly in Expanded if
not Standard.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (a fairly solid
Stage 2 with a powerful damage-boosting Ability)
Expanded: 4/5 (who works well with
all your Basic Pokemon-EX support!)
Limited: 4.5/5 (if you can get him,
your Basics will become a lot more powerful in this
format!)
Arora Notealus: Leading the army of
Basics against our opponents once again, Empoleon really
is turning into a regal general of sorts in Pokemon,
huh?
Next Time: A twofer! Featuring the
ghastliness of a ghoulie and a researcher
extraordinaire!
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Otaku |
Sliding into sevenths place is the penguin potentate,
Empoleon (XY: BREAKthrough 38/162)!
As a Water-Type, it can hit the Weakness nearly all
Fire-Types and some Fighting-Types, will only face
Resistance on BW-era Grass-Types (and even that isn’t
universal), doesn’t have to worry about Type specific
counters because even though a few exist they just
haven’t been worth using and the especially important
part, gains access to Water-Type support, specifically
Archie’s Ace in the Hole. As a Stage 2, one
would normally have to give up a lot of deck space and
wait at least two turns (possibly three) for Empoleon
to hit the field, Archie’s Ace in the Hole can
bench it from your discard pile directly so long as you
can make Archie’s Ace in the Hole your last card
in hand while a copy of Empoleon is in your
discard pile and an open slot for it to fill on your
Bench. If you do go for more traditional
Evolution, then you’ll have to deal with the
aforementioned drawbacks, but can cash in on Dive
Ball for easy search. In either case, the rest
of the Water-Type support (both exclusive to Water-Types
and not) is a nice bit of backing for a card, though I
don’t think it is the best of all Types.
For HP, Empoleon is in that range past what is
required for 2HKOing a Mega Evolution but still below
what is needed to OHKO most Basic Pokémon-EX; a fairly
solid amount that can often enough surve a blow,
especially if a deck is employing damage buffs that are
specific to fighting Pokémon-EX. The Grass-Type
Weakness can be dangerous; it makes no difference
against attacks that would take the OHKO regardless, but
it can enable supporting attacks to become rather
vicious besides saving moderately sized attacks from
needing an a small damage boost. At 140 HP
Resistance might have come in handy but doesn’t matter
because it isn’t there. The Retreat Cost of [CC]
is high enough you will prefer not to pay it but when
you must it is reasonable to pay as well as to recover
from having paid it. The card has no Ancient Trait
but has a simple Ability called “Dignified Fighter” that
boosts the damage attacks from your Basic Pokémon do by
20 points before applying Weakness and
Resistance, and the even simpler attack is “Hydro
Splash” for [WC] which hits for 70 damage. The
attack is just sort of there and the Ability won’t help
Empoleon directly, but it can buff other
attackers while being a Bench-sitter, so I think
Dignified Fighter looks pretty potent. It may be
too difficult to be worth it, but based on the wording
it should stack.
Again, I already think this is a card to play via
Archie’s Ace in the Hole, but we’ll take a look at
the lower Stages as well as other Empoleon
anyway. The options for Piplup are BW:
Dark Explorers 27/108, BW: Legendary Treasures
33/113, BW: Legendary Treasures RC6/RC25 and
XY: BREAKThrough 36/162. For Prinplup
you can pick from BW: Dark Explorers 28/108,
BW: Legendary Treasures 34/113 and XY:
BREAKThrough 37/162, plus you could use Rare
Candy. For Empoleon we have BW: Dark
Explorers 29/108 (given the Secret Rare treatment as
BW: Plasma Freeze 117/116), BW: Black Star
Promo BW56 and BW: Legendary Treasures
35/113. All Piplup, Prinplup and
other Empoleon are Water-Types (...well some
could have been Metal) with no Resistance or Ancient
Traits. Only one has an Ability (we’ll get to
that), while both the Piplup and Prinplup
from XY: BREAKThrough are Grass Weak (like
today’s Empoleon): the rest are all Lightning
Weak.
All Piplup are Basic Pokémon with 60 HP and a
Retreat Cost of [C]; all have a single attack except for
BW: Legendary Treasures RC6/RC25 which has two. BW:
Dark Explorers 27/108 has “Fury Attack” for [W],
allowing you to flip three coins good for 10 damage per
“heads”. BW: Legendary Treasures 33/113 knows
“Water Splash” for [WC], which does 10 damage or - with
a successful coin toss - 30. BW: Legendary Treasures
RC6/RC25 allows you to use “Charm”, at a cost of [C], to
knock off 20 damage from attacks done by the Defending
Pokémon or for [WC] to use “Peck” to do 20 damage. XY:
BREAKThrough 36/162 has “Wave Splash” for [WC] and
it does 30 damage. This card is being run to
survive so go with BW: Legendary Treasures
RC6/RC25 for what little good soaking 20 damage may do
you, unless Lightning Weakness proves so bad it makes
more sense to go with XY: BREAKThrough 36/162,
though I doubt it will especially matter which Piplup
you use.
All Prinplup are Stage 1 Pokémon (obvious but I
hate breaking form) with… less uniformity than among the
Piplup. BW: Dark Explorers 28/108 has 80
HP, a Retreat Cost of [CC] and two attacks: for [C] it
can use “Razor Wing” to hit for 20 damage and for [WCC]
it can use “Fury Attack” to flip three coins, each good
for 30 damage per “heads”. BW: Legendary Treasures
34/113 has 90 HP and still a Retreat Cost of [CC] but
only a single attack; it is “Water Splash” for [WC] but
this time it hits for 20 with a successful coin toss
adding 30 to that (so 50 total on “heads”). XY:
BREAKThrough 37/162 is back down to 80 HP but only
has a Retreat Cost of [C] and a single attack - “Ice
Beam” - for [WC] that does 30 damage plus has you flip a
coin and if it is “heads” the attack also Paralyzes the
opponent’s Active. Use Archie’s Ace in the Hole
or Rare Candy when you can but if you do need a
Prinplup go with XY: BREAKThrough 37/162
due to its capacity to Paralyze and retreat for only [C]
or BW: Legendary Treasures 34/113 just for the 90
HP. Surprisingly, BW: Dark Explorers 28/108
got a Card of the Day review, which you may read
here.
Now for what might really matter, the other Empoleon.
Besides all being Stage 2 Pokémon they each have the
same 140 HP and Retreat Cost of [CC] as today’s subject.
BW: Dark Explorers 29/108 (and BW: Plasma
Freeze 117/116) is likely familiar to you: the
“Diving Draw” Ability allows you to discard a card from
your hand to draw two cards once per turn (though you
can use multiple Diving Draw on the same turn), and has
proven strong enough to see successful competitive play.
Its attack also is good; “Attack Command” only requires
[W] but does 10 damage times the number of Pokémon in
play, counting both sides of the field. It was
reviewed
here,
but I’m kind of surprised it didn’t get any follow ups
because again, it has risen to and fallen from
prominence, I think more than once. BW: Black Star
Promo BW56 and BW: Legendary Treasures 35/113
both have two attacks. The former can use “Fury
Attack” for [W] to flip three coins, each good for 30
points of damage on “heads” or at a cost of [WCC] use
“Cold Crush” to hit for 70, plus you may discard an
Energy from itself to also discard one from the
opponent’s Active. The latter can “Surf” for [WC]
to do 50 damage or for [WWC] use “Emperor’s Strike” to
do 70 damage, plus another 60 if its HP is lower than
the that of the opponent’s Active Pokémon when the
attack was initiated. BW: Legendary Treasures
35/113 was reviewed
here
and wasn’t impressive back then, either. BW: Dark
Explorers 29/108 could be a rival or a partner in a
deck, but the other two are best left to collectors.
So… back to Dignified Fighter; is it really worth
benching a Stage 2, even if you can put it directly from
the discard pile to one’s Bench? After all
Machamp (XY: Furious Fists 46/111, XY:
Black Star Promos XY13) boosts the damage done by
all Fighting-Types and while people tried it, it didn’t
have a lasting impact on the metagame. Why would
Empoleon be any different? I think because
of the Basic Pokémon capable of working with it:
Seismitoad-EX and Giratina-EX (XY: Ancient
Origins 57/98, 97/98). There are probably
others, but we have two Pokémon used for their attack
effects and not their damage output. A single
Empoleon on the Bench means Seismitoad-EX
hits for 50 points of damage before adding in
Muscle Band. If you can get two copies of this
Empoleon on your Bench and Muscle Band
onto Seismitoad-EX, suddenly you’re not only
locking Items but also 2HKOing your opponent’s 180 HP
(or less) Basic Pokémon-EX. While most likely
quite difficult, a full three Empoleon on the
Bench plus a Muscle Band will allow Giratina-EX
to not only block your opponent from playing Special
Energy cards, Stadiums and Pokémon Tools from hand but
to swing for 180 damage while doing it.
Yet so far, I haven’t heard anyone really discussing it
so maybe I’m wrong about it. I think Empoleon
will back at least a semi-successful deck and I’ll need
someone to walk me through why it isn’t going to be
playing Bench-sitter for some really annoying ones in
Standard, probably in Expanded as well. If you
pull the full Evolution line in Limited, go for it, even
if it is just a 1-1-1 and you don’t want to run any
Water Energy for it to attack with because it can
boost a lot of your weaker Basic attackers to
threatening range. Unless you pull a Basic
Pokémon-EX worth running by its lonesome.
Ratings
Standard:
3.5/5
Expanded:
3.3/5
Limited:
4.8/5
Summary:
While not might in and of itself, with what it can do
for other Basic attackers, especially the ones that
aren’t as easy to boost more than once seems ripe with
potential. Empoleon is something to experiment
with and eventually I think to go for some wins.
For my own list, I had Empoleon as my number one
pick because I kept seeing Seismitoad-EX
returning to the forefront. We’ll see if my phobia
made for a foolish prediction.
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