aroramage |
...okay, I'm not gonna lie, I think
Gengar's probably the scariest card in the entire set.
Maybe it's the scary face he's making, or maybe it's got
something to do with what HE does with damage counters.
I mean, maybe I've just got a thing with Pokemon that do
scary things with little damage, see M Tyranitar-EX as a
good example.
I mean, Sinister Fog is a pretty
decent 1-Energy attack. It can deal up to 50 (or even
80) damage to your opponent's side of the field, not to
mention it can Poison the opposing Active Pokemon. I'd
appreciate it a little more if it did some damage, but
all things considered, he's already doing a lot with
that, and he's not even up to his second attack yet:
Creep Show.
Creep Show is a special kind of
attack. With 2 Energy onboard, Gengar can use this
sinister attack. And what does it do? Well, you remember
when I was mentioning M Tyranitar-EX and the scary
things he can do with little damage? Keep in mind, M
Tyranitar-EX could do more damage based on every
increment of damage an opponent already had on them.
Creep Show simplifies this: if your
opponent's Active Pokemon has 3 or more damage counters,
KO them.
That's it.
Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't
matter who it is - if it's got 30 damage, it's done.
Creep Show ends it all.
The real trick is to keep Gengar
around long enough to inflict the mere 30 damage.
Course, there's using Team Magma's Secret Base, but
there's also the usage of Faded Town on Megas and the
Crobat line-up, while a bit clunky, is always an easy
set of damage spread around. Tack on the occasional
Dimension Valley, and Creep Show will only cost you a
single Energy to KO anything you want, and that's
already a better deal than M Tyranitar-EX's Destroyer
King.
Though it is on a Stage 2, so
really it's almost like pick your poison.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (a fast easy KO
that only needs a little extra set-up to make it work
easily)
Expanded: 4/5 (combine Sinister Fog
with HTL and/or Virbank, and Gengar could be a very
potent threat)
Limited: 5/5 (sure, it's a whole
turn to wait with Sinister Fog to be effective, but hey,
unless they Float Stone their Active out, you're
golden!)
Arora Notealus: Just...*shudder*
dat face tho.
Next Time:
GIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRL POWERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
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Otaku |
Gengar
(XY: BREAKthrough 60/162) is the top of the
bottom half of our list. So what is our number six
pick like?
No surprise as it’s a Ghost/Poison Type in the video
games, Gengar is a Psychic-Type once again in the
TCG. Even when Poison was part of the Grass-Type,
even when we had δ Species Pokémon that weren’t their
normal Type, Gengar has been a Psychic-Type.
Peeking ahead, this Pokémon does no damage and neither
does its lower Stages so we won’t worry about what is
Weak to or Resists the Psychic-Type. There are
only four cards that specifically refer to Psychic-Type
Pokémon and all are support for the Type and the
important one for this review is Dimension Valley,
a Stadium that shaves [C] off of the attack cost for
Psychic-Types. It is one of or perhaps simply the
best Type-specific Stadium available right now.
There are some solid Pokémon out there that are
Psychic-Types and work better with Psychic support but
aren’t dependant upon it to further boost the type, so
in the end, it is somewhat good to be a Psychic-Type.
Being a Stage 2 has a lot involved but is depressingly
simple; it is a serious hurdle for a card to overcome as
unless it is one of the few cards with a worthwhile
Basic and Stage 1 option (or at least Basic and Rare
Candy) or able to access significant Evolution
acceleration, it means the Pokémon in question will be
“slow” and “resource intensive”... which actually just
means not as insanely fast or easy to play as the
dominant Basic-Types. It also means the 130 HP
could be an issue; it isn’t a small score, only 30 below
the max printed on Stage 2 Pokémon but it’s only just
outside of the current typical commonly sized attack
range. To be precise about being imprecise, I
should say my guesstimate of said range, which seems to
be 90 to 120 damage. The harder hitting attacks
will score a OHKO and only the weaker attacks will avoid
a 2HKO. Well until we factor in Weakness and
Resistance. Darkness Weakness is terrible,
allowing Yveltal-EX to easily score a OHKO and
even some of the supporting Darkness-Type attackers
wreak havoc that much more easily. The Fighting
Weakness can help annoy Fighting-Types, though more than
one of them has an effect to just ignore Resistance
anyway, and -20 will only up the durability to the the
point where weaker big attacks (130 and 140 point blows)
will barely whiff on the OHKO. I do love that
perfect free Retreat Cost, though!
Gengar
has no Ancient Trait or Ability, just two attacks:
“Sinister Fog” and “Creep Show”, which are great names!
The former costs only [P] while the latter needs just
[PC]: Dimension Valley would mean both would work
for just [P]. Sinister Fog Poisons the opponent’s
Active as well as placing a damage counter on each of
their Benched Pokémon; barring various protective
effects (though far fewer than if this was doing damage
and not placing damage counters), all of your opponent’s
Pokémon will have a damage counter on them before your
opponent’s turn begins. Not bad but not enough to
warrant playing Gengar. Creep Show makes
things interesting; if your opponent’s Active already
has at least three damage counters on it, it is KO'd by
the effect of the attack. No damage or even
further damage counter placement is done, the KO just
happens via fiat and is much more difficult to block
because of it. Creep Show is why you might give
Gengar a shot.
So what about Gastly and Haunter?
The only options are XY: BREAKthrough 58/162 and
XY: BREAKthrough 59/162, respectively. Both
are have the same Type, Weakness, Resistance and lack of
Ancient Trait as Gengar, but each has a Retreat
Cost of [C]. Gastly is a 50 HP Basic with a
single attack - “Sleep Poison” that costs [P] and
inflicts both Sleep and Poison on the opponent’s Active,
but only with a successful coin flip; “tails” does
nothing. While Sleep can help keep it alive, it is
disappointing that the cost isn’t just [C] (so that
Dimension Valley would zero it out) and that it
requires a coin flip instead of being automatic; after
all there will be a 50% chance of Sleep going away on
its own between turns. At the very least, one of
these ought to have been different and that is without
getting into my “Evolving Basics need to do more!” kick.
Haunter
actually does more though. Not in the attributes
department; it is still a Stage 1 and only has 70 HP,
which is seems even lower for Evolving Stage 1 forms
than the 50 HP of Gastly is for Basics and the
130 HP is for Gengar, though by actual numbers,
it isn’t. It has an Ability that you may use when
you Evolve one of your in play Pokémon into itself; if
you wish both Active Pokémon are Confused. Not as
good as if it only hit the opponent’s Active (though
this does open up a few potential combos, though not
ones I’d recommend), but it is far better than the usual
filler on an Evolving Stage 1. The attack is
“Poison Ring” for [PC] and it actually combos with the
Ability and with Gengar itself as it
Poisons the opponent’s Active and prevents it from
retreating during your opponent’s next turn.
So put it all together: you’ve got to run Gastly
but just deal with its underwhelming nature, but
Haunter gives an easy to inflict Special Condition
that hits both Active (making the fact that it is easy
to deal with both good and bad for it) and an attack
that adds a second Special Condition while removing a
normal, manual retreat as a means of dealing with
either… all before you get to the main Stage 1 that has
attacks no more expensive than that of the lower Stages
which can do some solid spread or if enough damage
counters are present, go for a KO. Did I mention
the lower Stages inflict not only Special Conditions,
but ones that place damage counters? The main
issue is what to run with the Gengar line. Dimension
Valley is the most likely Stadium (Virbank City
Gym is tempting as well in Expanded) and something
to spread damage to help set-up for Creep Show, with the
rest being pretty typical support. Crobat (XY:
Phantom Forces 33/119) places that much with its
“Surprise Bite” Ability and its “Skill Dive” attack, but
another Stage 2 line is clunky. Either a different
opening attacker to spread some damage around or perhaps
Forretress (XY: Flashfire 60/106). Forretress
is a Stage 1 and it only places a single damage counter
on everything, but it isn’t too bad to spam.
The main difference between Expanded and Standard is
that less competition (even at the cost of less
potential support) most likely favors Gengar
here. If you pull this card in Limited, unless you
fail to pull the lower Stages or get a Basic Pokémon-EX
that precludes running any other Basics in your deck,
you should run even a 1-1-1 Gengar line, plus a
few (probably just 3 to 5) Psychic Energy cards.
It just offers so much for so little here.
Ratings
Standard:
3.35/5
Expanded:
3.15/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Summary:
Gengar looks like a fun card that uses some
interesting tricks; auto KO effects are scary, even when
they’ve got conditions. It doesn’t need a lot of
Energy and even has a somewhat useful Stage 1, though as
a Stage 2 it still will be slow and a bit awkward
compared to the rest of the metagame. Still it
might be enough to compete.
Gengar
was my seventh place pick, so one higher is pretty
reasonable. The only real qualms are that a few of
the earlier cards have outscored it, and I already
accepted that was “my bad”.
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