aroramage |
...ah...I see.
Well, this oughta be quick.
Primal Kyogre-EX here is one of the
Theta Reprints mentioned in last week's review of
Primal Groudon-EX. I did a more
generalized cover of my thoughts on the Theta Reprints,
saying Primal Groudon-EX's was personally the best one.
Primal Kyogre-EX on the other hand
is the worst.
Yes, Theta Max heals all your
health. Yes, that can be absolutely useful at a critical
moment. No, it doesn't have synergy with Primal Kyogre-EX's
Tidal Storm attack, and while you're not using up two
Energy a turn to keep Primal Kyogre-EX powered-up,
you're also not replenishing your Energy quickly without
stuff like Mega Turbo hanging around.
The original Primal Kyogre-EX was
more designed around the Alpha Growth trait, which means
if you're going to be running the Theta Reprint, you're
going to have to use an equally fast and consistent
means of circulating the Energy around each turn. Either
that or you need to start running Shrine of Memories so
Primal Kyogre-EX HAS an attack (borrowing it off of your
regular Kyogre-EX's Water Pulse, most likely).
Certainly, one could argue the
disadvantages of either - Alpha Growth requires you to
have more Energy in hand ready to go while Theta Max
doesn't fuel up your Primal Kyogre-EX anywhere near as
fast as Alpha Growth would on its own. So it really
comes down to a matter of resources and what you're able
to use to refuel Primal Kyogre-EX here. Mega Turbo's
probably your best bet to do so, retrieving an Energy
from the discard pile to Primal Kyogre-EX and working
well enough in conjunction with your regular attachment,
but that's only got 4 uses at most.
So the real question is - can you
afford having to use up to 4 Mega Turbos for one Primal
Kyogre-EX? Chances are you could arguably get away with
it, seeing as your opponent will probably be working
just as fast to KO Primal Kyogre-EX than you will be
powering it up, but keep in mind Theta Max only works on
evolving rather than just being an active Trait like
Alpha Growth.
Arguable strengths and weaknesses,
but compared to the original, this Primal Kyogre-EX is a
mere imitation.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (the loss of Alpha
Growth can be reasonably circumvented through stuff like
Mega Turbo, but don't rely on it as your main attacker -
that's what the original Primal Kyogre-EX is for)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (again,
supplemented by things like Blastoise being prevalent)
Limited: 1/5 (once again, no Kyogre-EX
means no play for this guy)
Arora Notealus: Boy I hope people
don't mistake the two of these guys. I mean, hopefully
the Ancient Trait box being a different color makes it
more obvious, but the two are remarkably similar in
color and positioning, at least in terms of the Full Art
version. Luckily, there's no regular version of the
Theta Reprint, but that's always something that bugged
me about the coloration for Primal Kyogre shiny - it's
almost too similar to the original! At least the shiny
Kyogre is an obvious purplish-pinkish thing!
Next Time: Back to some
more...um...well I can't really say "normal"
legendaries.
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Otaku |
We begin this
week of reviews with another “not quite” reprint,
Primal Kyogre-EX (XY: Ancient Origins 96/98)
as it has only one significant difference from Primal
Kyogre-EX (XY: Primal Clash 55/160, 149/160).
Our
original review had it as the top card of its set; did it live up to that? Being
a Water-Type hits the Weakness on almost all Fire-Types
and a chunk of Fighting-Types. The Water-Type has some
nice support but not as much as many other Types, at
least of the exclusive support that only works
for Water-Type Pokémon. We haven’t seen actual Water
Resistance on anything released in the XY-era but it was
found on many Grass-Types in the BW-era releases and
while it hasn’t seen much success, there are some
anti-Water-Type cards. I’d skip them for not being
overly relevant but with embarrassment I realize that
the example I know off the top of my head is Hariyama
(XY: Furious Fists 52/111) which also is
that example of an anti-Fire-Type card I was struggling
to recall in three out of five reviews last week: its
Ability (Thick Fat) reduces the damage it takes from
both Water and Fire-Types by 30 points of damage. Vaporeon
(XY: Ancient Origins 22/98) is still new enough
that I am uncertain how it affects the value of
Water-Types: does it open up new combos with the Stage 1
Pokémon it can make into Water-Types or does it create
more competition and thus lessen the value of
“naturally” being a Water-Type (especially for Stage 1
cards, though that detail is irrelevant here).
For now, being
a “Primal Reversion” has no game significance. Being a
Mega Evolution does have a lot of significance and
includes being a Pokémon-EX, so I’ll start with what
that entails: Pokémon-EX are allowed (but not
guaranteed) to have better attributes and effects than
their non-Pokémon-EX counterparts at the cost of giving
up an extra Prize when KOed (the main drawback), being
negatively affected by other cards specifically because
of being a Pokémon-EX (matters often enough, especially
in Expanded) and being unable to use certain beneficial
effects because they specifically exclude working for
Pokémon-EX (which so far has almost never mattered).
Being a Mega Evolution seems to increase the allowable
benefits for attributes and effects but adds the
drawback of needing cards cards to get into play (the
usual Evolution versus Basic problem) with the
additional problem of your turn ending when you Mega
Evolve. There are ways around both; as a Water-Type you
can use Archie’s Ace in the Hole to bypass Mega
Evolving, Benching a Primal Kyogre-EX directly
from your discard pile. That usually requires a deck
built around it as Archie’s Ace in the Hole
states it must be the only card in your hand in order to
be able to use it (plus you need a legal target in the
discard pile and open spot on your Bench). The other
bypass is to use Kyogre Spirit Link, a Pokémon
Tool with the lone effect of preventing your turn from
ending when you Mega Evolve, which isn’t a huge hurdle
but has the usual Pokémon Tool drawbacks: showing up at
the right time, getting discarded before it can be used,
taking up a Pokémon’s “tool slot” and potentially being
negated.
Primal Kyogre-EX has 240 HP; the only thing with a
higher printed HP is Wailord-EX with the next
highest non-Mega Evolution plunging to 190. Nothing is
safe from being OHKOed, but 240 is fairly resilient; if
an opposing deck can score a OHKO it probably won’t be
able to do so rapidly, reliably and repeatedly.
Grass-Types will find the OHKO much easier due to
Weakness. You can click
here to see the results of the the Top 8
finishers for each age bracket at each of the first
weekend’s regional championships (I assume the results
for the second weekend will also eventually be added).
I bring it up because if the second weekend is similar,
the Grass-Type presence is far less than I expected,
though it does also not non-existent. So if this holds
true it is a pretty “average” Weakness overall. Primal
Kyogre-EX lacks a Resistance which is technically
the worst but quite common. Its Retreat Cost is [CCCC],
which is quite expensive; make sure your deck packs
alternatives to manually retreating it at full price or
is capable of dealing with being up front, potentially
when otherwise totally unprepared.
Primal Kyogre-EX (XY: Ancient Origins 96/98) has
the Ancient Trait “Θ Max”, which removes all damage
counters from it when you Mega Evolve one of your in
play Pokémon into it. So for starters, that means it
won’t work with Archie’s Ace in the Hole; not a
deal breaker also not without consequence. Otherwise it
seems to be a solid Ancient Trait; not the best but far
from useless. Primal Kyogre-EX (XY: Primal
Clash 55/160, 149/160) has “α Growth”, which
triggers when you attach an Energy card from hand to
itself; it allows you to attach another Energy card
immediately to itself. That is most useful because this
card has an expensive attack, requiring [WWWC], called
“Tidal Storm”. It hits the opponent’s Active for 150
damage and each Pokémon-EX on the opponent’s Bench (if
there are any) for 30 points of damage as well plus
you must move two Energy cards from Primal
Kyogre-EX to one of your Benched Pokémon unless you
have no Bench; if you only have something immune
to the effects of attacks like Suicune (BW:
Plasma Blast 20/101) you still have to move the
Energy, at which point Safeguard blocks its attachment
and the Energy is discarded. Tidal Storm can make for a
pretty solid “streaming” of Energy once it gets going,
but it needs to because it isn’t creating some sort of
fast lock effect or doing enough damage to steamroll the
opposition (like most currently competitive decks).
While healing is nice, without α Growth you’ll need
other forms of Energy acceleration like Mega Turbo
or run something like Blastoise (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 31/149, BW: Plasma Storm
137/135, BW: Plasma Blast 16/101). In fact even
with α Growth you’ll likely want one or the other.
So how about
regular Kyogre-EX? In Expanded you have two
options: BW: Dark Explorers 26/108 (and 104/108)
or XY: Primal Clash 54/160 (or 148/160 or XY:
Black Star Promo XY41). Both are Water-Type Basic
Pokémon-EX with no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CCCC], no
Ability, no Ancient Trait and two attacks. BW: Dark
Explorers 26/108 has 170 HP with Lightning Weakness.
Its first attack is “Smash Turn” for [WC], hitting for
30 damage with the option of moving Kyogre-EX to
your Bench. Its second attack is “Dual Splash” for
[WWC] and it allows you to select two of your opponent’s
Pokémon and hit them for 50 points of damage.
Here is the old review for it: we were not
kind. We also were not correct: in the super-short-run,
it proved quite useful to the Klinklang (Black
& White 76/114) decks of the time. It gave them a
Water-Type attacker (covering its Fire Weakness) and
something to hammer the Bench, but eventually that deck
lost steam and even though some still use it, I don’t
think you’d see either Kyogre-EX in there… but
apparently Jonathan Paranada took second place in the
Masters Division of the Phoenix, AZ 2015 Autumn Regional
Championship so I guess I am missing something. Maybe
setting up for Articuno (XY: Roaring Skies
17/108)?
In Standard you
don’t have a choice but to use XY: Primal Clash
54/160. It has 180 HP and Grass Weakness. It’s first
attack (Water Pulse) costs [WC] and hits for 30 while
leaving the Defending Pokémon Asleep; damage is a bit
low for the price but the effect may help you avoid
getting attacked on the next turn (if the opponent’s
Active doesn’t wake up on its own or with help). For
[WWCC] it can use “Giant Whirlpool” for 140 damage,
though the effect of the attack bounces two [W] Energy
cards from itself back to your hand. This is a good but
not great attack; bouncing Energy can be a huge drawback
though thankfully we’ve covered on some options (α
Growth or Mega Turbo to attach it to Primal
Kyogre-EX or using “Deluge” from Blastoise to
attach to anything) that can actually turn it into a
bonus as you can avoid losing the Energy to the discard
pile and reduce damage from attacks like “Evil Ball” (Yveltal-EX
is back to being a major player). In fact what keeps it
from being all that great of an attack is that for the
investment the damage falls in an awkward place for
something planning to Mega Evolve (and thus wanting a
Spirit Link attached). Even with a Muscle Band
it would have missed OHKOing most other Basic
Pokémon-EX, but even slamming into a Wailord-EX
using Giant Whirlpool is overill.
So the original
Primal Kyogre-EX did not live up to the
hype; right now it is an existing deck but hasn’t met
with much success, though enough not to completely count
it out. Even though I would have thought it a poor fit,
I’ve encountered people using it with Blastoise;
maybe they have nothing better to run with Blastoise
or don’t know what they are doing. Maybe these people
want a fallback option that won’t be crippled if
Abilities are disabled. Maybe they want the damage
spread against Pokémon-EX. I might risk XY: Ancient
Origins 96/98 in the deck, crazy though it sounds.
Between Tidal Storm, Deluge and Mega Turbo, it
is possible you’ll be able to power this version of
Primal Kyogre-EX up quickly enough to still be okay.
However while I said something similar about Primal
Groudon-EX (XY: Ancient Origins 97/98) the
case is stronger there. The short version is that it is
exactly how the two decks work that makes the
difference: healing up a Primal Kyogre-EX
shouldn’t be as big of a deal as for a Primal Groudon-EX,
and even with the alternate forms of Energy acceleration
available in the Primal Kyogre-EX deck, α Growth
just seems more important than Θ Max. Note that once
again in Limited play, XY: Ancient Origins lacks
a method of getting Primal Kyogre-EX into play.
Ratings
Standard: 2.5/5
Expanded: 2/5
Limited: 1/5
Summary: Primal Kyogre-EX isn’t
pointless, but this is probably the least useful of the
Θ Max alternates. The original Primal Kyogre-EX
hasn’t had anywhere near the success expected by
reviewers like myself (ouch!) so a tweaked version of it
needed to improve on the original, not just be a
potential niche alternate you consider as a single
alongside the original (if you run it at all).
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