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And
now... Cthulhu!
Okay,
not really. Ignoring the hankering I have not to
play some Pokéthulhu, let us look at Malamar (XY:
Black Star Promos XY58). Of course it is a
Darkness-Type (it is the week’s theme after all) and
even though we have been seeing some strong
Darkness-Type decks in the recent Autumn Regional
Championships, the Type itself doesn’t strike me as
overly strong. It isn’t bad, but it is merely
“good” and not “great”: only a portion of Psychic-Types
are Darkness Weak, all Fairy-Types are Darkness
Resistant, there are actual anti-Darkness-Type cards
(though they aren’t any good) but the main thing is that
while the Darkness-Type contains potent cards, most are
not new or flat out old: Yveltal-EX, Shadow
Circle, Darkrai-EX, Dark Patch and a
few others, but steadily growing weaker or less
significant. There is no Darkness-Type based
Supporter and while that might seem picky, it has been a
good deal for several Types and shows us how much better
the Type could be.
As a
Stage 1 it Evolves from Inkay and requires a two
card investment and a turn of waiting to Evolve, or a
three card investment for no turn of waiting (like
Wally). Basics are better, but the other
Stages really aren’t and you can still make good use of
a Stage 1. Its 90 HP is small - few decks will
fail to OHKO it at least one of rapidly, reliably and/or
repeatedly, though against an incomplete set-up or
something attacking for the effect and not the damage,
it could still survive. Don’t count on that
against the Fighting-Type; most serious Fighting-Type
attackers need a single buff to get into OHKO range, and
it's a type that specializes in just that. The
Psychic Resistance only shaves off -20 damage per hit
from that Type; it won’t save you a lot, but it can come
in handy some of the time. The Retreat Cost of [CC]
is low enough you’ll often be able to pay and recovering
from paying it, but it is high enough you’ll be better
off including something to lower the cost or bypass
manually retreating entirely. With Darkrai-EX
being on Type, that seems like a safe bet, perhaps with
a Keldeo-EX if you are really worried.
Malamar
must like variety: it has an Ancient Trait, an Ability
and an attack. The Ancient Trait is “Θ Stop”,
which protects Malamar from the effects of
opposing Abilities done to it. Not a major
benefit, but in key match-ups it can be pretty handy.
The Ability is “Contrary” and it’s a doozy: while
Malamar is your Active Pokémon all coin flips made
by your opponent are treated as “tails”. Nothing
about it only applying to one or only applying to flips
for attacks or any of the usual restrictions.
While some decks have very few coin flips, others have
many with the typical deck having at least a few (often
important) ones. This seems pretty spiffy and with
Θ Stop on top of it, a card like Wobbuffet (XY:
Phantom Forces 36/119) and its “Bide Barrier” won’t
turn off Contrary. For [DCC] you can use its
attack “Conform” which does 40 points of damage and if
your hand is the same size as your opponent’s, the
opposing Active is Confused. This is a pretty poor
attack with its low damage for the Energy invested, but
with Contrary (and Θ Stop protecting Contrary) your
opponent will fail their Confusion check… unless they
simply rid themselves of Confusion and/or force
something else up front.
Malamar
needs to Evolve from Inkay and we’ve got five
options spanning six releases, all of which are both
Standard and Expanded legal: XY: Kalos Starter Set
18/39 (with McDonald’s Collection 2014 6/12 being
a reprint of it), XY 74/146, XY 75/146,
XY: Roaring Skies 41/108 and XY: Ancient Origins
45/98. All are Darkness-Type Basic Pokémon with
Fighting Weakness, Psychic Resistance, Retreat Cost [C],
no Ancient Traits and at least one attack; XY: Kalos
Starter Set 18/39 and XY 74/146 have 60 HP
while the rest have just 50. XY: Kalos Starter Set
18/39 has a single attack (Peck) for [D] that does 10
damage. XY 74/146 is the only one with an
Ability (Upside-Down Evolution) that states once per
turn if it is Confused, you may search your deck for a
card that Evolves from itself and Evolve it (which
counts as Evolving for game purposes). For [D]
it’s “Confusion Wave” attack Confuses both itself and
the opponent’s Active. XY 75/146 can “Tackle”
for [C], hitting for 10 damage or “Puncture” for [DC] to
do 20 damage that isn’t affected by Resistance. XY:
Roaring Skies 41/108 also has two attacks: “Rip Off”
allows you shuffle a random card from your opponent’s
hand (that he or she must reveal to you) back into his
or her deck for [D], and “Psybeam” for [DC] which does
20 damage to and (on a successful coin toss) Confuses
the opponent’s Active.
That
just leaves XY: Ancient Origins 45/98. It
has “Ink Spit” for [D] to hit for 10 damage and place a
condition on the Defending Pokémon; if it tries to
attack the next turn your opponent has to flip a coin
and if “tails” the attack does nothing. Now which
one should you use? While 60 HP is better than 50,
it isn’t a large enough advantage to be the only factor;
this card’s job is to Evolve so the versions with
attacks that make them harder to KO (in this case, all
by messing with your opponent’s Pokémon) are desirable,
though remember that attacking at all with something you
want to Evolve is usually only acceptable on your first
turn (if even then). Fortunately XY 74/146
gives us both the 60 HP and an attack that can help
protect it (by Confusing both Active Pokémon).
Normally hitting itself would be a drawback, but it
contains an Ability that helps it Evolve if it manages
to survive its time in the Active spot and if it is
Confused during your turn. It actually was
interesting enough that it got its own review
here.
There
are three other Malamar to choose from: XY
76/146, XY 77/146 and XY: Ancient Origins
46/98. All are Stage 1 Darkness-Type Pokémn with
Fighting Weakness, Psychic Resistance, no Ancient
Traits, no Abilities but two attacks. XY 76/146
has 100 HP and a Retreat Cost of [C]. For [D] it’s
“Mental Trash” attack has your opponent flip four coins;
for each “tails” your opponent must discard a card from
hand (or all if he or she has less). For a
familiar [DCC] it can use “Distortion Beam” to hit for
30 damage and flip a coin; on “heads” the opponent’s
Active is Asleep and on “tails” it is Confused. It
was reviewed
here
during my last absence from the review crew. XY
77/146 also has 100 HP, this time with a Retreat Cost of
[CC]. For [C] it can use “Mental Panic” to place a
condition on the Defending Pokémon so that the opponent
must flip a coin if it attacks the next turn: “tails”
fails. Like most such effects, this can be reset
in the usual ways (leaving and returning to the Bench,
from the field entirely or by Evolving). For [DDC]
it can use “Puncture” to hit for 70 damage while
ignoring Resistance. It was reviewed right after
the other one
here,
again without me. XY: Ancient Origins 46/98 has
90 HP with a Retreat Cost of [C]. For [C] it can
use “Entangling Control” to force one of your opponent’s
Benched Pokémon into the Active slot while also leaving
it Confused. For [D] it can use “Trash Tentacle”
to put a card from your discard pile into your hand.
We haven’t reviewed this one and no, it isn’t scheduled
for tomorrow.
None of
the other Malamar have panned out (and I don’t
expect XY: Ancient Origins 46/98 to break the
trend). While they have some solid effects, they
are on smallish Stage 1 Pokémon and in the form of
attacks; you can only get away with being that kind of
attacker when you have some form of protection, are
hitting disproportionately hard and/or engaging in a
serious level of control against the opponent so they
can’t hit you back (or at least not hard). None of
these qualify, plus today’s promo version needs to be
Active for its Ability to work which means these clash
with it pretty violently. So how could you use
Malamar (XY: Black Star Promos XY58)? I
am not sure if you should; Contrary can be downright
scary but an Escape Rope, Lysandre or
similar effect means your opponent can get around it,
and some very strong decks have few or no coin flips to
spoil. Still you could try it in a porter style
deck; using the hit-and-run tactics of something like
Gengar-EX to actually score some decent damage,
perhaps with Munna (BW: Boundaries Crossed
68/149) or Hypnotoxic Laser or the other methods
of inflicting Sleep or Confusion from the Bench (those
two are just the easiest to fit in and yes are only
examples of Sleep). That is a lot to work into a
deck alongside Gengar-EX though, just a 1-1 line
of Malamar might fit into the existing versions
(with a far less reliable return).
As such
I think this card does have some potential in Standard
and Expanded, but I’m not sure how to effectively tap
it. It can be a nightmare for certain coin flip
heavy decks but if the flips aren’t central to the
strategy and/or frequent, it might not even be a
nuisance. It isn’t legal for Limited, where it
would have otherwise been a fearsome pull unless the
hypothetical set with a re-release lacked an Inkay
just with its built in tricks.
Ratings
Standard:
2.25/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
Malamar (XY: Black Star Promos XY58) is an
interesting card that makes my inner-Johnny go crazy
trying to calculate intricate combos but my but
not-so-inner-Spike points out that most are losing
propositions for competitive play. It does a bit
better in Standard because for now Professor Birch
is seeing usage and so yeah, having that automatically
be a “shuffle and draw four” card is a bit more
threatening. If we see some nasty general usage,
staple level coin flip based cards where “tails” is
really unpleasant (unlike Hypnotoxic Laser
where it just means no Sleep) or similarly coin flip
reliant deck rise to the top, this might be the answer.
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