aroramage |
Alright, something to get excited
about! A giant flaming moth!!
...yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Volcarona's always been a cool
Pokemon, and in the games he's a reasonably powerful
Pokemon too - great special stats offset by lower
physical stats and an okay Typing of Bug/Fire. Of
course, if Volcarona ever took advantage of his
Bug-typing in the TCG, he might benefit from it quite a
bit more, especially given the appearance of Forest of
Giant Plants. Let us lament our brethren in arms
that...aren't our brethren in arms cause of Typing.
On the other hand, did you need a
means of setting something up? Because this Volcarona
can actually work out even in a Grass deck! No, not with
Flamethrower, which isn't that good anyway. 2-for-60 and
discard an Energy? Yeah no thanks. I'd rather just
attach the 1 Energy of ANY Type I want and use it on Sun
Birth!
Sun Birth is essentially "set up a
Basic Pokemon on your Bench" the attack, drawing out any
Basic Pokemon and putting it down. The best part is that
you're not restricted to choose regular Basics either,
so you can actually bring out a Pokemon-EX straight from
the deck onto your Bench - easy play! What's more, you
get to attach 2 basic Energy from your deck straight to
the Pokemon you just played, meaning not only did you
bring out your main Pokemon - you've got it powered up
enough to attack the moment you put it in the active
slot! That's an instant Seismitoad-EX, Lucario-EX,
Rayquaza-EX, Sceptile-EX, Manectric-EX - whatever Basic
you want, it's golden!
With that said though, Volcarona is
not a perfectly flawless Pokemon. He's still a Stage 1,
meaning you have to evolve a Larvesta on your field
first, and without the Typing or the Delta Evolution
trait, you will have to do this over the course of two
turns - the first to put Larvesta down, and the second
to evolve it into Volcarona. Of course, you can make
this go by faster with Evosoda, drawing out a Volcarona
from the deck, or better yet you can use Wally to evolve
him right away regardless, put down an Energy, and
(assuming you haven't gone first) use Sun Birth for an
instant set-up! There is also the slight problem with
Volcarona being Active, and while it only costs the 1
Energy to retreat, you are counting on your opponent to
not KO Volcarona early on.
In short, Volcarona's a somewhat
slow set-up card but a means of quickly setting up a new
attacker. He's not going to be the last Pokemon you'll
play, but he's not easily going to be the first one you
put out. There's a lot of ways to make sure he works out
just right in the deck though, but it really depends on
how much space you've got to work with - and if you can
make him work, you won't be disappointed with the
results!
...well, unless you run something
like Magnezone-EX...but why would you.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (a fairly good if
slow set-up for your big attacker - could run very well
in the right deck build!)
Expanded: 3/5 (got a lot of wiggle
room to work with, though it gets harder to sort him
somewhere here)
Limited: 4/5 (instant Basic ready
to roll? absolutely! heck, you could pull Sun Birth off
twice if you wanted to!)
Arora Notealus: Seriously
Volcarona's got such a cool concept behind his design!
Fiery moth, mythological elements, the only Bug/Fire
Pokemon aside from his pre-evo in existence - golden!
Like his shiny form! Such cool stuff~
Next Time: Through a new means of
evolution, the distant past comes back to
life!!......again!!
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Otaku |
Today we look
at Volcarona (XY: Ancient Origins 17/98).
This is a Fire-Type, allowing it to tap some decent-ish
support, hit nearly all Grass- and Metal-Type Pokémon
for Weakness, never worry about Resistance and if there
are any anti-Fire-Type cards in the legal card pool, I
still am overlooking them. All in all, I’d say it is
alright with more potential depending on the metagame.
Being a Stage 1 is means taking an extra turn and an
extra card to get into play as compared to a Basic
Pokémon, but only Basic Pokémon have it easier and if
you care to invest a Wally you can get a Stage 1
into play in a single turn (even a player’s first turn).
Being a Stage 1 isn’t good, but neither is it bad. 100
HP is a bit disappointing, and not just in the usual
way; it isn’t big enough to be likely to survive a hit
and if it were just 10 HP smaller, Level Ball
would be an option. Water Weakness matters mostly
because of Seismitoad-EX because it is still
seeing successful play and with a Muscle Band it
gets a OHKO instead of a 2HKO. The lack of Resistance
is repetitive, so I’ll keep up the deja vu and move
straight to the Retreat Cost of [C], which is pretty
good as it is easy to pay and to recover from having
paid.
Volcarona has neither an Ability nor a an
Ancient Trait but instead brings two attacks to the
table: for [C] it can use “Solar Birth” and for [RC] it
can use “Flamethrower”. The latter is pretty typical of
Fire-Types and not very good: 60 damage plus you must
discard an Energy from Volcarona. Still in a
pinch it can be useful. What netted the card a review
is Solar Birth because it allows you to search out a
Basic Pokémon from your deck and Bench it, then
search your deck for up to two Basic Energy and attach
them to said Basic Pokémon. Attack based Energy
acceleration on a Stage 1 isn’t brilliant, but two of
any Energy for any Basic Pokémon and no other
restrictions might actually be useful.
Taking a step
back, let us look at Larvesta. You can pick from
BW: Noble Victories 19/101, BW: Noble
Victories 20/101, BW: Dark Explorers 20/108,
BW: Dark Explorers 21/108, BW: Plasma Blast
12/101 and XY: Ancient Origins 16/98 in Expanded
play, but only that last one is Standard legal. All are
Fire-Type Basic Pokémon with Water Weakness, no
Resistance, no Abilities and no Ancient Traits. BW:
Noble Victories 19/101 has 70 HP, a Retreat Cost of
[CC] and just one attack (Ember) that needs [R] to do 20
damage and flip a coin, with “tails” resulting in
discarding an Energy from itself. BW: Noble
Victories 20/101 has 80 HP, a Retreat Cost of [CC]
and its “Takedown” attack also costs [CC], doing 30
damage to the opponent’s Active and 10 damage to itself.
BW: Dark Explorers 20/108 also has 80 HP, this
time with a Retreat Cost of [CCC] and two attacks: for
[CC] it can use “Ram” to hit for 20 damage and for [RRC]
it can use “Flare” to hit for 40. BW: Dark Explorers
21/108 has only 60 HP with a Retreat Cost of [C] and a
single attack (Super Singe) for [RC]; Super Singe does
10 damage and Burns the opponent’s Active. BW:
Plasma Blast 12/101 is back up to 70 HP and a
Retreat Cost of [CCC], with the attacks “Flare” and
“Ember”: the former does 10 damage for [R] while the
latter does 30 for [RC] and requires you discard an
Energy attached to itself. Last for the Larvesta
is XY: Ancient Origins 16/98, sporting 70 HP, a
Retreat Cost of [CC] and a single attack (Combustion)
for [RC] which hits for 30 damage. When available, I’d
go with one of the 80 HP versions.
For
Volcarona we don’t have quite as many options:
BW: Noble Victories 21/101, BW: Dark Explorers
22/108 (also released as BW: Black Star Promo
BW40), BW: Plasma Blast 13/101 and XY: Ancient
Origins 18/98. Again only that last one is Standard
legal. All are Stage 1 Fire-Types with Water Weakness
and no Resistance. BW: Noble Victories 21/101
has 110 HP, a Retreat Cost of [C] and two attacks: for
[R] it can use “Fiery Dance” to attach a Basic Energy
card from your discard pile to one of your Benched
Pokémon and for [RCC] it can use Heat Wave to do 60
damage and Burn the opponent’s Active. BW: Dark
Explorers 22/108 also has 110 HP but with a Retreat
Cost of [CCC], an Ability (Scorching Scales) and attack
(Burning Wind). Scorching Scales has your opponent
place four damage counters instead of two when failing a
Burn check while Burning Wind does 70 and gives you the
option of discarding an Energy from itself; doing it
means you also Burn the opponent’s Active. BW:
Plasma Blast 13/101 is a 100 HP Team Plasma Pokémon
with a Retreat Cost of [C], the attack “Solar
Transporter” for [C] - reveals Top five cards of your
deck; Team Plasma cards go to your hand while everything
else goes to the discard pile - and “Leech Life for
[RRC] - does 50 damage and heals Volcarona by the
amount of damage done. XY: Ancient Origins 18/98
has 110 HP and Retreat Cost of [CC]. It bears the
Ancient Trait “Θ Stop”, protecting it from your
opponent’s Abilities as well as two attacks: for [R] it
can use “Burning Scales” to do 20+, where the “plus” is
flipping two coins good for an additional 20 damage per
“heads” or use “Wind Wheel” for [RCC] to hit for 80 then
force your opponent to send up a new Active (your
opponent chooses).
We’ve got older
reviews for
BW:
Noble Victories 21/101,
BW: Dark Explorers 22/108 and
BW:
Plasma Blast 13/101 you can reference, but the older they
are the less likely they are to prove relevant to the
present other than showing that we weren’t sure if they
would prove significant back and so far they never have.
XY: Ancient Origins 18/98 seems likely to join
them; neither attack does anything really worth the
effort of running a Stage 1, especially as there are
Basic Fire-Types that can do a better job. Even Θ Stop
can’t offer it enough of a boost. Today’s version won’t
get any useful support out of these but at least it
won’t be competing against them either. So, how do you
use Volcarona (XY: Ancient Origins 17/98)
effectively? I don’t know about some secret (or
not-so-secret) successful deck for it, but the basic
premise would be to get it out ASAP (Wally) so
that it can set-up a Basic Pokémon with two basic Energy
attached. It might be a Basic you hope to safely Evolve
(...probably not the best idea though) or it might be
something you hope to attack with next turn (still a bit
of a risk) but especially with a few Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) to help out, it seems
at least plausible. As the speed boost isn’t huge
unless your can use Solar Birth more than once or
are setting up something with a normally
awkward/expensive Energy cost, you can kind of narrow
down some choices.
So that pretty
much covers Standard and Expanded; it might seem like a
bit of a cheat but without a lot of hard data I can only
go with the usual: if there is nothing that specifically
combos, competes with or counters it, then it does just
as well in Expanded as in the Standard Format. For
Limited, the downside is it is a Stage 1 so you’ll need
at least one Larvesta but the effect is well
worth it due to the lack of other resources and tools
for set-up. Plus it is even decent attacking for damage
here!
Ratings
Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 3/5
Limited: 4.75/5
Summary: Making myself look like a fool, I have
to confess I am most likely overrating this card, but
though I can’t think of a good combo partner, it just
seems like too useful a combo for so many cards that
lack something better for Energy acceleration. Not
something to bank on winning Worlds with, Volcarona
is definitely something to test; at the very least so
you aren’t surprised when someone decides to use it just
for fun (even though it is a tournament) or as part of
their super-secret-awesome deck that actually isn’t all
that good but will still steal a win if you don’t
quickly grasp how it works.
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