aroramage |
Over the past couple of years or
so, there has been a large rise in anti-EX measures in
the face of the powerful Pokemon-EX - who for the
longest time have been the dominating force in the
metagame. Strategies have led to different results in
many ways - teching in stuff like Sigilyph and Suicune
into decks in order to keep Pokemon-EX at bay, and even
for a brief time there was Pyroar who stood in the face
of adversity and declared with a mighty roar, "NO!!"
Now, faced with even more powerful
opponents in the form of Megas, there can be only one
Pokemon to stand against them...and it's gotta be a
Pokemon-EX.
At least, I'm assuming that's what
the dramatic theme music was playing to in the
development boards at Pokemon HQ when they made Giratina-EX.
And then they decided to make Giratina-EX THE
ANTI-POKEMON!! Which, ya know, it's thematic. Makes
sense.
So what all does Giratina-EX...um..."anti-do?"
Well, for starters, there's his Ability Renegade Pulse,
which is the big "anti-Mega" on this card. It's
effectively Safeguard against Megas, so Giratina-EX is a
fairly relevant card in a sense. I mean, how many times
have you run into a deck with a Mega as its main
attacker, am I right? Of course, these kinds of decks
need a back-up attacker to get around such Safeguard-y
effects, and Giratina-EX leaves himself much more
vulnerable to the lower level Pokemon-EX than most
Safeguards.
Perhaps that's why his attack is
just as powerful. Chaos Wheel is a 4-for-100 strike that
has a bit of an awkward Grass-Psychic cost in addition
to the 2 Energy, but that can be supplemented fairly
easily with Double Dragon Energy (seriously, that needs
to be reprinted forever to make most Dragons playable).
And then there's the effect: your opponent will not be
able to use Tools, Special Energies, or Stadium cards
during their next turn.
Okay, so we've seen how effective
an attack like this can be with Seismitoad-EX and
Exeggutor having headed up two very powerful and
dominating moves. But why so open-ended with Giratina-EX?
Well probably because of the fact that this does deal
100 damage, versus Quaking Punch which only did 30
damage and Blockade which only does 10. Special Energies
and Stadiums seem to be a bit more relevant than the
Tools aspect, but think of it this way: you'll have your
Stadium safe for a turn, your opponent can't Mega Evolve
without ending their turn, and their ability to power up
their attacks slows down to just Basic Energy! Throw in
a Hex Maniac, and you've got a terrifying lock that
spreads across the tourney scene!
...well, I say throw in Hex Maniac,
but do be careful. We wouldn't want to lose Giratina-EX
at a bad time, would we?
Rating
Standard: 4.5/5 (he's highly
relevant in the scene with all the Megas around, and
he'll remain relevant for a good long time)
Expanded: 4/5 (as much as Megas
dominate the format, Giratina-EX will lose out to
Pokemon that still won't be able to touch the Safeguard
folk - but that doesn't mean he's bad by any means!)
Limited: 5/5 (...yes)
Arora Notealus: Man oh man, this
has been a long time coming! Giratina may have had
another EX in the past, but by comparison...well, I
guess it's reasonable. This Giratina-EX is much more
solid against Megas, and it instills a lockdown, but
with the release of Double Dragon Energy, the old
Giratina-EX is at least somewhat more playable.
...still not as good, since its
Shred can be done by a cheaper non-EX, and Dragon Pulse
is just bad, but still.
Next Time: Actually, come to think
of it, Giratina-EX would probably work well with
tomorrow's card...
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Otaku |
Time to break into the Top 3 cards of XY: Ancient
Origins! First up (or third place) is Giratina-EX
(XY: Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98). This a
Dragon-Type and they are doing a lot better with the
added support provided in the last set: Double Dragon
Energy to provide two units of Energy that count as
all Types at once while Hydreigon-EX and its
“Dragon Road” Ability that lowers the Retreat Cost of
Dragon-Types by two so long as a Stadium is in play,
among some that are less generic. Otherwise the type
enjoys nothing being Dragon Resistant but at the same
time only Dragon-Types from the BW-era sets are Dragon
Weak, so nothing is in Standard and only a small chunk
of the card pool in Expanded. There are also a few
anti-Dragon-Type cards, but fortunately for Dragon-Types
none of them have been relevant; even I don’t feel the
need to list any in detail, and you may have noticed I
tend to be rather obsessive about such things.
Giratina-EX
is a Basic Pokémon, which for better or worse is still
the best Stage to be; besides needing less time and
space than the other Stages as well as having better
natural synergy with certain mechanics (for example,
searching for Evolutions means searching for each Stage
or having the others already on hand), there are even
some bits of Basic Pokémon support in Expanded:
Skyarrow Bridge and Prism Energy. While I
don’t expect to see them used alongside Giratina-EX,
they do actually compliment Dragon-Types; Skyarrow
Bridge drops the Retreat Cost of Basic Pokémon by
[C] (so alongside a Hydreigon-EX costs of [CCC]
or less would be free, with [CCCC] dropped down to just
[C]) while Prism Energy provides a single unit of
Energy that counts as all types while attached to a
Basic Pokémon (useful for meeting the awkward Energy
combinations of Dragon-Types). Being a Pokémon-EX
doesn’t actually have a lot of inherent benefits, but
usually they end up with better attributes and effects
than they would otherwise have and peaking ahead it
looks that happened here. The downsides of being a
Pokémon-EX are guaranteed: giving up an extra Prize when
KOed (it is printed on the card), certain pieces of
support being off limits to Pokémon-EX (said cards
already exist) and certain counter-cards that
specifically affect or protect against Pokémon-EX (which
again are already part of the card pool).
170 HP is the slightly lower of the two typically scene
HP scores for Basic Pokémon-EX (the higher being 180);
it is a small difference but it will matter at least
some of the time. While high both can be OHKOed, either
through raw damage or combos. Still it has enough
resilience that in general it is likely to survive a
hit, and you should have a good idea how much you need
to worry based on the match-up. Its Fairy-Type Weakness
will skew things when you got up against a Fairy-Type,
but I’m not sure if many of those show up both off-Type
and in an attacking role. I’m not even sure of the
state of the main branch of Fairy-Type decks built
around Aromatisse and its “Fairy Transfer”
Ability because their best trick - Max Potion - is now
Expanded only. Giratina-EX has no Resistance so
we’ll move onto the Retreat Cost of [CCC], one too high
for Hydreigon-EX and its Dragon Road Ability to
completely eliminate, at least as a single (doubling up
would handle it, as would several other tricks). I
suppose it might be nice in Expanded as it makes it a
legal Heavy Ball target, but without something to
lower the cost or bypass manually retreating entirely,
it is quite pricey and something to only pay when you
absolutely must (if you have enough Energy attached to
pay it in the first place).
Giratina-EX
has an Ability (Renegade Pulse) and an attack (Chaos
Wheel). The former prevents all effects of attacks,
including damage, done by Mega Evolutions from affecting
Giratina-EX. Though highly specialized it is
also highly useful; Mega Evolutions have become a pretty
common powerhouse attacker for decks in general, though
many decks still eschew them. It is important to
remember that in most decks, your opponent could fall
back on the Basic Pokémon-EX from which their Mega
Evolution usually Evolves, though often these are going
to be less potent than the attacks on the Mega
Evolution. For [GPCC] the attack hits for a slightly
low 100 damage but has an interesting effect: it
prevents your opponent from playing Pokémon Tools,
Special Energy or Stadium cards from hand on your next
turn. A seemingly odd assortment, it is nonetheless
handy, especially blocking Special Energy and Stadiums
as they are pretty common plays. The two together can
annoy a decent chunk of decks.
There is one other Giratina-EX though it is only
legal for Expanded play. It is BW: Dragons Exalted
92/124 and 124/124. It is similar to today’s version in
many ways: Type, lack of Resistance, Retreat Cost, lack
of Ancient Trait (granted they didn’t exist back then).
It has 10 more HP (so 180) and Dragon Weakness instead
of Fairy Weakness, lacks an Ability but has two attacks.
For [GPC] it can use “Shred” to hit for 90 damage while
ignoring all effects on the Defending Pokémon. This is
a good attack that helped the card see some play as it
could cut through a lot of protective effects, be they
Ability or attack based. For [GPCC] it could use Dragon
Pulse to hit for 130 but it also made you discard the
top three cards of your own deck. A decent finishing
option I suppose, and while no one really used it that
way, you could combine it with a few different things to
get to OHKO level… but mostly it was just sometimes
included for “Shred” and now Hydreigon-EX can
provide that plus a useful Ability. As such, the new
version has little to nothing to gain from being run
alongside the old.
So in what would you run Giratina-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98)? I suppose anything
that can reasonably meet the attack cost would
technically be accurate, but the main use for this card
appears to be a rather specific deck. Early on people
hit upon running this as the main attacker in front of
Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98).
Doing this shuts off all Items (done through the
“Irritating Pollen” Ability on Vileplume) while
also preventing your opponent from playing Special
Energy or Stadium cards from hand. Double Dragon
Energy and Double Colorless Energy speed up
attacking (while being protected from Crushing Hammer
and Enhanced Hammer by Irritating Pollen) while
Giratina-EX usually protects a Forest of Giant
Plants from being discarded by an opponent’s
Stadium. Said Stadium can help you get Vileplume
into play first turn and quickly replace it if it goes
down and also try to work around your own Ability
if you can use AZ to bounce Vileplume back
into hand, use your Items, then instantly Bench
Oddish, Evolve into Gloom and then back into
Vileplume and restore the lock.
At first I scoffed at this deck because I thought it
would be too difficult to quickly set-up and because we
have so many strong, non-Mega Evolutions that can
attack, but we’ve had some very strong Mega Evolutions
take center Stage in people’s minds (oddly not so many
in the actual Top 8s for each age bracket at the still
recent World Championship). After seeing what would be
left behind I then began to worry about the deck,
seemingly confirmed by early encounters with it on the
PTCGO. Now? Now I am just not sure: when it gets going
it can be quite fierce, but if a deck runs Xerosic
and or Hex Maniac or simply keeps up the pace it
can be quite hard on Giratina-EX, even with
Vileplume backing it. Perhaps I have just been
encountering underperforming or less skilled
players/builds, or even simply have been getting lucky.
Unless we get some more radical format shifts, I expect
this deck to become a recognized factor in both Standard
and Expanded, where I suspect it will perform more or
less the same, despite cardpool and metagame
differences. For Limited play it can be a bit of a risk
to try the +39 route; as it will be your only Pokémon
at all that 170 HP will have to survive several
turns, and it can’t start attacking until you are on
your fourth turn. It might not hit hard enough to
outpace your opponent: 100 damage OHKOs a lot of what
you encounter in most Limited decks, but a good chunk
will endure a hit. As such just put it into a “regular”
deck that preferably consists of Pokémon that get by
with just basic Grass Energy and Psychic
Energy, or at least where the deck can run mostly a
combination of those two.
Ratings
Standard:
3.75/5
Expanded:
3.75/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Giratina-EX is solid in its own right but while
it has a lot going for it, it is only “fast” with the
use of Energy acceleration… and it really needs a good
something else backing it up. It looks to have such a
partner in Vileplume but that deck could still
fail to measure up. Even if it performs great,
Giratina-EX is part of the larger whole and the sum
is greater than its parts; it doesn’t score as high as
some of our other finishers in this list.
Part of that would be my fault; once again I was blinded
by some nasty losses, sometimes seeming more overpowered
because it was clear the deck was carrying my opponent
(not to sound haughty). This led me to rank Giratina-EX
as my third place pick, and now I think it should have
been a slot or two lower. Of course with this trend
proving prominent for my last several reviews, that may
be meaningless: as stated early on the reason we did a
Top 15 was because we had so many excellent cards and it
was hard to narrow things down, with the final list
featuring several runs of very close scores or ties. Giratina-EX
only beat yesterday’s card by two (voting) points and
was only two (voting points) below first place (one
below second).
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