aroramage |
Alright, so here's an idea: what if
we take an implausible idea, put it on a card, and see
what happens? Cause that seems a little bit like the
idea going in behind Infernape here.
Here's the thing - he's got two
AMAZING attacks...on the surface. Flare Blitz is a
2-for-120 PUNCH while Flare Up is a 2-for-200
DEVASTATION. If there was ever an effect that removed
the effects from attacks - as in didn't make you undergo
the effects on cards - Infernape may become one of the
most devastating Pokemon ever printed. As it stands,
nothing like that is in Standard, so both of these
attacks have wild drawbacks that make them...okay.
Flare Blitz's drawback is the
typical "discard all Energy" effect that can be easily
circumvented by Burning Energy. But Flare Up is...very
different. See, you need to have at least 10 Fire Energy
in the discard pile in order to use the attack, and then
it shuffles 10 of them back into the deck. So Flare
Blitz is meant to power into Flare Up, which then
recharges you with 10 of those Energies. Interesting.
There are some very fundamental
flaws though. Ultimately in the long run, the strategy
will slow down, as more and more of your cards become
used up save for Energies, and eventually you'll be
drawing more into the Energy you put back than anything
useful. Ideally, you've defeated your opponent by then,
but that is a long term concern. In the short time,
relying on Infernape alone to fuel the discard is a
mixed bag, since he ends up discarding all of his Energy
every turn, and while we've got Blacksmith in the format
for now, it's not gonna be long before rotation
eliminates that as a possibility.
Infernape wants a deck that
supports him, and right now the best one is in Expanded.
Maybe with some Volcanion-EX, definitely using Fiery
Torch, and just turbo-boosting Flare Up as much as
possible to destroy any chance your opponent has of
beating you. Ideally, you destroy them faster than they
can come back or set up.
If not...well, it was nice while it
lasted.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (very gimmicky,
really wants the deck to build around him, and if
not...)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (well, let's just
say you won't be able to play Infernape very well)
Limited: 2/5 (Flare Up better be
getting used in a mono-Fire build, cause otherwise it's
not that great even here)
Arora Notealus: One of these days,
Infernape's gonna have an awesome EX...or a GX.
Next Time: The curious case of the
classic...colt.
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Otaku |
The 2016 World
Championships are over, but we’re going to see if we can
still stay all fired up by reviewing Infernape (XY:
Steam Siege 20/114)!
Infernape
is a Fire Type, as you can plainly see from the card
image. Nearly all Grass and Metal Types are Fire
Weak, and both Types were major parts of decks in the
Top 8 of the 2016 World Championships that just finished
yesterday. At least a few are decks that could
survive rotation, losing pieces but nothing absolutely
essential. Nothing is Fire Resistant; Resistance
isn’t particularly potent, but not having to worry about
it is a good thing. There are some anti-Fire Type
effects, and they often mimic Resistance (reducing
damage done by 20), but they also aren’t overly potent.
In fact the one you actually need to worry about is
Parallel City, which is run for its Bench shrinking
effect, but the other half reduces the damage done by
attacks from Fire, Grass, and Water Types. The
Fire Type has some very good support, but nothing proven
to be really great, at least not recently. Blacksmith
and Volcanion-EX are specific to both Fire Type
Pokémon and Energy, but provide strong Energy
acceleration or damage buffs (respectively). Then
there are cards like Scorched Earth that work
with basic Fire Energy (since nothing else counts
as [R] while in hand), though this card can also work
with basic Fighting Energy as well. Then
there are some strong Fire Type attackers like
Volcanion, Entei (XY: Ancient Origins
14/98) and its set-mate Entei (XY: Ancient
Origins 15/98). Like I’ve said, this is a Type
that seems due.
Infernape
is a Stage 2 and that is almost enough to make me stop
reading. Stage 2 Pokémon do have some exclusive
support (like Rare Candy) and some shared support
(like Training Center), but almost every other
Stage of Evolution has just as good or better support,
and even if it didn’t, the fundamental game mechanics
combined with the current card pool makes Stage 2
Pokémon slow and expensive to run. Not in terms of
money (that varies card to card) but in game resources.
Some Types have shortcuts beyond stuff like Rare
Candy and Wally, but Fire is not one of them.
Some Pokémon have specific shortcuts, but Infernape
is not one of them. It will have to posses some
amazing attributes, effects, or both to stand a chance
in the current metagame. Its HP is neither a good
nor a bad start; 130 HP is just at that point where I
believe surviving a hit is more likely, not less.
Still, when you’re investing at least three cards and
one turn (before Energy, Pokémon Tools, etc.), that is
not a comfortable margin. Water Weakness is
terrifying right now; Greninja BREAK decks made a
good showing at Worlds even if none of them won their
brackets (one was even the runner-up for the Masters
Division), and until Seismitoad-EX rotates it is
still most definitely a “thing” in Standard (sometimes
an opener, sometimes a focus). Lack of Resistance
is the norm and is specialized when it is present, so
its absence is almost negligent. Retreat Cost [C]
is good and low, though “free” may have been merited.
Infernape
has two attacks, both of which cost [RR] up front but
contain additional costs/requirements in their effect
text. The first is “Flare Blitz” which does 120
damage. This is enough to build Volcanion-EX
to the point where it OHKOs most of the competitive
format, without getting overly complex or difficult.
The catch is that Flare Blitz discards all [R]
Energy attached to itself; the only reason this isn’t
more significant is that surviving an attack as
Infernape is already iffy, plus Blacksmith
can take an Infernape from “zero” to “attacking”
in one go and you still have a manual Energy attachment
to spare. The next attack is “Flare Up”,
originally intended to just be Firestar but as Hasbro
was unable to secure the name, instead she became her
protege… oh, that’s “Flareup”. Flare Up does a
phenomenal 200 damage but requires you have 10
[R] Energy cards in your discard pile to use, plus it
shuffles those Energy back into your deck as the next
part of the effect. 10 Energy is what most decks would
run, which means you’ll have to run heavy to accommodate
it even if you only use it as a last minute finisher.
We know from Night March that filling the discard pile
once is no big deal, so between being on a Stage 2 and
forcing you to redraw and discard all this Energy, Flare
Up is not something you can easily abuse… but it does
look like something you can use. Flare Up is
probably best reserved for things that even a buffed
Flare Blitz will struggle to OHKO. The two attacks
compliment each other well; not perfectly, but Flare
Blitz is a solid lead in to Flare Up, and Flare Up a
solid cleaner for Flare Blitz.
We should also take
a look at Chimchar, Monferno and any other
Infernape; I had to triple check because it is so
hard to believe a “starter” isn’t being spammed, because
we only have five additional cards to look at among
those. For the Basic Stage Chimchar we have
BW: Plasma Storm 15/135 and XY: Steam Siege
18/114, for the Stage 1 Monferno we have BW:
Plasma Storm 16/135 and XY: Steam Siege
19/114, and the other Infernape is BW: Plasma
Storm 17/135, which I will refer to as “Infernape
[Plasma]”. All of these are Fire Types with Water
Weakness, no Resistance, and no Abilities. Chimchar
(BW: Plasma Storm 15/135) has 50 HP, a Retreat
Cost of [C], and the lone attack “Flare” which does 20
and requires [R]. Chimchar (XY: Steam Siege
18/114) has 60 HP, Retreat Cost [C], and two attacks:
[C] pays for “Scratch” to do 10 damage while [RC] lets
you use “Ember” to do 30 and flip a coin (“tails” means
you have to discard a [R] Energy from Chimchar).
Both Monferno have 80 HP, Retreat Cost of [C],
and two attacks. BW: Plasma Storm 16/135 can use
“Loud Howl” for [C] to force your opponent to change out
his or her Active, while for [RC] it can use “Fire Tail
Slap” to do 50 damage, but has to discard an attached
[R] Energy from itself. XY: Steam Siege 19/114
brings back Scratch for [C] and Flare for [RC], this
time doing 20 and 30 (respectively). The job of
these cards is to survive to Evolve or otherwise aide in
your setup, but instead they attack for damage and… they
aren’t even good at it. Go with Chimchar (XY:
Steam Siege 18/114) and whichever Monferno
you feel like in case you get Item locked and can’t rely
solely upon Rare Candy.
Infernape
[Plasma] is actually very, very similar to today’s
regular Infernape; same Type, Stage, HP,
Weakness, (lack of) Resistance, and it also has two
attacks. Being a Team Plasma Pokémon can be a huge
benefit (due to Team Plasma support), or a huge problem
(due to Team Plasma counters); the best Team Plasma
counter is Silver Mirror protects the equipped
Pokémon from the attacks of Team Plasma Pokémon, so you
just need a convenient way to discard it (like
Startling Megaphone, Tool Scrapper, or
Xerosic) or alternate attacker, and Team
Plasma decks aren’t overly strong in Expanded right now,
so odds are low you’ll encounter it until a Team Plasma
deck makes good again. Team Plasma support is
iffy; it all takes deck space and I’m not sure how much
of it will really be needed in a hypothetical deck built
around Infernape. This might be largely a
neutral trait after all. The free Retreat Cost is
the next difference and while not huge, it is still
significant; you can happily promote Infernape
and unless an effect is messing with Retreat Costs in
general, not worry about it getting stuck up front.
The meat of the differences are the attacks, though
again Infernape [Plasma] brings two.
The first is
“Torment”, which does 30 damage and allows you to name
one of the attacks on the Defending Pokémon; it cannot
use that attack next turn (at least not without finding
a way to cancel out this effect). For [RC] it can
use “Malevolent Fire” to do 120 damage, though it has to
discard all attached Energy from itself. The CotD
crew first looked at this card
here
and even though I thought I wrote one for this card,
looks like it was during a stretch when I must have just
failed to keep up. Baby Mario and virusyosh
covered the card accurately; it just couldn’t keep up at
the time… but times change. When this card first
released, Pokémon Catcher worked like Lysandre
as an Item, instead of being Pokémon Reversal by
a new name (that is, requiring a coin flip). The
player going first could also attack. Most
important of all, this is pre-Volcanion-EX,
Volcanion, and Blacksmith; Infernape
[Plasma] could use Colress Machine with Plasma
Energy and Deoxys-EX to pump up its attacks,
plus it didn’t need to hit as large of numbers but the
former is an Item/Special Energy combo and the latter
only adds 10 damage. Torment isn’t going to
provide a good “hard lock” (one difficult to break), but
it can be an effective, irritating soft lock in some
matchups. Malevolent Fire is as easy to power up
as Flare Blitz, both in term of Energy attachments and
buffs. This actually should complement the modern
version nicely.
So while I don’t
have a proven deck for you, if you want to experiment
with Infernape, I think we just explained the
groundwork: Volcanion as a beefy opener,
Volcanion-EX to power up attacks, then a split line
of Infernape and Infernape [Plasma].
You will still need a lot of basic Fire Energy (probably
12 to 14), but remember that Flare Up is something to
save for stuff you can’t OHKO any other way, or because
you need to recycle your Fire Energy. The rest
would be typical deck staples (actual, loose, or near),
extra Energy search, Blacksmith, Scorched
Earth, etc. For Standard, the same deal but no
Infernape [Plasma]. Standard
post-rotation means a loss of Blacksmith, but
Volcanion might be able to pick up the slack,
plus the deck wouldn’t suffer too badly when facing
decks that block Abilities; focus on Volcanion
until Flare Up can take a massive OHKO. Wait, if
has that much promise why aren’t we already using it?
Well, I have no solutions for the Water Weakness, plus
just because it is easy to list doesn’t mean it will be
easy to set up in an actual game. Still
Infernape has potential, even if it goes unrealized
like its predecessor. For Limited play, this is a
pretty amazing pull, but your deck will need to be
almost mono-Fire Typed for it too work. Luckily
for Infernape, decks run heavier on basic Energy
cards here so even though you’ll only have a 40 card
deck, it isn’t odd that you’ll need your deck to be a
quarter to half basic Energy; they often already are!
Just remember that you can’t “reload” for either attack
very well!
Ratings
Standard:
2.5/5
Expanded:
2.75/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
The metagame is always the final arbitrator, but here it
can easily shift the performance of Infernape.
It is a solid Stage 2 in a card pool where that isn’t
impressive in the slightest, but should the Fire Weak
decks start to outnumber the Water attackers,
Infernape has its niche. In fact the real
threat might be other Fire Type decks crowding it out,
as why use a Stage 2 to do what a Basic can (almost) do
instead? Still the flame of hope burns. I
mean I didn’t expect much out of M Audino-EX
either…
…if you hadn’t
heard, M Audino-EX (possibly with Audino-EX)
was the focus of the deck that won the 2016 Pokémon TCG
World Championships. You can see for yourself
here.
Infernape made my Top 15 list but I don’t
remember where: at the last minute I rearranged what I
had, then cut it down to a Top 10. We’ll be
looking at some more runners up the rest of the week,
including at least one that saw some play at Worlds.
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