aroramage |
So what if I told you there was a
Stage 2 Pokemon that you could play on your first turn?
"Oh that's easy, what with Forest
of Giant Plants."
True, true. Now what if I told you
there's a Stage 2 Pokemon that you could play...on SET
UP?!
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
Welcome to Talonflame, who has the
unique Ability to be played as your Active Pokemon at
the beginning of the game! Thanks to Gale Wings, you can
start out with a 130 HP Stage 2 Colorless Bird!...yeahhhhhhhhh!!
Okay, but on top of that, he's also got a fantastic
maneuver in Aero Blitz. It only costs 1 Energy, and you
get to deal 40 damage and add 2 cards from your deck
straight to your hand. It's honestly crazy what this
card can do in terms of setting you up - it's
practically phenomenal!
But then how come such an amazing
card didn't even show up on our Top 10 lists? Well,
while he does have a lot going for him, Talonflame has a
LOT of disadvantages because of the very nature of his
Ability. Gale Wings only ever works in setting up,
meaning that unless you run the whole Fletchling line-up
in your deck, any other Talonflame is dead weight. In
fact, if you don't end up with a Talonflame in your
opening hand but you do get a Basic, ALL of your
Talonflames are dead weight. And that's a dangerous
risk. And let's face it, Talonflame is much more highly
tailored to setting you up than KOing Pokemon with Aero
Blitz.
That being said, is Talonflame any
good? Well since he's technically not a Basic himself,
if you end up with a bad hand but still have Talonflame,
you're not technically required to put him down cause of
his Gale Wings, meaning you can reshuffle your hand back
into your deck for a better chance at an even better
start. And if you do manage to get him in hand, he's got
a lot of promise to helping you out for a cheap 1-Prize
trade-off. That's not too shabby.
Honestly, I wouldn't knock him till
you try him. I've seen a couple of deck lists running 3
copies of him as an alternate starter, so he's got
potential. Just don't rely on that potential - and be
aware of the risks of running Talonflame - and you'll be
alright.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (a decent start-up
card that is...well, useless outside of starting up)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (but with his
Colorless costs, he's workable into any deck)
Limited: 3.5/5 (heck, in Limited
he's probably even better for setting up!)
------
On top of all of that, he's also
got the benefit of holding onto a BREAK Evolution! And
what does Talonflame BREAK do? It grants him the Flare
Blitz move for 2-for-150!
...uh huh.
See, there's a bit of a problem
with Talonflame BREAK, and it's that it assumes you're
running a few things first: Talonflame, Fire Energy,
Burning Energy in particular, and probably Volcanion-EX
and Volcanion. But at that point...aren't you just
basically playing a Volcanion deck? So why throw in
Talonflame BREAK? Well he's effectively an alternate
attacker to Volcanion, capable of dealing a LOT more
damage! 150 damage to be precise! Though he won't be
able to benefit off of Volcanion-EX's Ability. And he
discards all the Fire Energy attached to himself, so
there's that...Burning Energy would be nice.
I'd say as an alt attacker,
Talonflame BREAK is a decent option in the Volcanion
deck. Outside of that though, I wouldn't be planning on
running him in just any deck. Talonflame has a lot of
promise in other decks, but Talonflame BREAK is
decidedly niche - he wants Fire decks and he'll only
stay in Fire decks.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (not too shabby to
be fair, but you know how things are with BREAK Evos)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (at least
Talonflame can search out BREAK so easily)
Limited: 4/5 (and with the
additional support, he can be something to worry about)
Arora Notealus: Talonflame getting
a BREAK Evolution just makes things more interesting.
Course, Talonflame himself was already fascinating
enough in my opinion, so this is just icing on an
already delicious cake!
...like cinnamon icing or
something.
Weekend Thought: What did you think
of these cards? Potential? Too lacking? Too much? Too
lucky? Discuss it all!
|
Otaku |
We end this week with two-for-one review: Talonflame
(XY: Steam Siege 96/114) and Talonflame BREAK
(XY: Steam Siege 21/114). We’ll focus on
the former, then the latter.
Talonflame
is a Stage 2, which means it is slow… except this one
has a little trick we’ll get to in a bit. Still,
getting it into play via manually Evolving it means
three cards and three turns, or three cards and two
turns if you replace the Stage 1 with Rare Candy,
or two turns and four cards if you decide to use
Wally for some odd reason. It is a Colorless
Type, so nothing is either Weak nor Resistant to
Talonflame. There are some
anti-Colorless-specific effects but they aren’t
particularly good, while there is also a little
Colorless Type support explicitly for their Type:
Altaria (XY: Roaring Skies 74/108; XY:
Black Star Promos XY46) can cancel out the Weakness
on Colorless Types, Aspertia City Gym grants
Colorless Pokémon in play +20 HP, while Winona
allows you to search your deck for three Colorless
Pokémon at once. There are also some useful
Colorless Type support Pokémon - most notably Shaymin-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) - as well as
some good attackers like Lugia (XY: Ancient
Origins 68/98, 94/98). Yes, in some earlier
reviews I wasn’t sure if this should count; the synergy
only comes when you’re running other Colorless
support, unlike with some other Types where it may be
due to shared Energy requirements.
Talonflame
has 130 HP; the lower end of what is typical for a Stage
2, but still enough to be more likely than not to
survive an attack, at least if damage output remains
high even in a post Night March Standard Format (and I
certainly think it will). Talonflame has
Lightning Weakness, which can be dangerous. Even
if no new Lightning Type decks surge ahead with the new
and current Standard Format, some of the established
ones which survived rotation - like Jolteon-EX
and Raichu (XY 43/146; Generations
27/83, RC9/RC32) - are still formidable, and may simply
have been waiting for this same rotation to get back on
their feet. Other widely played Lightning Weak
cards like the Lugia-EX, Shaymin-EX, and
Yveltal-EX have already provided an incentive to
work the Type into existing decks. Fighting
Resistance is appreciated; the Fighting Type tends to
stack damage bonuses and/or include some tricks to
ignore Resistance, but by that same note they can whiff
on the last -20 or the Resistance counter, or just
forget they need them and it can still help you quite a
bit. Talonflame enjoys a perfect free Retreat
Cost; its only a drawback if you need an emergency way
to discard Energy or come up against an effect that
specifically punishes low Retreat Costs.
Talonflame
has one Ability and one attack. “Gale Wings” allows you
to play Talonflame as your opening Active Pokémon
provided it is in your opening hand. This is quite
potent but at the same time quite specific; past your
game’s opening, Talonflame can’t make use of this
Ability at all! If you max it out, you have decent
odds of opening with at least one, and the others may
still act as discard fodder, but there is always the
risk they will end up cluttering your hand or being your
draw at the wrong moment. That or you go ahead and
run the lower Stages as well. “Aero Blitz” requires
only [C] to do 40 damage, and has you search your deck
for any two cards you want to add to your hand.
Note that it isn’t optional; plus as it is unrestricted
search, I don’t think you can “fail” it (opposing deck
size is public knowledge). This would be brilliant
if we still had first turn attacks, but even with the
current rules it is a good attack; the damage or the
search alone might be mediocre (even for just one
Energy) but both together let you put pressure on your
opponent while developing your hand for the next turn.
If the damage or the search is somehow wasted, at least
the other still went through.
Talonflame BREAK
is the BREAK Evolution of a Stage 2, meaning most of the
time it’s acting like a Stage 3: ouch. Its Fire
Typing means nearly all Metal Types and the vast
majority of Grass Types will take double damage from its
attacks, while nothing is Fire Resistant. The Fire
Type has a few tricks though one of the best -
Blacksmith - is now Expanded only, and the Fire
counters either aren’t good, or are shared with other
Types and still amount mostly to faking Resistance (see
Parallel City). Its 170 HP is great for
something worth a single Prize; this is the same as the
lower of the two typical Basic Pokémon-EX scores.
Of course those can be OHKO’d as well, but still it is
durable. Its Weakness, Resistance, Retreat Cost
and even additional attacks (and potentially an Ability)
are supplied by the regular Talonflame from which
it BREAK Evolved. Talonflame BREAK does supply
an attack though: for [RR] it can use “Flare Blitz” for
150 damage, but it also must discard all attached Fire
Energy from itself. That is enough to deal with
most things that are not Pokémon-EX, and with a boost it
can even take out some of those as well! This is
seems like a fairly good BREAK Evolution, relative to
the others; there are some better ones, but this doesn’t
really disappoint.
If you really want to focus on Talonflame BREAK,
you’ll need more than just the one loan Talonflame
that XY: Steam Siege 21/114. That means
going through Fletchling and Fletchinder,
and we may as well glance at the other Talonflame
cards while we are at it. There are seven options
for Fletchinder: XY: Kalos Starter Set
31/39, XY 113/146, XY: Flashfire 86/106,
XY: Phantom Forces 89/119, XY: Roaring Skies
82/108, Generations RC25/RC32, and XY: Steam
Siege 94/114. All are Basic, Colorless Pokémon
with Lightning Weakness, Fighting Resistance, Retreat
Cost [C], no Ancient Traits, and no Abilities. XY:
Kalos Starter Set 31/39, XY 113/146, XY:
Flashfire 86/106, and XY: Phantom Forces
89/119 are all Expanded only and have 50 HP while XY:
Roaring Skies 82/108, Generations RC25/RC32,
and XY: Steam Siege 94/114 are legal for either
Expanded or Standard play but only have 40 HP.
XY: Kalos Starter Set
31/39 has one attack, “Razor Wind” for [C] and it does
20 damage but requires a coin flip; on “tails” the
attack does nothing. XY 113/146 can use “Me
First” for [C] to draw a card or for [CC] use “Peck” to
do 20. XY: Flashfire 86/106 can use “Quick
Attack” for [C] to do 10 damage, plus 10 more on a
“heads”. XY: Phantom Forces 89/119 reuses
attacks but tweaks them a bit: Peck is back but for [C]
and doing just 10 damage, while Quick Attack returns
however it now costs [CC] and does 10 plus 20 on “heads”
(just that base 10 on “tails”). XY: Roaring Skies
82/108 can use “Acrobatics” flip two coins; the attack
then does 10 damage plus another 10 per “heads”. Generations
RC25/RC32 has the attack “Warble” which lets you search
your deck for up to two Fletchling to add to your
hand, at a cost of [C]. XY: Steam Siege 94/114
can use Peck yet again, but this time it costs [C] but
does 20. None of these are particularly good; if
you can’t decide then go with XY 113/146 for
Expanded so you can try and draw with Me First while
enjoying 50 HP, while in Standard Generations
RC25/RC32 is pretty and maybe adding two Fletchling
to hand is useful.
There are five Fletchinder, assuming you don’t
just use Rare Candy; Item lock is still a thing
so I recommend considering one of these if you’re not
just using today’s Talonflame. So the
options are XY 27/146, XY: Flashfire
17/106, XY: Phantom Forces 9/119, XY: Roaring
Skies 14/108, and XY: Steam Siege 95/114.
All are Stage 1 Pokémon without Ability or Ancient
Trait. All but XY: Steam Siege 95/114 are
Fire Types, while all but XY: Roaring Skies
14/108 have Lightning Weakness, Fighting Resistance, and
Retreat Cost [C] (it has Water Weakness, no Resistance,
and a free Retreat Cost). XY 27/146 has 70 HP
with two attacks; for [C] it can use “Flame Charge” to
search the deck for an [R] Energy to attach to itself,
while for [RC] it can use “Fire Wing” for 30 damage. XY:
Flashfire 17/106 has 80 HP with only the attack “Firebreathing”
for [R], which does 20 damage plus (on a coin toss)
another 20 damage. XY: Phantom Forces 9/119 also
has 80 HP and brings back Peck doing 20, but this time
for [R], while for [RRC] it can use “Combustion” to do
60. XY: Roaring Skies 14/108 is back down to 70
and a single attack; “Peck Off” needs [C] to discard all
Pokémon Tools from the opponent’s Active, and then do 10
damage to it. XY: Steam Siege 95/114 has 70 HP
and can use “Glide” to do 30 for [C]. I value that
free Retreat Cost on XY: Roaring Skies 14/108, so
go with that if you’re not sure which to pick… unless it
needs to be Colorless, in which case go with XY:
Steam Siege 95/114.
There are three other options for Talonflame:
XY 28/146, XY: Phantom Forces 10/119, and
XY: Roaring Skies 15/108. All three are Stage
2 Fire Type Pokémon with 130 HP, no Ancient Traits, no
Abilities, but with two attacks. XY: Roaring Skies
15/108 has Water Weakness with no Resistance while the
other two have Lightning Weakness and Fighting
Resistance. XY: Phantom Forces 10/119 has a
Retreat Cost of [C] while the other two have free
Retreat Costs. XY 28/146 can force your opponent
to shuffle his or her hand into his or her deck, then
draw four cards with “Devastating Wind” for [C], while
it also has Flare Blitz for [RR] like Talonflame
BREAK, but this version only does 100 damage.
It was reviewed
here
and now it’s even less impressive. XY: Phantom
Forces 10/119 starts off with another familiar
attack - Acrobatics - but this time it costs [R] and
does 30 plus 30 more per “heads” (still flipping two
coins). The second attack is “Jet Shoot” which for
[RRC] does 120 damage, but any damage done to
Talonflame (“this Pokémon”) is increased by 40
during your next turn. At least it is after
Weakness and Resistance. This version was reviewed
here
and I think something is wrong with the Average scores.
XY: Roaring Skies 15/108 has “Grand Loop” for
[C] which allows you to draw three cards, then switch
this Talonflame with one of your Benched Pokémon,
while for [RC] it has “Brave Bird” which does 90 damage
to the opponent’s Active and 20 damage to itself.
This version was also reviewed, and here is the
link;
four reviews for that one and each of us gave a
different score; I think I may have been a bit generous.
None of these are worth using; even if you’re going for
Talonflame BREAK use today’s Talonflame.
So should you use either of today’s cards? Talonflame
(XY: Steam Siege 96/114) is definitely a “yes”;
it already did well at Worlds, used to support
Greninja BREAK. With just three or four
Froakie and four Talonflame, it was likely to
open and was useful for helping that deck, a slower
deck, get itself going. It also served as a pivot
Pokémon. What about Talonflame BREAK?
If a Fire deck is using the previous Talonflame
then yes, add one in just in case you are able to BREAK
Evolve it. If you wish to focus on Talonflame
BREAK then unfortunately, you’ll have to Evolve most
(possibly all) Talonflame from its lower Stages.
I just don’t think it is worth it, even though
Talonflame BREAK is pretty solid, at least in
Expanded where Muscle Band or Silver Bangle,
maybe Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym
allow it to do some impressive OHKOs, with Flare Blitz
refueled by Blacksmith. So in a weird way,
I think Talonflame BREAK shouldn’t be run because
of its lower Stages. In Limited, I say go for this
Talonflame, but only Talonflame BREAK if
you’ve got a full Talonflame line. Even a
Talonflame with no support isn’t too bad as a
dead card here; you probably can’t use it as discard
fodder but hey, it’s worth the risk.
Ratings
Talonflame
Standard:
3.35/5
Expanded:
3.25/5
Limited:
4/5
Talonflame BREAK
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary:
So yeah, Talonflame ought to have made the Top
10. It is specialized, but it seems good at what
it does. Talonflame BREAK is better than its
scores suggest; it just doesn’t lend itself to today’s
regular Talonflame, which is the only
Talonflame really worth using. If you’ve got a
low Basic Pokémon count deck, give Talonflame a
chance, and if we get another decent (or better)
Talonflame, then give Talonflame BREAK a shot
as well. Just skip Talonflame BREAK for
now, though.
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