aroramage |
You know I don't feel that bad for
skipping out on Pyroar BREAK. Kaiser Tackle's a powerful
move, though the recoil is a bit much. Still, he's got
good partners, so I can't blame him for that.
Like M Steelix-EX here.
See, M Steelix-EX has a lot of HP,
a high Retreat Cost, and an even more expensive attack.
Canyon Axe slams down at an overly pricey 5-for-160 hit,
though it does also deal an extra 10 damage to each of
your opponent's Pokemon. But man, that's a LOT to ask
for. Heck, 4 Energy is almost a deal breaker most of the
time, and 5 Energy is just asking for too much!
...and yet some people think M
Steelix-EX has a lot of potential. Why?
Well, it's mainly the timing with
his release. First of all, he comes into the game right
as the Primal Clash-on rotation takes place. Sure, he
loses access to Bronzong's Metal Links from Phantom
Forces, and yes he also loses out on a lot of the
Fighting support for Furious Fists, but he strangely has
just enough to work with. See, the good thing about M
Steelix-EX's Canyon Axe is it only requires 1 Metal
Energy - the rest of the attack is Colorless. So any
form of Energy acceleration works well with him - that's
good to know!
On top of that, he's got access to
any remaining Metal and Fighting support for the
rotation - which in this case includes Strong Energy,
arguably the best Special Energy in the game, and Shield
Energy, an underused Special Energy that...actually
would work really well with M Steelix-EX. Having
Dual-Typing means M Steelix-EX has the advantage of
using both, meaning he can dish out 20 more damage on
attacks while reducing any incoming hits by 10. That
already means he's a lot bulkier than he first appears
to be, never mind that Canyon Axe after 1 Strong Energy
already KOs the smaller Pokemon-EX.
But what else can he get? Well,
there's Magearna-EX, who prevents anything from
affecting Pokemon with Metal Energy aside from damage.
That keeps things like Poison, Paralysis, the inability
to attack - just about everything that could stop M
Steelix-EX from wrecking face from...well, stopping him.
Still that doesn't address the heavy cost of Canyon
Axe...well, there are a couple of things that help.
First, there's Mega Turbo, which is designed to
accelerate Energy onto Mega Evolutions anyway, but we've
also got the new Clawitzer, who specifically accelerates
SPECIAL Energies onto Mega Evos - like Strong or Shield
Energy.
Combined together, it seems like
there's a beautiful harmony to unleashing a behemoth
like M Steelix-EX into the game, right? Well,
unfortunately, the timing not only works for M Steelix-EX
but against him as well. Volcanion and Volcanion-EX
decks are beginning to run rampant, and M Steelix-EX
unfortunately retains the Steel Weakness to Fire, which
means for the moment he's going to have some stiff
competition. Clawitzer can somewhat alleviate this if
you're running Water Energy, but considering most of the
M Steelix-EX deck ought to be focused on M Steelix-EX,
it's not likely to happen outside of Rainbow Energy.
Overall, M Steelix-EX does have a
lot going for it, but he's also got a lot to work
against. Fire Decks, his expensive attack, and his high
Retreat Cost are a lot to deal with, but I'm sure we'll
see a successful build or two triumph over the upcoming
competitions. It's certainly possible.
...maybe they'll run Ninja Boy to
swap that Steelix-EX around for the Mega Evo Spirit Link
Ninja Boy strats.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (a fairly dominant
power that has a lot to deal with)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (but assuming the
deck is built right, it can overcome a lot and utterly
decimate the competition)
Limited: 3.5/5 (hey, I applaud you
for getting him out, but that attack is gonna need a LOT
of help here)
Arora Notealus: M Steelix-EX isn't
going to likely be a dominant force in the game, but
he's definitely gonna have a presence of some kind. No
Pokemon with access to two of the best kinds of Special
Energy ever is going to get snuffed out so easily.
Next Time: Taking a double look at
the fiery bird!
|
Otaku |
Just a quick note:
today the Standard Format of Pokémon Trading Card Game
officially changes so that only cards (and previous
printings of cards) from the XY: Primal Clash and
later expansions are legal for main expansions, XY:
Black Star Promos XY36 and after for that promo
series, and then a few other odds and ends like
mini-sets that aren’t so easy to concisely explain.
If this is news to you, you’re probably new either to
Organized Play or perhaps the TCG as a whole, please
don’t panic as this is a once per year occurrence.
Here
is the official announcement about this “set rotation”
(as we call it) from two months ago, and since it
is a yearly thing, that was just when we learned the
specifics. For regular readers, this just means I
can stop discussing the previous format except when its
history is pertinent to the present.
M Steelix-EX
(XY: Steam Siege 68/114, 109/114) is our subject
today, and is one of the new Dual Type Poké! It is
a Metal/Fighting Type, getting the benefits of both but
only some of the drawbacks. In terms of Weakness
it will hit all currently available Fairy Types (unless
I missed one) and a decent chunk of the Water Type due
to its Metal half while the Fighting half allows it to
hit a large chunk of the Colorless Type and most of both
the Darkness and the Lightning Type. Fighting
Resistance is one of the most common and spread
throughout almost all the other Types, while Metal
Resistance is native to XY-era Lightning Types; I
believe that means all XY-era Lightning Types will be
Resistant, even though some are going to be Weak as
well! This came up before and if it hasn’t
changed, you’d apply the Weakness first, then the
Resistance, so double the damage but then subtract 20.
The Metal side provides access to several bits of
support, most of it providing some form of protection to
Metal Type Pokémon, some of it providing Energy
acceleration, and most of it probably not being the best
choice to run with M Steelix-EX; if you want to
know about those anyway, we mentioned it
just last week
when we reviewed Cobalion (XY: Steam Siege
74/114).
Metal support
possibly relevant today includes Aegislash-EX for
opening stall and perhaps a backup attacker, Bronzong
(XY: Phantom Forces 61/119) for basic Metal
Energy acceleration fromt the discard pile,
Cobalion (XY: Steam Siege 74/114) as an
inexpensive backup attacker and/or opening staller,
Magearna-EX to protect from attack effects and be a
backup attacker (yet again), Reverse Valley for a
little damage reduction, Shield Energy for a
little damage reduction (again), and Steel Shelter
to shed Special Conditions. Only Shield Energy
is pretty much a guaranteed inclusion, though, for how
I’m seeing people run this card (and that’s mostly via
video). The Fighting side provides some great
support as well; I don’t think I’ve listed most of this
in a while and in the interest of not adding another two
or three paragraphs, especially most of it is now
Expanded only, what will matter to M Steelix is
probably Strong Energy, with the possibility of
Carbink (XY: Fates Collide 50/124) and
Carbink BREAK. Respectively that gives us a
way to bump up damage, a staller, and a decent form of
from-the-discard Energy acceleration. Any Dual
Type that is part Fighting is going to have ample Type
support and hit a good deal of Weakness: M Steelix-EX
is no exception.
So what does it
mean to be a Mega Evolution? First the downside:
they have all the baggage of being a Pokémon-EX (extra
Prize when KO’d, Pokémon-EX specific counters, unable to
access certain beneficial effects) with the added
hassles of being a Mega Evolution (turn ends when you
Mega Evolve, Mega Evolution specific counters). On
the upside, a “regular” Steelix is a Stage 1 but
Steelix-EX (from which M Steelix-EX Mega
Evolves) is a Basic, and Steelix Spirit Link
prevents your turn from ending if it is equipped to
Steelix-EX as it Mega Evolves. There is also
access to Mega Evolution support like Mega Turbo,
may be why M Steelix-EX is one of the few, new
Dual Type Pokémon, and most likely explains its HP score
and attack. Its HP is 240, the maximum we’ve seen
printed on a Mega Evolution; others before M Steelix-EX
have hit this number, and it isn’t quite the max printed
HP score (Wailord-EX still owns that with its 250
HP). This is high enough to actually be difficult
to OHKO; but even apart from Weakness some decks will
manage it with enough time. Pulling it off more
than once and with some speed further shrinks the risk
pool. Said Weakness is likely to matter though;
XY: Steam Siege contained Volcanion-EX which
is a decent enough attacker but much more importantly,
can spike the damage of attacks made by that player’s
Basic Fire Type Pokémon. A good set up allows
regular Volcanion to pull off a OHKO for just [R]
Energy attached (you’ll need three or four to discard,
depending on other damage buffs).
M Steelix-EX
has Psychic Resistance and any Resistance is welcome.
Still too early to know for certain, but early hype
likes M Mewtwo-EX (XY: BREAKthrough
64/162; 160/162) for Standard and Night March is still
Expanded legal, so an extra -20 damage should be handy
enough for this to be more than a token “Well, better
than no Resistance” kind of thing. The Retreat
Cost of [CCCC] is massive; hypothetically there will be
times when you ought to pay it, I’m sure someone
somewhere will play a game where they actually ought to
pay it, but the general rule of thumb is never pay it.
At this expensive, don’t just pack multiple cards to get
it out of the Active position, but also include some to
allow M Steelix-EX to tank while up front. M
Steelix-EX has a single attack, like all Mega
Evolutions we have seen so far. “Canyon Axe” requires a
massive five Energy to use, though it isn’t quite as bad
as it looks like at first glance owing to the specific
cost being [MCCCC]; mostly Colorless gives us more
options. The return for this will need to be great
in order to justify the effort and it just might be: 160
damage to your opponent’s Active and 10 to everything on
his or her Bench. M Steelix-EX will need
Energy acceleration as it won’t survive five turns of
manually, single Energy attachments. Even using
Double Colorless Energy so that you could do it in
three isn’t enough, but Canyon Axe provides a firm
foundation to make it worth investing additional
resources to both speed things up and even improve its
damage output a bit more.
Before we go too
far into how best to use M Steelix-EX, let us
address Steelix-EX (XY: Steam Siege
67/114; 108/114). It is a Basic Pokémon-EX and
Metal Type, with 180 HP, Fire Weakness, and Psychic
Weakness; nothing surprising, but a solid foundation.
The only recent Steelix to compare it to for a
base line is Steelix (XY: Plasma Freeze
79/116). Steelix [Plasma] has a massive 150 HP
but being a Pokémon-EX not only let Steelix-EX
avoid Evolving, but gain 30 HP. Steelix-EX has
two attacks: “Wild Edge” for [MCCC] and “Iron Tail” for
[MCCCC]. Wild Edge is does 80 damage, with the
option of doing an additional 50 (so 130 total) but then
it does 20 to itself. Iron Tail has you flip a
coin until you get “tails”, doing 100 per “heads”.
You’ve nearly paid for 130 damage with the Energy cost
of Wild Edge, and Iron Tail is just not worth the risk
unless you are absolutely desperate; yes each time you
use it there is about a %25 chance of doing at least 200
damage, but there is a 50% chance you’re doing none.
I often point out that while Pokémon-EX often have
better attacks, not only are some quite “iffy” on that
prospect but others are only relative to what its
non-Pokémon-EX counterpart has. Steelix [Plasma]
isn’t all that great either, but it is clear that
Steelix-EX is only here to Evolve, so M Steelix-EX
has to justify the entire Evolution line.
I believe it does,
and am actually disappointed I didn’t notice this
sooner. There are two different M Steelix-EX
decks which I am seeing. Some use Carbink BREAK
to stall while attacking to build M Steelix-EX on
the Bench for a turn or two. Others are looking to
Clawitzer (XY: Steam Siege 34/114), with
its Ability to attach a Special Energy from your hand
once each turn, in addition of course to your manual
Energy attachment; multiples of it will stack as well.
Both of these cards made Top 10s for their respective
sets: Carbink BREAK in
second place
and Clawitzer in
ninth.
This is basically what I was asking for to justify
Clawitzer. M Steelix-EX loves Double
Colorless Energy, Shield Energy, and
Strong Energy and attaching to it makes a massive
difference to its deck in both speed, power, and
durability. So which of these two should back up
M Steelix-EX? Carbink BREAK is slower (as
it needs to attack) but it attaches from the discard,
while Clawitzer is faster but attaches from the
hand and is vulnerable to Garbodor (XY:
BREAKpoint 57/122) and other cards which stop
Abilities. Crazy as it sounds, I would try to run
both. I don’t just mean testing both decks out, I
mean trying to work both Stage 1 cards into a deck built
around a Mega Evolution. Space will be tight but
you’ll have both speed and sustainability in this
manner. That is, if you can make it work.
So what else goes
in there? Unfortunately I don’t know; I haven’t
encountered this deck all that much on the PTCGO.
Could be a bad sign, could be because the format just
officially changed. You’ll need draw power.
You’ll need something to help you retreat and/or heal
M Steelix-EX. You’ll need more than just
Carbink BREAK and/or Clawitzer to deal with
Fire Types. This is a pretty tall order, but only
when it comes to fitting it all into a crowded deck.
There are so many options, like Zoroark (XY:
BREAKthrough 91/162) to both aid in getting M
Steelix-EX out of the Active slot and to be a
non-Fire Weak attacker that easily uses Double
Colorless Energy. It all comes down to deck
space. Still I think this leaves M Steelix-EX
in a good way for Standard. For Expanded, it gains
some useful lost tricks like Fighting Stadium as
another means of upping damage and Bronzong
(mentioned above) as another means of Energy
acceleration. Might be a bit lazy, but I’m going
to operate as though those two balance out. For
Limited play, this is probably great with a proper
Limited deck behind it, but especially with the Fire
Weakness it seems to dangerous to try and build your
deck around just one of it and one Steelix-EX.
You could risk it though.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3.25/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Summary:
A tank of a Pokémon, M Steelix-EX is slow, not
fuel efficient, but can both hit hard and take hard
hits. I really underestimated it at first glance,
and am looking forward to snagging some copies of it to
experiment with on the PTCGO. Whether you play
there or the physical TCG, I recommend doing the same
unless you have no choice but to focus on your main
deck. Even then, this might become main deck
material.
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