aroramage |
When Megas were first introduced,
cards like M Blastoise-EX and M Venusaur-EX both had a
very similar problem: the Mega Rule. When you played one
down, your turn would immediately end, making them
extremely risky to even play. Do you set one down and
let your opponent have at you with their own attackers,
or do you hold off until you've got the advantage for a
"win more" situation?
Thankfully over the years, we've
gotten Spirit Links printed with these cards to
circumvent the rule, though even they bring up their own
set of problems. After all, you're occupying the Tool
slot just to make sure you don't forcibly end your turn
and can attack with your behemoth! This is the challenge
that M Venasaur-EX had with Crisis Vine. On the one
hand, it's an amazing attack, dealing 4-for-120 and not
only Paralyzing but Poisoning the opponent's Pokemon,
making a lethal combination of brutality.
On the other hand, even in the era
of Spirit Links, he never received one, and that was
probably for the best. After all, not only did the idea
of getting a Spirit Link bring up a certain amount of
competitive viability to the card, but Forest of Giant
Plants meant that he could accelerate himself out even
faster, meaning only the high cost of 4 Energy was
really the only deterrent to playing him in the first
place.
In a dual mix of fortune and
misfortune, M Venusaur-EX has been reprinted and been
given a Spirit Link card, only to have it follow after a
set where his main weakness has received a lot of
support and become a general threat in the metagame.
Perhaps the designers anticipated that to some degree,
letting Volcanion decks take up their time to see their
impact before pushing in M Venusaur-EX back into the
fray. Which is funny, cause they did the same thing with
M Blastoise-EX.
Don't be fooled though. M
Venusaur-EX is a potent threat, and if you're not
prepared to take a Crisis Vine to the face, you'll end
up losing very, very quickly.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (against most decks,
M Venusaur-EX can provide quite a problem)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (but he's also got
major problems with Fire, which for the moment is
prominent)
Limited: 4.5/5 (that being said,
he's nothing to shy away from, and I'm sure that people
will work to build decks centered around him)
Arora Notealus: I ended up skipping
out on M Blastoise-EX last week, so as a brief review,
lemme just say that he came back in on even ground with
M Venusaur-EX. Now with a Spirit Link, he's pretty much
better off than before, and he'll probably end up
playing a big role in the game as a counter to Volcanion
decks for the time being. Until the next big deck comes
out, consider him at around the same level if not
currently better than M Venusaur-EX.
Weekend Thought: Liked this week's
cards? Think there are some combos to be made? Some
decks to build? How about last week's, since I didn't
ask? Do the Spirit Links make these old Megas viable
again? Do the BREAK Evolutions bring new life to these
older cards? Do the updates and upgrades make you wanna
pick out a couple of cards to play in your new decks?
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Otaku |
That’s right,
last Friday
we reviewed M Blastoise-EX (XY 30/146;
XY: Evolutions 22/108, 102/108) because it has a
brand new shiny Blastoise Spirit Link card when
it was reprinted in our latest set, and thanks to
Venusaur Spirit Link we’ll be re-reviewing M
Venusaur-EX (XY 2/146; XY: Evolutions
2/108, 100/108). The original review for it is
here.
So to begin this is a Mega Evolution. Before you
had no choice but to end your turn when you Mega
Evolved, but now you can avoid that penalty by
utilizing Venusaur Spirit Link. Other than
that, being a Mega Evolution means access to Mega Stage
support (like Mega Turbo), suffering Mega
Evolution counters (like Faded Town), and then
all the stuff that goes with being a Pokémon-EX: extra
Prize when KO’d, Pokémon-EX counters, exclusion from
some support, Basic/Mega Evolution instead of usual
Stage, better HP than “regular” versions, possibly other
better stats and effects. As M Venusaur-EX
is a Grass Type it will strike many Water Types and some
Fighting Types for double damage via Weakness, while
nothing Standard or Expanded legal is Grass Resistant.
There are some anti-Grass Type effects, but they aren’t
too great; most likely one you’ll encounter is
Parallel City. Yes, the Stadium that shrinks a
player’s max Bench size down to three; the other
side of it reduces the damage from the attacks of Fire,
Grass, and Water Types by 20, so if your opponent can
handle having that tiny Bench they can ding your damage.
The Grass Type offers some nice tricks specific to the
Type, like Forest of Giant Plants and
Revitalizer, though the former technically cares
about Venusaur-EX being a Grass Type, not M
Venusaur-EX. Still, it is a pretty big deal
since all Venusaur-EX are Grass Types
and now it has Venusaur Spirit Link, plus we
know it has Mega Turbo as well for Energy needs.
Speaking of Energy, I’m drawing a blank on great Grass
Energy tricks, at least for Standard. Virizion-EX
is an option for Expanded though; technically it works
with anything that can make use of [G] Energy,
but that makes it a natural for fellow Grass Types. Virizion-EX
provides both [G] Energy acceleration from the deck via
its attack and protection from Special Conditions via
its Ability. There are a few solid Grass Type
attackers or Bench-sitters that might also aid M
Venusaur-EX and like Virizion-EX at least
some are used off Type as well, but being in a Grass
Type deck just provides more synergy with Grass Type
support.
M Venusaur-EX
has 230 HP; second highest we’ve seen on a Mega
Evolution and hard for most decks to OHKO. Fire is
the major exception because M Venusaur-EX is Fire
Weak and unfortunately its x2. Isn’t all Weakness
x2? Well yeah but from Diamond & Pearl
through PL: Arceus the designers experimented
with additive Weakness, where the range was from +10 to
+40. This overall didn’t work the best, and we saw
some cards still get x2 Weakness during this time, and
it got a bit confusing. Going back to x2 Weakness
reminded us why we left it; it is crazy strong as
something with this much HP can be so easily OHKO’d due
to Weakness. A flat +20 (or so) would probably be
much better. No Resistance is the worst
Resistance, but both typical and more like a missed
opportunity than a real problem. The massive
Retreat Cost of [CCCC] is a problem, though;
you’ll need to pack multiple copies of multiple options
for either reducing this cost, bypassing manually
retreating, and/or tanking hits. M Venusaur-EX
has a single attack called “Crisis Vine” with a hefty
Energy cost of [GGGC]. Crisis Vine does 120 damage
which is actually a bit low given the cost, but Crisis
Vine both Paralyzes and Poisons the opponent’s Active as
well, giving it a chance of scoring 2HKOs with minimal
hassle. Most decks will have an answer for this
but you have the entire rest of your deck to include
answers to those answers… or find other ways of
capitalizing upon it all.
Time to cover the rest of the Pokémon in this Evolution
line. We have the ofte printed Venusaur-EX
(XY 1/146, 141/146; XY: Black Star Promos
XY28, XY123; XY: Evolutions 1/108), the other
Venusaur-EX (Generations 1/83), and the
other M Venusaur-EX (Generations
2/83). All are Expanded and Standard legal Grass
Type Pokémon-EX with Fire Weakness, no Resistance,
Retreat Cost [CCCC], no Ability, and no Ancient Trait.
Both Venusaur-EX are Basic Pokémon with 180 HP
and two attacks, the first for [GCC] and the second for
[GGCC]. The smaller of the two attacks on
Venusaur-EX (XY 1/146, 141/146; XY: Black
Star Promos XY28, XY123; XY: Evolutions
1/108) is “Poison Powder”, which does 60 damage and
leaves the opponent’s Active Poisoned. The larger
attack is “Jungle Hammer” which does 90 damage and heals
30 from itself. The smaller attack on
Generations 1/83 is “Frog Hop” which does 40 damage
and has you flip a coin; “heads” means +40 damage (so 80
total) while “tails” means just the base 40. The
second attack on this one is “Poison Impact” which hits
for 80 damage and afflicts the opponent’s Active with
both Poison and Sleep. All of these attacks are
badly underpowered. Go with whichever one you like
because you should almost never have to attack with it
due to how much Energy is required, Forest of Giant
Plants, and Venusaur Spirit Link.
M Venusaur-EX
(Generations 2/83) has 230 HP Mega Evolution and
a single attack, like today’s version, but its attack is
slightly less expensive as it costs [GGCC] instead of
[GGGC]. Two Mega Turbo and one Double
Colorless Energy attached from hand is tricky, but
easier than needing three Mega Turbo and one
Energy from hand. The attack is named “Bloom
Buster” and does 130 damage plus it has you flip a coin,
“heads” means you hit your opponent’s entire Bench for
30 damage each. Not great, but decent. You
want to support it differently than you would today’s
M Venusaur-EX, but a single of either version might
not be bad backing the other. While this other
version seems easier to fuel and hits a tiny bit harder
(ignoring Poison damage), iffy Bench spread isn’t super
impressive, or at least less so than automatic
Paralysis. You can read the Venusaur-EX (XY
1/146, 141/146; XY: Black Star Promos XY28,
XY123; XY: Evolutions 1/108) review
here,
but it’s pretty out of date. The Venusaur-EX
(Generations 1/83) review can be read
here.
Lastly M Venusaur-EX (Generations 2/83)
and it’s sort of dated review is
here.
So, should you give M Venusaur-EX (XY
2/146; XY: Evolutions 2/108, 100/108) a shot?
I think so, but don’t put yourself out trying to build
the deck. You might back it with Vileplume
(XY: Ancient Origins 3/98) as without Items, it
can be much harder to deal with Crisis Vine.
However this also makes it harder to set up M
Venusaur-EX, and while you can try to toss it all
down first turn, that conflict can make the deck trip
over itself. You might try Garbodor (XY:
BREAKpoint 57/122), or in Expanded Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted 54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze
119/116; BW: Legendary Treasures 68/113); if
you’re not using an Ability to fuel Energy attachments
to M Venusaur-EX (and your options aren’t all
that great in that department) then shutting down
Abilities with “Garbotoxin” also reduces your opponent’s
options for blocking or ditching Special Conditions.
It also messes with other strong decks perhaps even
worse than Vileplume does. Otherwise, enjoy
M Venusaur-EX in Limited play if you manage to
pull both it and Venusaur-EX; Venusaur-EX
isn’t super special awesome, but it’s solid here and
Mega Evolving might be worth it even if you don’t have
Venusaur Spirit Link. I’m not sure about
building a Limited deck around nothing but
Venusaur-EX and M Venusaur-EX (meaning no
other Basic Pokémon), but you can hopefully find enough
other Pokémon that even if they are not Grass Types can
still run on Grass Energy, or a deck split between Grass
Energy and their own Type.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
3.15/5
Summary:
If you go back and check, you’ll see I scored M
Venusaur-EX the same as I did M Blastoise-EX
a week ago. That isn’t me saying the two work the
exact same way, just that after all is said and done
they have similar potential. They should work
quite differently. If I could combine all the
strengths of the two together… well mostly if Crisis
Vine was a three Energy attack instead of a four Energy
attack, you wouldn’t need me to try and persuade you to
give M Venusaur-EX a try. M Venusaur-EX
won’t give you an unbeatable lock, but once you meet the
Energy costs you get an easily made lock so it is okay
if it is easily broken. Without the Paralysis soft
lock you still have a solid 2HKO attacker.
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