aroramage |
Okay, I'm just gonna say - M
GYARADOS-EX LOOKS AMAZING IN THIS!! He's got that red
Shiny form, he looks super menacing, and OMG I REALLY
WANNA BUILD A NEW WATER DECK AROUND THIS GUY!!!
*er-hem* That being said, I should
probably say why he ended up so high on my list. And
since technically he ended up having the same amount of
points as M Scizor-EX did, let's talk about the
comparisons we can make between the two!
So starting off, I'm gonna talk
about M Gyarados-EX's attack, Blast Geyser. First off,
it's completely Colorless - 4 Energy, but completely
Colorless. Now that may make him seem splashable (haha),
but you will want to run him in a Water deck for very
obvious reasons - this is a Hydro Pump-esque attack. So
for each Water Energy attached to M Gyarados-EX, you can
deal an additional 20 damage, and if you do, you discard
the top 2 cards of your deck.
"Wait, so a self-milling heavy
hitter matches a metagame breaker? How does THAT work?!"
Well now, here's the thing with
that. M Scizor-EX will get his attack off much sooner,
certainly, and it would stand to reason that, given the
1 Energy per turn idea, M Scizor-EX would easily KO M
Gyarados-EX before he even got an attack off. This is
what makes them comparable - a cheaper attack for the
same damage output, only M Scizor-EX doesn't have a
backlash...or a way of getting it stronger. M Gyarados-EX
on the other hand has the ability to make his strike
MUCH stronger, dealing 200 damage if all his Energies
are Water - and it only costs 2 cards from the deck.
That sounds like it's a big issue,
but given how fast we'll go through our decks, it just
means M Gyarados-EX decks will want to be a little more
careful with their plays - they can't just throw things
away as easily. But the other thing is that this is an
optional effect, and this attack can still KO quite a
few things rather easily. If you need to make that leap
to OHKO a Basic Pokemon-EX, for instance, you could do
that with M Gyarados-EX - but not with M Scizor-EX. And
if you need that extra strength to REALLY OHKO some
Mega, M Gyarados-EX can take on a couple more Energy and
deal 240 damage - but not M Scizor-EX.
And it's not like the cost is
changing to increase the damage - you just have to add
on another Energy, and you're still only going to lose 2
cards.
So in a way, M Gyarados-EX is a
heavy-hitting gamble. He definitely has the power to
OHKO anything in the format, but will he be able to make
a big enough splash in the meta?
...pssh, yeah, like we're done with
this set.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (a heavy-hitter
with a minor backlash that's only really a threat if
you're not at least on even territory with your opponent
- if you're ahead, it's even less of a backlash)
Expanded: 4/5 (I mean, what's 2
cards from your deck compared to the price for victory?)
Limited: 5/5 (that being said,
don't abuse his power too much, and M Gyarados-EX can
easily win you the day)
Arora Notealus: Personally, I'm of
the opinion that Water decks are gonna make a big
comeback thanks to the support from this set. I'm not
gonna say that stuff like Primal Kyogre-EX will come
back, though there's no doubt that much of the support
will be welcoming, but I think there's a lot of promise
for a variety of Water decks to come about and turn the
tide of the competition. Which probably means that Grass
decks aren't too far behind...
Next Time: HEY REMEMBER WHEN I SAID
THERE WAS SUPPORT FOR WATER
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Otaku |
M
Gyarados-EX
(XY: BREAKpoint 27/122, 115/122) splashes down as
our ninth place pick! Fun fact: I misread the
schedule and worked hard to finish this CotD before
Monday… only to finish at about 1:30 AM CDT Monday
morning and realize my mistake as I was about to submit
it to Bill. Well, it wasn’t fun for me, but maybe
it is worth a chuckle for you.
It is a
Mega Evolution, so we’ll be dealing with the usual
problems faced by Pokémon-EX - giving up an extra Prize
when KOed, can’t use access certain beneficial effects,
singled out by certain adverse effects - with the added
burden of certain adverse effects that only apply to
Mega Evolutions and one’s turn ending as soon as they
Mega Evolve (unless you use the correct Spirit Link
card). At least on the successful Mega Evolutions,
these tend to be offset by increased HP scores,
abnormally potent attacks, and stuff like Mega Turbo.
Mega Evolutions were originally seen as hopeless but now
they are a major force in both Standard and Expanded
formats. Being a Water-Type got a boost this set,
with new exclusive, explicit support in the form of
Splash Energy as well as some that merely favors
Water-Types over others like Manaphy-EX (XY:
BREAKpoint 32/122, 116/122) and Palkia-EX (XY:
BREAKpoint 31/122). The Type already enjoyed
tricks like Archie’s Ace in the Hole, Dive
Ball and Rough Seas as well. On top of
that nearly every Fire-Type and a decent chunk of
Fighting-Types are Water Weak. There are some
drawbacks like older Grass-Types (BW-era) often having
Water Resistance and some card effects that are
detrimental to Water-Types, but none of those have
proven particularly successful and mostly just reduce
damage done akin to Resistance. All in all, Water
is a good Type, but I am curious what a Darkness-Type
version would have been like (it is a Water/Dark-Type in
the video games).
M
Gyarados-EX
has 240 HP, the maximum printed on any current Mega
Evolutions and only 10 shy of the printed maximum seen
on Wailord-EX. With this much HP, most
decks will have a hard time pulling a OHKO. You
might even be able to survive a second hit without any
added protection or healing. Can’t get sloppy
though: some decks specialize in insane offense and at
worst just have to strain to hit the 240, others use
combos that fake a OHKO (including doing it via card
effects instead of damage) and of course there is
Weakness, which can turn a much less demanding 120
damage attack into the needed 240. No Weakness is
the only safe one, but some are less problematic than
others. Unlike regular Gyarados (a
Water/Flying-Type), Mega Gyarados (a Water/Dark-Type)
has several to choose from and… the designers stuck with
Lightning Weakness, which is one of the most dangerous
to have right now: they have some solid attackers though
usually not ones easily splashed into just any old
build, but then again there are many other strong,
established attackers like Yveltal-EX that have
ensured people already have reason to work
Lightning-Types into their decks.
We once
again get cheated out of any Resistance. Even
though in the video games a Mega Gyarados takes half
damage from six of the eighteen Pokémon-Types and takes
no damage at all from a seventh, or over a third of
possible Types. Even factoring the ones that don’t
translate well from video game to TCG because the
TCG-Type includes video game Types to which a Mega
Gyarados is no Resistant (such as the Psychic-Type in
the TCG being the video game Psychic-, Ghost-, and
Poison-Types) or because of a general design policy
(Water-Types plus Ice-Types equal the TCG Water-Type,
but the designers seem to be avoiding Water Resistance
in the XY-era)... we’ve still got Dark, Fire, or Steel
Resistance that would translate directly to Darkness,
Fire or Metal Resistance. With 240 HP and some
healing tricks that are occasionally effective like
Rough Seas, Resistance could have been most potent
on M Gyarados-EX… which might be why they didn’t
include it. M Gyarados-EX does get a Retreat
Cost of [CC], which is high enough you’d prefer not to
pay it but low enough you often can afford it, both
upfront and in the long term.
M
Gyarados-EX
has no Ancient Trait and so far no Mega Evolution has
had an Ability, so it just has the typical lone attack.
“Blast Geyser” has a hefty cost of [CCCC], but does a
solid 120 with it for base damage. The attack’s
effect states that you may optionally hit for 120 plus
20 per [W] Energy attached to M Gyarados-EX
itself, but then you have to discard the top two cards
of your deck. The Colorless costs means you have
the option of using any Energy-Type to meet it, but the
effect means you’d prefer [W] Energy be used. Not
a bad option to have, and the same is definitely true of
being able to hit for varying damage. Discarding
two cards from the deck is a risky, but only crippling
if you have very bad luck with what is discarded. 120
damage takes out the bottom half of the format without
needing to discard at all, and sets most targets up for
a 2HKO if they can survive. If three of the four
Energy required are [WWW], Blast Geyser can score a OHKO
against most of the format; if you have [WWWW] attached
then only Mega Evolutions, Wailord-EX, and cards
with defensive buffs can survive. Additional [W]
Energy can expand the range even more, though you’ll
need other cards to deal with problems like Suicune
(BW: Plasma Blast 20/101). You’ll
definitely need Energy acceleration no matter how you
approach this: four Energy is still a lot to get onto
something both quickly and reliably.
Gyarados-EX
(XY: BREAKpoint 26/122, 114/122, 123/122) is
required to get M Gyarados-EX into play unless
you want to use Archie’s Ace in the Hole.
While a legitimate option, I’m not sure if the Supporter
is worth it in this instance. Gyarados-EX is a
Water-Type Basic Pokémon-EX with 180 HP, Lightning
Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [CCCC], no
Ancient Trait, no Ability and two attacks. The
first attack is “Stormy Seas” for [C]; it has you flip a
coin until you get “tails” and for each “heads” you
search your deck for a [W] Energy and attach it to
Gyarados-EX. As a reminder, you can fail a
search if you so choose and nothing currently counts as
[W] in the deck other than basic Water Energy
cards. Approximately half the time this attack
will do nothing, but if you are very lucky it can
significantly speed up your eventual M Gyarados-EX.
The luck I speak of isn’t just the coin flips either: if
you attacked then Gyarados-EX is Active and that
means it is vulnerable… plus more than one currently
successful attack does more damage based on how much
Energy is attached to the opponent’s Active.
Imagine getting five heads in a row, attaching all that
Energy and then your opponent attacks with Dedenne
(XY: Furious Fists 34/111). The second
attack is “Splash Burn” for [WWCC] and it does 130
damage while hitting your own Benched Pokémon for 10
damage each. A decent fallback attack if M
Gyarados-EX doesn’t show but you have sufficient
Energy attached, but again four Energy is a lot, and
Gyarados-EX can’t make use of Mega Turbo.
In
Expanded play, I don’t think I’d bother with M
Gyarados-EX. You have so many options here,
including Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed
31/149; XY: Plasma Storm 137/135; BW: Plasma
Blast 16/101). Sure Blastoise could use
its “Deluge” Ability to easily fuel M Gyarados-EX,
but it already has Keldeo-EX as well as several
others for brute force assaults that use massive amounts
of Energy. In Standard though, this might be a new
powerhouse; it will at least make for a functional deck
that can win single games but struggles at scoring a
string of wins to take home first place. Unless
Entei (XY: Ancient Origins 15/98)/Charizard-EX
(XY: Flashfire 12/106) decks have already cooled
off, you’ve got a reason to exploit Water Weakness, but
you once again have other options. M Gyarados-EX
brings the raw damage for taking everything else out,
though. The new Palkia-EX may help with the
needed Energy acceleration but I might prefer using
Mega Turbo and/or the new Max Elixir (XY:
BREAKpoint 102/122). Said Palkia-EX
needs [WW] to use its “Aqua Turbo” attack to attach to
[W] Energy cards to one of your Benched Pokémon, so a
single use only breaks even so you’re not speeding
things up all that much… but this is something you can
go back to and it doesn’t require a massively abnormal
deck build. Mega Turbo only suffers in that
you’ll want to use two or even three right away and the
most you can have in your deck is four: recycling them
isn’t all that easy (or at least, when it is it is also
costly). Max Elixir requires a some luck because
it checks the top six cards of your deck for a basic
Energy card to attach, but that gives you up to another
four bits of Item based Energy acceleration.
Either
way, the Lightning Weakness and demands make me leery of
expecting too much out of M Gyarados-EX in
Standard, but I could easily be wrong. If you pull
M Gyarados-EX alongside Gyarados-EX, go
for it; the extra HP is probably worth losing a turn but
you aren’t too likely to need the extra damage.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
2.75/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
M Gyarados-EX looks fierce and can hit very hard
without too ridiculous a cost, but the issue is getting
it all to gel in a deck that is both fast and reliable.
This isn’t Primal Groudon-EX (XY: Primal Clash
86/160, 151/160) that could hide on the Bench relatively
easy while building thanks to its “Ω Barrier” Ancient
Trait. The HP might allow it to build even while
stuck up front, but that also means it probably you’re
still only trading even on Prizes. Throw in the
non-Pokémon-EX that can take OHKOs against it due to
Weakness or because that is just what they do and
I sense this is going to be another competent Mega
Evolution that can win the match but not consistently
enough to win a lot of tournaments.
M
Gyarados-EX
makes my Top 20 for this set, but doesn’t quite make my
Top 15. It came close though and actually was in
some of my earlier versions, but then I started thinking
about not just Standard, not just Expanded but both
formats and it didn’t seem quite as impressive.
Which means it impressed others because it made the Top
10 without my help, tying with
yesterday’s
M Scizor-EX. In fact, even for most of my
tiebreakers they remained tied: both earned 11 voting
points, both appeared on just one list, both placed
equally high on the lists upon which they appeared.
In the end, M Gyarados-EX won because… I went
with alphabetical order.
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