aroramage |
If there's anything that power
creep has done to Pokemon, it's increased the number of
ways Evolutions can just DECIMATE a field. And
Typhlosion is certainly no exception! Like, just take a
look back at Neo Genesis' copy - let's got with #18,
just to be on the same page. Fire Boost gave you a 50/50
shot at instantly charging its Flame Wheel attack that
would discard 3 Fire Energy and deal 20 damage to all
the Benched Pokemon while dealing 80 to the opponent's
Active Pokemon. That's pretty explosive!
Today's Typhlosion actually shares
a lot of similarities to that Typhlosion, as well as a
couple others. Basically, this Typhlosion likes
utilizing Energy from your deck, and he's got an attack
that discards Energy. Granted, it's a bit
different...okay, it's a LOT different, but bare with me
cause he's still packing a lot of heat.
Massive Eruption is another one of
those kinds of attacks that deals a lot of damage, kinda
like Flame Wheel, but it doesn't deal damage to the
Bench-sitters. Still, it can deal a TON of damage to the
Active - provided you mill well. See, Massive Eruption
mills off the top five cards of your deck, and for each
one of those that's an Energy card, Typhlosion blasts
out 80 damage. You only really need 2-3 Energy to deal
effective damage to KO anything in the format, but given
how most decks will run 8-12 Energy in a 60-card deck,
you know that Typhlosion is asking for a bit more
investment to making him your main attacker. You're
probably looking at upwards of 15 Energy to be
reasonably effective in the way you'd want to be, using
your Trainers to mill out as much of your other Trainer
cards and Pokemon as possible in order to maximize on
Typhlosion. And hey, with only 1 Energy to used it,
you'd be able to get a lot of usage out of just one.
Now if for some reason a 1-Energy
cheap powerhouse attack isn't your style, Typhlosion has
also inherited the Flare Destroy attack from Typhlosion
Prime from HGSS - yeah, how about that for a nostalgia
kickback? Objectively speaking, this Flare Destroy is
better than Prime's, costing the same amount with the
same effect and yet dealing 130 damage compared to
Prime's 70 damage (POWER CREEP). So yeah, he'll discard
an Energy like Burning Energy (and get it back for free
if it is Burning Energy) and take down the opponent's
Energy with ease - pretty much just utilize other Energy
smacking cards with that, and the opponent won't stand
much of a chance.
So yeah, Typhlosion here pretty
much requires his own deck build, but he can definitely
be successful. Sure, he's a Stage 2, and sure he's
chance-reliant for Massive Eruption (sorta not really),
but it's more than possible to build a deck around him
and maybe even win. Expect at least a couple hanging
around where you least expect him.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (hefty powerful
attacks, but he definitely needs to be built around)
Expanded: 3/5 (if he's not the
star, you're not putting him in your deck)
Limited: 4.5/5 (seriously, BUILD
THE DECK AROUND HIM)
Arora Notealus: BUILD THE DECK-oh,
um, *er-hem*. Hey, you notice how a lot of attacks
nowadays are kinda big explode-y attacks? Destroyer
King, Massive Eruption, Cryo Mouth - everything just
wants to deal a BUNCH of damage at once, it's kinda
crazy! You'd almost never find an attack like that back
in the day, and if it was on something, it'd be too
uncompetitive. Weird how that's somewhat become the
norm...
Next Time: Speaking of powerhouses
and power creep, let's talk EXs...
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Otaku |
Typhlosion
(XY: BREAKthrough 20/162) is our second card for
this Fire Week and marks the return of Typhlosion
to both Expanded and Standard play. So let us see
if that will actually matter. Note: This review
is going up incredibly late, going up roughly on
February 8, 2016! Yeah, I got behind. At
least this meant I finally ran into someone running the
deck.
As a
Fire-Type Typhlosion will hit Weakness against
most Grass- and Metal-Types and doesn’t have to worry
about Resistance or anti-Fire-Type effects because they
don’t exist! We covered the latest bit of
Fire-Type support
yesterday
but what might matter most is the Supporter
Blacksmith, which allows you to use your Supporter
for the turn to attach two basic Fire Energy
cards from your discard pile to one of your Fire-Type
Pokémon. As a Stage 2 Pokémon Typhlosion
takes time to get into play: minimum of two turns and
three cards even including acceleration. Besides
Rare Candy, there are a few other cards designed
for Stage 2 Pokémon specifically, and the next most
important one is probably Miltank (XY:
Flashfire 83/106), a 100 HP Colorless Basic that can
hit for 80 damage if you have a Stage 2 in play.
There are actually a few anti-Stage 2 cards: Stage 2
Pokémon aren’t common enough to justify them, but they
aren’t that good even if the format was suddenly
dominated by Stage 2 Pokémon in all roles (and not just
the customary Bench-sitter). Typhlosion has a
150 HP, only 10 below the maximum printed on any
currently legal Stage 2 Pokémon. It still can be
OHKOed but there are a decent amount of decks that will
fall a little short even with their preferred attacker
and set-up. Water Weakness means Seismitoad-EX,
Suicune (BW: Plasma Blast 20/101) and a
few other low-to-mid-range Water-Type attackers can
score a OHKO when normally they’d fall at least a little
short; not as bad as it could be but definitely not
good. Typical lack of Resistance so moving on we
see a Retreat Cost of [CCC], making Typhlosion a
legal Heavy Ball target (which probably won’t
matter) and not something you want to manually retreat,
or at least do so at full price.
Typhlosion
sports two attacks, the first of which is “Massive
Eruption” for [R]. Its effect is to discard the
top five cards of your own deck, far from an
insignificant amount. The second is “Flare
Destroy” for [RRC] which hits for 130 damage plus an
effect: you discard an Energy attached to Typhlosion
(that is, whatever used Flare Destroy) and then you
discard an Energy attached to your opponent’s Active.
Massive Eruption discarding five cards (as opposed to
say revealing then shuffling away) is a massive
cost: the lower the damage you do, the more you’re
discarding non-Energy cards. At least the
attack counts Special Energy cards and doesn’t care
about Type, so say Burning Energy still causes
damage. Pokémon and basic Energy aren’t so hard to
get back and as of XY: BREAKpoint there is a
means to get back anything now (more on that in a bit),
but Lysandre’s Trump Card it ain’t: you’ll still
be feeling it. You run the risk of trashing your
deck by discarding five non-Energy cards and whiffing,
doing zero damage. Normally 80-for-one is very
good (maybe great) but not when you just lost four
non-Energy cards from the deck alongside one (hopefully)
basic Fire Energy cards. 160-for-one would help
even a Stage 2 have a place at the table… except you’re
still losing three non-Energy cards from your deck.
Past this point though it stops being such a serious
drawback, as hitting for 240 damage and having two of
the five discarded cards be non-Energy is actually
pretty good, while 320 for one less non-Energy discarded
from the deck is great and of course a perfect
400 means you discarded all Energy cards (and if they
were all basic Energy, a simple Energy Recycler
can even be used to reload them into your deck).
So…
does that average out to something worth the risk?
Unlike coin flips, you control what is in your full
deck. Just like coin flips, you’re at the mercy of
chance with what is within your top five cards (or your
deck in general) at any time during the match.
Even when you do something like use Energy Recycler
to ensure you’ve got five basic Energy in your deck, and
your deck was at zero cards before that due to careful
use of draw and search effects, it all goes back to your
opening hand and Prizes, which are randomized (at least
within the context of your deck list). There are
many combos one can use to affect your deck’s
composition, but not let you significantly stack
the deck and anything you run is another thing
you may accidentally mill with Massive Eruption.
So how about Flare Destroy? It provides a reliable
130 damage for three Energy, which is very good.
It also also may potentially disrupt the opponent due to
the Energy discard effect. Discarding Energy from
something doesn’t matter if it is KOed, or at least will
be KO'd before it can use said Energy for anything (or
anything again if it has used it before). So the
self-discard isn’t an issue if Typhlosion gets
KO’d but if Typhlosion survives and wants to use
Flare Destroy again the next turn, it will need more
Energy and if your target was OHKOed by Flare Destroy or
had no Energy attached in the first place, you still
have to discard that Energy.
The two
attacks have synergy but I am thinking it is a bit
flawed. From a design standpoint a lot of
good decisions (at least relative to what came before)
are present. The massive self-mill is incredibly
affordable otherwise, and we’ve got the typical “one
Energy attack leads into a three Energy attack” dynamic.
No bizarre Energy costs either. I mostly question
making Flare Destroy a “big” attack that can OHKO
smaller things reliably while having its Energy
discarding effect. Energy discards make more sense
on smaller attacks: if your opponent has sufficient
Energy acceleration and/or is using low cost attacks so
that the discards hardly matter, you’re out of luck
whether your Energy discarding attack is big or small.
As a three Energy attack, especially on a Fire-Type,
just going for reliable massive damage may have been
better: 130 plus 20 from a Muscle Band means 150.
You don’t want to have to Giovanni to take out
the 170 HP stuff in one shot. If that single
Energy you discard from Typhlosion was paying for
another 20 or 30 damage, I think Typhlosion would
have been better off. Still what we have is far
from useless. Let us see if Cyndaquil and
Quilava help or hurt this card’s chances.
Both
Cyndaquil (XY: BREAKthrough 18/162) and
Quilava (XY: BREAKthrough 19/162) are the
only versions of their respective Pokémon, and each is a
Fire-Type with Water Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat
Cost [C], no Ancient Trait and no Ability. Cyndaquil
is a Basic Pokemon with 60 HP and two attacks: for [C]
it may use “Tackle” to hit for 10 damage or for [RC] it
can instead use “Ember” to hit for 30 but must also
discard a [R] Energy from itself. Quilava is a
Stage 1 with 80 HP and the single attack “Mini Eruption”
that costs [RC] and does 30 damage while discarding the
top card of your deck; if it is an Energy card the
attack does an additional 30 damage (totaling 60
damage). These… are not helpful. Cyndaquil
at least has 60 HP but Quilava is only to be used
due to the fear of Item lock preventing the use of
Rare Candy. As I’ve stated before, the burden
of justifying an Evolution line needs to be considered
the entire way through: a deck built around
Typhlosion must carry the weight of these two and
while they may look small, it seems unlikely you’ll want
to use elaborate combos to run fewer of these than you
would copies of Typhlosion. I think this
eliminates the potential for Typhlosion in
competitive play, not that it had a huge opportunity in
the first place.
So what
if you wish to use it anyway? There are many
tricks one might use to manipulate one’s deck but
each takes up more space and has a risk of being milled
by Massive Eruption instead of basic Energy: waiting a
few turns to setup the combo loses the speed advantage
of Massive Eruption being a single Energy attack.
Your best bet is probably to build an Energy heavy deck
(preferably basic Fire Energy cards) then include
what you need to throw discarded ones back in the deck
over and over again. At least with a solid Trainer
engine and several Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring
Skies 77/108; 106/108) you stand a solid chance of
rushing into a Typhlosion, though of course not
on your first turn. I am uncertain as to how much
you ought to focus upon Flare Destroy: while reliable it
also is going to be a 2HKO most of the time and three
Energy on a Stage 2 is pretty hard to keep going.
Massive Eruption on the other hand is ready fast, even
if it is iffy. Now that it is out (though it’ll be
few weeks before it is tournament legal), Puzzle of
Time (XY: BREAKpoint 109/122). The
short version is that this card has two effects, with
the second activated by playing two copies of this card
at once: if you’re wondering yes the card text
specifically grants the player the capacity to play two
copies of Puzzle of Time at once, as normally you
may only play one card at a time.
The
first effect, the one you get if you only play a single
copy of Puzzle of Time is to look at the top
three cards of your deck, rearrange them as you see fit
and that is helpful, but the main thing is the
second effect, which allows you to instead take two
cards from your discard pile and add them to your hand.
This creates a serious security blanket for dealing with
accidental discards. So as a fun and possibly even
a functional deck, but probably not something you’ll see
winning an event (looks like it was a no show at the top
eight for the deck) for either Standard or Expanded.
In Limited, if you get the entire line remember to
focus on Flare Destroy because with a 40 card deck,
you’ll be lucky to get off multiple attacks with Massive
Eruption without decking yourself out. Still as a
150 HP Stage 2, once it hits it will dominate against
all but similarly lucky pulls… and Water-Types thanks to
Weakness. The difficulty is in pulling the entire
line, then assembling it with so few draw and search
cards in an actual deck before you lose or even win in
another manner.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Typhlosion has an amazingly potent but unreliable
attack and a solid second attack… but the second isn’t
worth building an entire deck around it so if you really
want to enjoy the card, I think you’ll have to focus
upon the first. Even then, I wouldn’t expect to
win any events of note with a Typhlosion deck, at
least without a lot of luck.
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