aroramage |
WHO WANTS A WEEK PACKED TO THE BRIM
WITH CARDS DO YOU I DO LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO
Lugia BREAK was briefly mentioned
in our review on Lugia, which took our #6 spot in the
Top 10 countdown! So this is really more of a recap
then. Lugia BREAK only has so much to work with anyway.
The main things to take away are
that Lugia BREAK gives any regular non-EX Lugia 150 HP
and the FLASH OF DESTRUCTION!! At 4-for-150, it's an
exceptional attack that, for the cost of 2 Energy to
discard, is pretty solid. Throw in Energy acceleration
of any sort thanks to Lugia BREAK's Colorless costs, and
you're all set for constant smacking around!
The only Basic Lugia
available...well, period, is the Lugia in this set.
Fortunately, it's a powerful version, and the extra 30
HP combined with Pressure makes Lugia BREAK pretty good.
Just don't get reliant on Flash of Destruction if you're
lacking in the Energy accelerating department.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (pretty solid
overall, and he's got a good base form to work with)
Expanded: 3/5 (definitely gonna
need the support otherwise)
Limited: 4/5 (solid work otherwise
though)
Arora Notealus: Similarly to
Carbink BREAK, Lugia BREAK is a powerful single BREAK
Evolution thanks to the fact that his base form doesn't
evolve...hm...I wonder what would happen if we had
evolving BREAK Evolutions? Like a Squirtle BREAK, or a
Graveler BREAK...I've been playing too much Pokemon GO.
Next Time: GO CHECK OUT THE DOUBLE
TWOFER WE'VE GOT OF...the same Pokemon?
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Otaku |
Lugia BREAK
(XY: Fates Collide 79/124) is a Colorless Type,
which means it will neither encounter Weakness nor
Resistance unless we go to Unlimited and we aren’t
touching that format. I don’t recall any effects
that can alter Weakness or Resistance to Colorless that
are Standard or Expanded legal either. Colorless
support includes Altaria (XY: Roaring Skies
74/108; XY: Black Star Promos XY46) cancels out
their Weakness, Aspertia City Gym gives them a
+20 HP bump, while Winona provides triple
Colorless Pokémon search. The Type is typically
designed to be used off Type though, which means
non-explicit support doesn’t really exist as (for
example) a good attacker that happens to be Colorless
works as well on Type as off unless you use some
of the Colorless specific support I just mentioned.
Colorless counters exist but only in the form of attacks
that just aren’t good enough.
Being the BREAK
Evolution of a Basic is like being a Stage 1 without
access to effects that specifically benefit or punish
Stage 1 Pokémon. I could not find any examples of
the latter, for the record. 150 is enough to survive a
hit; not all the time, but often enough. The only
other thing present on this card is the attack “Flash of
Destruction”, which requires [CCCC] to do 150 damage,
but also that you discard two cards from Lugia BREAK.
This isn’t amazing, but it is good as a Muscle Band
brings 170 HP Basic Pokémon-EX into OHKO range, and even
without buffs everything lacking additional protection
is a 2HKO, even a Wailord-EX with a Fighting
Fury Belt. Four Energy isn’t easy, but as it
is pure Colorless it isn’t hard either since most Energy
acceleration can help.
Lugia BREAK
has to BREAK Evolve from a Lugia and our options
are XY: Fates Collide 78/124 and XY: Black
Star Promos XY156. If you aren’t familiar with
the promo it doesn’t officially release for three days
in North America, so it’ll be a few weeks before it is
tournament legal anyway. Still we may as well
discuss it. Both Lugia are Basic Colorless
Pokémon with 120 HP, Lightning Weakness, Fighting
Resistance, and Retreat Cost [CC]. XY: Fates Collide
78/124 has the Ability “High Pressure” which reduces the
damage it takes from attacks by your opponent’s Pokémon
are reduced by 20 while it is Active. For [CCC]
this Lugia can use “Intensifying Burn” for 60
damage, which becomes 120 (60 + 60) if used to attack a
Pokémon-EX. We reviewed it
here
as the sixth best card out of XY: Fates Collide.
XY: Black Star Promos XY156 sports two attacks,
“Gust” for [CC] and “Aeroblast” for [CCCC]. Gust
does 30 damage (no effect text) while Aeroblast does 80
with two coin flips; “tails” change nothing while each
“head” adds 20 damage. This is almost the
definition of mediocre; nothing is incredibly bad, but
clearly isn’t good. In fact what makes it
questionable as an example of mediocre is that the
attacks might not even qualify as “adequate”. So
XY: Fates Collide 78/124 it is!
Of course, that
won’t matter for the effective “bottom stats” of
Lugia BREAK; it uses whatever its underlying
Lugia provides and both provided the same thing.
Lightning Weakness is not the worst to have right now,
as I would still be more concerned with Fighting
Weakness, probably Darkness Weakness, and maybe Psychic
Weakness right now. Since nothing is Colorless
Weak that means there are six other Weaknesses that
aren’t as bad, plus the ideal, the lack of Weakness.
Any Resistance is welcome, and a non-Pokémon-EX with 150
HP is likely to fall into the range where Fighting
Resistance can matter. Even more so as our chosen
Lugia adds in an Ability to soak another 20
damage. Intensifying Burn needs a Double
Colorless Energy, a successful Max Elixir,
and a way to become Active (or similarly complex/lucky
combo) to go from zero to “attacking” in one turn, which
is the only real knock against it, especially when added
to Lugia BREAK. Lugia BREAK will then
have a choice between doing 60 (120 to Pokémon-EX) with
Intensifying Burn or for one more Energy (plus the
discard) using Flash of Destruction for that massive
150.
In Standard and
Expanded you can use a couple different tricks to turn
that 150 into OHKO potential, as I already stated.
Now a lot of those work better with other cards but the
beauty of Lugia BREAK is that it is easy to
splash into most decks. The main hangup will be
low Energy decks or those focusing heavily on Type
specific Energy, so that for Lugia BREAK they
will effectively be lower Energy. Oh, and general
deck space concerns. So just the two things that
apply to most cards right now. You could make it
your main attacker if you wanted though, but it can be
real nice as a surprise “power-up” for a deck already
using Lugia (XY: Fates Collide 78/124) as
a secondary or co-attacker. With its 120 HP
usually acting like 140 thanks to High Pressure it has a
good chance of surviving while Active and attacking, and
a single additional Energy to unleash 150 is a solid
deal. For Limited play you of course need Lugia.
Said Lugia is a must run unless you pull
something like a Zygarde-EX and decide to risk
running it solo. So if you manage both Lugia
and Lugia BREAK, enjoy having such a strong
attacker that can work with everything else!
Ratings
Standard:
3.7/5
Expanded:
3.7/5
Limited:
3.7/5
Summary:
Lugia BREAK probably won’t be showing up
everywhere, but like its set-mate Lugia it can
show up almost anywhere. It isn’t a brilliant
BREAK Evolution on its own (just reasonably good), which
is why I tempered my scores for it. Since it
starts with something great, adding more HP and a
slightly bigger attack work well.
Lugia BREAK
placed would have finished in 20th place had we done a
Top 20 cards for XY: Fates Collide instead of a
Top 10. It managed six voting points, one less
than Chaos Tower and three more than Genesect-EX
(XY: Fates Collide 64/124, 120/124), which we
reviewed
here
and
here.
I had Lugia BREAK as my 10th place pick and like
Genesect-EX I wish I had rated it higher.
Well, really I wish I had listened and made Lugia
and Lugia BREAK a two-in-one review, even
Lugia is often run without Lugia BREAK.
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