aroramage |
Alright, let's get the small-fry
out of the way, I wanna talk about the big deal here.
Lucario (47) is the Fighting-Type
between the two, with a low Retreat Cost and two vanilla
attacks: Beatdown at 1-for-40 and Magnum Kick at
3-for-70. Beatdown's pretty good for a 1-Energy attack,
even with vanilla, and boosting that up the way
Fighting-types can makes Lucario a decent pick. Magnum
Kick though doesn't build up into much, and I'd be hard
pressed to say I'd recommend him over the other Lucario.
Yes, that's even considering all
the Fighting support.
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (he's decent only
cause of the support)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (he's good only
cause of the support)
Limited: 3/5 (this Lucario WANTS
his support)
------
And now for Lucario (63)...oh man,
Lucario (63).
Let's start with his first attack,
Vacuum Wave: it's 1-for-50. That's really really good,
and while the stipulation that it's unaffected by
Weakness or Resistance is a little bit of a punch in the
gut compared to Beatdown, it's still really solid. If he
was Fighting-type like his brother, he'd be amazing, but
I think that's probably why they defaulted to making him
Steel-type instead.
Even more so because of his second
attack, Fight Alone. This is the one that caught my
attention, personally, because Lucario now has the
ability to push through any Pokemon with ease...for the
right amount of attention. It's a bit of a "high risk,
high reward" kind of attack rather than a "catch-up"
maneuver; basically it does 2-for-30, and then for every
Pokemon your opponent has MORE than you, it adds on an
extra 60 damage. So if they've got 1 more Pokemon,
that's 90, at 2 more it's 150, at 3 more it's 210 all
the way up to 330!!
Course at 2-3 more, that's already
plenty to work with, inflicting major damage and even
KO-ing some Pokemon-EX at that point. Combined with
something like Fighting Fury Belt, Lucario can become
very dangerous! On the other hand, that does expose
yourself to a potential loss if your opponent can KO
Lucario, especially if you don't have any other Pokemon.
Sure, you've KO'd that big beefy Pokemon-EX they had,
but then they just beat up Lucario and now you've lost!
Therein lies the risk.
Still, it's a pretty solid attack
outside of that, and if you use it to finish your
opponent off at the right time, Lucario can easily win
you the game.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (a solid attack and
a powerful one make Lucario pretty powerful overall)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (come to think of
it, sniping might be dangerous Lucario)
Limited: 3.5/5 (since if you snipe
something good, Lucario might just become more powerful)
Arora Notealus: I really like the
artwokr for (63) a lot! With him staring up towards Mega
Alakazam in the background. I think it actually
compliments (47)'s artwork really well too, where it
looks like he's powering up to the next level...like
some kind of...DBZ character...hmmm...
Weekend Thought: WOW, that was a
lot of cards to go through! What did you think of them
all? Enjoyed a few? Want to try some of them out
yourself? Or are you gonna pass on a couple? Who's the
fairest of them all?
|
Otaku |
We finish the week with another two-in-one review:
Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 47/124) and
Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 63/124)!
Right away we have an obvious difference as XY: Fates
Collide 47/124 is a Fighting Type while XY: Fates
Collide 63/124 is a Metal Type. I bring up the
Fighting Type often because as far as I’m concerned it
has the most going for it. Yes, even though it
isn’t the source of any current top decks; it still has
Focus Sash, Korrina, Maxie’s Hidden
Ball Trick, and Strong Energy for direct
support and several strong single Energy attackers of
varying Stages that are good for damage and often
effects as well! Colorless, Darkness, and
Lightning Types all have quite a bit of Fighting
Weakness, though also Resistance (which is spread out
among the Types): good thing double damage matters a lot
more than just soaking 20. There are anti-Fighting
Type cards but they just aren’t worth using. The
net result is pretty amazing. What about Metal
Types? Forgive me not typing it up again but this
review should be pretty lengthy as is: the detailed
version is
here
from when we looked at Genesect-EX (XY: Fates
Collide 64/124, 120/124). In a few areas they
outdo Fighting Types but in the areas that count most
the Fighting Type outperforms there. Yes, even
though the Metal Type now has a strong, established deck
again while the Fighting Type doesn’t; that owes more to
the current metagame not being favorable to the best
Fighting Types we have right now, but not for anything
Type specific. Go figure.
Both Lucario are of course Stage 1 cards, so they
aren’t as easy to implement or well supported as Basic
Pokémon, but they are fairly reasonable to run and
several are prominent in the game, whether on the Bench
as support or as the main attacker. Both have 110
HP, which is around that point where it becomes a toss
up as to whether it can safely soak a hit or not;
honestly it might be time to shift those guidelines up
again. So in short, it is precarious but at least
there is a real chance unlike with most things that are
smaller. Weakness does remove almost all hope of
surviving a hit (at least without help), and neither the
Psychic Weakness of XY: Fates Collide 47/124 nor
the Fire Weakness of XY: Fates Collide 63/124 is
anywhere close to safe, but between what does well for
those Types and the HP scores, the Weakness mostly
allows less substantial setups to still manage the OHKO.
XY: Fates Collide 63/124 is the only one with
Resistance, so it “wins” in that regard; that -20
against Psychic Types may even do it some good given how
defensive the Metal Type tends to be already. XY:
Fates Collide 47/124 has the edge in Retreat Costs
as its is only [C] while XY: Fates Collide 63/124
needs [CC]; the latter isn’t burdensome but the former
is just that much better.
XY: Fates Collide
47/124 has two attacks; for [F] it can use “Beatdown”
for [F] to do a flat 40 damage while [FCC] buys a
perfectly vanilla “Magnum Kick” which does 70 damage.
The costs are staggered well to go from one to the
other, with Beatdown having great damage for the Energy
invested while Magnum Kick is a bit weaker than I
prefer, but still serviceable. For what it is, it
isn’t bad, but it doesn’t thrill me either. XY:
Fates Collide 63/124 also has two attacks, and the
first one (Vacuum Attack) has a similar Energy cost,
just [M] instead of [F] to match Type. It does 50
damage while ignoring Weakness and Resistance; at first
that might sound better but given how much more useful
hitting Weakness is than ignoring Resistance, the
improved damage leaves me thinking it is only as good as
Beatdown and if this was a Fighting Type, I’d say the
card was weaker for it. “Fight Alone” is the main
attraction anyway; for just [MC] it does 30 plus a bonus
that ranges from zero damage to 240! Why so much?
Well it depends upon how many Pokémon each player has in
play; if you’re running XY: Fates Collide 63/124
and have less Pokémon in play than your opponent, the
damage bonus is 60 a head. The damage is all done
to the opponent’s Active, though. Fight Alone is
pretty sweet, but requires a risky deck built around it
to fully exploit.
Lucario
has to come from someplace unless you use Maxie’s
Hidden Ball Trick (and that isn’t an option for
XY: Fates Collide 63/124 anyway); our choices for
Riolu are BW: Next Destinies 63/99 (reprinted
as BW: Legendary Treasures 79/113), BW: Black
Star Promos BW33, BW: Plasma Storm 75/135,
BW: Plasma Storm 76/135, XY: Fates Collide
45/124, and XY: Fates Collide 46/124. All
are Fighting Type Basic Pokémon with Psychic Weakness,
no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Ancient Trait, and
no Ability. Only XY: Fates Collide 45/124
and XY: Fates Collide 46/124 are Standard legal.
BW: Next Destinies 63/99 has 70 HP, can use
“Punch” for [C] to do 10 damage or [FC] to use “Quick
Punch” for 10 plus a coin flip worth 20 more damage on
“heads”. BW: Black Star Promos BW33 drops to 60
HP, can use “Run Around” to run away to your Bench for
[C] or “Hook” to do 30. BW: Plasma Storm 75/135
has 60 HP can Punch for [C] to do 10 (again) while for
[FC] it can use “Kick” for 20. BW: Plasma Storm
76/135 gets back up to 70 HP and brings back Kick but it
costs [CC] while still doing 20, or can use “Feint” for
[FCC] to do 40 while ignoring Resistance. XY: Fates
Collide 45/124 is another with 70 HP, but only one
attack this time; for [C] you get “Double Smash” to flip
two coins good for 10 damage per “heads”. Finally
XY: Fates Collide 46/124 drops down to 60 and
only has one attack (Smash Punch) which needs [F] and a
successful coin flip to do 30 (“tails” does nothing).
I’d go with a 70 HP version is possible, but don’t sweat
the attacks.
There are of course some other Lucario to
address: BW: Next Destinies 64/99 (reprinted as
BW: Legendary Treasures 80/113), BW: Plasma
Storm 77/135, BW: Plasma Storm 78/135, BW:
Black Star Promos BW85, and the
revealed-but-not-released XY: Black Star Promos
XY140. All these Lucario are Fighting Type
Stage 1 Pokémon with Psychic Weakness, no Resistance,
and no Ancient Trait. All but BW: Plasma Storm
77/135 have 100 HP (it only has 90) and an Ability (it
has two attacks). Only the new promo will be
Standard Legal (apart from today’s Lucario of
course). So BW: Next Destinies 64/99 has
Retreat Cost [C], the Ability “Reflexive Retaliation”,
and the attack “Aura Sphere”. Reflexive
Retaliation places two damage counters on the opponent’s
Active should this Lucario be damaged by an
opponent’s attack (even if Lucario would be
KO’d). Aura Sphere costs [FF] to do 50 to the
opponent’s Active and 20 to one of his or her Benched
Pokémon (your choice). The Ability might be better
if this card could tank and/or the format wasn’t so fast
while the attack does decent damage for the Energy and
spread can be great… but by splitting that damage up
you’re not hitting key amounts for anything most games.
The then review crew members covered it years ago
here;
they did not score it well which makes sense due to the
differences in card pool and even the first turn rules
of the time.
BW: Plasma Storm
77/135 also has a Retreat Cost of [C] and is another
vanilla attacker, like XY: Fates Collide 47/124.
Its first attack (Kick) requires [FC] to do 30 while for
[FCC] its “Mach Cross” does the same 70 as Magnum Kick.
We actually did review this one
here
and I did not care for it at all. So with the
first attack and HP, BW: Plasma Storm 77/135 is
clearly outclassed. BW: Plasma Storm 78/135 has
a Retreat Cost of [CC], an Ability and an attack.
The Ability “Dual Armor” which allows it to be both a
Fighting and Metal Type so long as it has any [M] Energy
attached. That is actually a really good Ability,
though it is better as simply a card trait. For
[FCC] its “Hurricane Kick” does 60 damage, plus 30 per
Prize your opponent had taken. It actually had a
deck that was known but never overly successful, as you
intentionally gave up some Prizes and had a slow start
because after a bit you were hitting fantastic damage
amounts: one Prize meant 90, two meant 120, three meant
150, four mean 180, five meant 210, and six meant… you
already had lost. We reviewed this version
here
and liked it but didn’t score it strongly because the
format was harder on Stage 1 at the time. This one
might have some potential still in its own deck or as a
partner for one of today’s; we’ll discuss that soon.
First the two promo versions. BW: Black Star Promo
BW85 has a Retreat Cost of [CC], an Ability, and an
attack because the designers must like that combination.
This time the Ability just lets you draw two cards when
you Evolve one of your Pokémon into this particular
Lucario from hand. The attack (Fast Punch) has
the now familiar Energy cost of [FCC] so it takes a
little help to get it up and running fast (does that
count as irony?). It does 60 damage with a coin
flip for an extra 30 when even if it had done a flat 90
it would just be decent for the investment. XY:
Black Star Promos BW140 has a Retreat Cost of [CC]
with two attacks. The first is “Bone Rush” which
costs [F] to have you flip a coin until you get “tails”,
then does 30 damage times the number of “heads”.
For [FFF] it gets “Mach Claw” to do 90 damage while
ignoring Resistance. Even with Resistance to
Fighting Types being the most abundant Resistance, “No
Resistance” is far more common so I’d rather the attack
just did another 20 damage. While it does hit
harder than some of our Lucario, it needs a lot
of luck or requires meeting a far less friendly Energy
cost. I’d skip both promos.
So with all that out of the way, what to do with either
Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 47/124) and
Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 63/124)? The
Fighting Type version is probably best used to teach
people how to play, and it is in the Battle Ruler Theme
Deck. It just doesn’t do enough with its second
attack to be worth it outside of Limited and in Theme
Decks, and even in the Theme Deck it faces competition!
In Standard or Expanded, you could run Carbink BREAK
for a similar resource investment. Our Metal Type
friend has people trying to make it work. You
can’t shoot for maximum damage all the time, but you can
get some solid amounts while trying to stream Lucario
after Lucario. Seems to fragile for my
tastes, even with the Metal Typing offering some
potential damage soaking tricks. Then again, Metal
is probably one of the Types that call for a big Bench
given the multiple useful Metal Type Bench-sitters.
It and BW: Plasma Storm 78/135 have some overlap,
but not enough to really compliment each other. We
really need a good opening Lucario or Lucario
BREAK, which we don’t have. It too is better
in Limited, where it can safely sit on the Bench as your
cleaner until needed… and until your Bench is thinned
out.
Ratings
XY: Fates Collide
47/124
Standard:
1.65/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
4/5
Theme:
3.5/5
XY: Fates Collide
63/124
Standard:
2.5/5
Expanded:
2.25/5
Limited:
4.25/5
Summary (Both):
Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 47/124) seems
like a waste outside of as a teaching tool while
Lucario (XY: Fates Collide 63/124) screams
combo me but I’m not sure with what as it also says “No
Bench!” which is just insane (though a single Benched
bit of back up is workable). I like ending on
something stronger, but then again we did do a twofer so
hopefully you enjoyed.
XY: Fates Collide
63/124 actually caught everyone’s eye while we were
working on our Top 15 lists (yes, Top 15 - my habit of
including extras is spreading XD). It didn’t end
up making my list, but between the others amassed 10
voting points, allowing it to take 15th place on our
extended Top 10 list for XY: Fates Collide. 8th
and 9th place each had 11 points and were Carbink
(XY: Fates Collide 50/124) and Bronzong (XY:
Fates Collide 61/124), respectively. It beat
out 16th place Aerodactyl (XY: Fates Collide
76/124) by one point. Honestly, thinking we had
some other cards that ought to have been here, but this
set has a lot of stuff that looks kind of good but so
far hasn’t made a lot of difference.
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