Otaku |
Welcome to a double feature: Ho-Oh (XY: Black
Star Promos XY153) and Ho-Oh BREAK (XY:
Black Star Promos XY154)! As there is no other
Ho-Oh currently legal in either Expanded or
Standard play, almost everything that applies to
Ho-Oh goes for Ho-Oh BREAK as well.
Ho-Oh
is a Fire Type which means it strikes Weakness when
attacking nearly all Grass and Metal Type Pokémon, but
never faces Resistance. It will face some
anti-Fire Type effects, but most are like that of
Parallel City; one side of it causes a 20 point
reduction in the damage done from attacks by Fire Types
(plus Grass and Water Types). Of course
Parallel City is played for its other effect
(reducing maximum Bench size down to three), which is
why it’s the one anti-Fire effect you’re likely to
encounter. The important bits of Fire Type support
are Blacksmith and Scorched Earth; the
former provides amazing Energy acceleration (two basic
Fire Energy attached from the discard) at the
cost of your Supporter for the turn, while Scorched
Earth actually works with either Fire or Fighting
Energy cards, allowing you to discard one of either from
your hand (once per turn) to draw two cards. There
are a few great Fire Type attackers, though they tend to
take over a deck and have added requirements, at least
to be good. Flareon (BW: Plasma Storm
12/116) needs a discard full of Pokémon but it was
strong even before it could team up with Vespiquen
(XY: Ancient Origins 10/98). Entei (XY:
Ancient Origins 15/98) was the star of its own deck,
along with Charizard-EX (XY: Flashfire
12/106; XY: Black Star Promos XY121) to back it
up. Entei (XY: Ancient Origins 14/98)
also saw some competitive play backing up other Fire
Types, including some of the above. The thing is,
none of these are too hot right now, with Entei/Charizard
decks being totally burnt out.
Ho-Oh
is a Basic Pokémon and that’s the best for the obvious
reasons; one card = one copy, no waiting to put it into
play, can act as an opener/reduces risk of mulligan,
enjoy specific Stage support, and just naturally work
better with certain card effects. Yes there are
some potent anti-Basic effects like the “Flash Ray”
attack on Jolteon-EX, but the net result is
clear. Its 120 HP is 20 shy of the maximum.
It also just misses the point where I believe odds of
surviving an attack go from less likely to more likely;
120 damage per turn is a good amount, enough to 2HKO
nearly anything in the format. Of course several
decks just push for the OHKO while others are more
focused on attack effects rather than damage.
Which unfortunately transitions well into the Water
Weakness; this is dangerous because there are now
multiple Water Type attackers (with competitive decks!)
that will fit the bill; Seismitoad-EX,
Greninja BREAK, etc. Fighting Resistance is a
nice bonus; -20 to damage doesn’t mean a lot, but 120
helps you leverage it better, even when the Fighting
Type is focused on damage buffs. In fact sometimes
it plays to your advantage; in a close game resource
management is the deciding factor so your opponent has
an incentive not to overcommit… which means forgetting
about Resistance can lead them to whiff on a KO they
ought to have taken (or maybe that is just me).
The Retreat Cost of [CC] is low enough you probably (but
not always) can pay it, but high enough you won’t want
to, especially as two Energy can be a lot in the long
run.
Ho-Oh
has two attacks that have been seen on other cards
before. First up is “Stoke” for [C], which lets
you flip a coin and if “heads”, search your deck for up
to two [R] Energy cards to attach to Ho-Oh.
On “tails” is does nothing. For [RRCC] it can use
“Fire Wing” to do 100 damage. These are a bit weak
for my taste but not truly bad. You can Stoke to
build into Fire Wing or try for a Double Colorless
Energy from hand plus a Blacksmith to attach
two Fire Energy cards from the discard pile to go
from zero to 100 in one turn. 100 for four when it is a
little underwhelming, but you can 2HKO anything other
than most Mega Evolutions, Wailord-EX, and cards
with HP boosts or other defensive buffs. So what
will Ho-Oh BREAK add? It becomes a BREAK
Evolution instead of a Basic, so that is obviously
different. It gains 30 HP (so now its 150) and the
attack “Shining Flame”, which requires [RRRCC] to do 160
damage, and it can’t use Shining Flame again the next
turn. Powering up in one turn requires a lot of
effort, but you can use Fire Wing and then (if Ho-Oh)
survives follow up with it. On its own, Shining
Flame just needs a Muscle Band to OHKO the
typical 170/180 HP Basic Pokémon-EX. So is that
enough you ought to run it?
Probably not. The big draw would be that Ho-Oh
BREAK can act as an Evolved Fire Type attacker,
getting around certain problematic effects, while at the
same time not being a Pokémon-EX like a Mega Evolution.
I don’t remember that being the big issue plaguing
current Fire Type decks; an issue, sure but not the one
that is keeping them from seeing successful competitive
play. In Expanded we already have Flareon
[Plasma] and that should be a decent enough sweeper in
general should a Fire Type deck have the room.
There is also Flareon (XY: Ancient Origins
13/98) to let any worthwhile Stage 1 Type fake being a
Fire Type. Plus while we are getting a little Fire
Type support in the next expansion (XY: Steam Siege)
it looks like it will help enough other cards that these
two still won’t be a major draw. However they
aren’t that far away from it either. Ho-Oh
on its own would be, but as a tag team combo it and
Ho-Oh BREAK are either a litte more damage or one
less [R] Energy requirement (for sure no more than both)
from being pretty useful. That or perhaps a
different Weakness; had Ho-Oh been Lightning Weak
it would have given us not only a pseudo-Stage 1 that
was a bit clunky but manageable to deal with effects
that countered Basics or Pokémon-EX, but a Fire Type
that could deal with Water Types. These two would
be pretty sweet for Limited play but as promos, that
doesn’t matter.
Ratings (Same for both)
Standard:
2.35/5
Expanded:
2.15/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
Ho-Oh can try to speed itself up is stuck without
backup or deliver a solid enough hit for the Energy
invested (though only just), while Ho-Oh BREAK
needs just a Muscle Band to cross a critical OHKO
threshold, except it needs about one more Energy than it
should to be impressive for doing so. They may
still fill some niche, but I do not believe they will do
so well enough to see competitive play. Neither is
a truly bad card but as the score suggests neither are
they up to par on their own or together.
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