aroramage |
Welcome back to another week of
Fates Collide! Here we start off with probably one of
the more interesting cards of the set, Reuniclus! This
guy's been around before on different occasions doing
different techniques, but is he ready to make a
comeback? Let's find out!
Similar to previous incarnations of
the Pokemon, Reuniclus only has 90 HP and a Retreat Cost
of 1, which while the RC is pretty good for a Stage
2...the 90 HP is rather low. The only other things to
look at beyond all that are his Weakness to Psychics
(unsurprisingly) and his one attack, Link Fusion. Now
Link Fusion starts off as an uninteresting 2-for-10 hit,
but once we hit the description, things take an
interesting turn.
The attack does, of course,
increase the damage, but rather than by coin flip or
some other more direct factor like damage counters, it
checks your Bench for very specific Pokemon - the
evolutionary family of Reuniclus! With a Solosis around,
perhaps the easiest one to get out, the attack does 30
more damage, bringing the total to 40. With a Duosion,
the damage is increased by 60, and if there's another
Reuniclus on the Bench, the power goes up by another 90.
Now having just one of these around
isn't going to do much - the most you can get is another
Reuniclus, which is expensive and resource-consuming for
just 100 damage. But if you can vary the evolutions you
put into play, Link Fusion becomes pretty powerful. Note
that it's not checking for the number of Solosis or
Duosion you have in play, just if there is one in play.
So having a Solosis and a Duosion adds on 90 damage -
the same amount as having a Reuniclus - to make 100
damage! Add on the Reuniclus, and you're dishing out
enough damage to KO Pokemon-EX. Dimension Valley can
also work well to take off the extra Energy cost on Link
Fusion, making the attack anywhere from a 1-for-10 to a
1-for-190 hit, making it extremely cost-effective!
On top of all of this, if you want
to play the line-up, each of the cards in Fates Collide
has a similar attack! Solosis only gains 30 more damage
from Mini Link for another Solosis while Duosion can
gain 30 and 60 damage for his Double Link, but they cost
similarly to Link Fusion and are still good attacks to
throw around while setting up Reuniclus! Reuniclus can
be demanding for sure, and having an entire deck built
around him is ultimately more beneficial than trying to
throw a line-up in some other deck, but if it's built
right and well-balanced, there's some potential for him
to sweep through teams.
...either that, or he'll at least
be fun in casual play.
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (with a whole deck
set up around him, Reuniclus has potential)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (and with different
copies to move around and test out, there's a lot more
than just the Link Up deck to work with in Expanded)
Limited: 3/5 (but keep in mind that
90 HP is not a lot in this game, meaning he could be out
just as fast as he got in)
Arora Notealus: Reuniclus has
always been one of the most interesting Pokemon I've
ever seen. The whole family is based around cells or
embryonic stages, giving it this strange eerie
biological feel while also displaying that cutesy charm
that some Pokemon have. But hey, at least it's not
trying to take children into the underworld.
Next Time: SEEL SEEL SEEL
SEEL...wait...nope, sorry, not Seel, but...
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Otaku |
We begin this week
with Reuniclus (XY: Fates Collide 35/124).
It is a Psychic Type, which is solid. A good chunk
of other Psychic Types as well as Fighting Types are
Psychic Weak, and while it doesn’t have the most support
available, among what it does have is Dimension
Valley to shave [C] off of attack costs on Psychic
Type Pokémon. You will have to deal with Psychic
Resistance though, and it is relatively abundant.
Almost all Darkness and Metal Type Pokémon enjoy Psychic
Resistance and it is one of the most abundant forms of
Resistance, but “No Resistance” is still far more
common. I am unaware of any specific anti-Psychic
Type cards, though counters them via Weakness has proven
effective often enough; again most are Psychic Weak,
though some are Darkness or Lightning Weak and a select
few have no Weakness. Being a Stage 2 is
definitely not solid; in fact it is one of the worst
Stages to be in the game right now, and the Psychic Type
doesn’t have any of the additional shortcuts that have
helped some of the other Stage 2 cards compete. Reuniclus
has 90 HP, which makes it a fairly easy OHKO; decks with
incomplete setups or not focused on doing damage to the
opponent’s Active are your only real hope of avoiding
it. The Weakness compounds this issue; Psychic
Types are one of those examples that might not be trying
to hit for damage or have a slow(ish) start, but
doubling the damage they do means you have to fear not
only the ones that hit hard and fast, but nearly all of
them. No Resistance is typical and wouldn’t have
amounted to much but right now this card feels like it
needs all the survival help it can get. The
Retreat Cost of [C] is low and easy both to pay and to
recover from the loss.
Reuniclus
has just one single attack, but it is a complicated one.
“Link Fusion” requires just [PC] and only 10 base
damage, but its “10+” which means the effect is going to
alter it, and how! If Solosis is on your
Bench (whether one or four), the attack does an extra 30
damage, better, but still not worth your time. If
Duosion is on your Bench, the attack does an
extra 60 damage; two for 70 is nice but not so much on a
Stage 2 with just 90 HP and no super-special-awesome
shortcut to hit the field. The last line states
that if you have a Reuniclus on your Bench, the
attack does an extra 90. The real story though is
what the attack does not say; there is no clause
stating these effects are mutually exclusive, and
official rulings have confirmed that is because they
aren’t! So if you have a Solosis, a
Duosion, and a Reuniclus on your Bench and
this Reuniclus (or something copying its attack)
up front, it will do 10+30+60+90 damage, which totals
190! Toss in a Dimension Valley and you can
do it all for just [P], and just maybe we have something
worth attempting; you’ll be losing either a Stage 2 or a
Mew-EX (to copy the attack), but you’ll score a
OHKO against nearly all Basic Pokémon-EX and even some
Mega Evolutions! With a few extra buffs, you can
take out nearly everything.
So are there any
Solsis or Duosion worth running? We’ve
had quite a few even though this Pokémon was only
introduced last generation. For Solosis we
have Black & White 55/114, BW: Noble Victories
50/101 (reprinted as BW: Legendary Treasures
73/113), BW: Plasma Blast 42/101, BW:
Legendary Treasures 74/113, and XY: Fates Collide
33/124. All are Basic, Psychic Type Pokémon with
30 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost
[C], and no Ability. Black & White 55/114 can
use “Cell Culture” to search your Bench for another
Solosis and play it directly to your Bench.
For [PC] it can use “Roll Out” to do 20 damage; get used
to seeing this attack. BW: Noble Victories
50/101 can use Roll Out as well, this time for [C] and
only doing 10. BW: Plasma Blast 42/101 can use
“Hide” for [P]; this has you flip a coin and if it is
“heads” you prevent all effects of attacks (including
damage!) done to Solosis (that is, itself). BW:
Legendary Treasures 74/113 can use “Nap” for [P] to
heal 20 damage from itself or for [PC] it can use “Ram”
to do 20 damage. XY: Fates Collide 33/124 is the
only Standard legal option, and it has the attack “Mini
Link” for [PC], which does 10 damage plus another 30 if
you have a Solosis on your Bench. As you
are likely desperate if attacking with this card, run
BW: Plasma Blast 42/101 to try and survive unless
you’re including something like Mew-EX and
copying attacks, in which case XY: Fates Collide
33/124 may be the better choice.
Moving onto
Duosion we have Black & White 56/114, BW:
Noble Victories 51/101 (reprinted as BW:
Legendary Treasures 75/113), BW: Plasma Blast
43/101 and XY: Fates Collide 34/124. No
surprises here; all are Stage 1 Psychic Type Pokémon
with 60 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat
Cost [C], and no Ability. Black & White 56/114
is the only one with two attacks: it can use “Recover”
for [C] to discard an Energy attached to itself in order
to heal all damage from itself, while for [PC] it does
30 damage via Roll Out again. BW: Noble Victories
51/101 can simply use Roll Out for [C] to do 20 damage.
BW: Plasma Blast 43/101 can use “Focused Wish”
for [PC]; the attack does 20 damage and has you flip a
coin with “heads” being +20 damage while “tails” is just
the base 20. XY: Fates Collide 34/124 has
“Double Link” for [PC], which does 10 damage plus 30
more if there is a Solosis on your Bench and plus
60 if there is a Duosion. Just like on
Reuniclus it stacks so with both you would do 100
damage. It is also the version of Duosion
would would use, where for better or worse at least it
is a spare attacker. Oddly enough though Black
& White 56/114 was reviewed on its own
here;
I wouldn’t rate it any higher today and maybe a bit
lower.
There are four
other Reuniclus to consider as well: Black &
White 57/114 (reprinted as BW: Dragons Exalted
126/124), BW: Noble Victories 52/101 (reprinted
as BW: Legendary Treasures 76/113), BW: Noble
Victories 53/101, and BW: Plasma Blast
44/101. All are Psychic Type Stage 2 Pokémon with
Weakness [P], no Resistance, and Retreat Cost [CC].
All but BW: Plasma Blast 44/101 have 90 HP (it
has 100). Black & White 57/114 has the Ability
“Damage Swap” which allows you to move around the damage
counters on your side of the field, between your own
Pokémon. This is useful for certain triggered
effects, but mostly so that you can toss all your damage
onto something with a lot of HP and no Energy, then heal
it all by using Max Potion. For [PPP] it
can use the attack “Psywave” to do 30 damage plus 10
more for each Energy attached to the opponent’s Active.
We looked at it
here
five years ago and I was far too generous.
Remember at the time Pokémon Catcher did not
require a coin flip, acting as an Item version of
Lysandre. Plus you could attack first turn!
So in some ways it is better now, but in the end it is a
great Ability hampered by being on such a fragile
Bench-sitter in a format where Abilities or Items can
easily be shut off (the latter being the chief means of
exploiting the Ability).
BW: Noble Victories
52/101 has the attack “Future Sight” for [C], allowing
you to look at and rearrange the top five cards of your
deck, as well as “Net Force” for [P] which does 40
damage times the amount of Reuniclus you have in
play. Net force looked promising but pretty soon
160 damage wouldn’t be enough because of the reasons
given for the previous Reuniclus; perhaps if
Damage Swap had been paired with Net Force, but probably
not. BW: Noble Victories 53/101 has “Dizzy
Punch” for [P] and “Mind Bend” for [PCC]; the former has
you flip two coins to do 30 per “heads” while the latter
does 60 while Confusing the opponent’s Active… and
likely player as why are you using this card? I
wasn’t there, but the rest of the staff reviewed it
here
and realized it was sorely lacking. BW: Plasma Blast
44/101 knows “Barrier Attack” for [P], which does 30
damage to the opponent’s Active while reducing by 30 the
damage it (the attacker) takes from attacks by your
opponent’s Pokémon the next turn. The reduction
happens after Weakness is applied. For
[PCC] it can use “Telekinesis of Nobility” to do 70
damage while switching itself with one of your Benched
Pokémon. It sort of has the right idea; this way
Reuniclus acts as a hit-and-run style attacker,
hiding on the Bench. The catch is that it doesn’t
do it well enough to be worth the investment for it,
especially as Pokémon Catcher (back then,
pre-erratum) or Lysandre (in the present) can
force it Active. Baby Mario took a look at it
here
and was rather generous, but I probably would have been
as well; hindsight makes things much clearer.
So not all of the
other Reuniclus are bad, as the original (Black
& White 57/114), the older
big-but-complicated-glass-cannon (BW: Noble Victories
52/101), and the hit-and-runner (BW: Plasma Blast
44/101) have some potential, but they don’t blend so
well with today’s; XY: Fates Collide 35/124
doesn’t have the HP to take advantage of Damage Swap,
and keeping four Reuniclus in play so that Net
Force is dealing damage similar to Link Fusion seems
daunting to say the least, while hit and run tactics
require different support. XY: Fates Collide
35/124 might have just enough damage output that if you
can just stream them, intentionally staggering things so
that you have one of each stage plus a spare
Reuniclus on the Bench (or are in Expanded and
attacking with Mew-EX, but it has better
partners), the damage is great. Dimension Valley
makes it all work for just [P] as well. Still, we
aren’t much better than Net Force; instead of needing
four Reuniclus and Solosis (with
the risk of a Solosis or Reuniclus being
Prized) it is reduced to needing four Solosis, at
least one Duosion, preferably one Rare Candy
so this goes off on your second turn, and then two
Reuniclus. That is easier, and the damage
output is better, but it still doesn’t deliver enough
for all it asks. Build a deck around it if you
like; focus on consistency cards. There isn’t much
more advice I can give as we are getting to the finer
deck construction points where frankly, I’m lacking.
In Limited, it all depends on what you pull with it; a
1-1-1 line it’s horrible! Link Fusion needs
more of the line.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
1.5/5
Summary:
At a glance Reuniclus looks… confusing.
Once you realize the various damage add-ons stack, then
for a moment it seems great, before the reality sets in;
this is a Stage 2 that might be able to do 190 for a
single Energy, but that still makes it a Stage 2.
The requirements to actually hit that number requires no
Solosis be Prized, getting out two Stage 2 cards
ASAP plus a Stage 1. Enjoy it as a fun, gimmick
deck in casual play, but don’t worry try it in
tournaments, which includes in Limited play.
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