aroramage |
Welcome back to another BREAKpoint
week! And to come back to the point, here's a BREAK
Evolution!
...YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Greninja BREAK is a lot like
Trevenant BREAK in that he's got more than just the one
Greninja in this set to choose from for options to
evolve from and use with, and I'll review as many as I
can in this one since there are a few. The most
important things to note about Greninja BREAK are his
increased HP score of 170, which puts him on par with
your Basic-EX, and his Ability, Giant Water Shuriken!
Now why is it called Giant Water
Shuriken? Well because the Ability works very similarly
to another Greninja's (XY) Ability, aptly named Water
Shuriken. Both can discard a Water Energy from the hand,
and both can deal out damage between the two - the main
difference is that Greninja BREAK needs to be Active but
deals out 60 damage instead of regular Greninja (XY) who
deals only 30.
...UNLESS you combine the two of
them together, and then you can discard 2 Water Energy
to decimate a Pokemon for 90 DAMAGE - AND YOU HAVEN'T
EVEN ATTACKED YET!!
Unfortunately, with most decks
running only 12-15 Energy, the chances of you having 2
Energy to discard every turn to deal that amount is a
bit chancy. Not unlikely, if Greninja (XY)'s also your
main attacker, though Mist Slash is a decent 1-for-50
strike guaranteed to land. And since you only need 1
Water Energy on that Greninja, it makes it rather easy
to have an excess of Water Energy in hand to discard.
The other thing to consider though is that you're
dealing either half a Basic-EX's HP in damage or just a
little under half of most Mega-EX's, so while you're
likely to 2HKO everything with Greninja BREAK and XY,
you're also likely to get beat.
Another Greninja to consider would
be the Dark-type Promo, but it's more focused on his
Mist Concealment and requires Dark Energy for his main
attack, so unless you're planning on doing a Water-Dark
mix, I wouldn't really run the two together. The
Greninja from the Kalos Start Set isn't much to talk
about, though Mat Block can be useful to get rid of your
opponent's Energy sometimes. Technically not the best
one to run competitively.
That brings us to the Greninja from
this set, and he is fairly viable to use with Greninja
BREAK! Both of his attacks are only 1 Energy apiece, and
they both work fairly well with BREAK's own power!
Shadow Stitching will do 40 damage and bind the
Abilities of your opponent's Pokemon so they can't do
anything - think of it as a pseudo-Garbotoxin that lasts
a turn. This can be useful against anyone not running
Garbodor or Wobbuffet or some other Ability-binding
Pokemon - since it's only shutting it off during your
opponent's turn, you can't really take advantage of it
during your turn. Add on Moonlight Slash though, and
you've got a 1-for-60 attack that can go up to 80 by
returning the 1 Water Energy back to your hand - so you
can use it for Giant Water Shuriken on your next turn!
...in theory.
So Greninja BREAK is a fairly
useful addition to the Greninja line-up, and anyone
who's willing to run Greninjas together should be able
to use Greninja BREAK just as well. Add in some quick
evos, some draw power to get Energies in hand, and you
could have a potentially powerful set-up for a fun deck
on your hands!
Cause let's face it, when was the
last time you saw a BREAK Evolution deck in a
competitive environment?
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (he'll be a bit
tough to get out, and he does need to be Active for his
Ability)
Expanded: 2/5 (but once he's out,
you've got a real powerhouse on your hands - 60 damage
is a lot to be fair!)
Limited: 4/5 (and again, really,
good luck getting him out here, I applaud you if you can
do it)
Arora Notealus: Usually, my opinion
on the generation starters has leaned towards the Water
starter - Squirtle, Mudkip, Froakie - the only exception
being Gen IV with Chimchar up to Infernape (so I like
Infernape's design! Empoleon's pretty cool too!). So of
COURSE I like freaking Greninja! He's a ninja frog,
what's not to like?
Next Time: From ninjas to
punks!...WHO YOU LOOKING AT?!
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Otaku |
We
start this week with Greninja BREAK (XY:
BREAKpoint 41/122), a Water-Type. The good is
that this enables it to exploit Water Weakness found on
nearly all Fire-Types plus a solid selection of
Fighting-Types, as well as Water-Type support. The
Water-Type provides both Type specific support, like
Archie’s Ace in the Hole, Dive Ball and
Rough Seas, as well as cards that simply have better
synergy with the Water-Type like Keldeo-EX, which
can make use of its “Rush In” Ability in almost any
deck, can make at least minimal use of its “Secret
Sword” attack in most decks, but can do the most when
taking advantage of its Water-Typing and an abundant
supply of [W] Energy in Water decks. Blastoise (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 31/149; BW: Plasma Storm
137/135; BW: Plasma Blast 16/101) is a second
good example of Water-Type support not actually limited
to Water-Type cards, but usually superior with them.
The drawbacks of the Water-Type are minor: Resistance in
general is a stumbling block and not a hurdle, with all
but one Type-specific counter effects failing to see
significant, sustained competitive play. Water
Resistance is only found on BW-era Grass-Types (nearly
all of them), while only commonly played anti-Water
effect is almost accidental because it is Parallel
City. Apologies for glossing over it so often;
as the card is used primarily for shrinking the
opponent’s Bench I actually had forgotten that one of
the three Types for which it could reduce the damage
they do by 20 included Water (the other two are Fire and
Grass).
Being a
BREAK Evolution for a Stage 2 is demanding; while so far
it has meant an HP bump and will always mean access to
the Abilities, attacks, Weakness, Resistance and Retreat
Cost of the previous Stage (as that is the point of the
mechanic), this is effectively a Stage 3 Pokémon.
If there are any bits of specific support or counters
for BREAK Evolutions, then I managed to miss them; this
isn’t a demand for it either as I would much rather a
Stage balanced through good game design (the built in
benefits of the Stage balancing the costs) than external
support or counters. We’ve tried the external
approach since the game began; it has never truly worked
and the period where it could fake it lasted maybe five
years and ended 10 years ago, if memory serves. So
back to being the BREAK Evolution of a Stage 2; massive
card and time investment as without shortcuts you need
to go Basic => Stage 1 => Stage 2 => BREAK for a total
of four cards and four turns, and anything other than
general Evolution support won’t work as it pretty
obviously is not a Stage 1 or Stage 2 itself. Greninja
BREAK isn’t quite as bad of as it seems though; the
BREAK Evolution of a Stage 1 is less demanding, but it
cannot make use of Rare Candy at all while here
it can still skip a Stage 1. As a Water-Type
Archie’s Ace in the Hole cannot put
Greninja BREAK directly into play (it would be only
half a Pokémon!) but it can help you out by
putting Frogadier or Greninja directly
into play.
For all
the hassle, Greninja BREAK has 170 HP, putting it
in line with the slightly smaller of the two typical HP
scores for Basic Pokémon-EX. Many decks do still
score OHKOs against this much HP, but even a few of
those will have issues because they use effects that
specifically hit Pokémon-EX for additional damage, like
Fighting Stadium. Often Greninja BREAK
will be able to survive a hit and… we will jump to its
Ability because its Weakness, Resistance and Retreat
Cost are supplied by the Greninja from which it
must BREAK Evolve. “Giant Water Shuriken” is pretty
impressive; it can only be used once per turn, requires
Greninja BREAK be Active and that you discard a
[W] Energy from hand, but it places six damage counters
on the opponent’s Pokémon of your choice. That can
OHKO a few Pokémon that see play (almost always Evolving
Basics) but will probably be most significant for
comboing with other sources of damage. If you
have more than one card with Giant Water Shuriken in
play (a steep demand considering right now it is only
found on Greninja BREAK) and can get it
Active after having used a different card’s Giant Water
Shuriken, you can indeed use both in one turn. So
for the incredibly demanding feat of getting four
Greninja BREAK into play all at once, having the
means of getting each in and out of the Active slot
and having enough [W] Energy in hand at the right
times so that they may each use Giant Water Shuriken,
you would get to place six damage counters onto the
opponent’s Pokémon of your choice four times, totaling
24 damage counters (enough to No-Hit KO a Mega
Evolution!).
So what
do we need to get Greninja BREAK into play?
Thanks to Archie’s Ace in the Hole we could skip
directly to Greninja but we are still going to
look at Froakie and Frogadier (hint: it
isn’t just because I am obsessive). Froakie
comes in four varieties spread out over six releases;
XY: Kalos Starter Set 12/39 (re-released as XY:
Black Star Promos XY03 and McDonald's Collection
2014 4/12), XY 39/146, BREAKthrough
46/162, and BREAKpoint 38/122. All are
Water-Types with Grass Weakness, no Resistance, no
Ancient Trait and no Ability. XY: Kalos Starter Set
12/39 has 60 HP and two attacks; for [W] it can use
“Pound” for 10 damage or for [WC] it do 20 damage with
“Water Drip”. It is the only version with two
attacks. XY 39/146 has 50 HP and for [W] can use
“Bounce” to attack for 10 damage and flip a coin; if
“heads” you may switch it with one of your Benched
Pokémon (“tails” still does 10 damage). BREAKthrough
46/162 also has 50 HP but its attack is once again Pound
for 10, though this time the cost is just [C].
This set’s Froakie, BREAKpoint 38/122 is
the second version with 60 HP; its “Bubble” attack does
no damage but has you flip a coin, with “heads”
Paralyzing the opponent’s Active and “tails” doing
nothing at all. Generally speaking a twice
Evolving Basic is there to help you set up your deck,
usually for the specific purpose of its Evolutions.
As such I favor BREAKpoint 38/122 even though
Bubble is overpriced as 60 HP plus maybe Paralyzing the
opponent’s Active buys time to Evolve.
We have
four Frogadier to pick from as well, but this
time with only one release for each of them: XY:
Kalos Starter Set 13/39, XY 40/146, XY:
BREAKthrough 47/162, and XY: BREAKpoint
39/122. All four are Stage 1 Water-Types with
Grass Weakness, no Resistance, no Ancient Trait and no
Ability. XY: Kalos Starter Set 13/39 has 80 HP
and two attacks; Water Drip returns but this time it
only costs [W] to hit for 20, with the second attack
being “Aqua Wave” for [WWC] to do 40 damage and flip two
coins each good for an extra 20 damage per “heads”.
Once again, the other three each possess only a single
attack. XY 40/146 still sports 80 can use
“Lick” for [WC] to hit for 30 damage and flip a coin:
“tails” means you do just the base 30 while “heads”
means you do the damage plus Paralyze the opponent’s
Active. XY: BREAKthrough 47/162 has only 70 HP,
with its “Cut” attack doing 30 damage for [CC]. XY:
BREAKpoint 39/122 is the one that surprises us;
while it also has only 70 HP its attack is “Water
Duplicates” which allows you to search your deck for up
to three Frogadier to put on your Bench. It
is far from perfect with its HP and potential to whiff
(as Frogadier may be Prize, in hand or in the
discard) but it might just be worth it to run (and
sacrifice) a Frogadier to put two or three more
directly into play.
Somewhat surprisingly, we have three options for
Greninja as well; normally it seems like we have
less as the Stages climb. They are XY: Kalos
Starter Set 14/39, XY 41/146, XY Black
Star Promos XY24 and XY: BREAKpoint 40/122.
All are Stage 2 Pokémon with no Ancient Trait; all but
XY Black Star Promos XY24 are Water-Types with
Grass Weakness and no Resistance. XY: Kalos Starter
Set 14/39 has 140 HP, Retreat Cost [C] and two
attacks. For [W] it can use “Mat Block” to do 40
damage, plus you get to flip a coin; the damage happens
either way but on a “heads” you also get to discard an
Energy attached to the opponent’s Active. For
[WWC] its “Aqua Edge” does a vanilla 80 damage. XY
41/146 drop to 130 HP but has an Ability and an attack;
the former is “Water Shuriken” and is the predecessor of
Giant Water Shuriken, as you would expect. Unlike
Giant Water Shuriken, the regular version only does 30
damage for the same cost of discarding a [W] Energy from
hand once per turn, and like Giant Water Shuriken if you
have more than one card with Water Shuriken in play,
each can use the Ability once per turn… but unlike Giant
Water Shuriken you may use this Ability while on the
Bench or Active. The attack is “Mist Slash” which
costs [W] and does 50 damage which is unaffected by
Weakness, Resistance or any effects on the opponent’s
Active Pokémon.
XY
Black Star Promos
XY24 shakes things up a bit by being a Darkness-Type
with Fighting Weakness, and Psychic Resistance, though
its 130 HP and Retreat Cost of [C] are the same as or
similar to the other Greninja. It also has
one Ability and attack, with the former being “Mist
Concealment” and the latter being “Shadow Bullet”.
The Ability only triggers when you Evolve one of your in
play Pokémon into this Greninja; it is immune to
both the damage and the effects of attacks by your
opponent’s Pokémon during your opponent’s next turn.
For [DC] the attack does 60 to your opponent’s Active
and 20 to one of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon (your
choice). As a reminder, a BREAK Evolution does
not copy the Type of the Pokémon from which it
Evolves, and while it is considered to technically have
a copy of the coming-into-play Ability the ruling is
that it will not re-trigger from BREAK Evolving; I
believe it is a timing issue (by the time Greninja
BREAK has Mist Concealment, it is already in play).
XY: BREAKpoint 40/122 is the newest option,
released alongside Greninja BREAK; it has the
slightly lower 130 HP but its Retreat Cost is completely
free, a simple but valuable asset. It has two
attacks; for [C] it can use “Shadow Stitching to do 40
damage while shutting down the Abilities of all your
opponent’s Pokémon in hand, in the discard pile or on
the field or that move into one of those areas, until
the end of your opponent’s next turn. For [W] it
can use “Moonlight Slash” instead, which does 60 damage
and gives you the choice of returning a [W] from itself
back to your hand for an extra 20 damage. That
doesn’t scale; you cannot bounce multiple Energy
for even more damage.
Three
of these four Greninja have been reviewed in the
past; thanks to the significant changes in the game with
respect to Stage 2 Pokémon like Miltank (XY:
Flashfire 83/106) providing an inexpensive beatstick
- especially for Bench-sitting Stage 2s - while
Archie’s Ace in the Hole provided a super shortcut
for Water Stage 2s and Standard got rid of some
major Stage 2 competition with the last rotation
(especially for Water-Types), things have definitely
changed. First
was XY: Kalos Starter Set 14/39 where it failed
to impress, but now while it still isn’t something to
run, it comes a little closer. Aqua Edge is still
overpriced, especially as by now we all think of
Greninja as being something that gets by on few
Energy attachments, though Mat Block would be welcome in
our Special Energy heavy environment; the competition
(plus coin flip on Mat Block) ensure I won’t be
recommending this version. XY 41/146 was
second,
but it is now better than it was at the time of its
revie. It actually made good (alongside the
previously mentioned Miltank) in Blue Milk decks
for a short time, declined, then got a small bump back
into fringe competitive play thanks to Archie’s Ace
in the Hole. While you are not allowed
to discard a single [W] Energy for both Water Shuriken
and Giant Water Shuriken at the same time, you can use
both Abilities if Greninja BREAK Evolved from
this Greninja; three Water Energy cards in
hand, two copies of XY 41/146 in play and one of
those Active and Evolved into Greninja BREAK
means you can place a total of 12 damage counters in
play, enough to take out a Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) before you attack!
As such this is going to be my main recommendation.
As the
third
reviewed, XY: Black Star Promos XY24 is only a
year out of date instead of two, but unfortunately it
isn’t as likely to benefit from the differences.
You just cannot Evolve into it fast enough, so there
will always be gaps in its protection, even if you use
bounce effects to spam Mist Concealment, in addition to
all the cards that could bypass it anyway. XY:
BREAKpoint 40/122 should have been a fourth review
in its own right, but besides having a lot of cards to
squeeze into the smaller-than-normal gap between sets
(thanks to Generations being an extra set
released between normal quarterly expansions) we are
still in that awkward place where reviewing a BREAK
Evolution properly requires addressing it lower Stages.
With so many Water-Types, I decided not to cover a
Water-Type Stage 2 that would at best be used as a
one-of alongside its BREAK Evolution… but by now I think
I goofed and we should have covered it separately.
Blocking Abilities can be brutal in certain match-ups,
while constantly dropping Energy for multiple Water
Shuriken, one Giant Water Shuriken and to fuel
attacks each turn might just be too much. XY:
BREAKpoint 40/122 also has the best attack in terms
of damage with Moonlight Slash.
Looks
like only a single Greninja BREAK deck managed to
Top 32 in the final weekend of the 2016 Winter Regional
Championships (the only weekend where XY: BREAKpoint
was legal). Yes, still referencing
The Charizard Lounge
though I am now aware that Pokemon.com has deck lists
for the Top 8 of the Master’s Division for each Regional
(some of the older Regionals include the Seniors and
Juniors Divisions, but I haven’t read those yet).
Looks like The Charizard Lounge is now adding in links
to decklists, but again I haven’t gotten around to
reading most. Grafton Roll’s build (the one that
made Top 32) is not what I expected; he includes a lone
copy of Dedenne (XY: Furious Fists
34/111), I am guessing because it is decent to open with
as well as helping against Energy heavy attackers
(especially the Lightning Weak like Yveltal-EX).
Octillery (XY: BREAKthrough 33/162) is
there to provide draw support throughout the game while
entire Greninja BREAK line is present (no
Archie’s Ace in the Hole at all) is there as a
4-4-2/2-2 line; everything is the XY: BREAKpoint
version except for that split on the Greninja,
which is between XY 41/146 and XY: BREAKpoint
40/122. The deck uses less Energy/Energy recycling
cards than I expected. Pokémon.com also has an
article covering a Greninja BREAK deck and… it
looks pretty good to me, both the article and the deck.
So while I can’t offer you much, at least I can direct
you to those resources.
Greninja BREAK
looks like it will have some chops for Standard and
Expanded, but not at the level Trevenant BREAK
managed. Considering Pokémon BREAK were pretty
much non-entities on the competitive scene before this
latest back, being played at all is quite impressive.
For Limited, you’ll struggle to pull the entire line but
if you manage it, you’ll have the backbone of your deck.
It won’t be a guaranteed win, but mostly because even
opening with a Froakie and having each successive
Stage show up on time, it will be four turns before
Greninja BREAK hits the field. Sometimes
Greninja BREAK won’t show up at all and below XY:
BREAKpoint 40/122 the line can’t do damage (even if
the effects they do have are useful), so you’ll need to
flesh things out a lot as a precaution.
Ratings
Standard:
3.5/5
Expanded:
3.5/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Greninja BREAK requires a lot to make it work,
but it does seem to work in the end. Give it a go
if you can track down everything you need. Greninja
BREAK just managed to sneak into our collective Top
15, but it tied with 14th place with eight voting
points, and as you may recall our actual Top 9 and Top
10 picks only had 11 voting points; it was quite close
for the bulk of the list, with gaps we would normally
see between two places instead being the gap from fifth
place to fifteenth! On my personal list I had it
as my eighth place pick and I still think it deserved
about that.
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