aroramage |
And now we're back to this week's
picks with a mix of BREAKpoint and Generations before we
finally address the big elephant in the room, Fates
Collide! Looking at the cards...I just realized how
crazy powerful some of these decks are gonna be. But
let's not focus on that, let's talk about Ninetales-EX!
Honestly, I'm happy to see my bud
Ninetales get the EX treatment! He's a cool guy with
lots of potential, and while it wouldn't be likely, I
think he'd make for a great Mega Evo some day. I'm sure
GameFreak could be inspired by the more grandiose design
of kyubis, but that's really talk for another time. For
now, let's just take a closer look at Ninetales' EX
debut and see if it's any good!
Flare Bonus starts off our look at
Ninetales-EX, and while it doesn't do any damage, it
does provide a nice benefit. By discarding a Fire
Energy, you get to draw 3 cards off of this, which is
pretty neat in and of itself. Effectively, this is a +2
in terms of card advantage, and that could easily set
you up for later combos while your opponent is still
working to get things together, provided of course that
you go second with Ninetales-EX as your starter.
What you'd eventually be leading up
to would be his Fire Blast attack, which is a hefty
4-for-130 blast that has a 50/50 chance of making you
discard an Energy. Course, that chancy 50-50 means
nothing if you've got Burning Energy attached to
discard, since Burning Energy will just come right back
on, making Ninetales-EX a pretty decent target for it.
Keep in mind though that Burning Energy can't be
discarded by Ninetales-EX's Flare Bonus, though even if
it could based on the wording of its effect, you
wouldn't be able to just attach it to Ninetales-EX
again.
So what all does this mean? Well,
Ninetales-EX does have a neat little set-up going, and
on his own he's a pretty decent attacker if not slow.
With only 170 HP, he is a little on the lighter end of
EX's, but it shouldn't mean he's going to outright lose
all of it in one go if you leave him out for too long.
That being said, it would take at least 4 turns of
manually attaching Energy to Ninetales-EX for him to be
able to attack, and that's not including any Fire Energy
you're tossing out for Flare Bonus. Course, that can be
circumvented with things like Energy Retrieval and
Fisherman.
Overall, he's a good EX. Not a
great one, but a good one. I'd say he's a solid pick for
your first EX!
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (the draw power Flare
Bonus gives is pretty nice, though without a means of
recovering the Energy it can only go so far)
Expanded: 3/5 (but Fire Blast is on
the expensive side to be competitive without some form
of acceleration, which only really exists for Fire-types
with Emboar)
Limited: 4/5 (still, the draw power
is good, and the attack can 2HKO anything once you've
set up)
Arora Notealus: Ninetales is such a
beautiful Pokemon too. I mean you start out with little
red Vulpix, and then you give him a Fire Stone and then
BOOM!! Yellow-white fox with nine tails! And he's just
fabulous too~
Next Time: Let's keep that heat
flaring, cause I'm feeling the burn now!!
|
Otaku |
So close to the new set but not quite! To make the
wait a little more bearable, I saved back cards that
looked like they had some substance or potential for
this week. Plus today’s card because I messed up
the scheduling and was lucky to work in in here.
That is the kind of quality you get from a volunteer
amateur professional. ;)
First up is Ninetales-EX (Generations
13/83). As is my custom, we’ll start with what you
can tell at a distance thanks to coloration; it’s a
Fire-Type. Most Grass Types and nearly all Metal
Types are Fire Weak, and have at least some
representation in the competitive sphere. Nothing
is Fire Resistant unless we are discussing Unlimited
(and we aren’t going to worry about Unlimited).
There are some anti-Fire effects, but they aren’t overly
impressive. The one you’re likely to encounter is
almost an accident; Parallel City sees play
because of its effect that reduces a player’s maximum
Bench size down to three. It has a second effect
that applies to the opposite player, and that effect
reduces the damage done by Grass, Fire, and Water Types
by 20, so if your opponent can handle a 3 Pokémon Bench
he or she can ding your damage output. The Fire
Type has one key piece of support in the form of
Blacksmith. When that Supporter first released
it was a bit underwhelming but Battle Compressor
and VS Seeker have made a huge difference.
It is the only really important piece of strict Type
support worth using in most Fire decks, though
Scorched Earth has had a good showing.
Ninetales-EX
is a Basic Pokémon, one of the few guaranteed benefits
of being a Pokémon-EX (Mega Evolutions excluded, of
course). Normally Ninetales are Stage 1
Pokémon in the TCG, but being a Basic makes it less
resource intensive, faster, allows it to be your opening
Pokémon, and causes some card effects to favor it even
though said effects don’t specify a Stage. For
example, Super Scoop Up can bounce a Basic and
play it back down again, while an Evolution has to use
Evolution acceleration or have another copy of the lower
Stage waiting to Evolve to hit the field again.
There are some anti-Basic effects but even the best of
them aren’t leveling the playing field, and so far all
Pokémon Stages have some form of additional support
available and specific to them, except for BREAK
Evolutions. As for being a Pokémon-EX, it has the
promise of providing better attributes and effects, but
not every Pokémon-EX gets both, and some barely get one;
while Pokémon-EX have shaped (and often dominated) the
format it is due to the best of them, not all of them.
Some get an HP bonus and some mediocre attacks and
nothing else but the three drawbacks which are
guaranteed unless the card itself includes a work
around: giving up an extra Prize when KO’d, being the
target of certain counters, and being unable to access
certain pieces of support.
Ninetales-EX
does get a strong HP boost, as recent versions of
Ninetales (the non-Pokémon-EX variety) only have
90 HP, but being a Pokémon-EX nearly doubles that, as it
clocks in at 170 HP. This is the lower of the two
typical Basic Pokémon-EX scores but still enough to
often survive a hit. The Water Weakness can be a
pain: on one hand you have some decks that are focused
on Water Types and this ensures they score OHKOs, on the
other hand you’ve got Pokémon like Seismitoad-EX
which normally has only one thing going against it, its
relatively low damage. That damage being doubled
seems fairly important. The lack of Resistance is
typical and at least the card doesn’t have any effects
that blatantly would benefit from even the small, rarely
relevant boost that Resistance actually would have given
the card. The Retreat Cost of [C] is nice and
affordable, both when you pay it and when you try to
recover from having paid it. So what about the
effects?
Ninetales-EX
has two attacks, “Flare Bonus” and “Fire Blast”, both of
which are recycled from past cards; I suppose that is
somewhat appropriate given that this is a card from
Generations. Flare Bonus requires [R] to use
as well as a Fire Energy in hand to discard as
part of the effect; if you do discard said Energy you
get to draw three cards. It doesn’t specify basic
Fire Energy, but that is the only card that
currently provides [R] while in the hand. The
attack does no damage, which is unfortunate. It
wouldn’t be great even if it did, but it would be better
lead in to the next attack. At least it can help
set up for a Blacksmith, though Fire decks aren’t
hurting for ways to discard basic Fire Energy; if
you’re stuck without access to another attack it can be
a little help, just far from optimal. Ninetales-EX
can also use Fire Blast for [RCCC] to do 130 damage; the
attack also requires you flip a coin and if it’s “tails”
you discard an [R] Energy from Ninetales-EX
itself. This isn’t a bad deal, it just isn’t a
good one either; it’s mediocre, nearly enough to have
created a niche for Ninetales-EX. While
130-for-four could be good elsewhere, here there are
just better options for decks.
If a deck wants a big, Basic, Fire Type attacker and can
afford multiple Fire Energy attachments, there is a
waiting line made up of near misses or cards that have
had some success (sometimes from years ago). Charizard-EX
(XY: Flashfire 12/106; XY: Black Star Promos
XY121) seems to have set the standard for decks focused
on the Fire Type; at a cost of [RRCC] its “Combustion
Blast” does 150 damage, but can’t be used again the next
turn unless you can send it to the Bench then promote it
back to the Active slot (this resets the attack effect).
It also has had some success in competitive play, both
when it first released but more recently backing up
Entei (XY: Ancient Origins 15/98). Said
Entei can do 130 for [RRCC] through its “Heat
Tackle” attack, with the drawback of doing 30 damage to
itself should you flip “tails” on the required coin
toss. Its “Θ Double” Ancient Trait means that can
still hit key KOs after buffs, just like the Combustion
Blast on Charizard-EX. This deck quickly
flared in popularity but has already cooled off, with
only one fourth place showing in the Masters Division of
the recent State Championships series. Ninetales-EX
can’t compete with this in terms of damage or effects.
What about splashed into an off Type deck? If
the deck can accelerate a lot of non-[R] Energy but also
includes a source of [R] Energy, you create a niché
where the mostly Colorless Energy requirements are more
useful than even the half Colorless Energy requirements
found on the Fire Types that have proven worthwhile.
For example, Fairy Transfer decks built around
Aromatisse (XY 93/146) that include Prism
Energy, Rainbow Energy, etc. might have some
trouble meeting a [RRCC] requirement but not an [RCCC]
one. A Fire Type attacker also be splashed in to
exploit Weakness, so 130 should still suffice. Except
Ninetales-EX requires you discard an [R] Energy
from hand or from itself for each of its attacks; you do
not want to be discarding things like Rainbow Energy
if you can avoid it. Yet another Charizard-EX
(XY: Flashfire 11/106, 100/106; XY: Black Star
Promos XY29) has its own Fire Blast attack that also
costs [RCCC] and has a required discard cost, but allows
you to discard any Energy (like whatever is more
abundant in the deck). It does 10 less damage but
if you’re exploiting Weakness you shouldn’t need the
increased damage, and this Charizard-EX has 180
HP.
So Ninetales-EX is going to whiff on Standard and
Expanded play. Generations isn’t following the
normal release guidelines; if there were Pre-Releases
for it I missed them and it’ll probably take some effort
to arrange even for an unofficial event. On the
off chance you can manage it, Ninetales-EX is a
good pull but is a bit weak for the +39 trick, where you
run your 40 card Limited deck with only a single Basic
Pokémon (ensuring you open with it). There isn’t a
trick to accelerate Energy to an Active Ninetales-EX
in this set, so it will take four turns before you can
start using Fire Blast. Your opponent will be able
to attack you up to three times before you can start
scoring KOs; with only four Prizes that means even if
every Fire Blast is a OHKO your opponent will get in up
to six attacks. An average of 30 damage per attack
will be enough to score a KO before you can seal the
deal, though if you’re feeling daring you can still try
it. In a more fleshed out deck, as long as you
have room for basic Fire Energy you can benefit
from both attacks, and draw power is a precious thing in
Limited.
Ratings
Standard:
1.75/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Ninetales-EX has decent attributes, but Flare
Bonus is a poor and Fire Blast at mediocre. Though
at a glance it looks like this might be decent for
splashing into a few decks, Ninetales-EX can’t
actually get by on a low [R] Energy count as it needs
them for discard costs. This isn’t something to
stress about getting, though if you insist on using it,
at least it isn’t blatantly overpriced and underpowered.
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