aroramage |
And now, the mighty Umbreon of
darkness illuminates the night life with his graceful EX
title!! BEHOLD HIS POWER AS HE DECIMATES THE
COMPETITION!!
...okay, so I like selling you on
the cards, what's wrong with that?
Anywho, Umbreon-EX strikes me
personally as a fairly strong card to have in one's
possession. There's a lot of potential in a card like
this, and he may play a big role in certain decks in the
future depending on what they rely upon. For instance,
take Veil of Darkness! It's only a 1-for-20 hit, so it's
not very good offensively at all, but the effect just
begs to be abused in some manner. Under the Veil of
Darkness, Umbreon-EX can discard any number of cards you
want from your hand, and then you can draw an equal
number of cards from your deck. In a way, it's like a
refreshing cycle - you get rid of cards you don't want,
or you set yourself up if you're a discard-oriented
deck! Course this depends on what's actually in your
hand at the time, but discarding unused Energy or
Pokemon or even Supporters is what I'd say is a pretty
good deal when they can be brought out from your discard
pile.
Then there's Endgame, and man oh
man, I'm expecting to see a couple decks oriented around
putting enough damage on one Pokemon before taking them
out with Umbreon-EX. Cause if you beat a Pokemon with
Umbreon-EX's Endgame - which, to keep in mind, is only
3-for-70, but if you do - you get to claim an additional
2 Prizes!! 2 MORE PRIZE CARDS!! Isn't that crazy?
...wait...what's that text before
"Pokemon"? Kinda looks like Evolution...MEGA
Evolution...ohhhhh...
Well, that one little stipulation,
while a bit hurtful to Endgame's insanity, does make
Umbreon-EX into an anti-Mega Pokemon of sorts. And hey,
if he does take that last bit of HP, you're looking at
drawing 4 Prize cards, which is enough to practically
end most games - no wonder it's called Endgame! The
damage output is a bit middling if only to offset the
effect, but nailing it will no doubt end games. That
being said, how many decks do you think run Megas
anyway?
And that's the main issue right now
- Umbreon-EX can only really be useful against those
Megas with Endgame, otherwise it's a 3-for-70 vanilla
hit most of the time. I'd say Veil of Darkness is the
bigger attack here, which is funny since it's the
smaller between the two. The potential to cycle through
your deck with a means other than an Ability or a
Supporter and also toss cards into the discard pile,
while again limited to what's already available in your
hand, is still really really nice.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (there's a lot of
potential for Umbreon-EX to become his own threat
machine)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (but that being
said, he's still gonna have a lot of competition)
Limited: 4/5 (and there may be
better options than him around and about)
Arora Notealus: And that pretty
much covers the Eeveelutions! At the very least, it was
nice to see them all take form into various EX, and they
really managed to pull it together in the end. Now to
make more EX that are bigger and better than ever...or
smaller and more timid...anyone else thinking of
Kricketune-EX?
Weekend Thought: A bit of a short
week this time, given Memorial Day and our Friday
getting cut off, but what did you think of these cards?
They're pretty much all the Dark cards of the set, so
it's good to see them up and about! And hey, with them
out of the way, you've got an idea on how to counter
things like Trevenant! Hopefully they can be a big help.
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Otaku |
We conclude our shortened week with Umbreon-EX (XY:
Fates Collide 55/124, 119/124). The Darkness
Type has not changed since we discussed it the last two
days. First due to a simple submission error but
then simply due to my own faulty planning, both
Tuesday’s
and
Wednesday’s
reviews went up late, so I have reason beyond my usual
compulsion to repeat (while rephrasing) those thoughts.
The Darkness Type is far better than it looks at a
glance. Only some Psychic Pokémon are Darkness
Weak, but both Night March decks and decks built around
Trevenant BREAK have key cards that are Darkness
Weak; so this Type is actually good at hitting Weakness
when it looked like it ought to be bad at it.
Resistance isn’t normally a big deal because it is only
-20 damage, but the only Fairy Type released that is not
Darkness Resistance is Florges BREAK… because
BREAK Evolutions have no Weakness printed on them (they
get it from whichever Pokémon they Evolved). There
is even Klefki (XY: Furious Fists 73/111)
which has an Ability that makes Resistance on Fairy
Types function as if it were -40, and -40 is an amount
that tends to matter. Except the Fairy Type really
only has one current stand out attacker starring in a
competitive deck - Xerneas (XY: BREAKthrough
107/162) - and its Rainbow Force attack requires the
deck diversify on Pokémon Type as much as possible,
lessening the relevance of Resistance.
It doesn’t stop there; the Darkness Type has several
explicit counters. Cobalion (BW: Black Star
Promos BW72), Terrakion (BW: Black Star
Promos BW71), and Virizion (BW: Black Star
Promos BW70) all have the Ability “Justified” that
allow them to hit Darkness Types for +50 damage before
Weakness and Resistance (“before” being rather
significant for Terrakion). Fortunately for
Darkness Types they also all do substandard damage so
they really only “break even” when used against Darkness
Types and are underpowered everywhere else. Zygarde
(XY: Fates Collide 52/124) has a 70-for-[FCC]
attack that prevents Fairy or Darkness Type Pokémon it
hits from being able to attack the next turn. Jigglypuff
(XY 87/146) can attack for [Y] to discard a [D]
Energy attached to the opponent’s Active. There
may be more I have missed, but only Zygarde is
new enough that it might have much hope; the rest have
all been around (some for quite a while) and if someone
did try them, I am guessing they were found wanting as
it didn’t become a trend. So five examples isn’t
the most we’ve seen, but for something beyond the usual
“This Pokémon takes [insert amount] less damage from
[insert Type].” kinds of hard counters, it is still
quite a bit. As for support, the direct support
restricted to the Pokémon Type boasts Dark Patch
but little else still relevant, but there are a few bits
that support Darkness Energy and several excellent
attackers. So in the end what could risk being a
mediocre Type ends up being one currently near the top.
Being a Pokémon-EX means Umbreon-EX can’t make
use of a few (and I mean very few) beneficial effects,
will have to deal with the various Pokémon-EX counters,
and most important it means Umbreon-EX is worth
an extra Prize when KO’d. This comes with one
guaranteed benefits plus a few probable ones.
Normally Umbreon-EX is a Stage 1, so it is the
best Stage in the game right now. Easy to play,
easy to fit into decks, easier to combo, and while there
are some anti-Basic effects that can cause problems for
Umbreon-EX, there are also some nice bits of
Basic-only support that keeps this all squarely tipped
in the favor of Basic Pokémon. Next we come to one
of the probable benefits confirmed to be present:
Umbreon-EX has 170 HP, the lower of the two typical
HP scores. This is enough to often survive a hit.
Nothing is OHKO-proof, and 170 is one of the thresholds
a deck aims to clear, but even with that being the case,
it seems to be just a bit more likely to survive than
not. One of the exceptions will be when Weakness
comes into play; Fighting Weakness may be the worst
because it is a Type that specializes in stacking damage
bonuses on low-cost, high damage yield attacks.
Thanks to all the available bonuses, it is plausible for
any Fighting Type that can do 10 damage for a single
Energy to manage a OHKO for that cost. Some of the
established strong Fighting Type attackers can do more
like 30 damage for [F], so of course it can reach that
same amount with less effort. Psychic Resistance
isn’t going to make a huge difference, but it is
definitely appreciated; for example this means a the
Psychic Type Night March attackers need one more Pokémon
in the discard pile. The Retreat Cost of [C] is
low and easy to pay, and a definite benefit, even if not
as potent as retreating for free.
Umbreon-EX
has two attacks. The first is “Veil of Darkness”
which costs only [C]. Since they stopped printing
attacks with no Energy requirements, this is as good as
it gets. This attack does 20 damage while allowing
you to discard as many cards from your hand as you like,
and then you get to draw an equal number of cards.
This isn’t great, but it is nice when you need some
quick damage and/or draw power, though the latter
requires you have either discard fodder, or at least
something you can spare. The second attack is
“Endgame”, which costs [DCC]; it does 70 damage and has
a highly specialized effect where if Endgame KOs a Mega
Evolution then you take two additional Prizes.
70-for-three is weak, but not so low that it needs an
amazing effect backing it, just something solid.
The Energy cost means just about any Energy
acceleration, including Double Colorless Energy,
speeds it up by a turn. With the mostly [C] Energy
costs Umbreon-EX should even be relatively simple
to splash into a deck, so long as said deck has a little
bit of compatible Energy acceleration. It doesn’t
hit hard enough to 2HKO Mega Evolutions on its own but I
don’t think it has to; it can slip in as the follow up
attacker after something delivered a beefier hit or be
combined with other cards to set up a pseudo-OHKO with
damage counter placing effects. Even if Umbreon-EX
had to 4HKO something, which means you’re probably using
two Umbreon-EX against one Mega Evolution, you
still break even in terms of Prizes (4 for 4).
There are two reasons that Umbreon-EX isn’t
must-run single for for your typical Darkness Type deck.
The first is yet another point that I fear seems like I
am telling you “Water is wet.”: decks are in no way less
crowded now than in the weeks before XY: Fates
Collide released. Umbreon-EX is not just
competing against other attackers you might benefit from
even as singles, but against any card you would run as
TecH or additional copies of cards already in the deck
but not yet maxed out. The second is that not
every deck uses Mega Evolutions. In fact looking
at the Masters Division results from the 2016 Spring
Regionals for Expanded and the 2016 State Championships
for Standard results, there just might not be enough
Mega Evolution focused decks floating around to justify
it for either of those Formats. For Limited, odds
are low you’ll ever get to attack into a Mega Evolution,
but Umbreon-EX should be a great pull as it is a
big, Basic Pokémon that can provide extra draw power.
With all the Fighting this set I do not recommend
trying to run Umbreon-EX solo, but instead use it
in another deck. If you can slip in a source of
[D] Energy as well, then go ahead and enjoy Endgame even
if it will functionally be a vanilla attack.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Umbreon-EX is a game changer when you can use it
to finish off a Mega Evolution; you take two thirds of
the Prizes needed to win the game (all of them in
Limited play!). The real catch is that a lot of
decks won’t be able to do that. Since it can’t
manage a OHKO on its own but will need help even for the
2HKO, the big deal is the sudden rush of Prizes as you
may not be any actual turns ahead. Try to make a
spot for it in your Darkness Type decks, but don’t lose
any sleep over it if it has to be left out. All in
all this still makes it a worthwhile addition to the
game; there is nothing wrong with being a niche card, so
long as you are effective in that niche.
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