Otaku |
Salutations readers! This week we’ll only be
having reviews on Monday and Friday, as Thursday will be
the United States of America’s observance of
Thanksgiving. It also gives me an excuse to put
Zapdos (XY: Evolutions 42/108) on the review
schedule. I’ve never fried a turkey, but I expect
this is close enough.
…
Right, lame jokes aside Zapdos is a Lightning
Type. In Standard play, we’ve been hurting for a
competitive Lightning Type deck, perhaps because
Lightning Weakness is somewhat widespread. The
chunk of the Colorless Type that represents the video
game Flying Type typically has Lightning Weakness, and
often we’ll see it pop up on another Type where the
Pokémon in question would be part Flying in the video
games. Some of the BW-era Water Types are also
Lightning Weak, and a few other oddballs. I almost
always have reason to bring up Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) and it’s probably the
most famous and widespread example of Lightning
Weakness. The Types best tricks haven’t been
enough to make them competitive in Standard, though in
Expanded they’ve got at least a few representatives that
field formerly (possibly currently) competitive
archetypes. Lightning Resistance is a thing, but
only on some BW-era Fighting Types, and there aren’t any
noteworthy anti-Lightning Type effects.
Being a Basic is something for which Zapdos ought
to be grateful; not that it is supposed to be another
Stage, it is just the game really favors Basics over the
other Stages right now. They take the least space
to run, least time to put into play, can be your opening
Pokémon, can tap potent Basic Stage support, and even
enjoy a certain synergy with various card effects.
The only drawback to being a Basic is that the designers
have kept certain anti-Basic effects in the card pool. Zapdos
has 110 HP; the max we see on non-Evolving Basic Pokémon
is currently 140, so 30 under isn’t bad. 110 is not
enough to reliably survive a hit, but it isn’t too
terrible either; I’d say about a 50-50 shot. No
Weakness is the best Weakness and a welcome sight, as is
the Fighting Resistance. Yes some cards punish
Resistance and it isn’t the strongest of mechanics, but
it is still nice to see. The Retreat Cost of [CC]
is low enough you can afford to pay (and recover from
having paid) it but high enough you’d prefer not to;
pack a few extra alternatives to manually retreating at
full price.
Zapdos
has two attacks. The first is “Thunder” for [LLCC]
and allows Zapdos to do 90 damage to the
opponent’s Active and 30 to itself. This is badly
overpriced or underpowered; in fact it is both as this
is the less expensive of the two attacks, the
“fast” one. For the Energy and self-damage
involved, this attack should probably do about 150
damage. “Thunderbolt” is the second attack, and for
[LLLL] and discarding all Energy from Zapdos
itself the attack does 170 damage. This too is
overpriced or underpowered but it hits a key
damage threshold. I used to treat each Energy
discarded as if it was an additional Energy requirement,
but with the current pacing a discard cost is utterly
meaningless when the attacker gets KO’d the next turn.
200 damage seems like it would have been fair (and
adequate) in the current metagame, but if you can
readily supply the Energy required then the second
attack could prove worthwhile. 170 hits hard enough to
OHKO a good chunk of the metagame, while a Fighting
Fury Belt both increases odds of surviving a hit
and crosses the next key threshold. Thunder
could take advantage of off Type Energy acceleration
like Double Colorless Energy, but it won’t do
Thunderbolt any good (and would still be discarded!) so
it isn’t recommended.
Currently we have a few other options for Zapdos:
BW: Next Destinies 41/99 (also available as
BW: Legendary Treasures 46/113) and XY: Roaring
Skies 23/108 (also available as Generations
29/83). Both are also Basic, Lightning Type
Pokémon with Fighting Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], no
Ability, no Ancient Trait, and two attacks. Both
have 120 HP (10 more than today’s version) and Lightning
Weakness (unlike today’s Zapdos). BW: Next
Destinies 41/99 can use “Random Spark” for [LCC] to
hit the one of the opponent’s Pokémon (your choice) for
50 damage. For [LCCC] it can use “Thundering
Hurricane” to flip four coins, each good for 50 damage
per “heads”. This card hasn’t aged well mostly in
the damage department; 50 for three is low even though
it allows you to snipe the Bench or hit the Active, and
the average of 100 damage for four Energy as already
mentioned is low now. It was reviewed
here.
XY: Roaring Skies 23/108 can do 20 for [L] with
its “Drill Peck” (a bit low but not bad) or 120 for
[LLC] plus 40 to one of your own Benched Pokémon via
“Raging Thunder” (good damage for the Energy, drawback
is manageable). XY: Roaring Skies 23/108 never
saw much success in competitive play, but it really is a
solid card on paper; I suspect it’s mostly a matter of
timing. Namely when it hit we didn’t need another
Lightning Type Basic attacker (even a non-Pokémon-EX),
and even if we did we then got a replacement a little
while later in the form of Raikou (XY:
BREAKthrough 55/162). We looked at XY:
Roaring Skies 23/108
here.
Do either of those Zapdos help today’s see play?
Nope. Do they compete with it for deck space?
Not really; maybe XY: Roaring Skies 23/108 does a
little but the true competition may be Raikou.
So… exactly where would they be competing? In
Expanded Eelektrik (BW: Noble Victories
40/101) might consider our new Zapdos; this is
actually multiple decks it’s “Dynamotor” Ability has
fueled a couple different attackers over the years. Raikou
and Gallade (XY: BREAKthrough 84/162) are
the current favorites. Zapdos acts more like
Rayquaza-EX (BW: Dragons Exalted 85/124,
123/124; BW: Black Star Promos BW47), an older
partner that focused on OHKOs via discarding large
quantities of Energy from itself while it attacked. Rayquaza-EX
is better than Zapdos at the job, able to take
down much larger targets, but Zapdos is of course
only worth a single Prize and operates purely with [L]
Energy (Rayquaza-EX needs at least one [R]).
Getting [LLLL] attached even with Dynamotor can be quite
the feat if you’re trying to pull it off in a single
turn, but if you’ve got time to prepare the hit ahead of
time while say Raikou is up front doing its
thing, seems plausible.
Magnezone
(XY: BREAKthrough 54/162) is another option.
Its Ability allows you to attach as many [L] Energy from
your hand to your Pokémon as you wish in a turn (before
you attack, of course). This allows Thunderbolt
turn after turn, with a couple different options like
Energy Retrieval, Fisherman, and/or
Starmie (XY: Evolutions 32/108) to help with
the reloading. Another possible option may be to
rely upon Max Elixir and Electrode (XY:
Evolutions 40/108). Giving up a Prize is
pretty steep, but if you can keep Zapdos
alive through to the next turn (Fighting Fury Belt
helps with that) you try for a favorable Prize trade
against Basic Pokémon-EX. Of course, reloading is
horribly difficult and so Raikou makes much more
sense. Still, perhaps a single would work.
These two decks are long shots, but they are also
Standard legal. For Limited play, definitely go
ahead and run this if your deck can run on mostly or
only Lightning Energy; ideally you can build it
while something else is attacking up front, without
needing additional Energy attachments and without being
KO’d. If you get a lot of other stuff worth
running that needs different Energy Types, probably skip
Zapdos in favor of them.
Ratings
Standard:
2.5/5
Expanded:
2.5/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Zapdos is about using Thunderbolt for OHKOs; the
damage actually strikes me as a bit low since you’re
attaching and tossing [LLLL] with each use, but 170
damage (+10 with Fighting Fury Belt) allows you
to take down quite a bit in a single hit. Its
scores aren’t straightforward; it might help some of the
otherwise lesser forms of [L] Energy acceleration to
finally make good in Standard, where as it faces more
competition for the proven [L] Type decks in Expanded
play.
Zapdos
would have taken 13th place had our Top 10 list gone a
little further. It only received one voting point,
and that came from me as I had it as my 10th place pick.
It actually tied with 12th place, and as I’m not sure if
we’ll ever get around to reviewing it, I’ll just say
right now that was Starmie BREAK.
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