Otaku |
We close out the
week with our 11th place finisher, Super Scoop Up
which has been released nine times: Neo Genesis
98/111, Expedition 151/165, EX: FireRed &
LeafGreen 99/112, EX: Delta Species 100/113,
Diamond & Pearl 115/130, DP: Majestic Dawn
87/100, HS: Unleashed 83/95, Black & White
103/114, and XY: Furious Fists 100/111.
That means it officially released in North America back
on December 16, 2000; I am uncertain if there are any
gaps due to the specifics of when sets were tournament
legal versus when specific formats went into effect, but
that means this card may have been Standard legal…
forever. What we call the Standard Format was more
commonly referred to as the “Modified” Format for most
of the Pokémon TCG’s history, it the very first Modified
Format began in 2001. It is an Item card that
allows you to flip a coin; if “tails” it does nothing
but if “heads” you put one of your in play Pokémon and
all cards attached to it back into your hand.
Being a Trainer is almost always a good thing, as
playing Pokémon (even Basics!) and Energy are more
restricting. Being an Item means you don’t give up
your Supporter or Stadium for the turn, though of course
you do have to deal with a lot of anti-Item
effects; not only Item lock but cards like Ghetsis.
The effect is
either a total whiff or the perfect bounce; the
designers believed this balanced but the history of the
TCG suggests this is either quite bad, or fairly good,
with periodic spikes of weeping and gnashing of [your
opponent’s] teeth. The reason is that in general,
this is a handy, but in specific? The decks where
it would underperform skip it and the ones where you’re
bouncing a coming-into-play Ability, attacker capable of
taking a hit and powering up in a single turn, or both
make sure to run it in multiples. Cards like
Trainers’ Mail and Korrina help it out as
either TecH or multi-card strategy. The only catch
is that your deck really, really needs to be able to
handle those games where you just cannot flip “heads”
when it counts. Notice I said “when it counts”;
sometimes you might need to “burn” a Super Scoop Up
for little or no effect, or at the very least when the
bounce isn’t especially important. You might run
four copies of Super Scoop Up and have all four
be “tails”, but if the game didn’t hinge on them, those
“tails” aren’t a big problem. Same for if you get
less than all “heads” but all the “tails” are the times
when it wasn’t critical.
As for those
critical moments, there are a lot of opportunities, even
in general deck usage. Got something stuck in the
Active slot or which is especially vulnerable?
Bounce it, even if it’s got a Special Condition or a lot
of damage; in fact that just made it sweeter. Shaymin-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) is the
obvious; with 110 HP but being worth two Prizes, it is a
tempting target for your opponent to save until KOing it
leads to an easy win. Getting it back into hand
denies your opponent that chance, or at least let’s you
try to cash in on the card’s fantastic Ability once
again. Bouncing a Seismitoad-EX with a
Double Colorless Energy and Muscle Band that
your opponent spent two or three turns chipping away at
because your Item lock, supplemented by Team Flare
Grunt, Crushing Hammer, and Enhanced
Hammer to keep you Energy poor, had finally almost
scored a KO is one of the most frustrating things my
Pokémon TCG opponent has done to me in recent years.
DId I mention the part where Seismitoad-EX, the
Double Colorless Energy, and Muscle Band
were immediately played back down, sometimes then
promoted via retreating or Switch, to resume the
lock? Fighting Types could get pretty vicious as
well, either because they had a low Energy attacker like
Landorus-EX, Lucario-EX, or Zygarde-EX
that got in a solid hit or three before bouncing, having
a Benched Hawlucha (XY: Furious Fists
63/111) come up front, only for the attacker in question
to hit the field, get at least one Strong Energy
attached, and come up front swinging again.
Sometimes they would have a damage increasing Tool, and
sometimes Focus Sash that that if you did hit
them hard, you were probably just going to see all that
damage go to waste. I am only now getting to
Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces 33/119) and
Golbat (XY: Phantom Forces 32/119;
Generations 31/83); spam their “Surprise Bite” and
“Sneaky Bite” Abilities for extra damage counter
placement.
We’ve reviewed it
twice before, first on
November 30, 2005 and the second time on
October 8, 2014;
I actually weighed in on both occasions and I am not
mortified by re-reading my old reviews. I mean
while I hope you can tell the difference in quality
between past and present, I seemed to be more or less
spot on (adjusting for the then current card pool).
It will still see fairly heavy play in key decks on
Expanded, with general usage an iffy prospect due to
Item lock; a deck that already runs a useful combo
partner like Korrina might be more inclined to
using it as TecH. Decks that really want to spam
bounce effects will need to make room for multiple
copies, but unless their luck is horrid Super Scoop
Up should serve them well. Even in decks where
Super Scoop Up should work wonders, it can
backfire. How? If you forget yourself and
play it when you have just your Active Pokémon in play,
you just did a fancy concession because you can
target your only Pokémon, bounce it, and then lose for
having no Pokémon in play. One of the reasons
Super Scoop Up didn’t catch on right away (even
after the introduction of Modified took away access to
the original Scoop Up) is that when your
attackers are slow to set up, you may not be able to
capitalize upon the bounce properly; instead of (for
example) taking one last Prize with your heavily
developed Mega Evolution, you bounce it but before you
can get it all reassembled your opponent steamrolls it.
So you are KO’d just as fast (or nearly just as fast)
but burned up Super Scoop Up and gave up a chance
to swing at full strength.
In Limited play,
this is a valuable pull; if you’re paying attention and
notice that below I’m scoring it a bit lower than the
last time, that is because I don’t evaluate cards quite
the same as I used to for Limited play. I was
getting a lot of high scores because cards were
“must-runs”, but often they weren’t particularly good or
powerful, just better than another filler Energy or
Basic Pokémon. So with that out of the way… is it
a significant loss to Standard? Yes Super Scoop
Up lost some of its combo partners, but not enough
to leave the card useless, and we lost both this and
AZ. That means there is no longer
inexpensive, Item-based bounce or reliable, Supporter
based bounce. In fact there is now no longer
any general bounce based option, Trainer or
otherwise. Not unlike discarding Tools, it is
something to which we have become accustomed and so it
can be rather jarring operating without it. Did I
mention all the big Basics becoming even bigger due to
Fighting Fury Belt and how Tools are difficult to
discard? I thought it was bad when Lucario-EX
had Strong Energy and Muscle Band, but
Zygarde-EX still has Strong Energy and
Fighting Fury Belt means just a little less damage
to survive an extra turn or two before needing healing.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
3.5/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Summary:
Super Scoop Up is one of the two bounce cards we
have been using and enjoying for a while now, but which
is now no longer available in Standard. With one
or the other left, not as big of a deal, but when both
Super Scoop Up and AZ are gone?
I know I’ve already noticed it while multiple decks.
There are alternatives, but Ninja Boy, Max
Potion, etc. aren’t close enough and require the
decks play differently to perform a somewhat similar
trick.
Super Scoop Up
racked up 28 voting points, missing a tie with our 10th
place card by a single point. For my own list I
awarded it sixth place, though I have been fond of some
of the decks that abuse this card. 11th seems kind of
low, even taking my bias into account: five places is a
bit much for difference but two or three I could see.
|
Zach Carmichael |
When Furious Fists came out,
it marked a new era in the format – one in which single
Energy attackers could quickly pressure opponents and
essentially tank while taking quick prizes. Attackers
like Lucario-EX and Hawlucha took
advantage of the Fighting-type engine by way of cards
like Korrina, Strong Energy, and
Fighting Stadium to deal massive damage. Super
Scoop Up helped accomplish this goal by providing a
way to heal off damage and recycle Energy cards with a
single coin flip. If you have read my previous posts,
you probably know that I am not much of a proponent for
flip cards, however, this is an exception – being able
to quickly recover HP and essentially reset your board
and set your opponent back a couple turns is huge, and
the card is definitely justified in a number of decks.
Besides Fighting-types like
Lucario-EX and Landorus-EX, Super Scoop Up
was primarily used in decks that took advantage of
Crobat lines from Phantom Forces to spread damage.
You could use the “Sneaky Bite” Ability to place 20 and
30 damage from Golbat and Crobat,
respectively, to set up future KOs by making the math
perfect. Seismitoad-EX quickly became a partner
with these Pokémon, as its Quaking Punch attack only
cost a single Double Colorless Energy, and its
meager 30 damage output needed a way to hit bigger
numbers. The card was also prevalent in Wailord-EX
decks, allowing you to heal a whopping 250 HP attacker
completely as you slowly whittled your opponent’s deck
away with cards like Hugh and Trick Shovel.
In Expanded, the above decks
continue to be popular. As such, Super Scoop Up
is very playable and will continue to be so, assuming
that the Expanded format does not rotate certain sets in
the future. Coin flips are typically so-so because you
are essentially relying on luck while using as many as
four spots in your deck that could have been consistency
cards like Supporters. But in this case – depending on
the deck, of course – Super Scoop Up is
inherently powerful and gives many decks a huge
advantage.
Ratings
Standard: N/A
Expanded: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Summary: Super Scoop Up
will be missed in Standard. A number of single
Energy attackers still exist with the Primal Clash-on
format, but these Pokémon will now have to rely on cards
like Max Potion to provide defensive measures
from being KO’d. The card will continue to see play in
Expanded, as the ability to reset your board
consistently is too good to pass up, particularly in the
era of fast-paced, hard-hitting Pokémon-EX.
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