Otaku |
Startling Megaphone
(XY: Flashfire 97/106) is our fifth place
finisher for our Top 20 Cards Lost to Rotation
countdown? How is it so high? Well this is
an Item that discards all Pokémon Tools attached to your
opponent’s Pokémon. Being a Trainer means you can
recycle it with Dowsing Machine, search it out
from your deck with Skyla, or snag it with
Trainers’ Mail if it is in the top four cards of
your deck. There aren’t any worthwhile generic
Trainer counters to worry about either. Being an
Item means little in the way of specific support;
nothing I can think of in Standard and just Korrina
and Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers 62/108) in
Expanded. There are many Item counters
ranging from the easy to TecH in Ghetsis to the
often easy to include Seismitoad-EX to the deck
foci like Trevenant (XY 55/146) or
Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98).
However being an Item usually rocks because they are the
Trainer with no built in restrictions; you may play as
many of them per turn as you wish (and are able).
Any costs to play the card are a part of that specific
card’s text and not its generic status as an Item.
The specific effect of Startling Megaphone is
thus amazing as it can discard large amounts of Pokémon
Tool cards with so little effort. There are times
when this card has been ignored, but they were when Item
lock was painfully good or… well it is a bit
complicated.
You’ve got
Startling Megaphone punishing people for heavy Item
reliance, causing Item usage to plummet. Some Tool
cards were still too good not to use, but said
usage was in a manner that made Startling Megaphone
a poor counter. If your deck can OHKO an
opponent’s attacker, then you just do that instead of
discarding said attacker’s Muscle Band. If
your opponent uses Spirit Link cards then they
might hold them in hand until right before they Mega
Evolve to avoid said Spirit Link being discarded,
and hey if you were using Pokémon Tool F cards then
you’d hit those alongside anything your opponent had
down. Players also got good at keeping a minimal
amount of Tools in play at a time as well. Still,
if Startling Megaphone wasn’t there, Xerosic
or an alternative probably was. In Expanded play,
Startling Megaphone is a pretty common sight
though some decks go without it, either using Xerosic,
Tool Scrapper, or being able to get by without
due to extenuating circumstances. In Limited play,
XY: Flashfire only contains Protect Cube
and only a few Pokémon can make use of that Tool; not a
high priority. So… what if this were reprinted
immediately and thus soon returned to Standard play:
would it matter? Oh yes! All the easy Tool
removal is gone so it would at least resume its role as
a loose staple. Part of why the current format
operates how it does is because of the lack of
such cards.
We looked at
Startling Megaphone the first time when I wasn’t
here, but the
second time it was the
10th place finisher for the Top Cards of 2014. It released before Tool
Scrapper left Standard play, making it less
important at first (an already good card replaced by a
very good card). If you read my old review, I was
a bit naive in thinking it couldn’t drop down from
“one-per-deck staple” to “loose” or “near” staple.
I also wanted to point out that yes, even though this
isn’t a maxed out staple, it is still a broken card: I
do not want this back because it is just too
good at discarding Pokémon Tools. While they
are also Item cards, they require a Pokémon with an open
Tool slot to use and are lost alongside a KO’d Pokémon
(when attached to that Pokémon).
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
3.75/5
Limited:
2/5
Summary:
I am glad Startling Megaphone is gone but only
because I thought it was too strong, even if in this
crazy format that wasn’t enough to remain a staple.
I still miss having a means of Tool discard that was not
an Ability or attack effect, however.
Startling Megaphone
took in 37 voting points, one more than
last Friday’s
Trevenant (XY 55/146), for which my review
went up very late. Tomorrow’s subjects took in 39
voting points, beating it my only two points. On
my own list, Startling Megaphone ranked second,
because of how much its absence (especially alongside
Xerosic) has shaped Standard play. As such
fifth seems a little low even though there isn’t much
higher it could go.
|
Zach Carmichael |
Today we continue to our countdown
with Startling Megaphone, released in the Flashfire
expansion. Without going too much in depth, the card
provided a hard counter to Tool cards while in the
Standard format, many of which now being overpowered in
the Primal Clash-on format because they can no longer be
discarded. As we wait for a viable way to solve this
problem, let us look back at Startling Megaphone to see
why it was easily a staple in virtually all competitive
decks.
If you remember the previous
formats before XY-on, then you are familiar with
Startling Megaphone’s predecessor, Tool Scrapper.
Arguably more useful than the former, it allowed you to
remove up to two Tool cards from either player’s
Pokémon. This explains why it often sees more play in
Expanded, as it provides a way to get around Team Flare
Hyper Gear cards, like Head Ringer and Jamming net.
Unlike Tool Scrapper though, Startling Megaphone removes
all Tool cards, albeit only on your opponent’s Pokémon.
This adds a bit more strategy, as your opponent now has
to manage resources effectively and not just lay Tools
down recklessly to burn through their deck. Indeed,
Startling Megaphone was an incredibly powerful asset for
competitive decks, as it made cards like Garbodor
semi-unplayable and also help achieve magic numbers for
KOs – being able to knock off a Fighting Fury Belt for
potentially an automatic KO was pretty nice!
Without Tool removal, the Standard
format has become somewhat bland, with much of the meta
being M Mewtwo-EX (Y) paired alongside Garbodor. Not
only can they quickly fill their board with several M
Mewtwo that can effectively tank thanks to its Damage
Swap attack (using Shrine of Memories), but Garbodor
shuts off all Abilities in play. This deadly combination
makes a number of decks that were once great now quite
terrible, like Greninja BREAK. The only two options we
now have for Tool removal are Rattata from Evolutions,
and the recently released Beedrill-EX in a promotional
box. Neither of these really solve the issue, however,
as the skilled player will just hold on to their Tools
and play them down only when the timing is right.
Ratings
Standard: n/a
Expanded: 3/5
Limited: 2/5
Summary: Startling Megaphone
was a game balancer. It was easily a one-of in a format
dominated with such Tools as Fighting Fury Belt and
Float Stone. Without Tool removal, the Standard format
struggles in many ways because certain decks are now
inherently more powerful to the point that they
essentially can not be countered. Perhaps the card
developers will realize this after more large-scale
tournaments like Regional Championships this fall and
winter, but until then players will have to build decks
that are designed to hard counter decks that revolve
around Garbodor.
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