aroramage |
...okay, so Muscle Band yesterday
is pretty much the best Tool ever and pretty much
promoted a faster format centered around exploding
damage. Kinda like HTLBank before it, only in the form
of a single card. So yeah, it's great.
Seismitoad-EX on the other hand is
an even greater card.
There are few cards in the game
that will single-handedly shape the format around them
while also promoting several different deck ideas in and
of itself. Seismitoad-EX wasn't just a powerful
Item-Lock card - he was THE powerful Item-Lock card. And
over the course of his time in Standard, he had gone
through many iterations - combined with cards like
Slurpuff (XY) for draw power, the Zubat/Golbat/Crobat
line-up for spreading damage, even with Giratina-EX
(AOR) at one point. He was also paired up with Enhanced
and Crushing Hammer for getting rid of Energies and Head
Ringer to slow his opponents down even further.
For him though, the best partner
was ultimately the one card that would be banned:
Lysandre's Trump Card. With it, Seismitoad-EX decks
could recycle their Item cards while still locking their
opponent in with Quaking Punch. With quick access to DCE
and a grab at Muscle Band, Seismitoad-EX could
completely lock opponents out of the game, and
Lysandre's Trump Card provided just the right amount of
recycling and devastation to keep things going...and
going...and going...and going...
This is actually one of the main
reasons Lysandre's Trump Card has been banned: it makes
games last FOREVER. So while Seismitoad-EX still
struggled hard to compensate without the use of such a
powerful card, those decks were never as strong as they
were when it was legal. Or as annoying, I suppose. In
any case though, Seismitoad-EX now gets to live on in
Expanded, where he'll have access to Karen, a potential
tech against the ever-popular Night March that defined
the format.
Is it really surprising that he's
made the #2 spot on every list we've had him on?
Rating
Standard: N/A
Expanded: 4.5/5 (I mean let's face
it, Seismitoad-EX was one of the major competitors
against Night March decks as well, locking them out of
their Items and smashing their Energy with the Hammers
to slow them down)
Limited: 5/5 (he was never a
perfect counter to the deck, but he was certainly a
major check)
Arora Notealus: Similarly to
Lucario-EX, Seismitoad-EX is perhaps one of the best
Pokemon-EX and most well-designed in the game. Sure, his
Item Lock is annoying, but it's not impossible to break
out of or too overbearing on the game. He promoted
several different deck ideas around himself but also
helped out other deck ideas that didn't center around
him as much - for instance, Water Toolbox!
Next Time: Our number 1 spot? Well
what could be better than the Toad?!
|
Otaku |
Our runner up for
the Top 20 Cards Lost to rotation is… really obvious
since there is a scan of it above this review, and
possibly another review or two as well. So
Seismitoad-EX (XY: Furious Fists 20/111,
106/111) managed to beat out all but one card on our
collective countdown, leading to our fourth
review for the card. Why so many reviews?
·
The
first was a
special “preview” week for XY: Furious Fists.
·
The
second was for
our top 10 countdown for XY: Furious Fists (Seismitoad-EX
ranked number two).
·
The
third and most
recent was still from almost two years ago;
Seismitoad-EX was again ranked second but this time
for the Top 10 Cards of 2014.
I weighed in on all
three, so here we go again.
Seismitoad-EX
is of course a Pokémon-EX. That means even though
cards based on Seismitoad are normally Evolutions, this
one is a Basic but will have higher HP than it usually
receives. It can also mean other stats are better
than normal, as well as effects, but this is not
guaranteed. The powerful drawback of being a
Pokémon-EX is giving up an additional Prize when KO’d.
The largely inconsequential drawback is how certain
beneficial card effects exclude Pokémon-EX. In
between are various card effects that provide negative
consequences for you (and/or positive for your opponent)
should you be using Pokémon-EX. Being a Water Type
has varied in significance since Seismitoad-EX
released; early on it was important for slapping around
Landorus-EX, and at times it has been relevant
for dousing Fire Types. When Virizion-EX
was a popular opener, its Water Resistance made you wish
Seismitoad-EX had been a Fighting Type (it is a
Water/Ground Type in the TCG). Actually, this card
would have been sick as a Fighting Type, so let us be
glad it was never able to abuse Strong Energy,
Fighting Stadium, Korrina, etc. It took
a bit but eventually the Water Type brought it Dive
Ball and Rough Seas and both are quite useful
to our amphibious sometimes-overlord. Being a
Water Type also backfires a bit thanks to Parallel
City being a popular play on and off through the
months. Most decks run Parallel City for
its Bench shrinking effect, but the other side drops the
damage done by Fire, Grass, and Water Types by 20.
Which means its preferred usage that Seismitoad-EX
decks might want to utilize reduces their damage output
by 20.
Being a Basic means
Seismitoad-EX can hit the field ASAP, requires
minimal deck space, can function as your opening Basic,
enjoys a natural synergy with certain card effects, and
can access Basic Stage support; the only drawback are
certain card effects which specifically punish a player
for running (usually attacking with) a Basic Pokémon.
180 HP is the higher of the two typical Basic
Pokémon-EX scores, making Seismitoad-EX a bit
tricky to OHKO (and as we’ll soon discuss, ultimately
making it difficult to OHKO). The Grass Weakness
provides an exception, but even when Grass Type
attackers have been strong, Seismitoad-EX has
never fully gone away. Grass Weakness isn’t great,
but it still isn’t the worst. Lack of Resistance
is typical and (again) as we’ll see, this is one of the
cards where any Resistance would make Seismitoad-EX
too good. The Retreat Cost of [CCC] has
also been an important balancing agent for Seismitoad-EX:
you’ll want multiple methods for dealing with a
Seismitoad-EX stuck in your Active slot.
Not that you don’t
want Seismitoad-EX Active; it predates Ancient
Traits and has no Ability, so you’re using it to attack.
The first attack is “Quaking Punch” for [CC], which does
30 damage and places an effect on the other player,
preventing him or her from playing Item cards from hand.
The second attack is “Grenade Hammer” and requires [WWC]
to do 130 damage, but then it requires you also do 30
damage to two of your Benched Pokémon. Quaking
Punch is what made (and still makes) this card;
one-sided Item lock in an attack with any damage has
potential. In this case it is on a big, Basic
attacker and still does 30 damage… an amount that is
decent when it can be fueled by a Double Colorless
Energy and great given the effect attached to it.
It can be tedious without proper support, as as we’ll
get to next, the card most definitely has said support.
The kicker is that Grenade Hammer actually is a very
good attack in its own right, it just gets overshadowed
by Quaking Punch. Grenade Hammer is difficult to
use in an off Type deck while Quaking Punch can be
splashed into pretty much anything. Quaking Punch
slows your opponent down, so needing time to attach two
[W] Energy (plus a third of any Type) becomes feasible
even if the deck lacks a good source of Energy
acceleration. 130-for-three is good, OHKOing most
non-Pokémon-EX Basics (all of them without Resistance or
protection until a few sets ago) and 2HKOing almost
everything else; with some damage buffs you also want
for Quaking Punch, it reaches OHKO level. There
are four ways to deal with the Bench damage - block it,
heal it, use it, or skip it - and even when
Seismitoad-EX was brand new there were multiple
options for each.
I was worried about
Seismitoad-EX when I first saw it and given its
history, I would like to think I was mostly right.
Even though Seismitoad-EX predates Battle
Compressor, the current releases of VS Seeker,
and Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/108) decks were still heavily reliant upon
Items… oh, Shaymin-EX gets a nod because we are
so used to using Ultra Ball to search it out and
aid preparing and maintaining our field. Prior to
Shaymin-EX, the reliability Pokémon for most
decks was Jirachi-EX, which still meant Ultra
Ball (and sometimes Level Ball) were Items
that increased a decks reliability. We got even
more Items to help with all of that after
Seismitoad-EX making it seem like the designers were
just toying with us. Creating a competitive deck
that did not need Items for optimal performance
was an impossibility, and even creating one with minimal
reliance on Items still meant a good quarter of your
deck being shut down by Quaking Punch. It was like
the designers were punishing us for playing the game
they way their releases both before and after
Seismitoad-EX were telling us we needed to play.
Wait, isn’t a counter to an overpowered aspect of the
metagame a good way to balance things out?
Actually it usually is not; if something is so
powerful it needs a similarly powerful counter, it
probably means you just need to not make (or at least
scale back) the first thing. A good rule of design
should also be “Can the cards I am trying to use Card X
to balance out still be abused by Card X?” Unless
you’re facing another form of Item lock, Seismitoad-EX
decks would evolve to spam most of the Items one might
argue they were meant to counter.
Thanks to how easy
it is for most decks to fuel Quaking Punch - both then,
now, and in between - Seismitoad-EX is a great
opener in general. Some decks need a
fast open that doesn’t deviate from the deck’s core
strategy, while others simply have no room, but
otherwise Seismitoad-EX can work. Much of
the time it works well and only because the metagame has
Evolved in the presence of three fast, strong forms of
Item lock - Seismitoad-EX, Trevenant (XY
55/146), and Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins
3/98) - is Seismitoad-EX not a loose
staple just for what it means to your open. Toss
in power creep and you have why Seismitoad-EX is
not a top deck, either… well that and the fact that it
thankfully has a low damage output. Still we have
had multiple decks where Seismitoad-EX was the
main attacker, either on its own or with a partner.
The first time Seismitoad-EX held the format in a
stranglehold was a little after XY: Phantom Forces
released. Lysandre’s Trump Card and multiple
Slurpuff (XY: Phantom Forces 69/119) on the
Bench, along with a deck full of mostly Trainers and
some Double Colorless Energy. Slurpuff
has the Ability “Tasting” that allows you to draw an
extra card once per turn (two if that particular
Slurpuff is Active). That might not seem like
much but the combo enabled a deck that would rip through
much of itself, spamming Items left and right (except in
the mirror) and then recycling it all as needed via
Lysandre’s Trump Card. Once Shaymin-EX
came along, Slurpuff was kicked to the curb: the
deck already liked AZ and Super Scoop Up
to bounce Seismitoad-EX (shedding its damage in
the process), so re-using the “Setup” Ability on
Shaymin-EX was no problem.
Most
Seismitoad-EX decks still spam Item cards,
even without Lysandre’s Trump Card to recycle it
all; Seismitoad-EX variants never dominated by as
large of a margin as they did during this time but more
than once they’ve clawed their way back to the top.
Early on the low damage output could be supplemented by
Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym, in
addition to Muscle Band. At times when you
didn’t need an Ability to for backup (Shaymin-EX
doesn’t count because you can spam it first turn),
Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted 54/124; BW:
Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW: Legendary Treasures
68/113) allowed Seismitoad-EX decks to deny an
opponent of both Items and Abilities. As an Item
was the most common means of dealing with Tools (and
thus turning off “Garbotoxin”) the combo was pretty
insidious. This could further be supplemented by
Crushing Hammer, Enhanced Hammer, Head
Ringer, Team Flare Grunt, and/or Xerosic
keep an opponent Energy poor; losing three major
components of your decks hurt, and usually it really
took away a fourth as how could you attack for a
significant amount of damage without Items, Abilities,
and only keeping attached Energy for a single turn?
Even if you had something with a good, single Energy
attack Seismitoad-EX would often use bounce
effects like AZ and Super Scoop Up to shed
accumulated damage before a KO could be scored.
Getting into real,
more contemporary partners, Seismitoad-EX has
been known to tagteam with Giratina-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98). Mega Evolutions
that managed to hit the field and power up could be a
real issue for Seismitoad-EX, but as long as
Abilities were still working Giratina-EX could
wall thanks to its “Renegade Pulse”, while its “Chaos
Wheel” attack would take 2HKOs and block your
opponent from playing Pokémon Tools, Stadium cards, and
Special Energy from hand. Another notable partner
has been Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces
33/119) as the low damage output of Quaking Punch could
be supplemented by its “Surprise Bite” Ability, and the
“Sneaky Bite” Ability of Golbat (XY: Phantom
Forces 32/119; Generations 31/83).
Again, the deck already was fond of spamming bounce
effects, so they were a natural fit. At times
Seismitoad-EX has had other partners - as stated
it's a good opener in general - but the last one of
relevant is Manectric-EX (and sometimes M
Manectric-EX as well). Once again so many of
the tricks Seismitoad-EX used could work well
with its co-conspirator, but with the added bonus of
Rough Seas to heal all Water and/or Lightning Type
attackers in the deck. Virbank City Gym rotated
out of Standard play in 2015; various other Stadium
cards proved useful but Rough Seas solved the
problem of Quaking Punch not hitting hard enough by
making Seismitoad-EX that much tougher to KO and
thus lasting long enough to still take a KO before the
opponent. Eventually other Water support was
combined with Seismitoad-EX and Bluebox (Water
Toolbox) decks were born; where Seismitoad-EX
could be the opener or the main attacker as needed, with
other Water Types stacking their bonuses together.
So… what about now?
There were a few other counters attempted, but
Pokémon Ranger finally gives decks some hope of
dealing with attack based Item lock, but most decks
cannot afford to run the card in multiples and the usual
Battle Compressor to VS Seeker to [insert
Supporter] combo only works if you pull it off before
the Item lock and can use a VS Seeker each
turn to keep reusing Pokémon Ranger. Which
presumes you’ve already got a good enough set up (give
or take Shaymin-EX and Items you may once again
use) to win before you run out of re-uses for Pokémon
Ranger. I mentioned power creep earlier, and
so the real “counters” for Seismitoad-EX are all
about how crazy the game can be. Some decks could
just prep a strong attacker regardless of the Item lock,
like Primal Groudon-EX (XY: Primal Clash
86/160, 151/160) decks. Others were so fast that
they could mount an offensive with only a turn’s worth
of Item usage, like M Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring
Skies 76/108, 105/108) decks and Night March.
Another major issue has been Grass Weakness, but not all
the time as Grass only sometimes fields a decent enough
attacker. VirGen decks built around Virizion-EX
and Genesect-EX (BW: Plasma Blast 11/101,
97/101) combined bits and pieces of the above plus
Weakness to turn “Emerald Slash” into a 2HKO machine
that accelerated Energy and “Megalo Cannon” into a OHKO,
so that the lack of G Booster wasn’t an issue.
At this time the Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank City
Gym combo was big as well, and so the “Verdant Wind”
Ability protected those two from being Poisoned or put
to Sleep.
Vespiquen
(XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) would later combine
the speed of Night March with exploiting Weakness like
in VirGen decks. Night March can own a
Seismitoad-EX deck if the Night March deck
gets a strong enough open (and Seismitoad-EX
doesn’t), but a weak or mediocre open pretty much dooms
it; Night Marchers are so small that even Seismitoad-EX
can score OHKOs! Vespiquen has that Grass
Weakness to fall back upon, allowing a weaker open to
still hit OHKO territory awfully quick. So
Seismitoad-EX must be terrible in Expanded? It
is not the one deck to rule them all, but based on what
results we have for recent events, Seismitoad-EX
and at least some of its variants are still a serious
threat. Plus they might become even stronger
because Karen gives them an answer against
Vespiquen. Which means if Seismitoad-EX
were to receive a reprint, it could still prove
impressive in Standard. Plenty of decks love
Items, Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122) if
you want to go the Item/Ability lock route. Bounce
isn’t as easy, but we’ve still got Crushing Hammer,
Enhanced Hammer, and Team Flare Grunt.
Bluebox is trying to stay relevant without Seismitoad-EX
but would definitely have some chops if it got
Seismitoad-EX back. Damage output wouldn’t be
as good; no more Crobat or Muscle Band,
but Fighting Fury Belt and Rough Seas
are still around so even without bounce, tanking could
be an option. As for Limited play, if you pull
Seismitoad-EX, you run Seismitoad-EX… except
maybe if you pull yet another Basic Pokémon-EX.
Since Seismitoad-EX is so good and - even while
wanting to use Grenade Hammer - can work in a multi-Type
deck, I would just run both and start with whichever one
I get.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
4.35/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary:
The good news is my original fear of Seismitoad-EX
being the one deck to rule them all proved wrong, though
that is in part due to a card ban (Lysandre’s Trump
Card) and power creep (so cards that I also think
are too strong) keeping it in line. It remains a
strong card in the crowded Expanded Format field, either
as an opener in general and at least partial focus of
certain decks. The score I gave it for the
Expanded Format is an aggregate, as for general usage it
would be about a point lower but for the decks
specifically built for it, obviously it’s essential and
deserves a higher score. Were it to suddenly be
reprinted, Seismitoad-EX would be strong in
Standard play, though probably not as good as many of
its solutions to its low damage output are also Expanded
only.
Seismitoad-EX
accrued 42 voting points, beating out
yesterday’s
Muscle Band by two but missing
tomorrow’s
Top card by 16. On my own Top 20 list,
Seismitoad-EX secured the seventh place position;
the six cards above it were all potent (more or less)
general usage cards, with the exceptions representing
key tricks now lost to Standard play like Trainer based
bounce or Tool discard. I am okay with
Seismitoad-EX clocking in this high, as by the time
I got to the Top 7, they were all close decisions.
|