aroramage |
And now we come to Aegislash-EX, a
fan favorite Pokemon that gets the glorious EX
treatment! Sadly though, he's only in his Shield form,
as you can tell by the artwork and a little bit from the
Ability, but we'll get into that in a moment.
For now, let's start with Slash
Blast!...which aside from being a generally silly name,
it is essentially a Metal Hydro Pump, costing 3-for-40
and then adding an additional 20 for each Metal Energy.
Combined with something like Bronzong from the same set,
Aegislash-EX could do some real damage, but there are
generally some other better attackers in the game. That
being said, those attackers don't come with the
protection that Aegislash-EX is blessed with, and it's
one of the reasons he's on our list today!
Mighty Shield is the Ability in
question, and it's a pretty powerful one. You know how
Safeguard protects some Pokemon from Pokemon-EX? Well
Mighty Shield is a lot like that, only instead of
Pokemon-EX, it's with anything that has Special Energy
attached. That's actually an amazing Ability to have,
given all the Special Energy around and about - it can
deflect Strong Energy Fighting decks, the DCE from
Vespiquen and Night March, and anything that even
touches Rainbow Energy won't lay a finger on him! He
made it so your opponent had to play around him, and
while they did that, you could set up the rest of your
guys and even deal damage to them with Slash Blast!
Aegislash-EX would become a
cornerstone in various decks as a means of dealing with
such decks, but ultimately there's only so much he can
do. Blocking attacks from specific sources only goes so
far, since it doesn't counter everything (then again,
can you imagine if there was a Pokemon with that kind of
nonsense Ability? You can't even stand Regice's
Resistance Blizzard), but in the right hands and against
the right deck, he can pay off big. And now he'll have
to sign off to Expanded for the time being.
Rating
Standard: N/A
Expanded: 4/5 (I can already
imagine Aegislash-EX taking up arms against the likes of
Rayquaza-EX and more in the format)
Limited: 4/5 (considering there's
DCE, Strong Energy, DDE, Mystery Energy...)
Arora Notealus: You know, I wonder
if they'd ever consider making another Aegislash-EX but
more centered around his Sword form. Like, just give him
RIDICULOUSLY powerful attacks but also a lower HP score
or an Ability or effect that adds more damage to attacks
made against him. It would be a neat transition from the
Form Change cards that were printed out in the XY set.
Ooh, I know! An Ability that's like "+50 after making an
attack, -50 when you don't attack"!...ehh, could get
complicated.
Weekend Thought: What do you think
of this week's cards? Think some deserve a higher spot?
Think there are cards that haven't made it on the list
that should be seen? We've got 3 more weeks of these
cards, so strap yourselves in cause it's gonna be a
loooooong ride!
Next Time: It's in your head and
binding you down!
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Otaku |
Our 16th place
finisher is Aegislash-EX (XY: Phantom Forces
65/119). You can read its original review here.
Did anything change? I may have underestimated
Aegislash-EX as an opening wall, but otherwise, I
think I got it right. For those who don’t want to
go back and read it, I’ll run through the card.
Being a Pokémon-EX means Aegislash-EX gives up an
extra Prize when KO’d, cannot take advantage of certain
beneficial effects, and is the target of various
counters. It also means better stats and usually
better card effects, though the former is often just an
HP bump and the latter is definitely not guaranteed.
It also means that instead of being its usual Stage, the
Pokémon in question is a Basic (barring Mega
Evolutions). So instead of being a Stage two like
other Aegislash, Aegislash-EX gets to be a
Basic Pokémon, the best Stage because the core game
mechanics as well as specific card effects just reward
this Stage the most; the only drawback comes from cards
with specifically anti-Basic effects. Aegislash-EX
has 170 HP, the lower of the two typical Basic
Pokémon-EX scores but still fairly hardy. Fire
Weakness has waxed and waned in seriousness since the
card’s debut: not the absolute worst Weakness to have
right now, but it’s problematic at the moment.
Psychic Weakness is handy; it won’t save Aegislash-EX
often, but it has a chance to do so some of the time.
The Retreat Cost of [CCC] is a pain, high enough you
might not be able to afford it up front and even if you
can, too much to afford in the long run. It does
make it a legal target for Heavy Ball and
Heavy Boots but that hasn’t proven particularly
useful.
What has proven
particularly useful is the card’s Ability, “Mighty
Shield”. As long as an opponent’s Pokémon has a
Special Energy attached, its attacks do no damage to
Aegislash-EX. Other effects of attacks get
through, just no damage. Special Energy was
important to many decks when Aegislash-EX first
released, and they may be even more important now.
Once again, this has fluctuated since the card’s initial
introduction and the true high may be in the past, but
for the most part decks like Special Energy. Most
don’t run purely on it (a few do or did), and cards like
Double Colorless Energy tend to be important for
speedy starts, aiding Aegislash-EX in its early
game walling. Aegislash-EX also has an attack -
“Slash Blast” - for [CCC] that does 40 damage, plus
another 20 damage per [M] Energy attached to
Aegislash-EX. This means totally off Type,
Aegislash-EX can still try to attack using whatever
Energy actually is in the deck; usually not worth it for
that low of damage output, but if you’re walling well
and/or able to exploit Metal Weakness, it can work.
Otherwise you’ll want two or more [M] Energy cards
attached, preferably three or more so that the damage
output becomes 100+ for three Energy. Aegislash-EX
isn’t really enough to be the main attacker of a Metal
Type deck, but it’s usually a valuable auxiliary
attacker.
Even when
Aegislash-EX was new, there were counters to it.
Obviously if you can build an attacker sans Special
Energy, Mighty Shield does nothing. Some attackers
have effects to punch through it even if they are using
Special Energy, and since before it released, there have
been tricks to shut down Abilities. Of note is
that after we got Aegislash-EX, we
received Silent Lab to shut down Abilities on
Basics, but the best counter to Mighty Shield is Hex
Maniac. There are also rivals to the role of
Aegislash-EX. Of course there are other
walls, some of which compliment Aegislash-EX as
you can run both in a deck and throw whichever one is
worse for your opponent up front. There is also
Assault Vest, a Pokémon Tool that allows anything to
soak 40 damage from Pokémon using Special Energy.
There is also Fighting Fury Belt; +40 HP does
wonders, but unlike Assault Vest it also can
complement Mighty Shield allowed almost anything a taste
of being like Aegislash-EX (defensively).
Then Fighting Fury Belt came along and could be
tossed onto our anti-Special Energy wall so that it was
a hard OHKO even when Mighty Shield is bypassed (with a
+10 bonus to damage should you use Slash Blast).
All in all, players seemed to adjust their usage of
Aegislash-EX to the changing format pretty well.
So… why is
Aegislash-EX a significant loss for Standard?
Its walling ways would have required tweaking, but it
could still work. No more AZ or Super
Scoop Up to bounce it out of your way, but you can
still use Switch or attach a Float Stone
to Retreat with ease. You can even build it while
it is Active (assuming Mighty Shield is offering its
protection), then use a Ninja Boy to swap into a
more suitable attacker. Seems like Xerneas
BREAK and Xerneas (XY: BREAKthrough
107/162) are seeing more use and not in the same
deck; more Fairy Type attackers might mean more Metal
Weakness to exploit. While we are all worried
about there being no easy answer to Garbodor (XY:
BREAKpoint 57/122), Hex Maniac is no longer
an easy Battle Compressor plus VS Seeker
away; if you’re going for early game stall, your
opponent not only needs to draw into what is probably
his or her lone Hex Maniac, but also has to time
it around Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies
77/108, 106/108) usage. I might rate it higher,
but that Fire Weakness I mentioned was sometimes a
problem, sometimes not? Still seeing a lot of
people using Volcanion with Volcanion-EX;
even if no other Fire Type deck gains a foothold, this
one leaves Aegislash-EX a puddle of melted goo.
In Expanded, things
are still pretty good for Aegislash-EX. The
greater variety can leave it a pointless inclusion, as
some strong decks here eschew (or at least run few)
Special Energy cards. This is a great pull for
Limited; while you might be fortunate and your opponent
drops a Double Colorless Energy or Mystery
Energy on something important, the main thing is
that you can build Aegislash-EX into a sweeper
with a little support. You could also risk running
it solo, but your opponent will get two attacks in
before you can start swinging yourself; you can probably
still steamroll anything he or she has in that time, but
that 170 HP may still be overwhelmed before you take
four Prizes.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
3.65/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Aegislash-EX impressed by not just being the
solid secondary attacker for many Metal based decks, but
by being a great wall for a variety of decks. It
will be missed though you can still enjoy it in
Expanded.
Aegislash-EX
claims 16 place by amassing 22 voting points. It
showed up on each of our lists, exactly in 16th place on
my own Top 20. 14th and 15th place are another tie, and
each only beat Aegislash-EX by a single point.
Writing this review I was starting to worry I lowballed
it, but a quick glance reminds me that we’ve got enough
great cards still coming that 16th place is probably
spot on.
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