aroramage |
Well now, here's a sight
for...well, I'd say sore eyes, but I think mine are
still sore from looking at his FAT FACE.
Alolan Persian, who is a Kanto
native that has also gotten the stuffed cheeks Alolan
treatment, is an interesting card to say the least. One
of the things I like with some of these Alolan variants
with their cards is that they'll frequently use the
no-cost attack. That means exactly what you think it
means - there's usually an attack that doesn't cost you
any Energy! Course this is normally reserved for the
pre-evos, but Alolan Persian's unique in having one as
one of his attacks.
Taunt costs you nothing, but it
also does no damage - a fair trade of sorts, if you
will. What it does do is switch your opponent's Active
Pokemon with a Benched Pokemon they have. It's the
infamous Lysandre effect but using up your attack for
the turn. If you're smart, you'll be able to use this to
your advantage before switching out Alolan Persian for
an attacker that can take out the Pokemon you called
out. Why switch out Alolan Persian? Because even though
Claw Rend only costs 1 Energy, it only does 30 damage
with a chance of doing 30 more if the opposing Pokemon
already has damage on them, and while 1-for-60 is good,
it's not gonna keep Alolan Persian in the game for long,
given he's only got 90 HP.
Maybe Alolan Persian will get some
love in his own right though. Maybe...his face is so
fat, it's almost adorable.
Rating
Standard: 1.5/5 (really to be
honest, if you wanted a Lysandre effect...you'd just
play Lysandre)
Expanded: 1/5 (it's not that Alolan
Persian is bad, Taunt is free)
Limited: 3/5 (but he has much more
limited applications in non-Limited formats)
Arora Notealus: There's nothing
wrong with Alolan Persian in a vacuum, but out in the
wide world of card pools, he's not that impressive
overall. Though who knows? Maybe someone will find a
good use for his Taunt!
Next Time: Flashbacks to a time
before Lysandre and Alolan Persian, and you get this
card.
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21times |
Alolan Persian
(Sun & Moon, 79/149) comes to us from the Sun
& Moon expansion released back on February 4th.
Alolan
Persian has a very cool energyless attack,
Taunt: switch
1 of your opponent's benched Pokémon with their active
Pokémon.
Most importantly, YOU get to choose which Pokemon you
want to pull up off the bench and park in the active
position. It
functions as a Lysandre (Ancient Origins, 78/98) but actually might have a
little bit of an advantage to being an attack and not a
supporter card:
1.
Until Tapu Lele
(Guardians Rising) comes into the format, we only
have supporter cards (Skyla (Breakpoint, 122/122) or
Steven (Ancient Origins, 95/98)) as an option to go get other
supporter cards.
We all know that unless you can get a
Lysandre early
and drop it into your discard pile where you can
retrieve it with a
VS Seeker (Roaring Skies, 110/108), you will
struggle to find this significantly important card.
We have a wide variety of cards that will let us
get Alolan Persian
and its basic form
Alolan Meowth
(Sun & Moon, 78/149).
We can get to
Alolan Persian
more easily than we can
Lysandre.
2.
We can potentially use
Alolan Persian
multiple times without having to access
VS Seeker.
Presumably you’ll pull a Pokemon up from the
bench that’s incapable of attacking.
This means that, more than likely, your opponent
won’t KO Alolan
Persian after it uses
Taunt.
As Alolan
Persian only has a one energy retreat cost, it is
easy to get it out of the active position and bring up a
Pokemon that can do more damage than
Alolan Persian can.
3.
Because it uses an attack to bring the Pokemon up from
the bench, that still frees you up to use your supporter
for the turn.
Alolan Persian
can attack for damage though.
For one dark energy,
Claw Rend does
30 damage to the opponent’s active Pokemon.
If the opponent’s active has any damage counters
on it, Claw Rend does 60 damage.
Therefore, if you pair this with
Decidueye GX (Sun
& Moon, 12/149), then you’ll more than like hit the
opponent’s active for at least 80 damage (at least the
first time you hit it).
This doesn’t sound like much, but when you can
rotate in various benched tech Pokemon, the spread
damage can add up.
And this worked well for me in
my first five matches with
Alolan Persian
and Decidueye GX.
I went 4-1 and the synergy between these two
cards worked well to frustrate my opponents and
patiently win games by picking off benched Pokemon.
Unfortunately, this deck lost its mojo and I
wound up going 7-10 overall.
The pairing of
Alolan Persian and Decidueye
GX relies too much on your opponent benching lots of
tech Pokemon with high retreat costs.
If your opponent streamlines their deck and only
plays attacking Pokemon, this makes it very difficult
for Alolan Persian
and Decidueye
GX.
Also, Garbodor
(Breakpoint, 57/122) tends to wreck this deck
fairly easily (although
Field Blower (Guardians
Rising) will eliminate
Garbodor from
the meta, and we’re already seeing a lot less of him on
PTCGO).
Rating
Standard: 2.5 out of 5
Conclusion
I think
Alolan Persian card has some real playability as a tech card.
Granted, you have to use an attack, but it’s
easier to get to than
Lysandre, it
can potentially be used more frequently than
Lysandre, and it still allows you to use your supporter card that
turn.
Furthermore, when
Lysandre rotates out in September, this would almost
certainly be a superior option to carrying two or four
Pokemon Catchers
(Sun & Moon, 126/149).
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