aroramage |
Is it any wonder why Vileplume made
this list?
Landing in at #2 in our initial Top
10 list with Ancient Origins...okay, Top 15, cause that
set had a LOT of good cards, Vileplume has been a big
part of the format for two big reasons, neither of which
has to do with his silly 3-for-70 vanilla Solar Beam. Go
figure, Vileplume wasn't reviled for its ability to
shoot out sun lasers.
Speaking of Abilities, the first
and most notable of these is its Ability, Irritating
Pollen. Remember the days back when Seismitoad-EX
dominated the format because it had one move that locked
down your opponent's Items? Vileplume pretty much just
did that in the form of an Ability, so while there's no
continuous damage output here, at the very least he can
shut things down very easily. The caveat of course is
that neither player can use Items while Vileplume is
out, and since it is an Ability anything that can shut
those down can affect Vileplume and open up the field
for Items, but other than that, it proved to be very
effective.
In fact, it proved to be extremely
effective, especially because the second reason is his
Typing - Grass. Now that might not on its own seem that
important, but Forest of Giant Plants also came out this
set. Yes, the Stadium that enabled players to fully
evolve their Grass Pokemon in a single turn, and it's
one of the bigger reasons Vileplume - along with many
other Evolution Grass Pokemon - could see play. That's
not to say Vileplume wouldn't have seen play regardless,
but it would've been a lot slower without the aid of
Forest of Giant Plants.
And that's why Vileplume's place in
Expanded is a liiiiiiiiittle up in the air. He could
have a large impact similar to Seismitoad-EX, but he's a
Stage 2 set-up for a permanent effect that works against
you too. Not to mention Forest of Giant Plants is
getting banned in Expanded, so you can't set-up as
easily anymore, and Garbodor being in the format will
lower the overall number of Items, thus weakening
Vileplume's own impact. Still, don't think he won't be
powerful in his own right - his usage will only
fluctuate with the times.
Rating
Standard: N/A (he can be a very
potent force)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (he might not be
the number 1 choice to use)
Limited: 4.5/5 (but he is still
very dangerous against the right deck)
Arora Notealus: Vileplume, like
many other Item-locking Pokemon before it, did leave a
major impact on the format, and while it may have a bit
of a slow death with Garbodor hanging around, he's bound
to be revived in some form or another. He always comes
back...alwayyyyyyys~
Next Time: The flare-haired menace
of all Pokemon everywhere.
|
21times |
Vileplume
(Ancient Origins, 3/98) is a card that many
people are more than happy to see leave the format.
A 130 HP Stage 2 Grass Pokemon, this card was one
of the many Grass Pokemon that approached the point of
being “broken” with the aid of the soon to be banned
Forest of Giant Plants (Ancient Origins, 74/98).
FoGP
(to give you a teaser) will get a review next week, I’m
going to solely focus on
Vileplume for
this review.
I ranked Vileplume
4th on my list (I know I said yesterday that
Teammates (Primal Clash, 160/160) was 4th but I
misread my spreadsheet,
Teammates was
actually 3rd).
I find it
a little odd that
Vileplume made our list but
Vespiquen (Ancient Origins, 10/98) didn’t.
Vespiquen
has accomplished a LOT over the past year (lots of
top eights and even a 1st place in the
Seniors Division at the 2016 World Championship).
Vespiquen
was actually the main partner with
Vileplume…
until Sun & Moon and we got
Decidueye GX (Sun
& Moon, 12/149) and
Lurantis GX (Sun
& Moon, 15/149) and we all suddenly realized how
(awesome / awful)
FoGP really was.
I remember watching one youtuber’s video shortly
after SUM came out – he said that he played about
a dozen matches with
Lurantis GX
and Vileplume
and didn’t lose a single match … in fact, he only had
one player actually keep playing after he got item lock
on line.
Of course, we all realized that
item lock was not the end of the world, and, while it
frequently made life difficult, it was not impossible to
overcome.
Plus, with the advent of
Garbodor (Guardians
Rising, 51/145), people have chosen to play less
items, thereby making item lock less effective.
Since SUM, I’m 35-43 (45%) against
Vileplume decks. I’m
134-65 (67%) in games where I’ve played
Vileplume.
If you’ve played
Vileplume more than a handful of times, then I’m sure you’ve had
matches where item lock has worked against you.
I will say that one of my favorite parts of
playing Vileplume, however, was when my opponent would
Lysandre (Ancient Origins, 78/98) up a
Vileplume to KO it and then I would use the boatload of items in my
hand to get
Vileplume back on the board again.
I can’t tell you how many times that happened to
me, and I can’t remember a time when I failed to get
item lock back online in the very next turn.
Top Eight finishes (Masters
Division) for decks with
Vileplume over
the past year (mostly
the past six months):
·
Indy 1 (2nd)
·
Madison 1 (5th)
·
Toronto 1 (1st)
·
Roanoke 2 (4th and 5th)
·
Brazil 4 (1st, 2nd, 4th,
7th)
·
Utah 2 (3rd, 7th)
·
Oceania 4 (2nd, 3rd, 5th,
8th)
·
St. Louis 2 (2nd, 7th)
·
Orlando 1 (2nd)
So was it that we all just kind
of forgot about
Vileplume until Sun and Moon or were there
simply no good partners?
Obviously, we still had
Vespiquen, but I remember trying
Yveltal EX (XY08) with
Vileplume last fall and having minimal success.
Without a doubt, however, we’ll remember 2017 as
the year of the Grass deck, and
Vileplume will
certainly be one of the cards we recall when we look
back and say, “Remember when Sun & Moon base set
came out and Grass decks were all the rage?”
Rating
Standard: 4 out of 5
Conclusion
For most of 2017,
VIleplume has been a prominent part of many successful top eight
decks. It
has had some success prior to this year (3rd
place 2016 World Championship, 8th place 2016
US Championship), but it clearly epitomizes why 2017 has
been the golden age of Grass decks.
|
Otaku |
Today may be
Thursday, but the only reason we’ll be discussing some
older cards is that Vileplume (XY: Ancient
Origins 3/98) is the latest version of a
Vileplume card that messes with Item cards.
What do I mean? First, let’s recap today’s
Vileplume; it is a Stage 2 Grass-Type Pokémon with
130 HP, Fire Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost
[CCC], the Ability “Irritating Pollen” (prevents each
player from playing Item cards from hand), and the
attack “Solar Beam” (costs [GGC], does 70 damage).
Being a Grass-Type was a small help but seems
bigger because its lower Stages were also
Grass-Types; the entire line being Grass enabled not
only Forest of Giant Plants to instantly Evolve,
but a nearly reckless method of setup as
Revitalizer could add bits of the line you ended up
discarding directly to hand (until Vileplume
itself hit the field). It also proved important
due to Decidueye-GX also being a Grass-Type with
Grass-Type lower Stages. 130 HP is on the lower end of
“acceptable” for a Stage 2, being likely to survive an
attack when your opponent isn’t exploiting
Weakness and lacks access to Item cards (hence
the Ability). Fire Weakness is not happy
right now, and it might even be the worst
Weakness at the moment, but is it purely because the
Fire-Type would already be awesome (it has a great deck
right now) or because decks like Decidueye-GX/Vileplume
or Metagross-GX make it so rewarding to exploit?
Lack of Resistance is typical, so moving onto the
Retreat Cost of [CCC], it is painful and one of the few
stats that is made worse by the Ability; better
get a Float Stone on Oddish or Gloom
before Vileplume hits the field!
So I keep going on
about the Ability, and here is why; Items are an
important part of most decks, and specifically most
combos. Pokémon are essential to a
deck, but once Vileplume hits the field not only
do they lose support like Tools not yet played, but
there is no more Rare Candy for Stage 2 Pokémon,
no more Ultra Ball for getting the exact Pokémon
you need, etc. Supporters are also a vital part of
the deck, but without VS Seeker, most decks
struggle to have the right one (sometimes any at all)
handy at the right time. Energy loses its
Item-based support as well, and no Items also puts the
kibosh on most recycling tricks. Many
supporting effects are (or at least were) hurt
indirectly: Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies
77/108, 106/108) needs a player to thin out his
or her hand to optimize usage of its “Setup” Ability,
but that is pretty hard when Items are stuck there…
especially when Ultra Ball was so useful for
discarding other cards which were dead in your
hand. Solar Beam, on the other hand, would only
have been used in Grass-Type focused Vileplume
decks (yes, there actually were some variants
that used it to back other Pokémon-Types), and it
only technically remained an option (I don’t recall my
opponent ever resorting to it). Now, hitting
each player with Item lock on a Stage 2 doesn’t
sound too bad, and it might not have been except for two
things:
-
Format clearly geared towards heavy Item
use
- Forest of Giant Plants
enabling a T1 Item lock
-
Being able to spam Items before
locking them down
That last one seems
to be a generic issue with locks in Pokémon; replace
“Items” with Abilities and Vileplume with
Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122). Most
Garbodor decks didn’t and still don’t worry about
it hitting the field first turn but it does
usually spam a few Abilities on that player’s first and
(part of the) second turn before finally locking them
down. Speaking of Garbodor, while it was a
natural counter to Vileplume, it was difficult to
set it up under the Item lock; you’d need to get an Item
on your Trubbish (and keep it from being KO’d
before it Evolved) or you’d have to use Hex Maniac
to shut down Abilities before… you… shutdown Abilities.
If you had two Garbodor in play, you could use
Klefki (XY: Steam Siege 80/114), then attach
a Tool to the other one. Both of these meant a lot
of wasted resources except versus Vileplume.
Hex Maniac was also the general counter but
prior to Tapu Lele-GX it was hard to fish out the
one copy most decks could afford to include while your
Items were down, and even with it, you usually get just
one turn of Supporters unless you have VS
Seeker handy. Which gets to the issue of not
being able to use another Supporter to really
setup and once again, it’s such a drag. Before
AZ rotated, it was even better for
Vileplume tricks, as you could bounce the
entire line to restore your own Item usage, then
play it back down; not a must-run trick, but a great
option. Unsurprisingly, this card secured
second place
in our countdown of the top cards from XY: Ancient
Origins, and probably would have made the top 10 for
2015 except it was synonymous with Forest of
Giant Plants (which did make that list in
fifth place).
Now for the
historical portion, even if it isn’t officially
Throwback Thursday. I tend to think of this as
Dark Vileplume Version 3.1. Why? Dark
Vileplume officially released as Team Rocket
13/82 and 30/82 on April 24, 2000. While they are
the same card, they also aren’t. Huh? Both
are Stage 2 Pokémon with 60 HP, no Resistance, Retreat
Cost [CC], the Pokémon Power “Hay Fever” (No Trainer
cards may be played but Special Conditions turn it off),
and the attack “Petal Whirlwind” (costs [GGG]; flip
three coins for 30 damage per “heads”, more than one
“heads” means self-Confusion). What about
Weakness? Team Rocket 13/82 was Fire Weak, but
Team Rocket 30/82 was misprinted with Fighting
Weakness and (under Wizards of the Coast) it was “play
as written”. I don’t think Nintendo, TPCi, or
whofever has been in charge since have issued an errata,
so this likely still holds true. Fighting Weakness
is/was usually worse than Fire Weakness, but
neither are happy when the cardpool contains fast
Pokémon that can do 30 damage for few Energy (or one
Energy and some PlusPower). However, this
still was part of important (and I believe, competitive)
archetypes back in the day. You know how some
older cards say “Trainers” when they mean “Item cards”?
This is not one of them; it means all
kinds of Trainers, even though Stadium and Supporter
cards were introduced after its release.
Even being so tiny, this thing would probably still be a
monster (pardon the bad pun) if it were around today…
and it’s version 1.0 and 1.1, respectively.
Version 2.0 is
Vileplume-ex (EX: Hidden Legends 100/101), a
Stage 2 Grass-Type Pokémon-ex (not Pokémon-EX)
with 140 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat
Cost [CC], the Poké-Body “Block Dust” (your opponent
cannot play Trainer cards except Supporters while
it is Active), and the attack “Special Formula” ([GCC],
does 50 damage and coin flip; “heads” is Asleep and
Poisoned, “tails” is Confused). This card
officially released June 14, 2004, and while my memory
is hazy, I believe it had at least some time as a
competitive deck. This was after Rare Candy
released but well before its errata that
prevented you from using it on a Pokémon the first turn
it was in play; I think this was during the time when
either Items, Supporters, or all Trainer cards weren’t
allowed first turn, but a T2 Vileplume-ex (first
turn of the player going second) was possible.
Being a Pokémon-ex meant giving up an extra Prize when
KO’d, not being able to use several useful
supporting effects, and being vulnerable to several
anti-Pokémon-ex specific effects, but they were the
dominant force of their time and I believe this card saw
at least some successful competitive play; my memory is
hazy and I’m short on time so please check it out for
yourself. Both Fire and Psychic Weakness were
dangerous at this time, the other stats plus the attack
were adequate-to-good for the era. Being one-sided
and requiring Vileplume-ex be Active did
hurt, as did allowing your opponent a Supporter, but
this was a time when, overall, Supporters were vital but
weaker than they are now.
Version 3.0 is
Vileplume (HS: Undaunted 24/90), a Stage 2
Grass-Type with 120 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance,
Retreat Cost [CC], the Poké-Body “Allergy Flower” (Each
player can’t play Item cards from hand), and the attack
“Dazzling Pollen” ([GGC] do 50 damage and flip a coin;
“heads” is an extra 20 damage, “tails” Confuses the
opponent’s Active). This is the card that hits
as the weird wording changes time; it says “Trainers”
but it does mean “Item” cards, as this was before
that term was adopted and both Supporter and Stadium
cards were treated as their own separate things.
It was part of the infamous deck known as “The Truth”,
which Ross Cawthon created and used to take second place
at the 2011 Pokémon TCG World Championships. It
also popularized the usage of Tropical Beach.
I can’t remember if being Psychic Weak was safer than
being Fire Weak, but this card is so close to today’s
Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98), it gets
to be Version 3.0; add 10 more HP, [C] to the Retreat
Cost, change “Poké-Body” to the nearly identical but
mechanically different “Ability”, use modern wording,
tweak the seldom used attack, and you’ve got today’s
card. I just don’t think it is enough of a
difference to deserve a full number jump in the version.
Vileplume
is still currently one of the top decks, though its
future is uncertain; it relies upon Forest of
Giant Plants, but that is going to be banned in
Expanded by the time of rotation. If it were
reprinted for post-September 1st Standard Format play, I
think it would still be a good, competitive card but
far less potent, having to use Rare Candy for a
second turn Vileplume or even waiting until the
third turn. Your opponent would have the chance to
try and burn through his or her Item cards before that,
but I still think there are some potent decks that could
come out of it. The biggest hurdle would be
convincing players to try it, I think; it would
work differently than contemporary Vileplume
decks and some might hate the loss in speed (which in
this case, means overall deck power as well). I am
hoping people give it the chance it deserves in the
future Expanded Format, and even a (tiny) bit fearful it
will still prove a little too good there.
This card is actually less impressive in Limited Format
play; without the modern invention of the “Evolution”
Packs (they were introduced after this expansion), your
opponent has to go with the Items he or she is lucky
enough to pull… which means Vileplume isn’t
shutting down much. The good news is the same
applies to yourself, and it becomes a solid Stage 2 in
this format (plus you might still pull Forest of
Giant Plants - it isn’t going to be banned here).
Ratings
Standard:
4.25/5 (soon to be N/A)
Expanded:
4/5 (soon to be 3.5/5)
Limited:
3.75/5
Conclusion
Item lock, even
when it hits yourself as well, tends to be amazing, so
Vileplume scores well… just maybe not as well as
you expected given what it has accomplished. I
believe credit for its best performance must
be split between itself, Forest of Giant Plants,
and Decidueye-GX. Post-rotation, with
Forest of Giant Plants banned, Vileplume will
take a serious hit. In Expanded play, it must
already contend with rivals Seismitoad-EX and
Trevenant (XY 94/146), the latter usually
used with Trevenant BREAK. Both allow you
access to your own Items and have their own pros and
cons, and without Forest of Giant Plants for that
T1/T2 Item lock, I expect the competition to be much
more fierce. Admittedly, I’m still out of touch
with Expanded play as it currently is, and hard pressed
to justify learning it intimately as SM: Burning
Shadows and then the ban of Forest of Giant
Plants will change it all, soon.
Breakdown
Vileplume
secures seventh place with 14 voting points, beating out
9th place
Double Dragon Energy by just one voting point,
tying with
8th place
Teammates, and falling short of tomorrow’s 6th
place selection by only two voting points. I broke
the tie between it and Teammates with a roll off,
where I rolled a “1” for Teammates after
rolling a “3” for Vileplume. I was rooting
for Teammates because Vileplume did not
make my own Top 10. What? I love
Item-locking Vileplume cards, so what gives?
Perhaps I was in error, but I wanted to give equal - if
not added - weight to the card’s future versus its past.
So even though Vileplume shaped competitive
Standard play for several months (if not longer), it
slams into a brick wall September 1st, and I felt
Forest of Giant Plants getting a review was enough
to address it. It did make my Top 20 list
in 20th place for these reasons.
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