aroramage |
Welcome back to another big week of
cards here, there, and everywhere! Here we've got Crobat
BREAK, who may promise to be...well something.
So Crobat BREAK just adds on the
Silent Bite attack, which is 3-for-60 and can Paralyze,
but you will have to shuffle back Crobat BREAK and all
cards attached to him back into your deck. To be
honest...that's a hefty cost. Keep in mind that you've
got to evolve him off of a Crobat - the only options
being available in Expanded, as there hasn't been a
print of Crobat since Phantom Forces...at least till Sun
& Moon come out - and then you've got to attach at least
3 Energy on him to use the attack.
And then if you wanna get that
Paralysis going, you've got to take all the work you put
into evolving Crobat and powering him up back into your
deck.
It's great to use when Crobat BREAK
is about to get KO'd just to deny your opponent the KO,
but between the Plasma Storm Crobat's Night Sight and
Ultra-Toxic Fang - which lets you draw cards and Poison
for 40 each turn respectively - and the Phantom Forces
Crobat's Surprise Bite and Skill Dive - which both do 30
damage to a single opposing Pokemon - there's not a lot
of great options to pick out for Crobat BREAK.
Not to mention putting 3 Energy
onto what is effectively a Stage 3, only to return him
to the deck, isn't an entirely grand stand of a
maneuver.
Rating
Standard: 1/5 (being unplayable for
now ain't good, but he would only really go up to 1.5/5
maybe, depending on the Sun&Moon Crobat's prowess)
Expanded: 1.5/5 (which would match
this score, which marks his niche potential since he
does Paralyze, but the investment is high)
Limited: N/A (and of course he's a
promo card, so he doesn't have access to Limited events)
Arora Notealus: All in all Crobat
BREAK ended up coming into the game at just the right
time to anticipate the upcoming set's Crobat, but he's
too late to benefit from the earlier Crobats. I doubt
there's any decks needing to run Crobat BREAK that were
running Crobat (PHF), and I don't think Crobat (PLS) was
really getting anywhere on his own, but hey! Maybe a
creative type will prove me wrong and combo Silent Bite
with the evolution trickery of Surprise Bite (HAH,
THEMING!!) or with the card drawing madness of Night
Sight.
Next Time: BREAK into another
evolution, this time of a bird!!
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Otaku |
With the XY-era about to functionally (if not
officially) end in a few weeks (do I use official
release date or official legality date?), we’ll be
covering a few more promo cards this week that caught my
eye. Just a reminder up front; a card need not be
remotely worthwhile for competitive play to catch my
eye, in fact, I think cards that scream “missed
opportunity” attract me like moths to a flame.
Our first card this week is Crobat BREAK (XY:
Black Star Promos XY181). As a Psychic Type,
exploiting Weakness happens when facing certain fellow
Psychic Type as well as Fighting Type Pokémon; not an
insignificant amount, but is it so common you can bank
of enjoying it in the bulk of your matches.
Resistance is found on most Darkness Type and nearly all
Metal Type Pokémon; while relevant this isn’t likely to
prove too dramatic thanks to Resistance providing -20 to
damage received (versus Weakness doubling damage
done), in addition to the potential specifics of the
metagame. The Psychic Type doesn’t have a huge
amount of Pokémon or Energy Type specific support, but
it has enough… in Expanded play, where it still has
access to Dimension Valley and Mystery Energy
(more the former than the latter). It is a bit
disappointing for Standard play. There are some
very strong Pokémon of the Type, and even just
access to basic Psychic Energy (as you would
expect in a mono- or mostly Psychic Type deck) still
provides intra-Type synergy. I do not recall
seeing any explicit Psychic Type counters, though I
believe most have a non-Type specific counter that can
be exploited, like shutting down Abilities, inflicting
damage spread, punishing heavy Energy usage, etc.
As the BREAK Evolution of a Stage 2 Pokémon, Crobat
BREAK is essentially a Stage 3, and cannot take
direct advantage of Stage 2 support. We finally
have some anti-BREAK Evolution effects as well, further
burdening the card. It does enjoy 160 HP, 10 below
your typical Basic Pokémon-EX intended as an Active;
still large enough to often survive a hit, but not often
enough to feel especially sturdy. It is a 30 HP
improvement over any remotely contemporary Crobat
cards, however, so at least it is a decent HP bump for
being a BREAK Evolution. The card’s Weakness,
Resistance, and Retreat Cost will be provided by
whatever underlying Crobat you use, as will
additional attacks and/or Abilities, so we will move
onto the card’s attack “Silent Bite”. For [CCC]
Crobat BREAK attacks the opponent’s Active for 60
damage and gives you the option to shuffle itself and
all cards attached back into your deck in order to
Paralyze your opponent’s Active. If you can stream
Crobat BREAK or something capable of copying its
attacks, you could attempt to soft-lock your opponent.
This is probably part of why the damage is poor for the
Energy invested; for three Energy (even [CCC]) I expect
a good 90 damage, maybe with some added benefit.
Factoring in potential combo partners, while I question
whether Silent Bite could prove competitive, I do
understand the caution of low damage for something that
might be streamed for consistent Paralysis.
More so than other Evolutions, BREAK Evolutions
are heavily dependent on their lower Stages: in this
case, it is Zubat, Golbat, and Crobat.
We have three options for Zubat: BW: Plasma
Storm 52/135; BW: Plasma Storm 53/135, and
XY: Phantom Forces 31/119 (reprinted as
Generations 30/83). Golbat has just two:
BW: Plasma Storm 54/135 and XY: Phantom Forces
32/119 (reprinted as Generations 31/83). Crobat
also only has two versions: BW: Black Star Promos
BW51 (also released as BW: Plasma Storm 55/135)
and XY: Phantom Forces 33/119. Why list
them all together? Because they have a lot in
common: all are Psychic Type Pokémon with Lightning
Weakness, Fighting Resistance, no Ancient Trait, and a
single attack! This tell us that Crobat BREAK
will also have to deal with Lightning Weakness,
dangerous due more to strong Lightning Type attackers,
including stuff like Zebstrika (XY: BREAKpoint
49/122) being splashed into decks just to exploit
abundant Lightning Weakness on more mainstream Pokémon
like Yveltal-EX and Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108). Fighting
Resistance can be handy even though most Fighting Types
will pack enough buffs to punch through it or have an
attacker that can ignore it, plus its presence is why
Zebstrika can punish Lightning Weakness so severely.
Still, I would rather the card had it than not.
Ancient Traits don’t carry over to Evolutions (BREAK or
otherwise) so no loss there.
All Zubat are Basic Pokémon with Retreat Cost
[C]. BW: Plasma Storm 52/135 has 50 HP and the
attack “Spiral Drain” for [C], doing 10 damage to the
opponent’s Active while healing 10 damage from itself. BW:
Plasma Storm 53/135 has 40 HP, the Ability “Free
Flight”, and the attack “Wing Attack”. The Ability
gives it a free Retreat Cost while it has no Energy
attached to itself and the attack costs [PC] to do 20
damage. XY: Phantom Forces 31/119 is back to 50
HP lacking an Ability; its attack is “Skill Dive” which
does 10 damage to the opponent’s Pokémon of your choice.
It is the only Standard legal option thanks to being
reprinted as Generations 30/83. For
Expanded play, go with either BW: Plasma Storm
53/135 (for the Ability) or XY: Phantom Forces
31/119 for 50 HP and not-entirely-useless attack.
You may wish to run a mix of both; normally the free
Retreat Cost is better, but between Ability denial and
Bench hits, sometimes the +10 HP is more valuable,
though only just barely. Both Golbat are
Stage 1 Pokémon; any other similarities between them are
common to the entire line. BW: Plasma Storm
54/135 has 80 HP, Retreat Cost [C], and has another
instance of the attack Spiral Drain, but this version
costs [PC] and does/heals 20 damage. XY: Phantom
Forces 32/119 has 70 HP with a perfect free Retreat
Cost. It has the Ability “Sneaky Bite” that
triggers when you Evolve one of your in play Pokémon
into it from hand; you may place two damage counters on
the opposing Pokémon of your choice. For [C] it
can use the attack “Swoop Across” to do 10 damage to
each of the opponent’s Pokémon. This version is
the only Standard legal option due to being reprinted as
Generations 31/83. No question here; XY:
Phantom Forces 32/119 and Sneaky Bite are the way to
go; I mean we even
reviewed it!
Both Crobat are Stage 2 Pokémon with 130 HP, a
free Retreat Cost, and an Ability in addition to an
attack. BW: Plasma Storm 55/135 (and its
Pre-Release promo predecessor) is a Team Plasma Pokémon,
so I’ll just refer to it as Crobat [Plasma] from
now on; it may benefit from some of the Team Plasma
support and it may run afoul of the Team Plasma specific
counter effects released during the end of the BW-era.
It has the Ability “Night Sight”, giving you an extra
draw during your turn. Multiple instances can
stack, though you just get to use each effect once,
technically drawing one card at a time even if you use
them back to back; also you must use them before you
attack. For [PCC] Crobat [Plasma] can hit
the opponent with “Ultra-Toxic Fang” to do 40 damage and
Poison the Defending Pokémon; instead of just placing
one damage counter between turns, Poison inflicted by
this attack places four damage counters instead.
That applies before other effects so if used
alongside Virbank City Gym, ultimately six
damage counters would be placed per turn. This
version was reviewed
here,
though not by me. I honestly can’t remember if I
had high or low expectations for it at the time, but
while the Ability is decent, the attack is not:
quadruple Poison sounds terrifying, but it is as easy to
treat or block as single damage counter placing Poison.
Unless the additional damage counters result in a KO, of
course. With it, you’re effectively doing 80
damage for three Energy unless your opponent fails to
remove the Poison. It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t
adequate, either, even if you tossed in Virbank City
Gym.
Crobat
(XY: Phantom Forces 11/119) has the Ability “Suprise
Bite”, which triggers when you play it from hand to
Evolve one of your Pokémon; it allows you to place three
damage counters on one of your opponent’s Pokémon
(again, your choice). For [C] it could use Skill
Dive, this time doing 30 damage (instead of 10) to the
opposing Pokémon of your choice. We reviewed it
here
and didn’t expect much of it; boy, were we wrong!
Various low Energy, big Basic Pokémon-EX attackers
learned that a Crobat swarm could be used as an
effective damage buff. Notable examples are
Landorus-EX and Seismitoad-EX. Landorus-EX
used it so that it could focus on hitting the opponent’s
Active, Bench, or both harder than expected, while
Seismitoad-EX it to offset its low damage output
while locking down Items via “Quaking Punch”. Super
Scoop Up helped to bounce Crobat along with
Golbat and Zubat, and a player would Bench
each as soon as possible; with additional members of the
line already played in a staggered fashion, sometimes
all would hit the field again that turn! Super Scoop
Up would also be used to bounce your attacker, and
as it was a Pokémon-EX with a good HP score, capable of
hitting for a single Energy attachment, you just brought
up something with a free Retreat Cost, played it back
down, powered it up again, then retreated and resumed
your assault. Scoop Up Cyclone and AZ
provided more reliable bounce, though at different
costs.
You may have noticed I said nothing about either
Crobat being Standard legal; that is because
currently there are no Standard legal versions of
Crobat! That means Crobat BREAK is
worthless for Standard play; BREAK Evolutions don’t
allow you to skip the prior Stage. It is still
legal to include in your decks, you just can’t do
anything with it. This is a shame because at least
Golbat and its Sneaky Bite are Standard legal,
and even though all the easy bounce tricks are gone,
Crobat BREAK can send itself and everything attached
back to your deck… so you could spam Sneaky Bite if only
there was any Crobat legal. Silent Bite
requires [CCC] and so is not easy to pay, so things
still wouldn’t be perfect with a Crobat, but at
least it could function. Dimension Valley could
assist with the cost, enabling a Double Colorless
Energy to cover the now reduced cost, but it
too is Expanded-only. So is Crobat BREAK
any use in Expanded since it has more support there?
Nope! Now there is too much support, in
that AZ, Scoop Up Cyclone, and Super
Scoop Up is here; just bounce using those. Wait!
Don’t BREAK Evolutions gain the Ability from their
previous Stage? Yes, but the ruling is
coming-into-play Abilities won’t trigger again; the
exact explanation is hazy but even if you Evolve
Crobat (XY: Phantom Forces 11/119) into a
Crobat BREAK played from your hand, you’re not
getting another use of Surprise Bite. If you
Evolve from Crobat [Plasma] you would retain
access to Night Sight, but I’ve not seen anyone make
such a thing and have it prove worthwhile. As a
promo, Crobat BREAK isn’t legal for Limited play,
and even if it were in a set, it probably wouldn’t be
worth the effort; unlike in a constructed format,
getting the line back into hand and Evolved would be
much, much trickier.
Ratings
Standard:
1/5
Expanded:
1.5/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
Crobat BREAK is a great example of wasted
opportunity; it literally cannot be used except
as discard-fodder in Standard play! The older
archetype that seems designed for it doesn’t need it!
As a reminder older Crobat cards are often Grass
Types because the TCG used to use that Type to represent
the video game Poison Type. Why bring it up?
Imagine Crobat BREAK and the entire Zubat,
Golbat, and Crobat line from XY:
Phantoms had been Grass Types; no Dimension
Valley but imagine spamming them with Forest of
Giant Plants. Imagine Crobat BREAK
going the more obvious route and having an Ability in
line with Sneaky Bite and Surprise Bite. If you
can’t tell, yeah this is an example of wasted potential
that caught my eye and made me want to rant.
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