aroramage |
What Top X List would be complete
without a Pokemon with the Ability to switch things
around freely? Especially your opponent's side of
things!
Lycanroc-GX comes in with around
200 HP - which honestly might be a little on the lower
end of Stage 1 GX HP scores - and the Ability
Bloodthirsty Eyes, which lets you switch out your
opponent's Active Pokemon for one of their Benched
Pokemon when Lycanroc-GX is played. It's the new
Lysandre pick for when Lysandre rotates out, though not
every deck may run a Stage 1 line-up just for the
switch...oh who are we kidding, I'm sure people would
run it ESPECIALLY when Lysandre rotates out eventually!
Lycanroc-GX though does come with
his own set of attacks as well. Claw Slash is just a
generic 3-for-110 vanilla hit, but that's honestly on
the better side of things. Even without the effect, Claw
Slash can 2HKO most Pokemon in the game outside of some
Mega-EX and Stage 2 GX, and with Strong Energy or a
special Item attached, it's not that far out of range
then. But if you really need to get rid of something,
Lycanroc-GX offers Dangerous Rogue GX, a 2-Energy GX
Attack that will deal 50 damage based on the number of
Benched Pokemon your OPPONENT has.
Of course, Dangerous Rogue GX has a
very key timing aspect to it. If you use it, it's going
to be against an opponent with a lot of Benched Pokemon,
cause otherwise it's not worth it at only 1 or 2.
Luckily that shouldn't be a problem, given some of the
cards in this set and in other sets past. And even if it
is a problem, well, the obviously answer is don't use
the attack. Save it for another GX in your deck to use.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (probably likely to
see Lycanroc-GX in a few decks)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (and soon he may
even be his own deck too)
Limited: 4/5 (I mean who knows what
shenanigans will unfold with this guy)
Arora Notealus: Depicted on the
card is his Midnight form, so maybe we'll see a Lycanroc
card featuring his Midday form at some point? Hopefully
not another Lycanroc-GX, though. It would make things
difficult to try and build a deck with only four copies
total between two different Lycanroc-GX, you know?
Next Time: A chill in the breeze
brings another powerful GX!
|
21times |
Lycanroc GX
(Guardians Rising, 74/145) got a reboot in
Guardians Rising.
Originally released as a promo (SM14), his new
incarnation now has an ability,
Bloodthirsty Eyes,
which allows you to switch one of your opponent’s
Pokemon with their active Pokemon when you play Lycanroc
GX from your hand to evolve a
Rockruff (Guardians
Rising, 73/145).
This new
Lycanroc GX also has an attack
Claw Slash
which for a Fighting energy and two Colorless energies
does 110 damage.
Its GX attack,
Dangerous Rogue
GX, does fifty damage times the number
of your opponent’s benched Pokemon.
I had quite a bit of success with the promo
Lycanroc
before the release of Guardians Rising.
I went 28-14 with the hammers version of this
deck. I
think players employ the hammers version the most often.
I have seen it also used in conjunction with the
Eevee’s (Sun
& Moon, 101/149), but I can’t seem to get the
Eevee’s to
work with much of anything.
I have also used a
Lycanroc GX
Garbodor (Breakpoint, 57/122) build, but that
has obviously become obsolete.
I did not have as much success with this new
Lycanroc GX
though. I
don’t know if I have an exact answer for this, but I
have a couple of ideas as to why I’ve gone 5-8 in
testing:
·
The format has simply gotten a lot better.
With all of the new GX’s as well as good non-GX’s
such as Garbodor
(Guardians Rising, 51/145) and
Trevenant (Guardians
Rising, 7/145), the median amount of damage per
attack has significantly increased from the eighty that
I recorded in my study about a month ago.
·
I used Exp. Share
(Sun & Moon, 118/149) to help facilitate energy
counts on attacking Pokemon.
With the addition of
Field Blower
(Guardians Rising, 125/145), I have moved away
from this strategy.
·
The promo had a two energy attack that also discarded an
energy from the opponent’s active Pokemon.
The Guardians Rising version needs a
Double Colorless
Energy (Guardians Rising, 136/149) to make
its non-GX attack a two attachment attack.
Someone probably has a deck out there that will win more
consistently than mine did.
I used a 2-2 split between the promo and the GRI
version. I
did find myself going more for the promo unless I knew I
wanted to use
Bloodthirsty Eyes to switch my opponent’s active
Pokemon.
Something else to realize: if you use
Devolution Spray
(Evolutions, 76/108), you will not be able to
re-evolve
Lycanroc GX until the next turn.
Rating
Standard: 2.5 out of 5
Conclusion
I thought, like many, that this new version of
Lycanroc GX
would only make this Pokemon better, but this
demonstrates the power of
Field Blower
and the influx of Pokemon that are simply better than
Lycanroc GX.
As I mentioned, I would bet that someone is out
there winning a majority of their matches with
Lycanroc GX,
but I don’t know what that build consists of now in a
post-GRI meta.
|
Otaku |
What’s this?
Yeah, a very late Pokémon CotD review. Not three
places in and I ran short of time to write my reviews
for our Top 15 Countdown for SM: Guardians Rising!
If you’re not familiar with this Pojo tradition, it
began with year-end countdowns, and then shifted to us
calling out the best cards of the set so you had more
time to enjoy them before the next release.
This time we went with a Top 15 list due to the number
of impressive cards we had to deal with and
because all the reviewers who submitted individual lists
made them at least Top 15’s. We take those
lists, award “voting points” based on how the cards
placed, tally those up, and use that to design the
site’s master list. Reprints were not
allowed, as you don’t need us to tell you something like
Double Colorless Energy is still awesome.
Onto our 13th place pick!
Lycanroc-GX
(SM: Guardians Rising 74/145, 138/145, 156/145)
is *gasp* a Pokémon-GX! Obvious, but an important
distinction even before we knew that Garbodor (SM:
Guardians Rising 51/145) was going to become the
deck to beat. Lycanroc-GX will give up an extra
Prize when KO’d and is vulnerable to certain counters
like Choice Band based on being a Pokémon-GX.
I can’t recall any beneficial effects that exclude
Pokémon-GX yet, but odds are we’ll get those sooner or
later as well, just as we did for Pokémon-EX.
Being a Pokémon-GX has so far guaranteed an HP boost
over baseline counterparts and having three effects (one
being a GX-attack). Lycanroc-GX is a
Fighting-Type, which makes sense as in the video games
it is a pure Rock-Type regardless of its forme. It
doesn’t affect the game mechanically, but today’s card
is the Midnight Forme, as the artwork shows. Being
a TCG Fighting-Type will allow it to strike most
Darkness-Types, most Lightning-Types, and many
Colorless-Types for double damage due to Weakness, a
significant swath of the potential metagame, and often
the actual! Of course, Fighting Resistance is one
of the most common, with a good chunk of the
Colorless-Type sporting it, and examples found in nearly
all (possibly all) Types. Fortunately, Resistance
isn’t a big deal, and Fighting has some good Type
support. Their personal Special Energy is
Strong Energy, which grants +20 damage to attacks
made by the Pokémon to which it is attached, and
multiple copies stack. They’ve got some nifty
Trainer-tricks but most are in Expanded, like Korrina.
They have a stable of solid attackers and a few decent
supporting Pokémon, some of which include Energy-based
tricks as well. Sometimes a Fighting-Type leads
the top deck in the format, but often the entire Type
seems to fall off the radar, only to get a second wind
at a later date.
Being a Stage 1
isn’t great, but it isn’t bad. It is a solid thing
for a card, not as fast or resource lite as being a
Basic but better than all the rest. You could
actually put this card into play directly via Maxie’s
Hidden Ball Trick (yeah, that is still around in
Standard!) but the Ability we’ll discuss in a moment is
why you shouldn’t bother with him or Wally. 200
HP is enough to give Lycanroc-GX a good chance of
surviving many attacks, excluding decks known for
OHKO’s, or those exploiting Weakness. Said
Weakness is to Grass-Types and had I reviewed this on
Type I would have been very worried due to the
prominence of decks built around Decidueye-GX and
Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98). Garbodor
has chased those decks away, at least for now, but
Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98),
Lurantis-GX, and a few others are still sniffing
around, if not ready to pounce again, so caution is
still advised. No Resistance is the worst
Resistance, but Typical, so I’ll just use it as an
excuse to point out that if the powers-that-be weren’t
trying to avoid Colorless and/or Fire Resistance from
becoming a thing again, as a pure Rock-Type Lycanroc-GX
would justify either. The Retreat Cost of
[C] is low and easy to pay; a nice way to finish off the
card’s attributes.
Moving onto its
effects, the first of its three is the Ability
“Bloodthirsty Eyes”. Besides sounding
intimidating, it allows you to choose one of your
opponent’s Benched Pokémon and force it into his or her
Active position (benching the former Active Pokémon).
The catch is that this effect only triggers when
you Evolve one of your in-play Pokémon into Lycanroc-GX,
so without a trick like Devolution Spray it is a
one-time deal. Still, you’d normally have to burn
a Supporter (Lysandre) on such a play, so it’s
potent. The second effect and first of the attacks
is “Claw Slash” for [FCC], doing 110 damage. Not
quite 2HKO range for bigger Pokémon-EX and Pokémon-GX,
and the biggest are even outside of 2HKO range with a
single damage buff like Choice Band or one
Strong Energy; both together do bring
anything without protection of defensive buffs into 2HKO
range with clearance, and a key Pokémon-EX: Shaymin-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108). The
Energy cost isn’t super easy, but being Double
Colorless Energy compliant is almost always a bonus,
and this isn’t one of the exceptions. The
GX-attack is “Dangerous Rogue-GX” and it allows
Lycanroc-GX to steal its opponent’s powers with a
touch, usually a kiss. No, wait, that’s Rogue from
the X-Men. This attack costs [FC] and does 50
damage times the amount of Pokémon on your opponent’s
Bench. A full five Pokémon Bench means a OHKO of just
about anything (protected Pokémon providing the
exception). Four will handle most things that
aren’t one of those, Mega Evolutions, and Evolved
Pokémon-GX. Three still provides a solid 150
damage to build upon, and while lame for a GX-attack,
the 100 damage from an opponent having two Benched
Pokémon would normally be a decent return for a
two-Energy attack. This isn’t the greatest
GX-attack, but it is still reasonably good, especially
with the Ability.
We’ve got two
Rockruff so far and one other Lycanroc-GX to
consider as well. The Rockruff are both
Fighting Type Basic Pokémon with 60 HP and the same
Grass Weakness, lack of Resistance, and Retreat Cost [C]
as today’s Lycanroc-GX, with two attacks. SM:
Black Star Promos SM06 knows “Tackle” for [C], doing
10, and “Rock Throw” for [FC], doing 20. SM:
Guardians Rising 73/145) knows “Corner” for [F] to
prevent the opponent’s Active from retreating during the
next turn, while for [CC] it can use “Wild Kick” to flip
a coin with “heads” doing 30 damage and “tails” doing
none. Neither are great, but SM: Guardians
Rising 73/145) is the better choice; Corner has some
technical value while Wild Kick might be a decent
desperation move, especially in an off-Type build. Lycanroc-GX
(SM: Black Star Promos SM14) is based on the
Midday Forme, is also a Fighting Type Stage 1 with 200
HP, Grass Weakness, and no Resistance but has
Retreat Cost [CC] (meh) and three attacks. “Crunch”
requires [FC] and does 30 damage while discarding an
Energy from your opponent’s Active - no flip required,
no restrictions on what kind of Energy. This was
good enough that people were toying around with a
disruption deck based upon it for a little while after
its release. [FFC] pays for its “Accelerock” attack, a
fancy name for an attack that just does 120 damage.
Be nicer if it worked for [FCC], but 120 for three is
still solid. Its GX-attack is “Lycanfang-GX”,
costs [FFC] and requires you discard two Energy from
itself, but it does 200 damage. Not bad,
but still not overly impressive for a GX-attack that
costs that much.
The two Lycanroc-GX
actually can play nice, and I’d always recommend
including at least one of the opposite one, regardless
of your deck’s focus, excepting (perhaps) if you’re
going to back up the promo version with Garbodor
(XY: BREAKpoint 57/122). It is kind of like
the powers-that-be took Genesect-EX (BW:
Plasma Blast 11/101, 97/101), along with the better
of its two Ace-Spec cards (G Booster) and split
it into the two Lycanroc-GX. Which is
another reason Lycanfang-GX didn’t impress; it may have
cost you your Ace Spec, but G Booster allowed you
to use the attack of the same name, and it cost a
comparable [GGC] with a two Energy discard but its
damage ignored all effects on the Defending
Pokémon. Its Ability, “Red Signal” triggers
anytime you attach a Plasma Energy - a Special
Energy that only provides [C] and was used for
triggering other card effects - provided the same
Lysandre-like effect. I’m all for slowing down
power creep, but this may have weakened the two cards
too much. Whether backing up its counterpart, used
as a deck focus or backing up something else,
though, Lycanroc-GX has definite appeal.
The big thing is to think long term: as of
now, it appears Lysandre will be lost to Standard
play at the next rotation, so a reliable means of
forcing something Active might be worth a 1-1 or 2-2
line of Lycanroc-GX, even if it can’t attack.
With Shaymin-EX
and the potential for more key Bench-sitters, the short
run isn’t bad for Lycanroc-GX in Standard, it
just isn’t great either. I’m cautiously
optimistic. Expanded offers it more support, but
also more competition; probably another “same results,
different reason” scenario. In Limited play, only
skip it if you get a big, Basic Pokémon worth running
solo; everything else can enjoy it as a Bench-sitter run
only for the effect, though unless you absolutely can’t,
make sure there are at least a few Fighting Energy
to feed it so it may also attack.
Ratings
Standard:
3.15/5
Expanded:
3.15/5
Limited:
4/5
Conclusion
Lycanroc-GX
is a somewhat good card now with nice long term
prospects. No guarantees, though, as it could also
wind up as a has-been who never actually was. The
Ability is really nice, but the attacks are only
competent in a very cutthroat environment.
It also seems very metagame sensitive, as things like
vulnerable Bench-sitters, Fighting Weakness, and almost
every kind of lock are going to affect it (the latter
because it will need a little of everything to operate
well).
Lycanroc-GX
received five more voting points than
14th place
finisher Victini (SM: Guardians Rising
10/145) and fell three points shy of tying
tomorrow’s
12th place pick. For my own list, it made 13th
place, which now seems a bit high. I was counting
on it being able to force Active Vileplume while
under Item lock, for it (with a Strong Energy) or
something else to OHKO. If it doesn’t live up to
its long-term potential, I’ll have overrated it quite a
bit.
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