Otaku |
This Throwback Thursday, we look at Weakness Policy
(XY: Primal Clash 142/160, 164/160; SM:
Burning Shadows 126/147), a Trainer-Item that is
also a Pokémon Tool, which allows you to ignore the
Weakness of the Pokémon to which it is attached.
Trainers have a bit of worthwhile general support but no
competitive counters in Standard and Modified play.
Item support is rare and usually deck-specific but Item
counters are really common in Expanded and somewhat
prominent in Standard. Tool-supporting effects are
a bit more common than either of the previous two, but
Tool counters are abundant, with the big concern right
now being Field Blower, as it allows a player to
discard a Tool and a Stadium card or two Tools from in
play (and belonging to either player). Both Tools
and Stadium cards are still major aspects of the
metagame but Field Blower (and its
predecessors) make it important that Stadiums and Tools
provide some benefit on your own turn before your
opponent has a chance to discard them. On your own
turn, it is almost impossible to take advantage of
having your Weakness nullified, but most decks
are not running four Field Blower, so
there’s a decent chance Weakness Policy may avoid
being discarded. Unfortunately, there is a more
than decent chance Weakness Policy won’t matter.
Too low of HP, and Weakness won’t matter; the attacker
scores a OHKO or 2HKO regardless of Weakness.
Too high of HP and the Pokémon in question is unlikely
to be OHKO’d even with Weakness. With 11
Types in the TCG, and (I think) nothing modern having
more than one Weakness, it also takes a bit of
misfortune for the Weakness of something important to
also belong to a popular deck.
Still, there are a few decks that might consider this,
mostly among Stage 2 Pokémon-GX like Gardevoir-GX
and Metagross-GX. At this point, the issue
is that you’re using the one Tool most Pokémon are
allowed to have attached at a time and filling that slot
with Weakness Policy instead of something more
useful, like Choice Band or Float Stone.
Still, I am glad it returned to Standard play, even if
only for these few cases. The original printing of
this card made Weakness Policy legal for the last
half of the 2014-2015, all of the 2015-2016, and all of
the 2016-2017 Standard Formats as XY: Primal Clash
officially released on February 4, 2015. This most
recent printing kept it from missing any of the
2017-2018 Standard Format and will almost certainly keep
it around for the 2018-2019 and maybe even the 2019-2020
Standard Formats. This isn’t much of a Throwback,
so why are we looking at Weakness Policy?
Besides being reprinted in the most recent expansion,
besides us having last looked at it
over two years ago,
it has some distant and not-so-distant older cousins:
Weakness Guard (Aquapolis 141/147),
Protective Orb (EX: Unseen Forces 90/115),
and Bubble Coat (DP: Legends Awakened
129/146).
Weakness Guard
officially goes back to January 15, 2003, which means it
was legal for the last half of the 2002-2003 and all of
the 2003-2004 Standard Formats. Surprisingly it
released as a “normal Trainer”, or what we now call an
“Item” card and not a Pokémon Tool.
Instead, it was like PlusPower or Defender,
an Item you may attach to one of your Pokémon, enabled
to do this by part of its effect text. Said text
also states that it is discarded at the end of
your opponent’s next turn and that while attached to a
Pokémon, that Pokémon has no Weakness. We never
reviewed it, and I neither recall it being a big deal or
a total waste back in the day. Too bad my memory
isn’t what it once was, so if another source contradicts
that, it is probably right. Protective Orb
officially released on August 22, 2005, so it was legal
for the very end of the 2004-2005, all of the 2005-2006
and 2006-2007 Standard Formats. This one also
predates the Trainer-Item designation, but it is
one and also a Pokémon Tool. It can only be
attached to one of your Evolved Pokémon that is not
a Pokémon-ex, and it discards itself should that Pokémon
become a Pokémon-ex or a Basic. The Pokémon
with it attached has no Weakness. We reviewed this
one twice, the
first time
almost exactly 12 years ago, then
again
more like 11 years ago. I’m the only one who
weighed in on the first review, where I seemed to think
it reasonably useful; it scored very high in the second
review, so I’m assuming (hoping?) that it had proven
itself by then. There were some effective ways to
discard Protective Orb, and this was a time when
attacks could get high enough that Weakness
transformed a 2HKO into a OHKO.
Bubble Coat
dates back to August 20, 2008, so it barely snuck into
the 2008-2009 and was present for all of the 2009-2010
and 2010-2011 Standard Formats. Another Pokémon
Tool that counts as an Item but released as a “normal
Trainer”, Bubble Coat can be attached to any
Pokémon that doesn’t already have a Tool attached to it.
As it is an older card, I think it predates anything
that can have multiple Tools attached at the same time,
so I don’t know if this rules text overrides the text of
those specific cards or not. Its effect is that
the Pokémon with it attached has no Weakness but
it discards itself at the end of a turn where the
Pokémon in question is damaged by an opponent’s attack.
This card released around the time I was having to cut
way back on playing the Pokémon TCG but we can
look at its
Pojo review
from about 9 years ago (2 months after it released).
Except the reviewers split in their opinion of it and I
can’t really remember how well it performed. A bit
of an anticlimactic end to our trip down history lane,
but it beats me ranting about how broken x2 Weakness is
for the TCG, right? Just to be clear, damage
doubling Weakness is a serious problem, as it
causes massive swings in damage based on matchups,
though it isn’t the worst issue with the original or
modern Pokémon TCG.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
3.25/5
Conclusion
Weakness Policy
isn’t particularly old, but its family history does
extend back to the first few years of the TCG. It
also isn’t particularly useful to most decks, though it
is functional as few Pokémon lack Weakness; it
could become an important play for some of the bigger
Pokémon trying to avoid being OHKO’d.
|
Retro |
Well, well. Look what card we have here. It’s a
very good consumable item on Pokémon that can’t afford
to waste a turn to boost its stats, or has methods that
can exploit the side effect of this item. It’s Weakness
Policy, and it’s a god send. What Weakness Policy does
is that it doubles the Attack and Special Attack when
said Pokémon is hit with a super-effective move.
However, when it is knocked off, the item will not
activate, so bear that in mind. It is a very good item
for Pokémon such as Aegislash and Dragonite, both of
which has massive offensive stats yet they have great
defensive measures so that Weakness Policy can benefit
them well. And its TCG counterpart? It doesn’t have
anything to do with stat boosting. Not even a sliver of
that thought comes to mind.
What Weakness Policy does instead is that it
removes the Weakness of the Pokémon that holds it.
It does work wonders on paper and especially back
in its glory days where it is a very good card on decks
that had Pokémon with the Theta Double Ancient Trait.
Such Pokémon like Gyarados and Mega Tyranitar-EX (XY
Ancient Origins) with those Traits, it made them
rather invincible and allows them to wreck stuff more
easily. As long as the opponent has no Tool removal
items such as Startling Megaphone (XY
Flashfire) or Field Blower (SM
Guardians Rising), it made swift killing by Weakness
impossible, and because those Pokémon has the Theta
Double Ancient Trait that allows them to wear 2 Tool
cards at once, they can actually use some other active
cards such as Choice Band (SM
Guardians Rising) or Muscle Band (XY
Base Set) or other utility tools like Lucky Helmet (XY
Ancient Origins).
But alas, since what it does is that it only
removes Weakness, which is a passive effect; this card
is considered a passive Tool card. Much like the Wishful
Baton and Bodybuilding Dumbbells we reviewed last week,
it’s your opponent that will decide how they will
approach the card. They can remove it with cards like
Field Blower (SM
Guardians Rising), switch their target to another
Pokémon without the item with cards like Guzma (SM
Burning Shadows) or Escape Rope, or they can just
attack with the strongest Pokémon they had and just
remove the Pokémon and the Tool all at once. It is the
exact reason why Weakness Policy isn’t a very meta card
when it is first released in XY Primal Clash, and it
might be the reason why it will not be another meta card
now.
Rating:
Standard: 3/5
(Just another filler Tool card that might not even see much play with the
popularity of active Items like Choice Band.)
Expanded: 3/5
(Exactly the same reason as why it isn’t good in Standard.)
Limited: 3/5
(Type matchups are a bit erratic in the Limited format, so Weakness
Policy is extremely situational.)
Next on SM Burning Shadows:
Is it a Full Retaliation yet?
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