Genesect V – Fusion Strike
Date Reviewed: December 28, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 5.00
Expanded: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
I had Genesect V as the 4th-best card of the year. You can check out our original review here; even though it isn’t even a month-and-a-half old, I’ll run through this card again. Genesect V is a Pokémon V, excluded from some beneficial card effects and included in some detrimental ones because of this status. More importantly, Genesect V is worth two Prizes when KO’d, but should have better stats (usually HP) and potentially better effects than it would otherwise have been permitted. Pokémon V have a Rule Box, and Genesect V has an Ability, so Path to the Peak is likely to be a problem for it. Genesect V is a Metal Pokémon, and that isn’t a bad thing. Metal Weakness is not abundant, but it is out there. The main benefit could be Metal type’s support: Metal Saucer is not something to forget about. The same goes for being a Fusion Strike Pokémon; they’ve got some great support, and in fact, Genesect V is an example of it (more on that later).
Genesect V is a Basic Pokémon, making it easy to fetch from your deck (Quick Ball), and easy to put into play. Its 190 HP is better than any baseline Genesect V but it is low for a Basic Pokémon V. Something known for being fragile, like Crobat V, only has 10 fewer Hit Points than Genesect V; 190 is 20 below the low end of “normal” for these cards. [R] Weakness isn’t the worst, but it is still dangerous as it means a mere 100 damage from a Fire type OHKO’s this two-Prize target. Grass Resistance is appreciated; I don’t know how often it will come in handy, but any is better than none. Its Retreat Cost of [CC] isn’t low enough to be much of an advantage, but neither is it high enough to really be a drawback.
Genesect V has one Ability and one attack. The Ability is “Fusion Strike System”. When you use this Ability, you’re able to draw cards until the number of cards in your hand is equal to the number of Fusion Strike Pokémon in play. You may use this Ability once, before you attack… but that is per instance of Fusion Strike System you have in play. So, a single Genesect V with no other Fusion Strike Pokémon in play will hardly ever matter… but if you have four of them and your other two Pokémon in play are Fusion Strikers? Yeah, if you can drain your hand each time, the four total uses Fusion Strike System will let you draw up to 24 cards! The conditions do keep Genesect V from being an easy and obvious splash into any and all decks, but in a Fusion Strike deck, its amazing!
As for the attack, Genesect V knows “Techno Blast”. Priced at [MMC], the attack allow Genesect V to do 210 damage to your opponent’s Active, but then that Genesect V cannot attack during your next turn. The same goes for anything copying the attack; Mew VMAX can use its own “Cross Fusion Strike” attack to copy attacks from your other Fusion Strike Pokémon. As Mew is a Pokémon VMAX with 310 HP and Cross Fusion Strike only costs [CC]… yeah, turns out Techno Blast is a solid option for copying. What about not being able to attack the next turn? That’s what switching effects are for. If you need to attack with Genesect V itself, the main drawback is its own HP; Metal Saucer and basic Metal Energy cards and/or Elesa’s Sparkle with Fusion Strike Energy can let help Genesect V go from zero to attacking in a single turn. Being a Fusion Strike Pokémon also means access to Power Tablet; either Genesect V or Mew VMAX can tack extra damage onto the base 210; a single Power Tablet brings most Basic Pokémon V (and smaller) targets into OHKO range. If you can drop all four in a single turn, only those with Resistance, defensive buffs or the max printed HP (340) can tank the hit.
The current top deck in Standard is Mew VMAX/Genesect V. At the time of writing, based on the results from 88 tournaments consisting of 32364 matches by 11665 players posted by LimitlessTCG, the deck’s metagame share is sitting at 16.91%. That means nearly 17 decks out of 100 were Mew VMAX/Genesect V decks. Which still wouldn’t mean all that much but it goes with a 54.36% win rate. At least if I’m understanding these numbers correctly. What I can tell you is that this deck is great, and it while it could exist without Genesect V, it wouldn’t be remotely as good. Genesect V – and an efficient deck build – lets you draw large amounts of cards during your turn, both setting up quickly and enabling powerful combos. It then also provides strong attack as well, even if it is usually through being copied. If Mew VMAX wasn’t here… I don’t think Genesect V decks would be as good, but I’m pretty sure they would still be good.
What about Expanded? Now we’re only dealing with 11 tournaments, 337 players, and 826 matches, but Mew VMAX/Genesect V to be the 7th most used deck, with a 4.15% share and and a 44.7 win percentage. While not as great as its Standard performance, this is still good! Genesect V has to deal with additional counters, but it also gets so many more goodies. With all that said, for the Standard Format I have to give Genesect V a five out of five, and award it a four-out-of-five in Expanded. Yeah, I’m a little worried I low-balled this card again. This should have gone down as the number one card from SW – Fusion Strike. It maybe should have been my number one pick for 2021 but it has barely been tournament legal for a month; there are cards on this list that we know were great the entire year, or at least a lot more than a twelfth of it.
Ratings
- Standard: 5/5
- Expanded: 4/5
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