"Lolling About"
Hey everybody, and welcome to another installment of Battle of Wittz. We’ve finally finished up the crucial City Championships this year, and are finally at one of my favorite parts of the season. “But there’s no tournaments for over a month, Josh,” you might be saying. Exactly.
In this great moment of rest is where some of my favorite moments in the game come from. Because there’s no event right around the corner, the pressure is way lower to hammer out serious deck list details. Most of my time testing with friends is extremely casual and friendly, and actually leads to us testing more bizarre and risky concepts than we would have tried normally.
Being able to slowly adapt back into competitive play with a new set releasing instead of being forced to constantly form new tournament-ready decks all the time is a great mix-up. The second playing Pokémon starts feeling like work more than actual entertainment, the second you’ll stop enjoying playing. Even the most competitive players need some time to goof off every now and then!
As a writer though, this puts me in kind of a weird spot. With City Championships done and a month or so until State Championships, what is there to explore? I did almost all of my testing over Winter break exclusively testing the viability of Mewtwo EX for my last article, but my friends and I have had some very light weeks of testing as we all return and adjust to school again. In all this downtime, what’s there to talk about?
This week, I’ve decided to do what I did a few months ago, and do a complete review of what’s likely to find its way into our new set. We know that Next Destinies is likely going to contain most of the cards from Hail Blizzard/Psychodrive/The Reshiram and Zekrom Japanese theme decks, so I’ve decided to give my complete review of everything noteworthy from those sets. Getting a good grasp on which cards are really going to be worth owning can really help you save money as early as prereleases.
I’ll get to the set review very soon, but since there was actually one small news announcement recently, so I might as well tackle that, right?
Worlds Invites
Worlds invite info was finally released, and it’s what most of us expected: exact same format as last year (Top X in each area wins an invite). I wasn’t really expecting anything far different from what we’ve known for the past few years, but at least now we all have the information.
What does this mean for the big picture? For one thing, we have a better picture at what it’s going to take to qualify for Worlds this year. Here is the bottom of the top 40 right now for North America: LINK
Like many of us writers predicted, you can already see that City Championships had by far the biggest impact on points this year. By the looks of things, with 30 points at the bottom of the top 40 right now, I’d expect 50 points to be close to where the cutoff will be for Worlds invites. Unfortunately, this means bad news for me — chances of me getting an invitation are already unlikely.
I had planned to hit 3 more City Championships after the Illinois marathon, but a lot of things prevented everything from happening the way I wanted. The first weekend I wanted to hit was ruined when I found myself sick the morning of the tournament, and the second was blocked when I found how badly I misjudged the pain that can come from wisdom tooth removal. As a result, I’m at 15 points, just halfway to what it takes to be at the bottom of the top 40 currently.
With the way point values are distributed across States/Regionals, I’m going to have to top cut all 3 States I attend, and the last Regional of the year in order to be in the running for an invite coming into Nationals. Is this impossible? No (I took 2nd at 2 States and 5th at Regionals last year), but it’s going to take a lot of hard work, and a little luck for it to actually work out in my favor.
On top of that, Hawaii this year is starting to become a very real problem even if I do qualify. I’ll be judging whether it’s realistic for me to start saving for the event if I perform well at the first two weekends of States, but otherwise I could see cost being a very real barrier for entry for a lot of players my age. After the blast I had at Worlds last year, I’d still be coming just for the grinders if it was in California.
At nearly double the expense, though, I’m not so sure it’s worth it unless I’ll actually be competing in the event. It sucks that I came so close to a free trip at Worlds this past year, but I tried my best and I can’t really be upset at doing as well as I did in the first place.
One last thing I noticed about ratings is that Nationals is suddenly worth a little bit more, with winning the event being worth 20 points now. I distinctly remember it being worth 14 to win Nationals when Championship Points were first announced, so it’s interesting that TPCi is changing point values on-the-fly for the latter half of the season. Like Pokémon has said, “this year isn’t going to be perfect,” so I’m hoping that changes like these show that Pokémon is aware that the balance for points this year was a little off.
But let’s get to something fun. How about a review of everything that we’re likely to see in Next Destinies? Yeah, that sounds a lot better to me, too. Let’s go!
(You can view spoilers of the cards here on Bulbapedia.)
Pokémon
The Legendary Birds
This just disturbs me. Does Pokémon just think it’s funny to constantly shaft some of the first Legendary Pokémon to exist? Moltres, Articuno, and Zapdos all have fairly horrible attacks. Zapdos’ ability to deal 50 damage on a potential 2 energy snipe would have been interesting a few sets back, but right now that just makes him a slightly better Sigilyph EPO 41. It’s a huge shame that Pokémon overpowers Zekrom/Reshiram/Kyurem/Coballion/whoever, but then makes an awful card out of the original trio.
No rating for these ones. I’m just bitter about it.
Luxray
It seems weird seeing a Luxray that actually has to evolve twice to exist after the dominance of Luxray GL LV.X, but we finally have one again. He even has Flash Impact! Unfortunately, while dealing 60 damage on one energy would have been interesting multiple formats ago, he’s just terribly outdated now. Considering that Luxray X won everything in his prime I should feel like this new Luxray deserved better, and as someone who actually likes Luxray as a Pokémon, I’m kind of sad.
5/10
Zebstrika
Speaking of Pokémon that have become outdated, Zebstrika makes the old days of Luxray GL LV.X seem like they were just yesterday. Zebstrika’s the REAL blast from the past — all the way back to 2005’s Manectric ex! Zebistrika carries close to the same two attacks as Manectric ex did, and that really reveals how different of a time it is, now.
When Mew ex/Manectric ex was a Worlds-winning combo for Jason Klaczynski long ago, dealing a constant damage-based Trainer lock completely crippled decks. Seven years later, the same strategy isn’t even playable. It weirds me out, and also makes me desperately wish that Pokémon would stop introducing power creep into the game as a way to keep new sets strong.
4/10
Musharna
Finally, something that looks playable! It’s not amazing, but at least it’s something! Many people looking at Musharna should instantly feel a fondness for Uxie LV.X and Claydol GE — two draw-based Pokémon back in the pre-HGSS era. In a format where drawing cards from a Pokémon is limited pretty strictly to Magnezone Prime (and occasionally Ninetales HS), seeing a new option for drawing cards in a Stage 1 package seems like a neat addition to the format.
Then, you read its retreat cost. Not one, not two, but THREE whopping retreat to move this pink puffball. While a majority of the time your opponent uses Pokemon Catcher it’ll be knocked out, I’d feel completely uncomfortable knowing that I’m opening myself to being stuck in the active position at any point in the game.
If Musharna’s drawing ability was slightly stronger than a simple Pokedex effect it might warrant more play, but in its current state it’s just below the bar for being a very good mainstream card. It might be playable down the line once we lose Magnezone, but for now he’ll only have a small use in the format.
5/10
Amoonguss
When you evolve into it, your opponent’s active Pokemon is hit with Poison and Confusion. Sound familiar? We have ourselves a card that is very similar to Roserade UL. So, which one’s better? On one hand, Amoonguss doesn’t require your energy attachment for the turn to activate. On the other, Roserade can be used multiple times while Amoonguss cannot.
While both obviously have very different uses (Roserade only really works with a 0 energy attacker), I feel like I can’t write off the usage of Confusion right now as a special effect. Anything that can whittle down a huge Pokémon EX into giving you a prize while limiting them from taking one seems like an invaluable effect right now. Amoonguss being a simply 2-card combo almost makes it look splashable.
I know it’s not this game-winning strategy that will work in every game, but the fact that I can see him leading to a game won for only 2 cards makes me at least want to consider him as a surprise tech. I wouldn’t write him off right away.
6/10
Chandelure
This card is just BARELY under the cusp of what I’d consider to be a clear-cut contender right now. For one Fire Energy, you spread 30 damage to 3 Pokémon, which definitely has some synergy with the other Chandelure. I’m not sure how reasonable it is to fit Fire/Rainbow energy into a deck that already relies on its ability to function on minimal energy/attacks and Tropical beach. For 2 energy, you can discard your 2 attachments and deal 80 damage plus Burn to the active.
You see what I mean? Both of these attacks are decent attacks for their costs, but they aren’t good enough to be considered great. 1 for 90 spread might be able to stand on its own, but is it really better than being able to spread for that much/more than Kyurem NVI?) 2 Energy for 80 damage and Burn is also useful, but not outstanding. This Chandelure isn’t bad, but I feel like the other one has a lot more going for it.
6/10
