Stats
Entei is a Basic :fire: Type Pokemon with 90 HP. Being a Basic is great: fast, easy to play, minimal deck space, and lots of options. 90 HP is solid though the strongest decks will still be able to push for a OHKO. Being a Fire-Type isn't technically an advantage: there isn't much benefit to the Type in terms of Weakness/Resistance and there isn't any support expressly for the Pokemon-Type. The :water: Weakness doesn't bother the card too much mostly because Water decks have been struggling. We have one or two promising candidates for Water decks but for now at least, the decks just don't seem to do all that well. Perhaps after
BW: Emerging Powers has been present through a significant tournament series that will change, and I certainly wouldn't count on this drought lasting through to the next Worlds. The lack of Resistance is a bit of a bummer but quite common and the two Energy Retreat Cost is a little high for a Basic Pokemon.
Effects
First we get a Poke-Body, Extreme Speed which sounds good at first but really is quite lame. For each :fire: Energy attached to
Entei Extreme Speed lowers its Retreat Cost by :colorless:. Why is this bad? Well having a Poke-Body makes a card vulnerable to certain anti-Poke-Body countermeasures, and even if it didn't it also just "takes up space". Sure it is nice that if the card has at least :fire::fire: attached it may retreat for free, but that's still an Energy investment. In practical terms, its more like the card has a :fire: Retreat Cost: if you have a single :fire: Energy attached you can discard it to Retreat. The prominent :fire: Energy acceleration of the format makes this just a little bit better than it would be, but if I haven't yet been clear, its a Poke-Body that should just have been a better stat.
The card only has a single attack (making that Poke-Body feel like even more of a waste) for
fire::fire::colorless
: Wild Blaze. The name is pretty sweet sounding but the damage is a little on the low side at 70, and it has a massive kick to it: you have to discard the top three cards from your deck! In terms of Energy consumption, the attack should already hit for 40 points of damage (even if this were a
Tepig or the like). Being a Basic Pokemon that doesn't Evolve you'd hope for at least another 10 or 20 points of damage here... meaning that discard is not even worth a full 10 points of extra damage per card discarded. That makes this attack quite, quite bad: even a vanilla
fire::fire::colorless
for 40 (let alone 50 or 60) points of damage would have been better.
So we have a Poke-Body that should have just been a better stat and an attack that costs you more than the printed Energy and doesn't deliver an appropriate damage yield. Both have an interesting idea behind them, its just a shame that the implementation is so poor. Still let's play some Theorymon and see if we can't deduce at least a possible use, even if that use would make a deck sub-optimal.
Usage
Simply put,
Emboar or
Typhlosion Prime decks are the only place this card remotely approaches "playable". Even then its pretty poor:
Typhlosion Prime players might barely consider the discarding from the deck to be a combo, getting more Energy into the discard... except the attack itself requires three Energy so you'd at best be reinforcing the combo, getting extra Energy to attach next turn on the off chance
Entei survives through your opponent's turn. Even without factoring in
Reshiram or other options, I think we have to go all the way back to the Neo sets to lack a better option as a Basic attacker for such a combo (and assuming we had the necessary combo pieces).
I can't recommend using this card for Modified or Unlimited play, and even in Limited it is a low pick, requiring your run almost pure
Fire Energy for your deck and recall that your full deck is now only 40 cards and anything you toss is probably gone for good.
Create-A-Card
I'll risk humiliating myself and looking rather arrogant by proposing how the basic ideas might have been implemented in a more effective manner. Extreme Speed is an attack in the video that basically allows its user good priority (especially in the latest games) to hit for solid damage. In short, it's a better Quick Attack. The exception being Smash Bros. Brawl where it is
Lucario's recovery (or "third jump") move by hitting up on the control stick and the B button. Yes, I checked Bulbapedia to make sure I understood the attack that inspired the Poke-Body. I also checked Pokepedia.net and all TCG versions of Extreme Speed have been similar to what this card has.
I am loathe to go against precedent, so let's beef up the effect just a tad to make it worth having. How about adding the following to the existing text of Extreme Speed: "Ignore any effects that would prevent
Entei from Retreating as long as it can pay it's Retreat Cost." This makes the effect better than just a lower Retreat cost, since now Paralysis, Sleep, and various "trapping" effects won't work. At the same time, it is not especially powerful: running
Entei largely just saves you burning a
Switch on it in bad times.
Wild Blaze is where the card really fell flat, so let's make that self-decking aspect actually worthwhile. I'll drop the cost to
fire::fire
, still making it only work in Fire-focused decks and requiring a combo to get it going fast. Considering we'd like to have that much on the card to enable a free Retreat, I think it only fitting. Plus I am going to suggest a potent effect that would be broken if it were (easily) possible first turn. Wild Blaze would do no base damage; instead the effect text would read "For every 10 HP left on the Defending Pokemon, discard a card from the top of your deck. The Defending Pokemon is now Knocked Out." This is a guaranteed Knock Out against anything, but most Stage 2 Pokemon would require over 10 cards discarded from your deck.
If that doesn't sound so bad, do some quick math:a full deck is 60 cards, before you even draw your first card on your first turn you've already lost 13 cards from it (opening hand of seven cards and six Prizes), leaving you with just 47. Actually getting a good set-up will reduce it even more, though you could run several cards to replenish your deck. You must discard those cards for the effect, so unless I misunderstood some basic rules (which would merely require an extra line of text), you either lose from decking out or simply can't use the attack if you don't have enough card's left in your deck. If somehow this is
still too powerful (a real card would have at least some play-testing) then a "This Pokemon cannot attack next turn" clause should suffice: you'd have to run two copies and try to bounce them back and forth (in the current format, keeping both alive would be a challenge) to spam the attack.
Ratings
Unlimited: 1/10
Modified: 1/10
Limited: 4/10
Art: 9.5/10
Summary
A gorgeous card that is wonderful to own to appreciate its beauty, rarity, or monetary value, but not something to run in your deck unless you want to lose. :frown:
