Umbreon is probably my favorite Eeveelution... at least that isn't a fan creation. :lol: Now, does that make
Umbreon [Plasma] the best Eeveelution from
BW: Plasma Freeze?
Stats
No, but thankfully it isn't the worst, either. baby_mario pointed out something I missed, even though I recognized its components beforehand; this may be the best supported Pokémon right now. It can tap Team Plasma Support. It can tap Darkness-Type support. It even taps Eeveelution support (...the natural synergy of having so many alternate Evolved forms plus whatever any currently legal
Eevee can offer). Top that off with Psychic Resistance when any Resistance at all is somewhat special in the "good" way and a single Energy Retreat Cost (plus synergy with two different cards that can drop that to "free" easily), and
Umbreon [Plasma] has a lot going for it. What doesn't it have going for it? Most of this format... but that is going to encompass the rest of the review.
Its 100 HP, once good and then still at least decent for a Stage 1 is now "small"; not in terms of what gets printed, but what is actually functional due to power creep upping damage output (both total and speed). 100 HP is a OHKO, and is 10 over accessing
Level Ball which works for most other Eeveelutions and for any
Eevee... and that could have been significant.
It also has Fighting Weakness; this is no where near as bad as it could have been even earlier this format when
Terrakion (
BW: Noble Victories 73/101, 99/101;
BW: Boundaries Crossed 151/147) was a common play. It will likely remain a significant vulnerability just because so many Types have Fighting-Weakness as their default (unless overridden by a second-Type or similar trait): Colorless, Darkness, and Lightning. It is even the most common Weakness for the
Eevee family, since
Eevee itself and
Jolteon will have it.
Effect
Umbreon [Plasma] actually has a "good" Ability and adequate attack... except for how the format has shaped up. Darkshade adds +20 HP to your Team Plasma Pokémon in play, including
Umbreon [Plasma] itself, plus it stacks; you could get up to +80 HP if you managed to get a full four into play! I was very excited when I first saw this, but even the small bit of testing I've done (and the results reported by many) indicate this likely isn't "enough".
There are a few decks still trying it and I'd be thrilled to be wrong, but it seems like
Deoxys EX is a "better deal"; despite Power Connect just upping damage by +20 versus Dark Shade upping HP by +20, the offensive/defensive divide is just to great and in the favor of offense (if something is KOed, it can't KO you back... usually). It also doesn't help that Evolutions, while a few are even doing quite well, are still overall at a significant disadvantage compared to Basic Pokémon and especially Pokémon-EX.
Team Plasma Ball (or any Basic Pokémon search/recovery) yields a
Deoxys EX ready to go, plus it takes half as many slots. If
Deoxys EX boosted its own damage, I'd actually be trying to run the two as their own deck, but with Bench space at a premium, it seems very much like an "either/or" decision.
I mentioned earlier I would prefer
Umbreon [Plasma] have 90 HP, then I complain it is too small even after being boosted? Yes, yes I do; it is that unhappy medium of being not small enough for
Level Ball (seriously, by only 10 HP!) but definitely not being big enough to avoid being a OHKO reliably. Seems like a contradiction, but +20 HP on its own is rarely enough to matter so the decks that run this will want to swarm with it... and 130/150/170 is almost as good as 140/160/180 and better once
Level Ball weighs in.
Darkness Fang is... forgettable. As stated earlier, attack power creep has gotten crazy, and even a mostly Colorless attack
dark::colorless::colorless
that can tap on-Type and off-Type acceleration pretty easily may be fast enough, but now 90 points of damage seems to be the "going rate" for three Energy; attacks really need to be able to 2HKO the usual Pokémon-EX. Can you boost this damage? Sure you can! Should you? Most of the time that effort is better spent on something else. If your deck build already features (for example)
Dark Claw, go ahead and attack with Darkness Fang when it is advantageous.
Usage
While I am glad this Ability stacks, given what it is on it probably would have been better if Dark Shade added (a lot) more HP and but didn't stack. Why? This is an Eeveelution; in the expected Eeveelution deck, the main goal is to cover Weakness and tap a variety of effects, which means something that is really only useful when run in multiples clashes with that goal. This isn't crippling to the card: you can always ignore other Eeveelutions or run a lot less than all of them. It just doesn't seem optimal from a design standpoint.
There are two Plasma Eeveelutions (
Leafon and
Flareon) that show some offensive potential, but the only reason they kind of work together with
Umbreon [Plasma] is
Flareon [Plasma] has an attack that does additional damage per Pokémon in your discard pile and the preferred
Eevee (
BW: Plasma Freeze 90/116) has an attack that for
colorless
searches up to three different Eeveelutions from your deck... an attack that means you'll want to run at least three Eeveelutions (space permitting).
Leafon [Plasma] doesn't have any synergy past the "default" for being a Team Plasma Eeveelution, but it is one of the few solid Grass-Type attackers, and its Energy Crush attack requires just :colorless while hitting for 20 points of damage times the number of Energy your opponent has attached to all of his or her Pokémon in play - half an X-Ball.
Summary
So overall...
Umbreon [Plasma] is probably the third best of what we got, but the two better cards are still "iffy" and describing the rest as "probably not" is being kind. Toy with it as it can be very fun, but don't expect it to do so well at the tournament scene... unlike
Deoxys EX (and all the advantages I mentioned for selecting it as your swarming Bench-sitter of choice), when
Garbodor hits the field and Garbotoxin goes Active, you suddenly have a Bench full of easy OHKOs that are neither fast nor strong attackers.
Ratings
Unlimited: Too many effects bypass HP and too many actual attackers are going to score the OHKO anyway.
1/10
Modified: Umbreon [Plasma] still shows some promise, but it isn't the most "efficient" option in a format even more focused upon that than usual.
5/10
Limited: As usual, you take what you can get this format and the Eeveelution family really strengthens each other here. Even if you just get an
Eevee and a single
Umbreon [Plasma], it is a solid Stage 1 Pokémon and should only be skipped if you lack enough Team Plasma Pokémon to take advantage of the Ability
or you can't run
Darkness Energy to enable attacking. 9.5/10
