Jirachi EX
- Thread starter Camoclone
- Start date
Mora said:
I did too with Lugia EX... game over in 2 turns. Rlol. (albeit, a very rare situation; but still was funny)
For once it's my intent to write an essay rather than a short post that somehow becomes one.
I despise Jirachi-EX. I have lost too many games thanks to it, and I wish I could burn every single copy of the card. I will never, ever play it in any deck in the future, ever again. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen someone lose because of Jirachi and continue to play it.... I wouldn't be wealthy, but i'd have some money to buy more cards with. Yet.... there are very valid arguments for playing Jirachi, and I agree with each and every one of them.
Let's start with the problems. You have a Pokemon-EX with 90 HP, and an awful attack. That's an invitation for disaster. That's an easy two prizes for your opponent, for them to at worst, take at their convenience, and at best, the end of the game. Additionally, the Ability triggers only when it's put into play during your turn. If you're unlucky enough to open with it, it served you no purpose, and you have a bright red (well, gold and silver-ish) bullseye sitting in the active slot. Switching out becomes your first priority, and that means wasting resources that youcould otherwise have saved for more lucrative ventures. You've either wasted a Switch or a Float Stone, or an energy if you need to retreat manually. Not to mention you need to scramble to get another basic out. I don't ever want to be put in any of these situations, especially when playing an aggressive deck that needs to start racking up damage from the get-go. And I'll be sure to take the most adventage of my opponent any time I see Jirachi on their feild.
So.... why do people play Jirachi-EX? Consistency is one answer, but it doesn't really stop there. Not getting a Supporter in your opening hand sucks. You have no indication of when you'll top deck one, and that can get pretty unnerving, especially if your opponent got an explosive start. But so long as you have an Ultra Ball in your hand (or Jirachi-EX itself), you can turn that dead draw into into gold. Play Jirachi, search out your Juniper, and get the plays rolling. That's great, and if Jirachi worked so perfectly without being a liability, I would certainly put it in every single deck. Heck, if it weren't an EX, I'd be sure to play it, perhaps even two.
But Sellar Guidance has another use. If you didn't need to bench Jirachi early on, it's best not to throw it away if possible, but to save it for the late game. You can watch your opponent's jaw draw drop when you play it, search out a Lysandre and take your last two prizes. It happens, and it feels good when you pull it off. Sadly that means storing Jirachi in your hand /deck until that point, and if you don't have a draw Supporter in hand earlier in the game, you'll need to give it up so you can Juniper.
A bench-sitting Jirachi is also slightly less horrible than it seems. Yes, it's an easy two prizes, but it's not hurting anyone. The opponent will need to deal with your big damage-dealers if they want to stay ahead. Wasting a turn to KO a Jirachi rather than attacker will put you up on prizes in the short term, but if you keep that Genesect with the G-Booster undamaged (or something like that), you're going to get run over pretty quickly. The problem is when there's only one or two prizes left. More often than not, Jirachi will have to be played early or discarded, rather than saved for a power play, and will have been sitting around for quite a few turns. When the opponent is only two prizes away from a win, they will make every effort to Lysandre Jirachi for the easy KO.
To me, the costs simply outweigh the benefits here. Stellar Guidance is amazing, and there is no other card in the format that perfectly reproduces it. Computer Search can grab Supporters, but there's better things to search for if possible. Skyla means you can't play the Supporter you took until next turns, and that can be just too slow. I think VS Seeker comes pretty close though, and I'd much rather run that in droves. While you need Supporters in the discard to use it, that's hardly a problem in the mid-late game. Jirachi can get you out of an early game pickle, but then you go through all the troubles that I outlined in the paragraphs above. So... the moral is to play Jirachi at your own risk. It can do some amazing things, but be aware of just what you're getting into.
I despise Jirachi-EX. I have lost too many games thanks to it, and I wish I could burn every single copy of the card. I will never, ever play it in any deck in the future, ever again. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen someone lose because of Jirachi and continue to play it.... I wouldn't be wealthy, but i'd have some money to buy more cards with. Yet.... there are very valid arguments for playing Jirachi, and I agree with each and every one of them.
Let's start with the problems. You have a Pokemon-EX with 90 HP, and an awful attack. That's an invitation for disaster. That's an easy two prizes for your opponent, for them to at worst, take at their convenience, and at best, the end of the game. Additionally, the Ability triggers only when it's put into play during your turn. If you're unlucky enough to open with it, it served you no purpose, and you have a bright red (well, gold and silver-ish) bullseye sitting in the active slot. Switching out becomes your first priority, and that means wasting resources that youcould otherwise have saved for more lucrative ventures. You've either wasted a Switch or a Float Stone, or an energy if you need to retreat manually. Not to mention you need to scramble to get another basic out. I don't ever want to be put in any of these situations, especially when playing an aggressive deck that needs to start racking up damage from the get-go. And I'll be sure to take the most adventage of my opponent any time I see Jirachi on their feild.
So.... why do people play Jirachi-EX? Consistency is one answer, but it doesn't really stop there. Not getting a Supporter in your opening hand sucks. You have no indication of when you'll top deck one, and that can get pretty unnerving, especially if your opponent got an explosive start. But so long as you have an Ultra Ball in your hand (or Jirachi-EX itself), you can turn that dead draw into into gold. Play Jirachi, search out your Juniper, and get the plays rolling. That's great, and if Jirachi worked so perfectly without being a liability, I would certainly put it in every single deck. Heck, if it weren't an EX, I'd be sure to play it, perhaps even two.
But Sellar Guidance has another use. If you didn't need to bench Jirachi early on, it's best not to throw it away if possible, but to save it for the late game. You can watch your opponent's jaw draw drop when you play it, search out a Lysandre and take your last two prizes. It happens, and it feels good when you pull it off. Sadly that means storing Jirachi in your hand /deck until that point, and if you don't have a draw Supporter in hand earlier in the game, you'll need to give it up so you can Juniper.
A bench-sitting Jirachi is also slightly less horrible than it seems. Yes, it's an easy two prizes, but it's not hurting anyone. The opponent will need to deal with your big damage-dealers if they want to stay ahead. Wasting a turn to KO a Jirachi rather than attacker will put you up on prizes in the short term, but if you keep that Genesect with the G-Booster undamaged (or something like that), you're going to get run over pretty quickly. The problem is when there's only one or two prizes left. More often than not, Jirachi will have to be played early or discarded, rather than saved for a power play, and will have been sitting around for quite a few turns. When the opponent is only two prizes away from a win, they will make every effort to Lysandre Jirachi for the easy KO.
To me, the costs simply outweigh the benefits here. Stellar Guidance is amazing, and there is no other card in the format that perfectly reproduces it. Computer Search can grab Supporters, but there's better things to search for if possible. Skyla means you can't play the Supporter you took until next turns, and that can be just too slow. I think VS Seeker comes pretty close though, and I'd much rather run that in droves. While you need Supporters in the discard to use it, that's hardly a problem in the mid-late game. Jirachi can get you out of an early game pickle, but then you go through all the troubles that I outlined in the paragraphs above. So... the moral is to play Jirachi at your own risk. It can do some amazing things, but be aware of just what you're getting into.
My Little Keldeo said:
I'm going to give a disclaimer: Jirachi-EX does not belong in prize-denial decks (ie: Donphan) and *debatably* decks that really really need all their bench spaces all the time. (ie: Plasma, Fairybox). Now, onto the main argument:
If you're playing Jirachi EX for it's attack, then you should probably re-consider your approach to your deck. Absolutely nobody plays jirachi so that it can use Hypnostrike. I guess metal.dek can do it every once in a while with rush in/float stone or steel shelter, but they don't do that. ever. So really, the terrible attack isn't a reason to not play Jirachi, because you'd be using it incorrectly.
This is the one of the only, and I mean only reasons to ever consider not playing Jirachi-EX. Not wanting to start with it is valid. However, as I was discussing on Skype earlier, decks now play an exceedingly high amount of basic pokemon compared to the past. I rarely, if ever see decks go below 10 basics, so your odds of starting with a lone Jirachi-EX are very very low.
I'm happy you understand that Jirachi is not just used for consistency - there's a lot of people who actually don't understand this concept. Consistency is a big one, however, so I'll touch on that now. An extremely common counter-argument to the use of Jirachi-EX is the one you see at the end of this paragraph - it's an EX, and it (potentially) costs you 2 prize cards to get out of a dead draw. However, I'd like to point out that had you not gotten the Jirachi-EX out during your dead draw, then you were going to lose the game anyways. Jirachi-EX gives you a chance to come out and win the game, which you would not have otherwise had without it, so saying that Jirachi is a liability to be Lysandre'd in situations like this isn't really a fair argument in my opinion. You're essentially trading a 100% sure-loss situation for a chance to win. Nothing but upside.
Another reason people play Jirachi - to go get that game-winning Lysandre. Nothing to me feels worse than when my opponent has a damaged EX on their bench that they retreated/switched out, and I have no ways to get at it. I can play all the Junipers, Ns, and Colress's in the world, but that pokemon is still going to just sit there smirking at me unless I manually draw into the Lysandre/VS Seeker. Depending on how the early game went, the odds of this could be extremely low. Everybody knows to save their Lysandres/VS Seekers, but what if I was put into a desperate situation earlier and had to Juniper/Ultra Ball/Computer Search/Dowsing Machine one or more of them away? What if I've used all my VS Seekers on my Junipers to get out of my dead draws? Manually drawing into Lysandre for the win is extremely unreliable, Jirachi (and Ultra ball!) gives me extra outs to get the Lysandre for the win. And again, you're *technically* not wrong when you say that using the Jirachi early in the game to get out of the dead draw means you give up this opportunity. However again, if you don't play jirachi, then you never ever have this opportunity at all. Jirachi gives you a chance.
...eh. It's not a reason I include Jirachi, but it happens. I don't intentionally play it down to bait my opponents into Lysandreing it, because an experienced player wouldn't bite. But it happens I guess.
There's 1 extremely critical function of Jirachi that I think you missed here. Lysandre touches the surface of this reason, and it's the reason most people play Jirachi - to get the optimal supporter. It's another case of getting out of situations that would almost assuredly lose me the game. I can't tell you how many times I've had a hand with like, 3 Junipers and 2 Colress in it. Or 2 juniper and a bunch of Lasers/muscle bands. Being able to use Jirachi to grab an N is extremely important in this instance. If I just dump all the important cards from my hand wastefully, I will lose the game. Jirachi, while it's unfortunate that I have to play it down, still potentially saves me the game.
Grabbing Lysandre is cool, but grabbing N and putting my opponent down to 1 is sometimes even more important. Once again, if I have to manually draw into N/VS Seeker, my chance to have this exact supporter at the exact correct time is extremely low. Jirachi gives me extra outs to N in this instance. Not being able to N my opponent out of a Lysandre or a Colress can lose you the game. Is it possible that my opponent will potentially be able to Lysandre my Jirachi for the win later? yes. But it's better than guaranteeing that I will lose right then and there.
I would argue with this, actually. Jirachi is MUCH more useful than VS Seeker in almost all instances except the end game. VS Seeker is great for consistency because getting draw supporters into
the discard pile is easy, but getting the exact one you want isn't always that great. Ideally you want to Juniper early, but VS Seeker for Juniper when you have a hand full of resources isn't always what you want. VS Seekering for Lysandre is cool, but again, it doesn't work when Lysandre isn't in the discard pile. This can very easily be the case mid-game, because you seldom use Lysandre in the first 2 or 3 turns of the game. VS Seeker can also be locked up by Quaking Punch. You can make the argument that Ultra Balls can too, but Jirachi-EX itself is not. At that point it's just an extra card you could draw, which VS Seeker is not.
So to sum up, running Jirachi:
Pros:
~Getting out of Dead Draw situations that would lose you the game
~Having multiple extra outs to Lysandre both mid AND late-game
~Being able to get the optimal supporter rather than just any supporter you happen to draw (ie: Ning instead of junipering to save your resources, Ning my opponent to 1)
Cons:
~You could start with it
so,
I guess if the 1 con to you outweighs the plethora of useful instances, then I guess don't play Jirachi. However please don't go to your friends and complain that you lost because you Dead Drew/Just needed Lysandre/Just needed to N to 1/had to juniper away all of your resources, because Jirachi could have saved you in all of those instances.
tl;dr:
^This should be like stickied or something.
I love people playing Jirachi. I personally don't, but I love being able to take 3-4 prizes in one turn due to Greninja killing a Jirachi, and Miltank killing something else. Or better yet, kill Jirachi once with Greninja, then Target Whistle and Lysandre it back up for the second set of 2 prizes. One more thing to note: Jirachi shouldn't (usually) be played in a deck that doesn't use EXs in order to make a favorable prize trade.