Introduction
With the advent of the Villain Arc’s conclusion, Pokemon Masters EX has graciously (or ungraciously) provided the opportunity to get a random Rocket Admin from a variety scout amongst a new Giovanni and his fellow admins for a new Variety scout, the first since Courtney’s release almost a year ago. In this article, we’ll briefly talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each pair, and talk about what it means based on what random admin you pick up from the ticket.
Giovanni & Rhydon
Sync Pair Overview
Giovanni and Rhydon are a 5* Ground-type Field Variety Sync Pair. Giovanni takes after several traits from his Sygna Suit as a powerful offensive Ground type, though he also compresses various utility capabilities. As a field, his sync move sets up Ground Zone while his signature Crushing Earthquake sets up Sandstorm the first time it’s used, which is extended with his Giovanni’s Experience passive, which also protects all allies from damage and powers up his own moves in sand. Like his Sygna Suit, Giovanni also has two other coverage moves in Surf and ICy Wind alongside Hit the Gas 5. Sufficiency wise, Ferocious Entry 6 gives him instant setup while his Trainer Move, Do Not Defy Me!, gives an ally of choice Free Move Next, Critical Hit Next, Super Effective Next, and a stack of Physical and Special Move Up Next in sand. This works hand in hand with Critical Crit 9 in his grid for himself to always land critical strike, another trait reminiscent of his old Sygna Suit. Apart from this utility, Giovanni can attach Catalytic Kick to the Trainer Move on the grid to provide move gauge acceleration as well as drop Special Defense for Ice builds with Icy Wind, which can be helpful with Neo Champion Red as the new resident Ice type. Most importantly,
Giovanni also gets the EX Strike role for a field, which, alongside the Ground Zone, gives him an especially powerful nuke with Haymaker and Sand Blaster 9 in the grid. While not as brutishly powerful as his Sygna Suit variant, Giovanni comes pretty close to replicating that, while also providing some excellent sand, zone, and other amazing utilities.
Sync Grids
Proton & Golbat
Sync Pair Overview
Proton and Golbat are a Flying-type Support Variety Sync Pair. Proton is indisputably the best unit amongst the existing Rocket Admins due to him having the most cohesive and illustrious profile. His Trainer Move, I’ll Show You Wrath!, features +1 stat rank boosts to Speed, accuracy and crit and a +1 Special Moves Up Next Boost, which can be further hastened by another All Ramped Up 1 in his grid for a +2 Special Attack, +1 Speed, +1 crit and +1 stack combination. His ability to compress both an Aggravation Air Slash and Confuse Ray with an innate Stop Hitting Yourself 5 gives him obnoxious crowd control, while his signature passive, Proton’s Plan, also gives him a permanent Move Gauge Refresh and Revenge Boost 9. Proton can further complement his already amazing aggressive profile with grid options such as Team Sync Think 9 and Mind Boggler 9 which further boosts the special output of his team. Defensively, his innate X Special Defense All pairs alongside grid options such as Team Body Bracing Infliction 2 for his team in addition to his interferences, as well as Curative Confusion 1, Hit and Heal and Safety Tether for himself alongside a surprisingly robust statline.
While not groundbreaking, Proton is an incredibly useful Support for his functions and as an added bonus, is the least reliant on duplicate copies relative to his peers.
Sync Grids
Due to how expensive Proton’s grid is, dedicating between aggressive and slower builds are preferable. This build prefers to optimize Proton’s ability to provide stat buffs and stats for faster matches.
Aggravation 1 Air Slash is typically used in longer matches where getting increments from Mind Boggler is easier.
Archer & Houndoom
Sync Pair Overview
Archer and Houndoom are a Dark-type Sprint Variety Sync Pair. His signature passive, Archer’s Proposal, lowers the Speed of all enemy sync pairs whenever an attack move is used, and two stat ranks when his sync move is used. Archer’s Trainer Move, Don’t Care for That!, reduces his sync countdown by one and raises the Speed and evasiveness of his entire party by three stat ranks, though it is only a single use. As a Sprint, his ability to compress his innate Head Start 1, his Trainer Move and Propulsion 9 alongside a cookied Head Start gives him very fast ramping capabilities, though he lacks the utilities to complement it synergistically. With his attack moves being Bite and Flame Charge and his other TM being X Attack, Archer’s grid gears him towards a status spreading role with access to Gobsmack 4, Aggravation 1 for Bite, and Scorching Touch 4 for Flame Charge, which allows him to function well against certain stages requiring such status such as Uxie and Cobalion. His grid also doubles down onto his Speed-dropping penchant with an additional Trip Up 9 tile, Trip Wire 2, and scaling steroids such as Chase Down 5, Cakewalk, and Speedster’s Sync 5 to provide his sync with decent value.
Unfortunately, Archer suffers from poor sufficiency with only Sharp Entry 1 in the grid as a crit source and slow attack buffing and speed debuffing, and generally prefers to be a facilitator to other distributed Cakewalk users such as Raihan and Duraludon or Victor and Rillaboom, though they also have compositions that prefer other alternatives.
Sync Grids
Petrel & Weezing
Sync Pair Overview
Petrel and Weezing are a Poison-type Strike Variety Sync Pair. Petrel is a surprisingly potent Strike sync pair despite his design, though players may have better luck taking Emma and Crobat for that role, who will be available on a select scout over his release. His extraordinarily high attacking stats are let down a bit by the low base power of his moves, Clear Smog and Sludge Bomb, and awkward scaling; notably, while the net output of four tiles, his attacking stats, and Unbuffed Foe Sync Up 5 and Virulent Toxin 3 lead to an excellent nuke, the combination of all these traits by himself can be difficult to achieve. Thankfully, Petrel appreciates synergies with both existing Poison facilitators in Fall Iris and Oleana, both of whom complement Petrel with stat drops of his own and apply Poison for his decently powerful Striker nuke to work with. His carbon copy Trainer Move from Ghetsis, Mwahahaha!, increases defense by two stat ranks and crit by three stat ranks in addition to giving Super Effective Up Next and Enduring on its single use, while he has X Special Attack, which can be complemented with Grand Entry 2 or Brain Gain 9 I his grid. While a Striker, his signature passive, Petrel’s Ploy, gives all of his attacks a 30% rate to drop Special Defense by one stat rank or flinch separately, while he also has other grid utilities such as Ruthless Toxin 9, Mind Games 9 on Clear Smog, Hostile Environment for more reliable self-poisons, and Unbuffed Foe Freebie 4, which is especially useful in compositions compressing both Fall Iris and Oleana to maintain overall gauge.
Petrel’s two other passives as Last Word, which goes hand in hand with his high attack and incentives him to tank in aggressive compositions, as well as Piercing Blows, which makes him excellent in the Legendary Gauntlet in response to a vast majority of gimmicks. Petrel also gets access to a Support EX role, further amplifying his penchant for fast, explosive and semi tanking qualities with an even bigger upside.
Sync Grids
Ariana & Arbok
Sync Pair Overview
Ariana and Arbok are a Poison-type Tech Variety Sync Pair. Ariana is a mass debuffer with a variety of drops to use from Acid On a Roll 9 and Screech, which can be reduced by an additional stage through her grid. Her signature passive, Ariana’s Coercion, lowers the Attack and Special Attack of all enemy sync pairs on entry by two stages, which can be furthered with grid passives such as Terrify 1 and Discourage 1 for up to three immediate drops. Her Trainer Move, You Dare…!, grants her good sufficiency for her sync move with +4 Attack, +3 crit and Gradual Healing, with her sync nuke scaling off how many drops her target has. She also has access to Poison Fang, which can provide guaranteed badly poison with the Hostile Environment 1 tile in her grid. This pairs well with her Attack Trap 4 passive that provides trap to all her attacks, allowing her to function as a reliable stall component and anti Uxie option for Legendary Gauntlets. Ariana changes noticeably through the grid with access to Overwhelm to further drop Attack as well as sync focused tiles in the form of Interference Sync 5 and Relentless.
Notably, Ariana is also the first Tech unit with access to a Strike EX role, meaning that her sync nuke is distributed towards all targets, the first to benefit from such an amazing, centralizing buff. Her focus on single target drops despite good debuffing speed makes her difficult to justify over existing accessible options despite her excellent compression of gauntlet favorable traits. Ariana’s appearance off the wake of a far better Poison-type in Oleana and the recently released Variety Kiawe also makes her difficult to justify comparatively over places who have had access to them if she isn’t invested.
Sync Grids
Conclusion
So, what happens based on what I get from the free ticket? While all four units are likely to be good additions to your team, here’s a general idea on what to expect when you get each?
Proton is likely the best pair of the four when uninvested as a Support, and he also has justifiable uses even over the more Gauntlet savvy units in Petrel and Ariana due to access to stat drops and interference, notably the ever-reliable Aggravation 1 flinch. His base kit also already compresses most of what he wants to do from reliable Special Attack increments, good speed, and base status options.
After Proton, it can be difficult to justify Petrel and Ariana if you have access to Oleana or Emma (who is rerunning in a Fair select scout), but they are also fine choices nevertheless, especially if a reliable response to the Legendary Gauntlet is needed; Petrel tends to be less replicable for his role as second fiddle only to Emma as an offensive Poison-type, and is a valuable grab for most newer players where the best poison types tend to be limited; meanwhile, while Ariana faces much stiffer competition as a debuffer from even free units such as Lucian and the Masked Royal, Ariana’s access to Strike EX role also means her powerful distributed nuke is incredibly potent despite lacking in DPS as opposed to Petrel’s Support EX role. Nevertheless, Ariana’s reduced reliance on dupes relative to Petrel for the reward means that Ariana is arguably the better pair of the two.
Finally, Archer is arguably the worst of the four despite being the leading admin for several reasons: as a Sprint, Archer’s reliance on specific, heavily unavailable candies and being the most dupe reliant for his full utilities makes him the least desirable both uninvested and even if one has the resources to commit to him. As the only unit that lacks sufficiency relative to his peers, he is less independent despite having a more powerful sync nuke than Ariana by virtue of his Tech EX role alongside his Sprint, and how the synergies and uses one can get from his stat dropping utilities are needed, and how there are better alternative sources of sync countdown acceleration out there. Nevertheless, Archer’s ability to compress burn, flinch, ramp and speed drops when invested still makes him equally potent as his fellow admins in the Legendary Gauntlet.
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