Name: Rayquaza ex

Type: Colorless

Stage: Basic

HP: 100

Weakness: Colorless

Resistance: Water, Fighting

Retreat: CC

Attack#1: (C) Spiral Growth

Flip a coin until tails.  For each heads, search your discard pile for a basic Energy card and attach it to Rayquaza ex.

 

Attributes: Since there are no other Rayquaza ex (or Rayquaza), the best comparisons can be drawn from the other Colorless, Basic Pok¨¦mon ex: Chansey ex, Latias ex, and Latios ex.  Before I forget-hurray!  It¡¯s a basic, and that¡¯s as good as it gets; you can drop it into play the moment you get it.  In Unlimited, there are also some useful basics that Colorless and pretty high on the HP: Base Set Chansey, Lickitung, and Kangaskahn spring to mind.  First, being colorless is not so great in Unlimited, what with the ease of adding Sprout Tower, and the option of adding an Unown N should a colorless Pok¨¦mon ever prove too problematic.  In Eon, this is fine since you don¡¯t have to worry about Resistance and you even see Weakness to it now..  100HP is good¡­ when you aren¡¯t a Pok¨¦mon ex.  Since this is a Pok¨¦mon ex, it¡¯s the minimum acceptable in my opinion.  It does beat out Latias/Latios ex, though it falls short of Chansey ex.  We even have a normal Chansey from Aquapolis with 100 HP in Eon.  On the Unlimited front, it also falls short of Base Set Chansey, though it beats most other comers by 10.  Weakness is Colorless, which hurts it: both formats have strong Colorless Pok¨¦mon, and in Unlimited, you could be FTKO¡¯d by an Erika¡¯s Jigglypuff!  The Resistances are nice: we have Water, something that always seems to get a lot of play in Eon (Blaziken/Exeggutor is strong, and non-Grass Weak Water really hurts it).  In Unlimited, this just annoys the occasional Raindance deck.  The Fighting Resistance won¡¯t get much use (currently) in Modified, but is great for rendering Tyrogue useless in unlimited.  Compared to its competition though, Colorless is much less painful (or what they have).  Last we come to Retreat:  it¡¯s two.  This is low enough you can pay it, but high enough you should try to avoid it.  Only Base Set Chansey tops it with a cost of only 1.

 

Abilities:  Spiral Growth is a good attack for only costing (C).  Pity they just didn¡¯t make it a Poke-Power, since having to wait a turn between attacks (for significant damage) slows it down.  Still, for (C), nabbing one energy 50% of the time, or two 25% of the time, or three 12.5%, etc. is fair.  Note, not ¡°extreme¡±, not great, but fair.  This attack is important though due to the nature of the second attack.  Dragon Burst gives you a lot of damage for a lot of discard.  It requires 2 different Energy types to activate, Fire and Electric.  From there, you choose to discard all of one or the other energy from Rayquaza ex.  Then your opponent takes 40 damage for each energy discarded this way.  Normally, I treat an energy discard as being worth an extra copy of that energy in the attack cost.  So, for example, you pay RRL to do 40.  Now you see why I am less than enamored with the card.  RRL for 40 is not good.  Now, in case you just skipped down, remember, what I said: I treat a discard of an energy type as being an extra requirement of that energy.  That also means that for RRRL we do 80.  That isn¡¯t so bad.  RRRRL for 120 is less nice, and from there, it goes down hill again.  The multi-energy requirement also hurts.  While it¡¯s nice to have options, these options aren¡¯t so great.  I would rather just have the attack do 40 for RL, to tell the truth.  That would be good in spite of the second color of energy required.  For additional energy types (other than colorless) I normally add about +5 to damage.  Doing that, by the way, just makes the attack seem more over-priced.  Now, in practice, this attack does end up being okay, just remember you are more or less getting what you pay for, and on a Pok¨¦mon ex to boot.  At least the attacks compliment each other.

 

Uses/Combinations: Juggler to get energy into the discard on your first turn.  The Blaziken (or any other Pok¨¦mon) that let you attach multiple Fire (or Electric) Energies in a turn.  One could make a three way combo using Roselia, The Holo-Expedition Charizard, and Rayquaza, I suppose.  Remember, anything that provides Fire Energy (or Electric) will have to be discarded if that is the energy type you chose, so if you pay for the odd energy out using a Rainbow, it still has to be discarded.  Since it dumps most of its energy, Pok¨¦mon Nurse is an option.  Miracle Sphere ¦Á might be a good idea: you could do 30 with Confusion and not have to discard (nice when finishing something with 30 or less HP off, of course).  Lastly, as a Pok¨¦mon ex, you know you should be running Super Scoop Up.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 2.75/5-There are a few deck ideas it might work well with.  Perhaps you could replace Macargo in an Encargo deck with it?  You¡¯d need some means of providing (L) Energy, but with the right cards, you could have a nice, fast hitter (just don¡¯t power him up too fast).  Any Fire or Electric deck that runs Rainbow or Multi in addition to normal energies of their type probably should consider him.  If a deck runs both, it¡¯s almost a given.

 

Modified: 3.75/5-I think it has a strong chance of being good deck for certain decks and a focus for its own deck.  Just don¡¯t do anything stupid like attach endless amounts of energy: just get what you need for the KO.

 

Limited: 3.5/5-Here, the main reason it rates low is that it will be half game over when it dies.  Still, if you run Lighting and/or Fire Energy, it can be a beast.  Most of your opponent¡¯s drafts will likely be KO¡¯d for RRL or RLL (plus the discard).  Its second attack will mean you should average a prize, from the point of powering up, roughly every other turn.  How so?  Okay, turn three it¡¯s ready to go with RRL and its active.  Discard the RR for 80 and a likely KO.  Next turn, attach an R (your deck should have plenty of energy) and use Spiral Growth.  If it fails, you should still have enough energy to attack the next turn.  If you can alternate energy types (attach an L instead) but still get the Fire Back, you can increase your KO rate.  Of course, Rayquaza ex will probably last only 3 turns, so you are better off loading it up on the bench for 2 big assaults, then trying to re-power after its first attack to get a third, slightly weaker shot.

 

A little rushed, but its dead weak (though I still have 2 of my 4 Finals Friday -_-).

 

-Otaku