For those in
an area observing Memorial Day, please set aside a few minutes
for a moment of silence to reflect upon those who have died
before you, and especially those who have laid down their lives
to preserve your own and your way of life. Even if you aren’t
celebrating the holiday, still consider a moment of silence.
Name:
Regice ex
Set:
EX Emerald
Card#:
98/106
Rarity:
Pokémon-ex
Pokémon-ex
Rule:
When Pokémon-ex has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2
Prize cards.
Type:
Water
Stage:
Basic
HP:
100
Weakness:
Metal
Resistance:
None
Retreat:
CCC
Attack#1:
Ice Beam [10]
Flip a coin.
If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed.
Attack#2:
Iceberg Crush [40]
If
Regirock ex is in play, flip a coin. If heads, discard 1
Energy attached to the Defending Pokémon.
Attributes:
Regice ex is a Basic Pokémon ex.
This means we really want to be as close to 120 HP as we can be
since a) that is the maximum we have seen so far for Basic
Pokémon-ex and b) it is worth two Prizes when it is Knocked Out,
so its almost like it has about half to two-thirds of its actual
LP. There is an exception though, and that is 100 HP. Sadly,
that is what this card has. The problem with 100 HP on a
Pokémon ex is Desert Ruins, a Stadium card that places a
damage counter between turns on all Pokémon ex with a maximum HP
of 100 in play. Due to it, 100 HP acts more like 80 or 90. If
the HP was 110 or 120, it wouldn’t be so bad to getting hurt by
that card. Why is 100 worse than 80
or 90? Because it seems like TPC considers it two be so when
designing the cards, thus in terms of total card balance, it
seems like the HP is considered more of an advantage than it
really is, and ends up costing the card in other places.
Otherwise, being a Basic is great since it means this card is
easy to drop into play. Sadly, it has no pre-Evolved forms or
Evolved forms, so it has to rely on just itself.
Regice ex
is a Water Pokémon, and as a whole this is pretty good: Weakness
is pretty common (almost universal amongst Fire Pokémon), but
Resistance is pretty rare and usually only found on a few Grass
Pokémon and even fewer “Dragon-types” (one of the subgroups of
Colorless Pokémon).
Regice ex
is Weak to Metal Pokémon. I always thought of Metal Weakness as
being particularly nasty: Metal Pokémon, thanks largely in part
to the bonuses they receive from Metal Energy tend to be
very hard to damage. Offsetting this is all but the biggest
hitting for relatively low damage. So when you are Weak to
them, they are hard to damage and hit for big damage. There is
no Resistance to balance this out, and aside from emphasizing I
don’t like it and hoping TPC listens, there is not much else to
do or say about it. The last “bottom” stat we come to is the
Retreat Cost: a hefty three Energy. While not the worst, it is
very hard to recover from paying that much Energy, so do your
best to avoid paying it by running cards to reduce the cost or
simply change out your Active Pokémon.
Abilities:
Regice ex has two attacks. Ice Beam is the de
facto inexpensive opening move you use while desperately trying
to power up your “main” move. Fortunately, in addition to the
paltry 10 damage, you have a 50% chance of
Paralyzing the opponent, making it a fairly decent stall
tactic. As it only requires a single Water Energy, you are
getting what you paid for.
Iceberg does
not impress me. Probably worried that an Energy removing attack
would be too powerful, this attack can only discard an Energy
card if a) Regirock ex is in play, and b) on a
successful coin toss. This reeks of over compensation: you pay
for 40 points of damage in terms of Energy put into the attack,
and all you get is a risky effect that requires running another
Pokémon-ex and said effect fails half the time. Had it
been per Regirock ex in play, we might have had
something.
Uses and
Combinations:
Looking pretty: this card just isn’t good enough, especially
since there is another Regice ex to consider using. You
could risk it in a Swampert deck I suppose.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5: Suicune ex is the Pokémon-ex for Raindance, not
this. Sadly, that is about the only place to consider using
this.
Modified:
1.75/5-Energy removing effects are so rare here, and it can work
out okay in a few decks (though not the best choice), but is
still sub par.
Limited:
4/5-Here we go. Even though it is worth two Prizes, it is still
a strong pick since it has a large amount of HP and can either
Paralyze or remove Energy (both of which should help the HP last
longer.
Summary
Well, I can’t
say this is a good card, but at least it doesn’t seem likely to
unbalance the format.
