aroramage |
Tired of dealing with the same old
Pokemon-EX? Want to go back to the days when big Basics
was usually just 130 HP legendary prints? Or maybe you'd
like something from the good ol days coming back in a
modified form? Give a Pokemon the EX treatment and make
it better?
Enter Kyurem-EX!
...again!
So Kyurem-EX here is reminiscent of
Kyurem from waaaaaaaaaaay back in Noble Victories
similar to how the last Kyurem-EX in Plasma Blast was.
And by that, I mostly mean he stole an attack off of
that Kyurem. Whereas PLB Kyurem-EX nabbed Outrage, AOR
Kyurem-EX here grabbed Glaciate, which for a hefty 3
Energy (2 of which need to be Water), he'll hit the
board with 30 damage to all of your opponent's Pokemon.
This is a quick way to inflict a lot of damage and set
up most of the board for lots of KOs all around, and now
with a bit more body to him, he can last a bit longer to
deal more damage overall.
The nice thing about this though is
the addition of the legendary ICECALIBUR!! With this
frozen sword of the gods clutched between his claws,
Kyurem can swipe across the foes and turn them into
frozen statues, keeping them in place! Although it does
cost one discarded Energy, it does keep the Defending
Pokemon from attacking next turn, forcing a switch from
your opponent if they want to be able to hit Kyurem-EX
on their next turn!
So you've got an old-fashioned AOE
attack in Glaciate and a stern staunch "NOPE" in the
form of ICECALIBUR!! Sounds pretty neat...buuuuuut that
attacks do cost quite a bit. Sure, you could run this as
a secondary attacker with Primal Kyogre-EX and benefit
from Tidal Splash (it's about the only real means of
Water acceleration at the moment), but you might
honestly be better off with Regice, since while it
doesn't do the whopping 130 damage that ICECALIBUR does,
it does protect itself with its Resistance Blizzard much
more than ICECALIBUR, which only marks off the Defending
Pokemon rather than the Blizzard's general EX clause.
Still, don't let that make you
overlook Kyurem-EX - he's still very powerful, and
Glaciate alongside Tidal Splash can wrack up the damage
counter to a point where even Regice can start KOing
things on his own if your opponent doesn't take action.
And in a game where action is a necessary function to
win the game, getting frozen in place is a dangerous
lockdown.
Now to make sure it ain't too
clunky...
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (a fairly solid
Pokemon-EX in his own right, just needs a little support
to get off the ground with those expensive attacks, and
he combines well with some of the other Water decks out
there alright)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (Blastoise!! he
makes this work much more smoothly, meaning Kyurem-EX
could be a deck type of his own, though it's also not an
absolute necessity)
Limited: 5/5 (an absolute must-run;
more damage set-ups and ICECALIBUR in a set without
Switch make things difficult for your opponent to work
around)
Arora Notealus:
ICECALIBURRRRRRRRRR!!!
Next Time: Another one of those
mystical four-legged fish!
|
Otaku |
I need to preface this article by pointing out that I still
haven’t learned of the results for the second week of
the Autumn Regional Championships. I won’t bother
with excuses: just know that if I state something that
is clearly contradicted by who/what won in the
second week, it is because I really don’t know it and
not because I’m trying to argue against facts already in
evidence.
Kyurem-EX
(XY: Ancient Origins 25/98, 86/98) is a
Water-Type in the Pokémon Trading Card game (in the
video games, it is a Dragon/Ice Dual-Type). There
are some “anti-Water-Type” cards but they aren’t very
good; you might encounter them in Theme Deck matches or
similar restricted cardpool situations, but that is
about it (though they can be problematic there).
Water Resistance used to be pretty typical of
Grass-Types (namely the TCG Grass-Types that were also
at least part Grass-Type in the video games) during the
BW-era but seems to have been phased out for the XY-era;
you’ll encounter it often enough for it to be an issue,
but mostly because of the danger of forgetting it when
calculating damage yields as opposed to it being a more
serious problem. Water Weakness is almost
universal on Fire-Types and is seen on a decent chunk of
Fighting-Types; it isn’t the best Weakness to hit but it
should do you some good. The support for the
Water-Type is present but not as thorough as the top
Types in the format; a Type being the best does not mean
the best decks or cards in the metagame must belong to
it and indeed, some Water-Types are key parts of the
current top decks in Expanded. Part of this may be
because a lot of the best this Type has to offer isn’t
restricted to its kin; tricks like Keldeo-EX with
Float Stone can function in almost any deck while
the well known Blastoise (BW: Boundaries
Crossed 31/149, BW: Plasma Storm 137/135,
BW: Plasma Blast 16/101) can behoove anything that
can run on (mostly) basic Water Energy cards.
All said, it is a nice start.
Being a
Basic Pokémon is unambiguously the best right now:
fewest cards to get into play (just itself), no time
spent waiting to Evolve and a natural synergy with many
card effects due to both of the previous traits.
If that wasn’t enough, in Expanded there are even a few
pieces of Basic Stage support. Being a Pokémon-EX
though has some big, built in drawbacks for only the
possibility of benefits: unless the specific Pokémon-EX
has an effect to counteract it, all give up an extra
Prize when KOed, are excluded by certain beneficial
effects and are the target of certain negative (at least
for them - usually quite positive for the card that has
it) effects. Pokémon-EX are usually allowed better
attributes and effects than non-Pokémon-EX (especially
when compared to other Basic Pokémon) and that at least
holds true for this card’s HP: it has 180 HP, 50 more
than we’ve seen on a Basic that is not a
Pokémon-EX and only exceeded by Mega Evolutions,
Wailord (BW: Dragons Exalted 26/124),
Wailord-EX, Team Aqua’s Kyogre-EX and Team
Magma’s Groudon-EX. Nothing is totally safe
from being OHKOed in the current cardpool: even stuff
with effects specifically to protect against such a
thing can be bypassed! 180 is tricky for most decks to
rapidly, reliably and repeatedly OHKO; one of the three
is probable, two of the three is common but all three at
once only shows up in a few decks (though it includes
some of the top decks in the current format).
Metal
Weakness is not best Weakness to have: that is “none”.
It isn’t the safest of the current Weaknesses to have (I
think), but neither is it the worst. The main
place I expect to encounter a Metal-Type attacker is in
a Bronzong (XY: Phantom Forces 61/119)
deck which (based on Week 1 results) is going to focus
on M Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies
76/108, 105/108) as the main attacker, and that can
already OHKO you regardless of Weakness. It still
matters of course, such as when your opponent running
such a deck can send up a Heatran (XY: Phantom
Forces 63/119) or similar alternate attacker for a
OHKO and only risk giving up a single Prize if you OHKO
it back. The lack of Resistance is the worst, but
it is also the most commonly seen. The Resistance
mechanic is also far less influential than the Weakness
mechanic (...that is a good thing!) so it feels like
more of a missed opportunity than a real defect.
Finishing off the bottom of the card is the Retreat Cost
of [CCC]; this is pricey enough (both up front and in
terms of recovery) that even with Energy acceleration
you still should run something to bring the cost down or
avoid paying it all together.
So at
last we come to what Kyurem-EX can do and that is
“attack”: no Ability or Ancient Trait here. For
[WWC] it can use “Glaciate” to hit the opponent’s Active
and Bench for 30 damage (each), while for [WWWC]
it can use the awesome sounding “Icecalibur” attack to
deliver a 130 point blow to the opponent’s Active, with
the added effect that you discard an Energy attached to
Kyurem-EX itself and then the Defending Pokémon
cannot attack during your opponent’s next turn.
The way it is worded, I think discarding an Energy is an
effect and not a “cost” (for the few cards where that
would matter) and it does not seem worded so that
the final effect (Defending Pokémon cannot attack next
turn) is dependent up the discard (which will likely
never matter, but just in case). Before getting
into specifics, this is a card that will need
Energy acceleration, and not something easy like a
Double Colorless Energy. Of the noteworthy
options, I think you’re down to just Blastoise or
M Kyogre-EX, which also makes the [C] cost seem
kind of pointless; might as well be another [W] and give
the attacks a bit more damage. Without any Energy
acceleration, it would take three whole turns to do
anything and four to access the “big” attack on the
card.
Glaciate is a not a new attack, showing up first on
regular ol’ Kyurem (BW: Noble Victories
34/101, BW: Black Star Promos BW44, BW:
Legendary Treasures 43/113) and even for a very
brief time playing a role in an established deck.
I am unsure how useful it is right now; with Sky
Field and accompanying full Bench a not uncommon
sight, you could be looking at up to 270 points of
damage but against no Bench it is just the 30 to the
Active. A Bench of two is required for a just
barely adequate return, with three being solid and four
or more finally seeming “good”. Icecalibur jure
barely delivers adequate damage for the investment, but
I’m not so sure about the effect: getting out of it
should just require Benching the Defending Pokémon, with
anything else (or the same Pokémon if you can get it
Active again) then attacking with no problem, while you
are still out an Energy. If you push to get into
OHKO range of typical Pokémon-EX (170 or 180 HP) with
say Muscle Band plus Hypnotoxic Laser plus
Virbank City Gym, the discard becomes purely a
penalty because Knocked Out Pokémon cannot attack
anyway. For the purposes of a 2HKO, you have just
enough before defensive buffs so that is probably the
intended purpose. The attacks have no synergy save
common Energy Types, barely staggered cost and the fact
that the weaker attack might set-up for the second to
finish something off. That might sound like a lot
but the only aspect not common to most Pokémon is the
Bench damage setting up for future Icecalibur hits (and
again, that makes the Energy discard and effect rather
pointless). It really feels like we’ve got two
supporting attacks with one made overly large to try to
pass as a “big” attack, and it doesn’t work.
There
are a lot of cards with “Kyurem” in the name, but
the TCG only limits counts based on name (maximum of
four, barring basic Energy cards) or specific text on
the cards (like Ace Specs), so with one exception we
won’t worry about the likes of Black Kyurem,
Black Kyurem-EX, Kyurem, White Kyurem
or White Kyurem-EX… but that still leaves
us with two other “plain” Kyurem-EX, though they
are not Standard legal (only for Expanded). The
older of the two has been released four times: twice in
BW: Next Destinies (38/99 and 96/99) then once as
BW: Black Star Promos BW37 and BW: Legendary
Treasures 44/113. The more (but not most)
recent is BW: Plasma Blast 30/101. The only
game relevant differences between these two and today’s
card are the attacks, and each still has two. BW:
Next Destinies 38/99 (and reprints) can use “Frozen
Wings” for [WCC] to hit for 60 damage and discard a
Special Energy from the opponent’s Active Pokémon.
For [WWCC] it can use “Hail Blizzard” to hit for 120
damage, but can’t use the the attack twice in a row
without “resetting” its effect. We
reviewed it
back when it was new and were pretty generous; it was
part of the first wave of Pokémon-EX and we assumed that
cards like Mewtwo-EX would be rare, instead of
roughly once-or-twice-per-wave. Even if it was
good then, it isn’t good now, with both attacks being
overpriced or underpowered or perhaps even both.
BW:
Plasma Blast
30/101 sports “Outrage” for [CC], hitting for 30 damage
plus 10 more for each damage counter on itself, while
for [WWCC] it can use “Gigafrost” to do 150 damage, but
you also have to discard two [W] Energy from itself.
These are better attacks than the older version, though
Gigafrost is still a little overpriced. It
was also reviewed when it was new and I think the numerical scores for it are about
right, though I may have been a bit generous in the
written details. Simply put it is a solid
beatstick but most decks that could/would consider it
had (and still have) better options, though the release
of Muscle Band keeps it a “solid” but surpassed
beatstick for decks with [W] Energy acceleration.
I don’t think there is any real synergy between these
cards and the different versions; I guess Glaciate does
help set-up some 2HKOs for Gigafrost. The thing
is, the real competition is coming from
elsewhere.
First
the exception I mentioned earlier: Black Kyurem-EX,
specifically BW: Plasma Storm 95/135. The
name is different so only overall deck space keeps you
from maxing out both should a deck call for it, and much
like the other versions of Kyurem-EX it is quite
similar to today’s card: different Type (Dragon),
different Weakness (Dragon) and different attacks
(though still two total). “Slash” for [CCC] does a
vanilla 60 and is basically an emergency fall back
attack (60 for three is about 30 shy of acceptable).
“Black Ballista” needs [WWLC] and discards three Energy
from Black Kyurem-EX itself, but the reward is
200 points of damage. Even the off-Type Energy
requirement didn’t keep it from becoming the
attacker for Blastoise decks, including during
one of the deck’s previous times in ascendance.
The main reason it isn’t anymore is that Mega Evolutions
finally took hold and with them, HP scores that
regularly exceeded 200: once Black Ballista stopped
being a reliable OHKO, it stopped being worth the
hassle. Which brings us to the real reason today’s
Kyurem-EX just doesn’t seem worth it: too many
better options (that still are better options).
Keldeo-EX
has 10 less HP and what I believe to be a riskier
Weakness (Grass) but you get its “Rush In” Ability and
its “Secret Sword” attack. Both are amazing,
though at times their value has waned. Right now
though both are great and have made it the “big bruiser”
attacker for Blastoise decks once again. Suicune
(BW: Plasma Blast 20/101) and Regice (XY:
Ancient Origins 24/108) are “protected” attackers,
each with an effect that prevents damage and effects by
attacks of Pokémon-EX. Articuno (XY: Roaring
Skies 17/108) is flippy but its Ancient Trait (Δ
Plus) let’s it take an extra Prize when it scores a KO.
All of these gain some benefit from Glaciate, but even
if that was enough, since we are discussing Expanded
that means the original Kyurem is an option to
use the exact same attack, but on a 130 HP body worth
only a single Prize. Plut its Outrage attack is
fairly nice as well. In Limited play it’s a great
pull, but not as good as you expect of a Pokémon-EX.
Why? While the attack effects and the attributes
are marvelous for Limited, the Energy costs make it
clunky to mix with other Types and a bit slow for my
liking to run completely on its own. You certainly
can and expect some great results, the margin for error
however is much smaller.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
2.75/5
Limited:
4.25/5
Summary:
All hope isn’t lost for Kyurem-EX, but I’m not
seeing much of a use for the card. It has some
decent but pricey attacks on a solid enough foundation,
but everything it does, something else does better and
the package deal doesn’t beat out the next best thing.
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