aroramage |
Darkrai-EX is an interesting beast
in his own right. His attacks are both pretty powerful
with the right set-up. Dark Pulse hits for 20 damage for
every Dark Energy on all of your Pokemon, allowing it to
stack up to really high levels, though not usually so
quickly without some help from cards like Yveltal and
Dark Patch in Expanded. Then there's Dark Head, which
doubles its base damage output based simply on whether
or not the opponent's Active Pokemon is Asleep.
On his own though, Darkrai-EX
wouldn't be that great compared to his granddaddy from
Dark Explorers. HTL is probably one of the easier ways
in Expanded to get a Pokemon to fall Asleep, and that's
just a 50/50 coin toss that tacks on Poison in this
instance. However, two cards came out in the same set as
Darkrai-EX that built up the entire Sleep deck
archetype: Hypno and All-Night Party. Hypno could put
both Active Pokemon to Sleep, meaning you could use
All-Night Party to remove that Sleep, heal 30 damage,
and then hit for 160 damage using Dark Head. It's a
surprisingly powerful combo.
New age Darkrai-EX Sleep decks have
been around and about this format, and chances are
they'll continue to pop up from time to time, especially
if we get more Dark Energy support. Darkrai-EX himself
may even see play simply for Dark Pulse, giving him a
bit of longevity outside of the deck. He may not be as
dominating as his former self was, but at least he's not
unplayable without some sort of evolutionary trait.
...ya freaking Mega Evos.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (all things
considered, he's done really well for himself)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (perhaps
post-rotation boosted his performance once Night March
was out of the way)
Limited: 4/5 (I mean, who'd have
thought Sleep was going to be a big Status Condition in
any deck?)
Arora Notealus: I actually had a
pretty sour opinion on Darkrai-EX the first time I
reviewed him back in BREAKpoint. The combination of
cards needed to make him work seemed like a decent
investment, and Dark Pulse without the Energy
acceleration was just as effective as other versions of
the attack that suffered the same problem, like M
Gardevoir-EX's Brilliant Arrow which did the same thing
for slightly more damage for every Fairy Energy. But
hey, deck builders can always prove me wrong, I'm just a
guy reviewing cards after all.
Next Time: Time to BREAK into a
card that did something crazy for a while.
|
Otaku |
Our eighth most
important card of 2016 is Darkrai-EX (XY:
BREAKpoint 74/122, 118/122), originally reviewed
here.
Not in our top 10 countdown for that set, just as a
regular ol’ review. Why is that a big deal?
This card was an important part of half the Top 8 for
the Junior Division Top 8 at the 2016 World Championship
(including first place), three of the Top 8 finishers
for the Masters Division at Origins 2016 (again
including first place), and a fourth place finish for
the U.S. 2016 National Championship. Okay, okay,
so it isn’t like this won the Masters Division of the
2016 World Championship. How is it doing right
now? It started strong post rotation but has been
a bit up and down from what I can tell. Factor in
some of the cards that did make the XY:
BREAKpoint top 10 countdown that saw even less play
(or flat out bombed) and you can see why I’m starting
this review off with a mea culpa. I just did not
see the potential in this card. So… why did it
prove so good?
Being a Darkness
Type did not hurt; during its time being legal,
exploiting Darkness Weakness has actually proven
relevant thanks to Trevenant BREAK decks and
Night March decks; Darkness Weakness only shows up on
certain Psychic Types but the happen to play big roles
in those decks. Darkness Resistance actually can
be a bit of a problem; it is only found on the Fairy
Type and after some false starts, seems like they are
getting some good, winning decks out of that Type,
specifically where at least one Fairy Type is the main
attacker (and thus up front), instead of being a
Bench-sitter with another Type up front swinging away.
The Darkness Type is home to some great attackers, some
good support Pokémon, some decent tricks for [D] Energy,
etc. plus explicit Darkness Type Pokémon support like
Dark Patch and… well Dark Patch is the only
one that really matters anymore, but Item based Energy
acceleration from the discard pile is potent.
There are cards with effects that specifically counter
Darkness Type Pokémon and… they aren’t worth using, so
that’s another plus for the Type. Darkrai-EX is
also a Basic Pokémon, which remains the best Stage
because it’s the fastest to hit the field, the easiest
to work into a deck, and all the other benefits I
usually spell out. 180 HP isn’t special, but it is the
higher of the two typical amounts for Basic Pokémon-EX
and enough to often survive an attack. Fighting
Weakness is horribly dangerous, and the only really bad
thing in this section. Psychic Resistance isn’t
amazing, but it can come in handy from time to time.
The Retreat Cost of [CC] is high enough you prefer not
paying it but low enough you can without taking a huge
hit long term.
Then comes the
cards attacks. When we first reviewed Darkrai-EX,
I focused on its second attack “Dark Head”. It
costs [DCC] and does a solid 80 damage, plus its effect
adds another 80 damage if the opponent’s Active is
Asleep. 160 for three is great, needing just a small
+10 to +30 bonus to take out most things short of
Pokémon with some form of protection, HP buff,
Wailord-EX, and Mega Evolutions. That may
sound like a lot, but these are typical exceptions for
most “OHKO” strategies. There are combos to help
with inflicting Sleep, but it turns out there is a much
better approach to using Darkrai-EX: “Dark
Pulse”. Dark Pulse costs just [CC] to do 20 damage
plus another 20 for each [D] Energy you have in play.
That means if you pay for the attack with two basic
Darkness Energy, you’ll hit for at least 60 damage.
That’s pretty good for two Energy, but why would that
make Darkrai-EX so great? The nature of the
game: combos and the fact that setting up additional
attackers is its own reward. With cards like
Dark Patch (Expanded only), Max Elixir, and
Yveltal (XY 78/146; XY: Black Star
Promos XY06; Generations RC16/RC32; XY:
Steam Siege 65/114) you can try and get multiple
Energy into play fairly quickly. Then of course
there are the Darkrai-EX/Dragons variants.
You see, we have potent Dragon Types like Giratina-EX
(XY: Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98) that are
partnered with Darkrai-EX. Why? You
can then drop a Double Dragon Energy from hand
for an additional +40 damage, as it will provide two
units of Energy that count as all Types once it is
attached to a Dragon Type.
In Expanded play,
there is an older Darkrai-EX to consider as well,
Darkrai-EX (BW: Dark Explorers 63/108,
107/108; BW: Black Star Promos BW46; BW:
Legendary Treasures 88/113). It has the same
stats as today’s Darkrai-EX, but the Ability
“Dark Cloak” and the attack “Night Spear”. Dark
Cloak zeroes out the Retreat Cost of any of your Pokémon
with a source of [D] Energy attached, while Night Spear
costs [DDC] and does a solid 90 damage to the opponent’s
Active and 30 to one of his or her Benched Pokémon.
The original Darkrai-EX was one of the dominant
attackers when it first released, but as we got more and
more strong Pokémon-EX, it went from being a deck focus
to a more supporting role. When circumstances
favor it, though, it can still be a great attacker and
you probably should include at least one when running
today’s Darkrai-EX in Expanded. Getting
back to Darkrai-EX (XY: BREAKpoint 74/122,
118/122), it can work well in either Standard or
Expanded play, though the latter is likely to run it a
bit differently due to the increased options provided by
the card pool, like Hypnotoxic Laser and
Virbank City Gym to both create a chance for Sleep
and bumping up your effective damage output for the
turn. If you get the chance to participate in a
Limited event still using XY: BREAKpoint
boosters, this is a great pull. You’ll want your
deck to be heavy on Darkness Energy, but you’ve
got the choice between running several compatible
Pokémon or just focusing on Darkrai-EX itself.
As always, the latter carries a greater risk (your
opponent wins if they KO your lone Pokémon), but a
greater reward as well (guaranteed Darkrai-EX
start).
Ratings
Standard:
4/5
Expanded:
4/5
Limited:
4.25/5
Summary:
Darkrai-EX isn’t strong enough to be your true,
solo main attacker, but can form a dynamic duo with
multiple strong partners like the aforementioned
Giratina-EX, Yveltal-EX, etc. If you
went back and read my original CotD review for it,
you’ll notice that these scores are just a tiny bit
higher than I gave it originally; at its height it
deserved even more than a four-out-of-five, but for now
it’s a great attacker in its own deck that plays well
with others.
Darkrai-EX
earned seven voting points from reviewers’ lists and… it
was all from me ranking it so high on my own, personal
list at fourth place. That was a bit of an
overreach, but not unlike Yveltal-EX I suspect
Darkrai-EX is going to be that attacker that will
wax and wane in effectiveness, but probably isn’t ever
going to be bad unless a flat out replacement for it is
released. That being said, eighth place is a
respectable finish for Darkrai-EX; after all
right now it is competitive but doesn’t appear to be one
of the current top decks. It tied with another
card, which we will review tomorrow, and is just a point
below Friday’s finisher as well.
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