We end our short week with
Kyurem EX (BW: Plasma Blast
30/101).
Speaking of “short”, I am short
on time and short on patience as I am
writing this while ill
and while trying to figure out a
better way of organizing my reviews.
You know I like to be very
detailed so that my train of thought is
obvious and my articles are accessible
to all levels of players, but this also
means a “proper” article usually takes
me an hour (or more) to write… and I
haven’t been able to reliably spare that
much time since before my last hiatus.
On the bright side, readers, I’ll
be leaving out a massive rant on
Pokémon-Typing/Weakness/Resistance due
to all of this!
I will still take a few sentences to
remind you that you have to be careful
when evaluating a Pokémon-EX; the best
have defined this format while the rest
are largely forgotten, with every new
“good” Pokémon-EX released reducing the
usefulness of the periphery.
The additional Prize given up
when a Pokémon-EX is KOed is starting to
feel like a real “thing” again; BW:
Plasma Blast brought us enough that
several non-Pokémon-EX are worth serious
play again, or at least appear to be
that way.
Keep an eye out for
anti-Pokémon-EX cards, both new and old.
Kyurem EX
is a Water-Type Pokémon; support is
lacking and Resistance is out there, but
so is Weakness.
Overall, it’s a good Type to be
because few Types have support (let
alone support worth running) and
exploiting Weakness generates a lot more
damage than blocking with Resistance can
soak.
It sports 180 HP, the most a
Pokémon-EX can have and much higher than
almost all Pokémon apart from fellow
Pokémon-EX.
Metal Weakness isn’t good but it
isn’t as bad as several other
possibilities; the loss of
Klinklang (Black & White
76/114) set them back and the best
Metal-Type attacker I can think of is
Cobalion EX, and its “big” attack
doesn’t apply Weakness.
The chunky Retreat Cost of (CCC)
makes it a legal
Heavy Ball target, and fortunately
most decks will be packing a Retreat
alternative or method of zeroing the
cost out.
The first attack is Outrage, a great
attack: for (CC) it does base damage of
30 plus another 10 for each damage
counter on
Kyurem EX.
Before combos, this means a
passable return even if uninjured (30)
and a maximum yield of 200!
With
its 180 HP it is much harder even for
fellow Pokémon-EX to push for that OHKO
that would allow Outrage on a smaller
Pokémon to be skirted, and the slightly
higher starting point means a minor hit
still gives solid damage back (imagine
if it had had any form of Resistance).
Giga Frost is not as impressive:
for (WWCC) and discarding two (W) Energy
from
Kyurem EX, the attack hits for 150
points of damage.
This isn’t enough to OHKO most
Pokémon-EX but just about everything
else will be, and a “no damage” Outrage
can then lead to a 2HKO with Giga Frost.
It seems a bit overpriced due to
the specific Energy discard cost, but it
works.
I don’t think this has much of a chance
of replacing
Black Kyurem EX (BW: Plasma Storm
95/135); while
Kyurem EX would allow Deluge decks
to stick to just Water Energy, unless
that makes room to include something to
bump up damage, you’re not ahead.
Black Ballista and its 200 points
of damage overwhelms so much, it can
discard any Type of Energy, and while
three is more than two will it be more
significant?
Still, it does provide something
that can attack (and sometimes quite
well) for just two Energy which is
useful when the deck falls through, and
if you had another card to efficiently
spread damage like
Kyurem (BW Promo BW44) and
its Glaciate attack, you couldn’t quite
pull off the brute force technique but
you could come close.
You also could tap its
smaller-but-not-on-a-Pokémon-EX version
of Outrage.
I am actually curious as to what can be
done with this card.
Older Pokémon Tools like
Eviolite and
Giant
Cape
aren’t as good as they used to be (in
general), but when helping to feed
Outrage might be.
We still have
Max Potion and
Double Colorless Energy, allowing
someone to flush away all damage from
Kyurem EX (or the regular
Kyurem) at the drop of a hat… you
loose your offensive capacity but have
accomplished some impressive stalling.
If we want to get
really creative (and risky), there
is
Team Plasma Badge and
Umbreon (BW: Plasma Freeze
64/116) or of course
Deoxys EX.
Using the former you could get a
Kyurem EX with up to 260 HP,
increasing maximum possible damage for
Outrage (before things like
Iris or
Hypnotoxic Laser) to 280 but more
importantly, giving you enough HP to
attack for larger (100+ damage) hits
without
Kyurem EX being a likely KO for your
opponent.
Using the latter would be easier,
but provides just the usual +10 to +40
points of damage... but while that isn’t
a big deal for Outrage, it could be for
Giga Freeze.
Either trick means the
Colress Machine/Plasma
Energy combo could quickly
power/re-power Outrage and Giga Freeze
(though not in one turn for Giga
Freeze).
I’ve proposed similar tricks
before and no one met with a lot of
success using them, so this is another
long shot, but at least it sounds kind
of fun even if it is fragile (discarding
Team Plasma Badge and all).
Ratings
Unlimited:
While not part of a First Turn Win or
lock deck, if you’re trying for more
traditional beatdown tactics or an old
school Rain Dance or Deluge deck, you
have
Focus Band here plus lower HP scores
to KO (as older but powerful cards just
weren’t as big).
Probably not “competitive”
enough, but it sounds fun and might even
work.
3/5
Modified:
While it might fit into Deluge decks, it
doesn’t fit well enough to replace
anything in said deck so it probably
isn’t going to become a major force from
that.
This is offset by actually having
some interesting “general” use tricks or
kooky combo decks.
3/5
Limited:
A must run, whether you’re just running
it with 39 other non-Pokémon cards
(slight risk, as Outrage isn’t available
until your second turn) or running it in
a “real” Limited deck (it can fit with
anything as Giga Freeze is optional
then).
I might even consider running it
with another Pokémon-EX if you had such
insane luck.
Not one like
Jirachi EX that couldn’t carry
itself, but… you know rethinking the
various Pokémon-EX in this set, this was
probably the only one safe to run as a
+39 style deck, anyway as the others all
have “hang-ups”.
5/5
Summary
Kyurem EX
would probably have been amazing had it
replaced its oft ignored older sibling,
Kyurem EX (BW: Next Destinies
38/99, 96/99; BW Promo BW37).
With all the variants on
Kyurem I almost forgot that one
existed… but it has badly overpriced
attacks (even when it was amongst so
little Pokémon-EX competition) that it
shouldn’t be a surprise.
With the current competition, the new
Kyurem EX may be in for the same
fate, but it has enough potential to
play around with and experiment; I
originally had it as my own 10th
place choice for Promising Picks of
Plasma Blast, and it might actually rank
a bit higher as some of my other choices
seem less likely to pan out.
