Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#2 Yveltal EX
Remember back to the very first EX set, Next Destinies?
Remember the howls of disapproval that greeted the
release of Mewtwo EX? I bet
if I told you back then that we would see a card that
was similar to, but better than
Mewtwo within two years, you would either not
believe me or think that the card designers had gone a
bit mad.
Yeah, well, that’s what has happened and that is why
Yveltal EX is the #2 card on
our top 10 countdown.
What makes Yveltal better
than Mewtwo? Well for a
start it’s a Dark Type, and that means it has access to
Dark Patch Energy acceleration and Dark Cloak free
retreat from Darkrai. It
also has Evil Ball, which is basically
Mewtwo EX’s X Ball,
but it does
an extra 20 damage!
That’s right, it does 20
plus 20
damage for each Energy on both active Pokémon. As for
the second attack, then Yveltal
is arguably superior here too. Y
Cylone may do less damage than
Mewtwo’s
Psydrive (90
vs 120), but they both
two-shot EX Pokémon, and while
Mewtwo must discard an Energy,
Yveltal can actually
preserve one by moving it to a Benched Pokémon. This is
a great way to keep your DCE in play if
Yveltal will be KO’d next
turn. Another crucial difference is that
Yveltal is not Weak to
itself, so countering it is not just a case of splashing
in a couple of copies with some DCE (the Dark Energy
requirement makes this more difficult too).
Yveltal
EX brings two things to existing Dark decks that they
really lacked. Firstly, it diversifies Weakness. In fact
it actually resists the Fighting Type that most Dark
Pokémon are Weak to, so dealing with Dark decks is no
longer a case of just adding in some
Terrakion LTR or
Landorus EX. Secondly, they
bring genuine OHKO ability to the table. In the past,
Darkrai has had to work hard
for its KOs, with careful sniping and use of
Hypnotoxic Laser, together
with disruption strategies like
Garbodor and Hammers.
Yveltal EX gives Dark decks sheer brute force
which they have missed up to now, and that is why you
can expect to see a lot of this card in the coming
months. And when I say ‘a lot’, I mean it will be
everywhere: like Mewtwo this
card can fit into a lot of decks.
Yveltal
EX is the one truly overpowered Pokémon in a set which
otherwise seems very well balanced.
A serious contender for the title of best EX ever.
Rating
Modified: 4.75 (they upgraded
Mewtwo. May Arceus
help us all)
Limited: 5 (play Yveltal,
attach Energy, win)
|
HEZ
Intro to
Unlimited 150 |
Yveltal EX
Modified.
If there’s one thing Darkness decks lacked, it was the
ability to 1 hit KO Pokémon with high HP, with Darkrai
EX’s Night Spear attack “only” doing 90 base damage.
While this is enough to two hit KO almost any Pokémon,
sometimes you really need to one hit KO something! Enter
Yveltal EX, bringing the power of Mewtwo EX to the
well-supported Dark type! Evil Ball follows in the
footsteps of Mewtwo EX’s X-ball doing more damage for
each energy attachment. Though Yveltal EX can’t abuse
Double Colorless Energy like Mewtwo EX can, it does do
an extra 20 damage for the effort. On the plus side, Y
Cyclone helps with the “strategy” of piling energy on it
by allowing you to rescue an energy from Yveltal EX onto
a waiting benched Pokémon if you think it’s going to get
knocked out soon.
Regular Yveltal can help power up Evil Ball by piling
huge amounts of energy onto a benched Yveltal EX, so a
deck utilising both versions will be very good at
conserving energy. To succeed in Modified today,
acceleration and conservation of energy are key so you
can expect to see plenty of Yveltal joining the already
highly playable Darkrai EX and Sableye.
Unlimited 150.
N/A (banned)
Ratings:
Modified: 4.5
Unlimited 150: N/A
|
