Shining Lugia Promo SM82 – Pokemon COTD

aroramage

Coming out alongside a few other cards in the Shining Legends Super-Premium Collection, which is just a fancy way of saying IT’S SHINY!!, Shining Lugia comes as one of the more interesting cards in the set. Having the Colorless typing is beneficial as always, since it makes him splashable in most any deck, but is there enough room to justify his input?

Argent Wing makes a strong case for inclusion. It’s a 3-for-60 normally, though it does 60 more damage against Pokemon with Abilities for a total of 120. Against threats like Alolan Ninetales, Shining Lugia can prove to be an effectively alternate attacker, as it can tear through these EX/GX counters with ease and help clear the board of them without having to worry about getting stalled out. The main issue I see is that while there are a number of Pokemon with Abilities, there are only a few that see competitive play, and the ones that do tend to be Bench-sitters or have enough HP to survive Argent Wing’s damage output, so Guzma would be a must-run to forcing the opponent to switch out the Benched Pokemon.

Aero Force is Shining Lugia’s other attack, and for 1 Energy more than Argent Wing, it does 130 damage and discards an Energy from Shining Lugia. This attack would be more viable as a 2HKO engine if Energy acceleration or recycling isn’t an issue in the deck that runs it, but I feel like you’d want that to be going to your main attacker, and 2HKO options don’t tend to be “main attack” material. You’d rather be relying on a Pokemon with crazy damage output like Gardevoir-GX or Garbodor, all while mitigating a low Energy cost. Shining Lugia sadly does neither very efficiently.

Shining Lugia has some viability in certain decks, but I do think its best application currently is as a standby attacker in case something comes up to block your main GX attacker, assuming you’re not running something like Garbodor already. Shining Lugia has some advantages over Garbodor, namely that he can fit anywhere freely, doesn’t require specific Energy to access his moves, and can be played as a Basic rather than a 1-1 Evolution line-up minimally. It’s just that Garbodor has the strength of being a mid- to late-game sweeper whereas Shining Lugia’s mainly just there to counteract certain Pokemon. Still, if you find you’re tight on deck space or don’t want to devote more than a couple of slots to an Evolutionary line and some Psychic Energy, Shining Lugia’s a good option, especially with Counter Energy providing an additional boost.

Just be wary of Electric decks running Xurkitree-GX.

Rating

Standard: 2.5/5 (a decent option in most decks that could help with getting around some troublemakers)

Expanded: 2/5 (still helpful in those match-ups, but there are a lot of other options out here)

Limited: N/A (once again, dem promos be promoted!)

Arora Notealus: Shining Lugia’s one of those “shiny” Pokemon that looks relatively similar to the original but has a distinct difference to it. Isn’t that weird how shiny Pokemon work? Like some of them are barely a shade different from the original’s coloration, but then others are like, COMPLETELY different. Like Diglett, for instance!…I love my Shiny Diglett man.

Side Reviews: Miltank – this cow provides a tremendous heal when you’re attaching Energy, reverting 90 damage as long as it’s in the Active slot. That might seem like a lot, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to swap things around and get a powerful heal like that, all the while powering up your own Pokemon. This can be useful for keeping your EX/GX in the game for longer, even if it might cost you a Guzma and risk a Prize.

Alolan Exeggutor-GX – Tropical Head is exactly the kind of attack Gardevoir-GX loves, as while the damage output can be crazy, usually hanging around 80 damage based on Alolan Exeggutor-GX’s other attacks, the amount of Energy required is just asking to get steamrolled over. Tower-Go-Round-GX is just an enabler to this move, which makes it even riskier as you’d attempt to devote a lot of Energy to a bit of a strong gimmick. Dragon Hammer is solid enough in its own right, but Alolan Exeggutor-GX will suffer if he can’t overpower the smaller Evolutions leading up to Gardevoir-GX, or even just get rid of Diancie before it fast-tracks the evolution. In the end, he’ll be a little too slow to compete against that deck, but there might be potential against lower tier decks.

Alolan Marowak – Dance of Flames is the main appeal to Alolan Marowak, as it allows you to recover all of your Fire Energy based on how much your opponent has committed to the board themselves. Especially as a free move, this form of Energy acceleration can be explosive, but it does require a large amount of Fire Energy to be in the discard pile to benefit off of it and allow for that counter sweep to take off, making it more of a mid-game swing option. Burning Boomerang does give Alolan Marowak a decent Burn option on-par with Vanilluxe’s Double Freeze from back in the day, doing more damage along the way and possibly even pushing for 2HKO on even the beefiest of Pokemon, the main problem being its reliance on chance. Definitely a good contender for Fire decks!

Weekend Thought: What did you think of this week’s cards? Are you excited for what the new year holds? Are you finding these side reviews a little bit extra useful? It’s kinda nice to get a quick look back some weeks later to take a look at something initially reviewed and see where it’s ended up, maybe it’ll be something I do more of! Just less of a three-of kind of deal for the sake of catching up and more of a “Oh hey, remember this card we saw a month ago? Where’s it at now?”

Otaku

We close out the first week of my attempt at an “abridged” review style with Shining Lugia (SM-Black Star Promo SM82). This is one of a handful of cards that were in the Japanese version of the Shining Legends expansion, but which were removed and made into promos for our own. Yay? A (relatively) big, Basic, single Prize [C] Pokémon with [L] Weakness and [F] Resistance, Shining Lugia isn’t too hard to add to most decks in terms of card count. The attack costs are all [C] as you would expect, which is good because they aren’t small; [CCC] for “Argent Wing” and [CCCC] for “Aero Force”. Various minor, moderate, and major combos can ready these attacks quickly; a single turn for the more involved combos, two for the lesser ones. Argent Wing does 60 damage or if the opponent’s Active has an Ability, 120. Aero Force does 130 but requires you discard an Energy from Shining Lugia.

Unless something makes a particular facet of the card more or less valuable, it is simply average… which isn’t as good as it sounds, because “average” doesn’t cut it for competitive play. Possibly, using something that can copy this card’s attacks could lead to a competitive combo, but you’ll need to do more than just exploit Weakness, reduce the effective cost of the attack, or more easily up its damage output; you’ll need to do at least two of the three. For now, I can’t recommend it for Standard or Expanded Format play. Unless it is re-released as part of a regular expansion, you also aren’t going to be able to use it for the Limited Format. Should that ever happen, Shining Lugia would be a good, solid choice but still unremarkable because it needs more HP or faster attacks to pull off a +39 build. Less simplistic decks would welcome it, however.

Ratings

Standard: 2/5
Expanded: 2/5
Limited: N/A

Vince

This card is available in the Shining Legends Premium Collection, along with Shining Celebi, Rainbow Rare Ho-Oh GX, and Pikachu. A good big basic Pokémon with 130 HP, weak to Lightning, resists Fighting, and a retreat of two, it has two attacks. Argent Wing does 60 for CCC, plus 60 more if the defending Pokémon has an ability. Aero Force does 130 for CCCC and forces an energy discard from this Pokémon.

Aero Force, despite the discard, is the magic number for 2HKOs. Argent Wing backed with Fighting Fury Belt could also reach 2HKOs as well if those big 250 HP Pokémon has abilities. However, there are some good Pokémon without abilities that can take Shining Lugia down. Having three energies mean Gardevoir GX can easily dispatch Shining Lugia with ease!

Standard: 2.5/5
Expanded: 2.5/5
Limited: N/A