An early happy Thanksgiving… or late
depending upon where you are; several
countries/regions celebrate Thanksgiving
or a similar holiday, and even if your
area doesn’t I invite all to try and
find some time to remember what that for
which you have reason to be thankful.
While life is hardly perfect,
there will be things that are worth
celebrating if you only make sure to
give them due consideration.
Some of you may be less than thankful
that we had a short week because of the
holiday, but at least it gave us a good
reason to look at the three runners-up
from our Top 10 list for BW:
Boundaries Crossed.
The reviews I missed earlier this
week and last week should be up now, if
you’re interested.
I am a little saddened by what still
missed out being even a near miss, but
as long as we stay diligent we’ll have a
chance to review those cards soon
enough.
Our final runner-up is
Cresselia EX (BW: Boundaries
Crossed 67/149, 143/149)!
Stats
Cresselia EX
is a Basic Pokémon worth two Prizes when
it is KOed, like all Pokémon-EX, and
thus will need their customarily high HP
and potent effects if it is to be worth
that significant drawback.
They already enjoy the usual
benefits of being a Basic Pokémon;
minimal deck space to run, minimal
effort to play, maximum speed as they
don’t need time to Evolve.
Unlike their predecessors the
Pokémon-ex, Pokémon-EX are also
compatible with all forms of support for
Basic Pokémon; as usual this provides a
solid start as
Cresselia EX can enjoy reducing the
damage it takes by equipping
Eviolite, use
Prism Energy as needed to fit into
off-Type decks, etc.
These first two things provide a
solid foundation for
Cresselia EX.
It is a Psychic-Type, which could bode
well;
Mewtwo EX (BW: Next Destinies
54/99, 98/99) should still be widely
played so even if only for countering
it, hitting Psychic Weakness remains
important.
Darkness-Type Pokémon I expect to
take a hit in play due to
Landorus EX (BW: Boundaries
Crossed 89/149, 144/149), but they
are still strong and thus Resistance
will still be common (at least as far as
Resistance goes).
Sadly, the small amount of
Psychic-Type support hasn’t proven very
effective.
170 HP is just 10 shy of the max for a
Pokémon-EX, and 30 shy of the printed
maximum in general.
It should serve
Cresselia EX well, allowing it to
easily take a hit, possibly two.
The exception to that, as always,
is Weakness;
Cresselia EX is Psychic-Weak,
meaning it must be wary of
Mewtwo EX slamming it back for a
OHKO… barring something we’ll discuss
under the Effects heading.
No Resistance, sadly, but we do
end the Stats with a great single Energy
Retreat; since
Cresselia EX is a Basic Pokémon you
can consider running
Skyarrow Bridge to eliminate the
cost entirely!
Effects
Sparkling Particles is the name of the
Ability possessed by
Cresselia EX, and I’ve got to tell
you, it is a bit hard to get a handle
on.
The effect is simple; between
turns, Sparkling Particles heals 10
points of damage from
Cresselia EX.
It is like is has been “reverse
Poisoned”.
The challenge is figuring out if
this is really useful for just a bit
superficial.
If the attacking Pokémon can’t deliver a
170+ hit in a single turn or total 190
points of damage from two attacks,
Sparkling Particles will ultimately buy
Cresselia EX an extra turn.
For some decks, this will be a
hurdle; spread damage isn’t as useful
against something like
Cresselia EX; by the time you can
follow up on it, it’s down by 20 points.
Even straight up attacks may
struggle, as two 90 point hits, normally
enough to take down any unprotected
Pokémon-EX, falls short here.
Many decks will be able to push
themselves however, making it just a
trickier 2HKO; a main attacker that
deals the usual level of damage swings,
then something with a higher end attack
goes for the finish.
This makes Psychic Protection,
the attack on
Cresselia EX, very important; it may
come down to resources.
So what does the attack do?
For a cost of (PCCC), it hits for 90
points of damage while negating the
Weakness of
Cresselia EX until the end of your
opponent’s turn.
The good news is that, except
when facing something with Resistance,
Cresselia EX can 2HKO any other
Pokémon-EX.
Barring protective effects,
Giant Cape, and
Wailord EX (BW: Dragons Exalted
26/124), you can 2HKO anything else as
well.
This… isn’t actually that impressive;
most Pokémon-EX 2HKO most other
Pokémon-EX and are in turn 2HKOed back.
90 points of damage for four
Energy, even with a beneficial attack
and almost totally Colorless Energy
requirements is a little below what is
desired as well.
It is good it covers your own
Weakness; but due to the massive Energy
cost you can’t risk tossing it up to
stall early game, when the Ability can
slow an opponent down the most.
Usage
When dissected in a vacuum,
Cresselia EX neither impresses nor
appalls.
As far as Pokémon-EX go, it has
roughly average Stats barring a terrible
Weakness, a good-but-not-great Ability
and an underwhelming attack, save that
it can mitigate the Weakness problem.
Simply put, without Energy
acceleration, it can’t attack quickly
enough.
Using pure manual Energy
attachments, not even allowing
Double Colorless Energy, Pokémon-EX
like
Mewtwo,
Tornadus EX, and
Landorus EX are going to finish it
off before it can get off an attack.
Most decks will support their
Pokémon-EX, and the decks running
Cresselia EX as well as facing off
against it will as well if they are at
least competent.
Eviolite is sure to show up on both
sides of the equation, but
Cresselia EX has that natural,
obvious combo with Sparkling Particles;
together a full 40 points of damage from
the attack are nullified (20 absorbed,
20 healed).
If a deck lacks a “big damage”
attack, you finally hit “wall”
territory.
I just do not think this is enough;
until it can attack, your opponent has
the chance of dropping a
Mewtwo EX and slamming it pretty
hard.
In fact, several attackers can
still 2HKO
Cresselia EX and not all of them
need to hit the Weakness to do it.
Much of this comes down to what
else could you be playing; running your
own
Mewtwo EX will leave you just as
vulnerable to your opponent dropping
another copy and laying into yours with
an X-Ball OHKO, but
Mewtwo EX is so much more useful on
general offense.
There is also the risk of something like
a double
Pokémon Catcher or your opponent
just attacking around Psychic
Protection; with
Skyla and the fact I don’t expect
people to cut that fourth copy of
Pokémon Catcher, that isn’t easy but
it isn’t rare enough to be “safe”.
I’ve heard many interesting ideas
for supporting Pokémon tossed around for
Cresselia EX, but the problem is
that a Bench-sitter can provide a way
around a “wall” and you often find
better synergy with other cards.
The absolute best usage for this card
I’ve heard of in Modified is to toss it
a deck focused mainly up
Hydreigon (BW: Dragons Exalted
97/124) and
Darkrai EX (BW: Dark Explorers
63/108, 107/108), though
Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers
62/108) is also quite important as well.
Still with zeroed out Retreat
costs and the capacity to move Energy
off an injured Pokémon, remove all
damage with
Max Potion, then move it back on,
plus
Darkrai EX already being Resistant
to Psychic Pokémon, I am almost hoping I
did just fail to hear of a deck that is
a better fit.
For Unlimited, I could actually see it
used, provided we get one of the rulings
I anticipate for the older copies of
Computer Search (play using the most
recent version’s text or simply unable
to be played/played without a reference
copy) and said ruling affects lockdown
decks in a very specific manner; forcing
them to run a Pokémon-EX beatstick up
front.
This is pure guesswork, not even
substantiated enough for me to call it
Theorymon, but then again it isn’t like
there are a lot of big Unlimited
tournaments; considering taking it for a
spin when playing with friends.
For Limited, if you pull this, you run
it.
All the usual things apply; lower
average HP scores make this card’s
damage output function as if it were
higher, lower average damage outputs
mean its HP functions as if it were even
higher, and you aren’t worried about a
Mewtwo EX hitting the field and
slamming you before you finish powering
up!
Mind Special Conditions, however,
since you won’t have a
Switch and/or free retreat combo to
easily ditch it… most of the time.
Sparkling Particles is pretty
amazing here, as you would expect
You will need to make room for a decent
chunk of basic
Psychic Energy as well, but the odds
of not being able to make room because
you pulled so much “better” stuff is so
small, even I won’t dock the score.
Since that seems contrary to
other reviews, let me clarify that with
the attack only needing one source of
(P) Energy, you just need to run enough
to avoid being too slow in setting up…
which with manual attachments means you
probably have four turns in which to
pull a
Psychic Energy.
This is as opposed to other times
I’ve made similar statements where I was
referring to pulling two or three
specific Energy.
Ratings
Unlimited:
3/5
Modified:
3/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary
Cresselia EX
is not a bad card; in fact it is well
designed.
By lacking an inexpensive opening
attack, it avoids being overpowered in
this format; even with all the Energy
acceleration we have, it isn’t easy to
just drop and swing away with it.
The power creep that has plagued
this format unfortunately renders it
fairly average, and when the format is
full of great cards, “good” doesn’t cut
it.
I actually ranked this as the number 12
card of the set, because I know we often
have runner up weeks I figure it
shouldn’t hurt to be extra thorough.
