We close this week out by looking at the
reprint
Lugia EX (BW: Legendary Treasures
102/113) originally released with nearly
identical art as BW: Plasma Storm
108/135 and with the Full Art treatment
as BW: Plasma Storm 134/135.
Like so many other older cards
and reprints, the new rules and shifting
card pool may alter how much it is
played.
We first looked at
Lugia EX
here; it managed to snag the number
two slot for out Top 10 Promising Picks
of Plasma Storm, loosing out only to
Hypnotoxic Laser.
Unlike the other cards we’ve
re-reviewed, this time I am not going to
restate the fundamentals from my
previous review and instead focus on
what has changed.
For example, Pokémon-EX now have
all the previous concerns to deal with
plus
Silver Bangle upping the damage of
non-Pokémon-EX by 30 points.
As a Team Plasma Pokémon it also
has to worry about
Silver Mirror and it preventing
Lugia EX from being able to harm the
equipped Pokémon.
The good news is that by now all
Team Plasma support (much of which
hadn’t released at the time of that
review) is out.
Its Stage, Type, HP, and Resistance are
still great, good, great and good,
respectively.
Its
Lightning Weakness is at present less of
a concern because we have fewer
Lightning-Type Pokémon as primary
attackers, though as players prepare to
counter Lightning Weak cards (including
Lugia EX) it may not matter much in
the long run.
Its Retreat Cost is still poor;
something you’ll want to avoid paying.
The Ability remains amazingly
useful today, but the attack has lost a
slight bit of potency.
The reason the attack isn’t quite as
scary is that like everything else,
Lugia EX can’t attack the very first
turn of the game.
This means you can’t push for a
win via donk (good riddance), but also
that you can’t look for an easy lead via
taking out an Evolving Basic Pokémon
(good riddance).
Even though I am glad the card
can’t pull off such tricks, please
remember that I don’t care for the
change in rules; cards that can do such
a thing should simply not be designed in
the first place.
The change isn’t all bad for
Lugia EX, either; this gives it
another turn to set-up and the new rules
seem to be encouraging more Stage 2
decks… you may not be able to shoot for
a donk to win the game, but going second
you can still try to OHKO an Evolving
Basic Pokémon for two Prizes instead of
one.
The nerfing of
Pokémon Catcher makes it a lot
harder to cherry pick the best
KOs
for Plasma Gale… but it also protects
Lugia EX itself if it is building on
the Bench, as well as any Bench-sitters
you want to back it up with.
The previous review, for example,
predates
Deoxys EX, which increases the
damage done by Team Plasma Pokémon and
thus makes it easier to Plasma Gale for
OHKOs.
Shadow Triad and
Thundurus EX give you a means of
retrieving
Plasma Energy from the discard pile.
If you want access to your
opponent’s Bench, you can even use
Porygon-Z (BW: Plasma Blast
74/101) a.k.a.
Porygon-Z [Plasma] and
Genesect EX; manually attach a
Plasma Energy to
Genesect EX to trigger its Red
Signal Ability (acts as a pre-erratum
Pokémon Catcher), use Plasma
Transfer from
Porygon-Z [Plasma] to move that
Energy to
Lugia EX, then Plasma Gale the
Pokémon you just forced up.
Opposing decks are also changing; as
stated Stage 2 Pokémon are seeing a
small increase in play.
The changes to the rules didn’t
help most of the card pool, but some
decks that were on the periphery are
becoming more mainstream.
With
Pokémon Catcher being altered to
require a coin flip,
Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) is seeing a little more play;
several decks already made good use of
snipe/spread damage and such damage is
more important when you can’t easily
force up the opponent’s Benched Pokémon,
and blocking it is now more effective
with
Mr. Mime as it isn’t so easy to
force it up front as an easy KO… except
in scenarios as described above.
While
it is less impressive to quickly KO two
smaller Pokémon and either a third
smaller Pokémon or a single Pokémon-EX
than to OHKO two Pokémon-EX, it still
wins the game.
Another interesting change is
that
Frozen City may be becoming a solid
play, and provide a good chance to get
damage counters onto something before
you attack with Plasma Blast.
Spoiler Alert!
Translations of Japanese cards indicate
we are getting a new Pokémon Tool,
Muscle Band, that increases the
damage done by the equipped Pokémon by
20 points, and there appear to be no
restrictions on its usage.
This bodes quite well for
Lugia EX.
End Spoiler.
So for Modified, things look reasonable
good for
Lugia EX; some things are better for
it, some aren’t as good, but overall the
changes seem to be giving it a little
more breathing room.
As for Unlimited… I don’t know.
I never got to test the deck and
I’ve not seen anyone discuss it.
I originally scored the card low
but now I wonder if I should have; under
the previous rules it was donk capable,
and could even be used as part of a
Sabledonk variant.
You just need to open with
Sableye (DP: Stormfront
48/100) to use its Poké-Body to go
first; then you can spam less damage
counters and take advantage of
Colress Machine and
Double Colorless Energy to shoot for
the donk.
Now it can’t do that, but you can
still use it as a harder-to-donk deck
built almost purely (or perhaps purely)
around
Lugia EX.
The main catch becomes do you run
Trainer denial or take your chances
without it; if you run it that means a
risk of something easier for the
opponent to donk, but with it you should
be able to safely maintain a
Lugia EX to power through the two to
three KOs needed to win via Prizes.
For Limited, I wouldn’t bother at all
with the BW: Legendary Treasures
release as there is no
Plasma Energy for it to use to
attack with.
My somewhat misleading score for
the earlier releases still stand; you
shouldn’t try a +39 deck with it, but
adding it for a final push may be worth
the risk in a more substantial Limited
deck where you have at least one
Plasma Energy.
Ratings
Unlimited:
3.25/5
Modified:
3.75/5
Limited:
1/5 (this printing only)
Summary
Lugia EX
was a nice way to end the week because
it’s the best card we looked at.
I believe it has weathered the
changes well, though the card itself is
very combo heavy so I don’t want to
score it too high.
Whether as the focus of a deck or
as a surprise drop in something using
Plasma Energy, keep an eye out for
it.
