I hope you enjoyed Christmas, because
now it’s back to our Top 10 Cards of
2013 list.
Today we look at our number six
pick,
Black Kyurem EX (BW: Plasma Storm
95/135); be careful not to mistake it
for the “other”
Black Kyurem EX that has been
released three different times.
You can see our original reviews
for this card
here, done much earlier this year.
There
Black Kyurem EX took the 10th
place slot for our Top 10 Promising
Picks of Plasma Storm.
So what makes this card so great?
I suggest reading those old
reviews, because I just want to cover
what has changed… and I am going to
resist going into exacting details
because the odds are low that readers
will neither become overwhelmed nor
bored by the information overload that
is a bit redundant because most of what
I said in my original review still holds
true.
The new first turn rules make it easier
for slower decks (most notably
Evolutions) to compete while most
players have been scared off of using
Pokémon Catcher (due to it now
requiring a successful coin flip to
work) which makes it harder to force up
Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed
31/149; BW: Plasma Storm 137/135;
BW: Plasma Blast 16/101).
Other Bench-sitters received the
same benefit, so now more than ever
Blastoise focuses on steamrolling
the opposition; I know some have tried
but I am unaware of any major success
with working in the more space intensive
but reliable alternative to
Pokémon Catcher, and as far as I can
tell
Pokémon Catcher has been dropped to
make room for more important counters
like
Tool Scrapper.
So
Black Kyurem EX is better than ever,
right?
Actually no; we have more
Pokémon-EX counters for it to deal with,
more Dragon-Type attackers are being
experimented with, and while Deluge
decks haven’t gotten any better “main”
attackers, it already had access to
great ones like
Keldeo EX and
Mewtwo EX.
Deluge decks thankfully aren’t
the unstoppable Juggernauts I feared the
change in rules would bring us, but it
did make the deck better… it just also
made enough other cards/decks better (or
failed to make them worse) so that
Deluge decks have just a little more
competition.
For Unlimited, they have a lot more
competition because Deluge decks are
just the latest possible iteration of
Rain Dance decks, and while they were
once one of the best options for
Unlimited even after the rules change,
they aren’t better than First Turn Win
decks.
For Limited Play, I would
definitely run
Black Kyurem EX but unlike some
Pokémon-EX, I would not run it on its
own as it takes too long to attack (your
opponent would get off a minimum of two
attacks before the first Slash).
You would need to save Black
Ballista for a final attack, because you
won’t even be able to Slash the turn
after you use it.
As a “secret weapon” in a fleshed
out Limited deck it can work well;
either attack is great as long as you’re
building to it on your Bench.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.5/5
Modified:
3.5/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary
If you didn’t bother to check out the
older review, I scored
Black Kyurem EX the same as before.
If you’re wondering how I can
score the top attacker of one of the
best decks in the format so low, you
weren’t paying attention;
Black Kyurem EX is entirely
dependent upon a pre-existing deck.
Deluge decks were a big deal
before
Black Kyurem EX, and while it
improved them they would still be almost
as big a deal
without it.
For my personal list, I put
Black Kyurem in the number seven
slot, one
below
Genesect EX;
Genesect EX may require an Ace Spec
on top of Energy acceleration to become
a OHKO machine, but without all that its
still a solid attacker that exploits
Grass Weakness in addition to
functioning as a replacement for
Pokémon Catcher in some decks;
Black Kyurem
EX is pretty much nothing without
Deluge.
I also probably scored both a
place too high, low balling a different
card that thankfully the other reviewers
ranked more appropriately as we will be
reviewing it higher up on the list.
