This week we are looking at more cards
from BW: Legendary Treasures that
were picked by me mostly because they
did something I thought worth exploring.
Why the new rules are over a
month old now, things still haven’t
settled down yet and so I looked for
things that showed… potential.
We begin this week with a reprint;
Kyurem (BW: Legendary Treasures
43/113).
We’ve actually reviews this card
not once, but twice.
Here
is our very first review for it from
over two years ago, and
here
is our follow up review from only about
a month later, because this
Kyurem (as BW: Noble Victories
34/101) made our Top 10 List of 2011!
Perhaps that is why a re-review
for its first re-release as BW Promo
BW44 wasn’t needed?
I managed to miss both previous reviews,
so let’s do a quick run through of this
card’s stats and effects.
Being a Basic is still boss and
being a Water-Type may be better than it
has been in a short while as Fire-Types
might be seeing some serious play again.
The 130 HP is fantastic even if
it is just likely to survive a single
shot and no safe from a OHKO… but then
we remember this is a “plain” Pokémon;
not a Pokémon-EX or any other
constraining gimmick.
The Metal Weakness is not the
best Weakness (that would be none at
all!) but its manageable, though the
lack of Resistance is naturally the
worst and the Retreat Cost of two is too
low for
Heavy Ball, too high to be easy to
manually Retreat, but still not
devastating as most decks would be
packing something to help with changing
out Pokémon anyway.
Outrage is still a great attack, and may
have benefited from the new rules; no
longer is it easy to force a
Kyurem that is up front and
“blocking” out of the way with a
Pokémon Catcher (and a second on the
Bench can deal with
Escape Rope) and if you go first,
you can (ideally) use
Tropical Beach first turn while
soaking your opponent’s first attack…
which probably won’t be enough to OHKO
Kyurem and could set
Kyurem up to instead OHKO whatever
your opponent is attacking with.
The base 20 points of damage for
(CC) is unimpressive in modern context,
but still better than nothing, while the
+10 per damage counter is still good
thanks to that impressive HP score that
goes with it.
That Energy cost still remains
important, as it allows Energy
acceleration as simple as
Double Colorless Energy to bring a
Kyurem online that had nothing
attached the turn before.
Glaciate still has the potential to be
terrible, awesome, or somewhere in
between.
An opponent with a loaded Bench
is risking 180 points of damage spread
out in units of 30 amongst his or her
six Pokémon, with the combos boosting
the damage to the Active even higher.
Then again if they’ve got no
Bench (actually that is probably a good
thing for you) or have
Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) protecting it, you could only do
30 to the Defending Pokémon, which is
terrible for that (WWC) cost.
When this card debuted, we thought it
was finally going to make
Feraligatr (HeartGold SoulSilver
108/123; HGSS Promo HGSS07) and
while it helped it, that deck never came
remotely close to the power of modern
Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed
31/149; BW: Plasma Storm 137/135;
BW: Plasma Blast 16/101) decks.
Instead it seemed more useful as
a splashable Water-Type attack (have
Double Colorless Energy, will
travel) or in decks I didn’t see coming
like the one built around
Cobalion (BW: Noble Victories
84/101, 100/101; BW: Legendary
Treasures 91/113),
Electrode (HS: Triumphant
93/102), and this
Kyurem.
My renewed interest in it is this
vague notion that decks like the latter
are once again possible… with modern
tweaks of course.
Just about any deck that can
effectively Glaciate can employ the
vexing strategy of the false lead;
unless the opponent has some way of
dealing with damage counters, while your
opponent takes Prizes from KOs against
Kyurem, you can use
N to drop their hand while getting a
good draw longer than normal because the
spread damage likely won’t start
generating serious Prizes until several
turns in… when you could create as large
of a swing as going from zero Prizes
taken to Win!
A lot of Benches feel ‘safe’ because of
Mr. Mime… so how could this card
deal with that?
Garbodor (BW: Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze
119/116; BW: Legendary Treasures
68/113); no Abilities means no Bench
protection, and also stops most decks
capable of reliably OHKOing Pokémon turn
after turn (as opposed to most decks
that can still OHKO
Kyurem, but only through finite
resources or slow to manually rebuild
combos).
Another thought was
Dusknoir (BW: Boundaries Crossed
63/149, BW: Plasma Blast
104/101); while it would take a little
more effort, you can always move
counters (generated by attacking the
Defending Pokémon) and take out
Mr. Mime so you can get back to
massive spread hits and then dropping
all that Energy onto whatever needs
KOing that turn?
The big challenges for
Kyurem are what face almost every
Pokémon in competitive play right now;
Energy acceleration and increasing its
staying power.
If you are able to build fast
enough, “staying power” is less
important, but the deck that can build
it the most quickly (Deluge) just
doesn’t look like it needs it (maybe as
a TecH attacker in rare circumstances,
but that would be it).
I wish I had the answer as to how
to quickly pay the Energy cost of
Glaciate, but I don’t; if I knew odds
are enough other people would know that
decks using this
Kyurem would already be a “thing”
again.
Speaking of other
Kyurem, due to “same name” rules,
this card is competing with a few
others, but the only one that seems to
be of note is
Kyurem (BW: Plasma Freeze
31/116), a.k.a.
Kyurem [Plasma].
I have even considered
Team Plasma Badge to work this
Kyurem into Team Plasma decks;
Thundurus EX might then provide some
Energy acceleration,
Deoxys EX a boost to damage against
the Active, and just one Glaciate means
Kyurem [Plasma] (with its usual
damage boosts) easily finishes off the
wounded.
Spoiler alert!
I haven’t covered upcoming cards as much
lately, but
Greninja (X/Y 41/146) might
be an interesting card to use with all
the Outrage attackers, as they could be
“up front” and possibly exploiting
Weakness while
Greninja uses its Water Shuriken
Ability to discard a (W) Energy from
hand to place 3 damage on the opponent’s
Pokémon of your choice.
Water Shuriken deals with
Mr. Mime while Glaciate can be that
final massive wave of damage that scores
multiple
KOs
when the time is right.
End Spoiler!
So what about Unlimited?
Worth a shot with the right
backing; its not the easiest thing to
donk via damage counter placement,
though it is no where near as safe as a
bulky Pokémon-EX… but as is often the
case there are enough “old favorites” to
make a viable deck out of it; improving
offensive and defensive capabilities.
Some of those old-school
Bench-sitters with effects so powerful
they are worth running even with the
risk of being donked are, after all, on
the small side.
As for Limited, the only time I would
not run this is if I pulled
something worth using in a +39 deck,
such as a durable, fast attacking
Pokémon-EX.
Even if you’re only using
Kyurem for Outrage, it’s pretty
amazing.
I wouldn’t try to use
Kyurem itself in a +39 build,
however; if your opponent can Evolve one
thing (or just has big enough Basic
Pokémon, it is too easy for them to
overwhelm you before that fourth Prize
is taken.
Otherwise there are good odds you
could Outrage your way to two or even
three Prizes, and if they are slow with
damaging you, three or four Glaciate
could win you the game.
That 130 HP just doesn’t look
like it could last quite long enough.
Ratings
Unlimited:
3/5
Modified:
3.25/5
Limited:
4.8/5
Summary
If I knew for a fact what worked, this
would have been a vastly different
review.
Instead I merely am contemplating
what has potential, as was stated in the
beginning.
I hope that my article, while
meandering, helped spark some ideas;
Kyurem still has a lot going for it
if we can cover some simple, basic
concerns.
