For those who
celebrate, happy Valentine’s Day dear
readers! This holiday carries
different meanings for different people,
and its actual history is quite
fascinating. For those out there
that are still single, take heart;
you’re not alone; it should come as no
surprise that I am a single otaku.
Fortunately, especially if you study up
on the holiday, it can be about more
than romantic love.
…
Oh right, time for
the second place pick of our Top 10
Promising Picks of Plasma Storm!
The runner up is Lugia EX (BW:
Plasma Storm 108/135, 134/135)!
That probably makes tomorrow’s pick
obvious.
Stats
Miscellaneous:
First and foremost, we are dealing with
a Pokémon-EX. Obvious as it states
it in its name and in the reminder text
warning you that Pokémon-EX are worth an
extra Prize when KOed, and yet it never
fails that someone (even long time
players) will tap their inner Timmy and
ignore this drawback while seeing their
favorite Legendary Pokémon living
large.
Besides giving up
an extra Prize, Pokémon-EX are
specifically referenced by a few card
effects. Those worth noting are:
-
Sigilyph BW:
Dragons Exalted
52/124), whose Safeguard
Ability makes it immune
to attacks by
Pokémon-EX.
-
Bouffalant (BW:
Dragons Exalted
110/124) whose Gold
Breaker attack goes from
doing 60 for (CCC) to
120 when used against a
Pokémon-EX.
-
Klinklang (BW:
Plasma Storm
90/135), whose Plasma
Steel Ability prevents
the attacks of
Pokémon-EX from damaging
Metal-Type Pokémon.
All three, even the
recent Klinklang [Plasma],
already have decks they either anchor or
at least are well known in, and the two
Basic Pokémon (especially Bouffalant)
can be worked into several other decks.
Lugia EX is
a Team Plasma card like the
aforementioned Klinklang,
allowing it to tap the various Team
Plasma support. You can read an
article
here that simply lists out and
slightly organizes that support.
As there is no other Lugia EX, I
will skip referring to it as Lugia EX
[Plasma]. Being a Team Plasma card
is an advantage right now, but not a
huge one.
Type: As a
Colorless-Type, Lugia EX enjoys
not having to deal with Weakness or
Resistance (unless you’re going
old-school in Unlimited). This
Type also has a single card of support;
not a lot (especially if pick the right
block of cards), but Type isn’t as well
supported in the Black& White
era. Plus that single card of
support is the Stadium Aspertia City
Gym, granting an extra 20 HP while
in play. Thankfully discarding
Stadiums currently requires an attack or
another Stadium, with the latter usually
being the most efficient. Stadiums
have become important in the game, so
synergy with one of them is always
welcome.
Stage: As a
Basic Pokémon Lugia EX enjoys a
format where its fellows are quite
dominant. All Pokémon-EX are Basic
Pokémon, and even before they debuted
big, Basic Pokémon were the main
attackers of most competitive decks.
They enjoy being naturally more
efficient to run and faster to play than
Evolutions, and if that wasn’t enough
they even have a handful of cards that
specifically favor them (Eviolite,
Prism Energy, Revive, and
Skyarrow Bridge) in addition to
naturally working better with some cards
(like search, seeing as how you don’t
have to deal with any “extra pieces” as
you would with an Evolution).
Hit Points:
180 HP is the maximum any Pokémon-EX has
been printed with, though to be fair it
also is so common it seems to be the
default; smaller scores might be
indicative of trying to “balance” more
potent effects, but given that several
small cards just haven’t proven that
good maybe it is something else.
Still, it is a great number and only 20
behind the true maximum printed HP score
in the game. Even with recent
tricks BW: Plasma Storm brought
us, 180 is a difficult number to hit in
a single turn, so Lugia EX should
almost always survive a single attack.
Weakness:
Lightning-Type Weakness, as Lugia EX
possesses, is a dangerous but not as bad
as what I would consider the most risky
Types to be Weak to; the reason for this
is the best Lightning-Type decks, those
backed by Eelektrik (BW: Noble
Victories 40/101), often rely on
off-Type attackers. Still, some do
still focus on actual Lightning-Types
and even those that don’t can always run
a clutch Zekrom (Black& White
47/114, 114/114; BW Promo BW005,
BW24; BW: Next Destinies 50/99);
it and many other Lightning-Type
attackers still hit hard enough to OHKO
Lugia EX.
Resistance:
Lugia EX enjoys Fighting
Resistance. Combined with its
massive HP score, it becomes pretty
painful for Fighting-Types to deal with.
Still, Fighting-Type Pokémon are often
great at dealing damage, so against a
more or less straight Fighting deck, it
is mostly useful for nerfing their
smaller attacks; big attacks will often
punch through for no more than a 3HKO,
even when factoring in potential
Aspertia City Gym and Eviolite
use.
What really makes
this nice is Fighting Weakness being so
common; this leads to Fighting-Type
Pokémon being used in off-type decks,
where it is harder for them to tap their
bigger moves.
Retreat:
Lugia EX has the currently awkward
Retreat score of (CC). While it is
something you will often have the Energy
to pay and can do so without crippling
your in game set-up, it doesn’t mesh
well with several combos.
Skyarrow Bridge, for example, will
drop it down to a nice single Energy
Retreat cost, but for Pokémon that
naturally retreat for one Energy it
zeroes things out.
If we look at other
Retreat score lowering tricks or actual
alternatives to manually retreating,
they work just as well no matter how
high the base Retreat cost is.
Besides a higher Retreat possibly
justifying something better elsewhere on
the card as compensation, had it been
three or more Heavy Ball could
have searched it out. This isn’t a
big deal, but at the same time I would
be remiss leaving it out.
Effects
Ability: The
Ability of Lugia EX, Overflow,
requires you take an extra Prize when
you KO an opponent’s Pokémon through
damage of an attack by it (Lugia EX).
It isn’t likely you wouldn’t want that
extra Prize, but the text does make it
mandatory should such a bizarre scenario
occur. Its wording also means a
Pokémon-EX KOed in the appropriate
manner would yield a total of three
Prizes.
This has been seen
before on Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND
(HS: Undaunted 89/90, 90/90).
For those trying to do a quick image
search should know that the “LEGEND”
mechanic is officially part of the
card’s name and that it resulted in two
cards that were played together as one,
Unevolved Pokémon; the second piece
(90/90) shows its Poké-Body (a precursor
to Abilities), Space Virus. The
text of Space Virus is almost identical
to Overflow, with the intended effect
being the same save for referencing
Rayquaza& Deoxys LEGEND instead of
Lugia EX.
That Poké-Body
proved useful despite that card being
quite hard to play, so Overflow looks to
also be good; exactly how good will
depend upon the attack and what combos
we can enhance it with.
Attack: For
(CCCC), Lugia EX can attack with
Plasma Gale, which was the name of the
Japanese set counterpart of BW:
Plasma Storm. The damage
output is 120, which is good for four of
any Energy… except if you read the
attack’s effect text, you see if is not
actually four of any Energy: you must
discard a Plasma Energy card from
Lugia EX in order to use its
attack, or the attack does nothing!
This isn’t
crippling; decks can run four Plasma
Energy cards and there is the Item,
Colress Machine that we already
reviewed which allows you to search for
deck for a Plasma Energy and
attach it to one of your Team Plasma
Pokémon. Currently our only
general deck option for reclaiming
Plasma Energy cards from the discard
pile is Recycle, a “tails fails”
Item that top decks a card of your
choice from the discard pile when it
succeeds.
Unless you go truly
elaborate and use a Pokémon with an
attack to do the job, even with
Recycle (a card that almost always
is “not quite” good enough to run) you
would at most get eight shots off from
Plasma Gale. Sounds like a lot,
but the damage is not quite enough to
OHKO the biggest, ordinary Basic Pokémon
without help, and rarely capable of
doing so to a Pokémon-EX. Smaller
supporting Basic Pokémon are easy pretty
(and fairly common), but the few Evolved
Pokémon will also be 10 to 30 points out
of range.
The attack is
compatible with almost every form of
Energy acceleration in the game right
now, including the oh-so-simple
Double Colorless Energy. It is
possible to build a deck that can attack
with Plasma Gale first turn, but that
requires a lot of investment.
Synergy:
Overflow is what makes Plasma Gale worth
the hassle, but the design seems to
avoid making this as powerful as it
appears at a glance. Plasma Gale
can only easily be used four times, and
will rarely take down Pokémon-EX.
While it is useful getting two Prizes
per smaller, supporting Pokémon that is
still three attacks required, leaving
room for only one to spare. In a
game where six cards from your deck are
randomly set aside as Prizes, only
available as a blind pick (before
combos) from KOing one of your
opponent’s cards, a single attack buffer
isn’t much.
You also have to
consider that with similar effort,
simpler strategies will likely win just
as fast since they can take down
Pokémon-EX with a single attack.
Plasma Gale is good for a 2HKO most of
the time, but you are risking an
opponent healing up between turns and
you have no room for error with only
four copies of Plasma Energy in
the deck! Again, with all that
effort, you probably could run something
that simply OHKOs opposing Pokémon-EX
and win in one less turn.
It is probably
better that the attack does force you to
discard a Plasma Energy rather
than just have one attached; with how
intentional the design is I doubt the
attack would hit as hard and Special
Energy is easier to discard this format;
your odds of keeping it become so low
you might as well enjoy the better
damage output.
Lastly, remember
that Overflow, while potent, is hardly
“broken”. If it worked with any
Pokémon, from the Bench, it would be
broken. If it didn’t specific
damage from an attack by Lugia EX
itself, again it would be broken (Hypnotoxic
Laser and Virbank City Gym
would increase its range immensely).
Despite how hard I’ve been on the
attack, overall the Ability and attack
work exactly as good as the game can
afford to allow, or perhaps a little too
good since I really don’t like cards
that can hit for 120 points of damage
first turn.
Usage
Card Family:
Again, this is a Team Plasma card, and
thus all other Team Plasma cards are at
least loosely affiliated.
Plasma Energy is obviously the most
closely related as Lugia EX
specifies you have to discard one for
its attack to do any damage.
Plasma Energy is merely a catalyst
card, a means of paying a cost as it
provides only (C) for Energy output.
Colress Machine isn’t anymore
directly related to Lugia EX than
anything else, but it directly affects
Plasma Energy as mentioned above,
so expect it if you see Lugia EX.
Similarly,
Plasma Frigate would allow you to
negate the Weakness on Lugia EX
(or any other Pokémon with a Plasma
Energy attached) but that also means
having a second, since you should be
discarding a single one each time you
attack. As such, not the best
Stadium to use and the protection it
offers was already somewhat fragile as a
counter Stadium or Energy discarding
effect would void it.
Technically any
Team Plasma Pokémon can be paired up
with Lugia EX and enjoy synergy
of their shared resources, and it is
most pronounced with the Colorless-Type
Team Plasma Pokémon we have:
Bouffalant (BW: Plasma Storm
114/135), Watchog (BW: Plasma
Storm 112/135), and Watchog (BW:
Plasma Storm 113/135). Yes,
there are two versions of Watchog
[Plasma], with different attacks,
unfortunately neither they nor the
Bouffalant are any good.
There are a few
pieces of support that also can make use
of Team Plasma Pokémon in general, but
so far they too are really not worth
using. Despite having a
technically large family, Lugia EX
isn’t close to that many of them.
Modified:
Lugia EX has been hotly anticipated,
and because it is compatible with almost
every form of Energy acceleration, it
can be fit into most decks, but not very
well. Colress Machine is an
obvious combo, but at the same time
making room for it and Plasma Energy
is a challenge even if a deck is cutting
a different attacker for Lugia EX.
So just because you can use it in so
many difference decks, you really
shouldn’t.
Lugia EX is
a natural in a Colorless-Type deck built
to maximize it. Colress Machine
and Plasma Energy are quite
likely, though if they are used the only
other generic Energy acceleration (Ether,
usually backed by Pokédex) will
not fit unless you cut out more vital
cards. Still this allows you to
back Lugia EX with strong cards
that all get +20 HP from Aspertia
City gym and can make good use of
any Energy acceleration other than
Colress Machine.
Pokémon like
Tornadus EX (BW: Dark Explorers
90/108, 108/108), one of the best
Pokémon-EX in the game, though that can
be easy to forget since by now we’ve got
about half a dozen cards Pokémon-EX that
fit that description. The
aforementioned Bouffalant (the
one that hurts Pokémon-EX more, not the
Team Plasma affiliate) would also be a
solid choice.
Lugia EX can
also work with Blastoise (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 31/149),
Eelektrik, Ether/Pokédex,
decks that move Energy around, and even
a deck that utilizes Dark Patch
plus Energy Switch and/or
Scramble Switch. In these
decks, Colress Machine probably
won’t fit without seriously affecting
the deck’s performance in other areas.
In fact, adding in Double Colorless
Energy would also likely be too
much; any Energy acceleration such decks
already use will have to suffice.
All four of these
also really need something that can
spread damage around, preferably early
game. While an opponent might be
able to heal it all away, it usually
isn’t easy, and this is what finally
allows Lugia EX to be more
effective; 60 points of damage isn’t
easy, but it would put all unprotected
Pokémon-EX within KO range by a single
Plasma Gale.
These ideas aren’t
all equal; using Dark Patch
combos is crazy hard, so even with the
set-up of spreading damage, you still
would only want it as a finisher and
probably not at all. I mention it
on the hope I missed something that
would make it less clunky and more
effective. The Ether/Pokédex
option isn’t much better, though
Landorus EX (BW: Boundaries
Crossed 89/149, 144/149) is
excellent at spreading damage and tends
to be one the “postermon” for such
decks.
Klinklang (Black
& White 76/114) and Hydreigon
(BW: Dragons Exalted 97/124) each
anchor decks, providing reliable Energy
redistribution, but such decks are so
crowded that adding Plasma Energy
plus Lugia EX would be too much
for their stability. Blastoise
can easily make room for Lugia EX
and even a few copies of Plasma
Energy. Some builds might even
still have room for Kyurem (BW:
Noble Victories 34/101) for solid
spread across all of your opponent’s
Pokémon. The problem is you have
to choose between Lugia EX and
Black Kyurem EX, and the latter is
just easier to use; two turns of it
OHKOing Pokémon EX for four Prizes
versus two turns of attacking for
Lugia EX to KO something for three
Prizes.
Eelektrik
decks similarly can use the raw power
approach to ultimately take more Prizes
in the same amount of turns; Rayquaza
EX (BW: Dragons Exalted
85/124, 123/124) is also a OHKO machine
with the proper set-up. Plus with
Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank
City Gym, all the above decks that
have room for said combo are better at
scoring pseudo-OHKOs, where the Poison
damage finishes off the Defending
Pokémon between turns.
Unlimited:
Here Lugia EX can be fun, but
probably not very effective: decks that
win or lock the opponent down first turn
are still dominant. The added
support would make setting up and
maintaining a Lugia EX easier and
the smaller HP scores of older cards
(some worth two Prizes before Overflow):
old school Pokémon-ex or something
sporting an Expert Belt.
Assuming Expert Belt adding a
Prize stacks with Overflow, things could
get crazy fun.
Probably no where
near competitive, though.
Limited:
Here Lugia EX is potentially
worthless. You must pull a
Plasma Energy card or this isn’t
even worth using a meat-shield. If
you do pull at least one Plasma
Energy, then consider running it;
most Pokémon here will fall into OHKO
range and while it might only be good
for one shot, two Prizes is even more
impressive in a format that only starts
with four.
This also hurts it,
though, as despite taking several turns
(most likely) for your opponent to KO
Lugia EX, it too is worth half your
beginning Prizes when all is said and
done, isn’t easy to get out of the
Active position, and will be very card
to set-up in time to make a difference
unless you draw several pieces of
support. This is definitely not a
Pokémon-EX to try and run with just 39
Energy cards, which while bad for its
score is actually good for Limited as a
format.
Spoiler: I
really believe this card ranked so high
on reviewer lists because players were
thinking ahead. Future Team Plasma
Support will include a means of boosting
the damage from the attacks of Team
Plasma Pokémon as well more than one way
of reliably retrieving Team Plasma cards
from the discard pile. These two
things alone can result in games where
five or six attacks easily score two KOs
for six Prizes, or three KOs for two
Prizes. The gimmick becomes a
reliable strategy, and the nature of the
rest of the deck provides adequate fall
back attackers.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.75/5
Modified:
3.25/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary
Lugia EX is
currently more of a novelty Pokémon,
though one that can push for a surprise
win or lead. The effort required
for most decks is too much, and the
results from a deck dedicated to it seem
insufficient for the effort expended.
This should change in the future, but we
are reviewing this card now, not then.
Lugia EX did
make my Top 10 list, but in the number
10 slot. Even its place there
wasn’t a bit tenuous. Yesterday
the rest of the group helped me realize
I had ranked Scramble Switch too
low on my original list (I had it at
number five), but with Lugia EX I
am still puzzled. After reviewing
Lugia EX, I am thinking I ranked
it too high.
