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For our week of Honorary Mentions, cards that didn’t
quite make either the Top 5 Reprints or Top 5 New Cards
of BW: Legendary Treasures, we have
Chandelure EX.
Pokémon-EX shaped the last format extensively, becoming
the dominant force.
Of course, even before that the regular Basic
Pokémon of the BW sets were still the dominant
attackers.
Even with multiple forms of Pokémon-EX counters, they
are still the dominant source of attackers and
unfortunately, I don’t have the data on whether or not
the rule change leveled the playing field between Basics
and Pokémon-EX.
I may not have to in order to review
Chandelure EX.
Being a Psychic-Type probably won’t help out in
terms of support but can be useful for hitting Weakness
on opposing
Mewtwo EX.
170 HP remains the second highest printed for
Pokémon-EX and is relatively good; it isn’t out of OHKO
range but most decks won’t be able to hit this amount
repeatedly, reliably.
Chandelure EX
lacks the usual Psychic Weakness (owing to its videogame
Typing) but that isn’t a huge favor as it possess
Darkness Weakness instead; Darkness-Types are possibly
the best supported Type and the doubling will likely
turn what would have been 2HKOs into OHKOs.
No Resistance is the worst Resistance, but also
the most common.
Plus even if some had been present, it likely
wouldn’t have made a major different in match-ups:
exploiting Resistance is no where near as easy or
rewarding as exploiting Weakness.
Wrapping up the bottom Stats is the Retreat Cost:
two is not terrible, but as most decks rarely pay to
manually Retreat (even though changing out your Active
is often important), being a little less expensive the
Pokémon that could tap
Heavy Ball
seems negligible.
Chandelure EX
has two attacks; the first requires (P) and allows you
to place four damage counters as you wish on your
opponent’s Pokémon.
The wording is such that you can put all four on
the same target or divide them among multiple targets.
This isn’t bad, but it isn’t enough to build a
deck around.
Besides the weakening of early game attacks due
to the new rules, you’ll never be able to enjoy Weakness
when hitting an Active… which is often the bread and
butter of early game attacks.
Eerie Glow requires (PPC), which means most forms of
Energy acceleration won’t create a huge swing; some
specific forms can still help but don’t expect to
reliably jump from zero to Eerie Glow in a single turn.
You get 70 points of damage in addition to
guaranteed Burn and Confusion.
This isn’t a bad combination; you could still use
Hypnotoxic Laser
with it to get even more damage… but you’ve got to use
combos to get the damage to a useful level.
In the end this doesn’t seem to be enough to justify
playing it.
If you really insist, I would consider Benching
Volcarona (BW:
Dark Explorers 22/108; BW Promo BW40) for its
Ability,
Hypnotoxic Laser, and
Virbank
City
Gym.
Your opponent will face 70 points of base damage,
three more damage counters guaranteed from enhanced
Poison damage, and a 50% chance of four damage counters
from Burn for a probably OHKO against Psychic Weak
Pokémon and “okay” damage against most else.
With no Weakness or Resistance, you’re looking at
a 140/100 split (based on the Burn check).
If your opponent can’t ditch Confusion and fails
that check when attacking, you’ll both avoid taking any
damage and tack another two damage counters on to make
it a 160/120 split.
That isn’t enough for the effort; factor in
vulnerabilities to popular
Darkrai EX
based decks and possibility that
Virizion EX
usage could prevent the usual reliable damage boost from
Hypnotoxic Laser
in addition to the “maybe” boost from Burn, and it
becomes even less appealing.
I would not recommend the card for Unlimited –
while it’s high HP makes it less likely to be donked via
damage counter placement strategies that is about all I
can see it offering here.
For Limited, it is a great pull; you can and should
chance a “+39” build if all you want to do is enjoy this
card (and no other Pokémon use pulled).
You’ll be in trouble if you encounter an opponent
running Sigilyph
(BW: Legendary Treasures 66/113) due to its Safe
Guard, Darkrai
EX (BW: Legendary Treasures 88/113), or
Zoroark (BW:
Legendary Treasures 90/113), but otherwise should
rarely fail to outpace your opponent on damage and
Prizes as you can begin attacking for a single Energy
and target the Bench if you need to, then switch to
solid damage with a chance of protection (via Confusion)
when appropriate.
Not much of a reason to run it in a “real”
Limited deck unless it was already focused on using
Psychic Energy.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.25/5
Modified:
1.75/5
Limited:
4.95/5
Summary
This is a card to appreciate for its art, or if you
thought it was a good idea to expand the Pokémon-EX
mechanic from “Legendary” Basic Pokémon to other cards.
Chandelure EX does some interesting things, but not
well enough to expect to win.
I didn’t even consider it worth an honorable
mention for my Top 5 New Cards list, though it would
have made a Top 10 due to lack of material.
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