Beedrill ex – Shining Revelry
Date Reviewed: March 29, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Note: Got a little too wordy, so the review was posted an hour late. Once again, my apologies!
Beedrill ex (A2b 003, 079, 107) is our final Honorable Mention of Shining Revelry. It’s a Grass Type, Stage 2 Pokémon ex that evolves from Kakuna. Beedrill ex has 170 HP, (R) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. For (G)(G), Beedrill ex can use “Crushing Spear” to do both 80 damage to and discard a random Energy from your opponent’s Active Pokémon. Beedrill ex is available as a ♦♦♦♦ rare, with two versions available at the ★★ rarity.
The (G) Type has a lot going for it… sort of. They now have six unique cards1 of Type-specific support but most hasn’t seen any recent success. Erika and Leafeon ex may prove relevant to Beedrill ex, but I don’t expect the others to. There are no anti-(G) effects, a neutral state that may technically be a positive. As for exploiting Weakness, given Crushing Spear’s damage, it’s about enabling or improving 2HKOs, with the odd useful OHKO of something like Cranidos (A2 088).
As a Stage 2, you’ll need to run two extra cards and wait two extra turns for Beedrill ex to hit the field, versus running a comparable Basic. We’ll discuss the specifics of Weedle and Kakuna cards later, as well as their other possible Evolution. The Ability on Aerodactyl ex (A1a 046, 078, 084) is still the only card effect that references evolution, and it can still mess up a Beedrill ex deck you need to evolve your Active Pokémon.
Besides giving up an extra point when KO’d, being a Pokémon ex means Beedrill ex takes extra damage from four different cards. Yeah, two were added in Shining Revelry. Meowscarada (A2b 007, 073), Sudowoodo (A2 036, 079), and Tauros (A1a 060) each have an attack2 with an effect that says it does more damage to Pokémon ex. Red (A2b 071, 090) is a Supporter that increases the damage done by any attack3 used against an opponent’s Active Pokémon ex.
Beedrill ex has 170 HP and that’s great! Though this is the lowest printed on a Stage 2 Pokémon ex, it’s also the most common, and still enough to be a difficult OHKO. Beedrill ex’s (R) Weakness does allow Infernape (A2 029, 181, 194) and the new Charizard ex (A2b 010, 080, 108) to score OHKOs they would have missed, while improving the 2HKO capacity of some other (R) Types. Beedrill ex’s Retreat Cost of (C) is also very good, but I feels like it should Retreat for free, for what that’s worth.
Ignoring the rest of the card for a moment, Crushing Spear looks pretty good. A reliable 80 damage for two Energy isn’t mind-blowing, but it’s enough to 2HKO a lot of the metagame, give or take other card effects. Literally: there are enough simple and complex combos to increase or decrease an attack’s damage, both actual and effective, that it could go either way… but Crushing Spear includes a potent bonus effect of discarding an opponent’s Energy!
There are some restrictions, or perhaps I should say, conditions. The first is easy to forget about; Crushing Spear only works on your opponent’s Active Pokémon. From a flavor standpoint, it makes sense; that’s who Beedrill is attacking. Ignoring the fluff and focusing on the mechanical crunch of the game, it could theoretically have hit any Pokémon, whether randomly, or of your choice. The second is you don’t choose which Energy is discarded; that’d be better, as multi-Energy Type decks are a thing.
What we got is still good, though. Even in context. Even after factoring in the positive, negative, and in-between aspects of Beedrill ex, Crushing Spear is still a net positive. While it means you’ll need an opening or Turn 1 Weedle, that evolves into a Turn 3 Kakuna, you can have Beedrill ex in play and attacking on Turn 5. It’ll take all of your manual Energy attachments, or else some Energy acceleration, but it can be done!
Let’s talk about the rest of the card family, before we get to actual decks. Weedle (A1 008), Weedle (A2b 001, 097), Kakuna (A1 009), Kakuna (A2b 002, 098), and Beedrill (A1 010). All five of these are (G) Pokémon with (R) Weakness and one attack a piece, priced at (G). Both Weedle are Basic Pokémon with 50 HP and (C) Retreat Costs, both Kakuna are Stage 1 Pokémon with 80 HP and (C)(C) Retreat Costs, and Beedrill is a Stage 2 with 120 HP and a (C) Retreat Cost.
Weedle (A1 008) can use “Sting” to do 20 damage. Weedle (A2b 001, 097) can use “Multiply” to play a random Weedle from your deck to your Bench. Kakuna (A1 009) can use “Bug Bite” to do 30 damage, while Kakuna (A2b 002, 098) can use “String Shot” to do 20 damage and flip a coin; if “heads”, the opponent’s Active is Paralyzed. Beedrill (A1 010) can use “Sharp Sting” to do 70 damage.
You don’t ever want to have to attack with Weedle or Kakuna. You can run whichever you prefer; 20 damage isn’t going to do much, but with only two Weedle in a deck, Multiply can pretty easily do nothing. I personally would go with Kakuna (A2b 002, 098), just because a 50% chance of Paralysis is more likely to help Kakuna survive to evolve than doing 10 more damage. “Baby” Beedrill is an easy skip. Though Sharp Sting has an amazing damage-to-Energy ratio, it’s not worth the rest of Beedrill.
Looking at baby Beedrill, we see that being a Pokémon ex granted +50 HP and… maybe helped pay for Crushing Spear? If regular Beedrill is already doing 70-for-(G), it is hard to determine if +10 damage and/or the random Energy discard were bonuses provided strictly because the attack cost doubled to (G)(G), or if being a Pokémon ex was also a factor.
Now for the decks. The only deck shown over at Pokémon Zone was from a speculative article covering multiple decks. Still, the name is so good I’ll include it alongside the two that did good (or at least okay) over on LimitlessTCG. That gives us plain Beedrill ex, Beedrill ex/Exeggutor ex, and Beedrill ex/Celebi ex a.k.a. “Cele-Bee”. There were only 31 instances of nine different Beedrill ex decks in LimitlessTCG’s compiled results, with six losing one-offs and one losing two-off.
Plain Beedrill ex seems very risky. It’s nine instances have a 47.37% Win Rate at the time of writing. The deck only run two each of Weedle, Kakuna, and Beedrill ex. This leaves room for 14 Trainers, but we did not suddenly get more Trainer-based Pokémon search. Iono (A2b 069, 088) does provide some additional Supporter-based draw power, but her effect forces both players to shuffle their current hands into their respective decks, then draw a number of cards equal to how many they shuffled away.
Besides other typical, general Trainers and the typical-for-Grass inclusion of Erika, the only other notables are Red (see above) and Team Rocket Grunt (A2b 072, 091). The latter has you flip a coin until you get “tails”; for each “heads” you get to discard an Energy from your opponent’s Active. You’ll be seeing reviews for Iono, Red, and Team Rocket’s Grunt soon, but I’ll tell you now, they aren’t enough for me to be confident in this “14 Trainers” approach to Beedrill ex.
Paired with Exeggutor ex (A1 023, 0252), Beedrill ex has 14 instances with a 53.33% Win Rate. Exeggutor ex needs little introduction or explanation. Expect the usual approach to Exeggutor ex, possibly with none, one, two, or all three of those new Supporters I just mentioned. Yes, it is still that much in the air. Running two Evolution lines is clunky but manageable, and neither needs a lot of Energy, but has good (Beedrill) or great (Exeggutor ex) HP and damage-to-Energy. It’s lacking in raw offense, however.
Now for Cele-Bee. There was only one instance of it in the LimitlessTCG results, having gone 3-3-0. It’s getting a shout out, unlike the other lesser run decks, because of both the Pokémon Zone article and because I find the concept sound. Celebi ex (A1a 003, 075, 085) is almost as well known as Exeggutor ex, maybe even better known. Celebi ex can potentially deal loads of damage, if you flip well and have enough Energy attached. As with Exeggutor ex, Beedrill ex doesn’t need that much Energy, so you’ll likely have many manual Energy attachments you can spare for Celebi ex.
I’m actually wondering if the best approach would be to shoot for a BCE deck: Beedrill ex, Exeggutor ex, and Celebi ex. You’ll have to make do with two fewer Trainers and there likely won’t be as many spare Energy attachments, but Celebi ex provides the raw – if flippy – power that Beedrill ex and Exeggutor ex both lack. Circumstances permitting, you can also go with either a flippy tank or an Energy removing solid attacker, whichever suits the match-up.
Rating: 3/5
I want Beedrill ex to be good, but it’s still a Stage 2 Pokémon ex. We’ve had more than one of those do well in the past, and it looks like we still have one or two of those doing well in the present. Some of which are Fire decks, and thus a problem for Beedrill ex. I also worry nostalgia is biasing me in favor of Beedrill ex.
First, it’s silly but green really is my favorite color. Second, a good friend of mind ran various Koga-based deck in the full Pokémon TCG, back when we were both in college4. Which led to me running them as well, and Koga’s Beedrill (Gym Challenge 009/132) was often the star of his, if not mine. Then there’s the fact that, not only am I Transformers fan, in particular I’m a Waspinator fan. Shining Revery’s shtick is having Pokémon in their alternate “shiny” colors. Beedrill’s are a “close enough” to Waspinator’s.
1Caterpie (A1 005), Erika (A1 219, 266), Leafeon ex (A2a 010, 082, 091), Lilligant (A1 030), Serperior (A1a 006, 070), and Sprigatito (A2b 005; P-A 052).
2All three Pokémon know one attack, but that attack has a different name, Energy cost, base damage, and bonus damage when used against Pokémon ex.
3As with all other damage increasing effects, Red cannot increase damage for an attack that doesn’t normally do damage.
4This would have been in the early, early 2000s. Yes, we’re old! Which is why I’m not sure if I also used Koga’s Beedrill.
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉 Click here to read our Pokémon Card of the Day Archive. We have reviewed nearly 5000 Pokémon cards over the last 25 + years!
