Darkrai Prism Star – Ultra Prism – Pokemon Review

aroramage

I wonder if there’s moments where the Pokemon Company looks back and goes, “You know what was popular? This thing! Let’s make this thing again!” X Ball, Night Spear, Rain Dance, a lot of things seem to get renewed in some manner or another.

Darkrai <Prism> just so happens to have a rehash of an Ability we reviewed…yesterday! It’s a Basic Dark Pokemon, 160 HP, with a Fighting Weakness, Psychic Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 2. Being a <Prism> card, you can only run one of it, and it gets put in the Lost Zone if it ever goes to the discard pile, so is it worth it as a one-of? Let’s see…

I mentioned it’s like Pachirisu from yesterday, and that’s where its Nightmare Star Ability comes in. When you play him from your hand, Darkrai <Prism> gets the benefit of a couple of Dark Energy from your hand as well. That’s pretty good in and of itself for acceleration, but it doesn’t actually power him up all the way for his attack. Abyssal Sleep costs 4 Dark Energy, does 120 damage, puts the enemy Pokemon to Sleep, AND causes your opponent to flip two coins instead of one between turns. It’s pretty good, being able to 2HKO most things in the game while also inflicting a Status on them…just that the Status Condition can only get you so far.

Don’t get me wrong, the increased coins means there’s only a 25% chance they’ll wake up (since both coins have to be Heads to make that work), but it’s also something that a lot of folks should be able to get around with Guzma, Acerola, etc. If they can’t, it’s an easy Prize pick, and since Darkrai <Prism> has decent HP, he likely will have to be 2HKO’d in turn. Trades out evenly, eh? The main issue I have with his viability…is that he’s a one-of that requires 4 Energy of the same kind to make an attacker.

…that just says “side attacker” to me.

Rating

Standard: 2.5/5 (not a bad card by itself, but its own restrictiveness keeps it from shining)

Expanded: 2.5/5 (which, all things considered, might be to his benefit)

Limited: 3.5/5 (…cause…cause he’s a Dark Pokemon)

Arora Notealus: A lot of these <Prism> cards have been assigned to Legendary Pokemon or big name characters in the series, with the exception of Super Boost Energy <Prism>. It’s likely that that’ll continue to be the case in the next couple of sets, but it’s one of those things where the power of the cards should be something that justifies it being at one. After all, this is an all-or-nothing style of card, and you want to milk it for all its worth!

Side Review: Rotom Dex Poke Finder Mode – I guess Dex Finder has some value in helping to search out the <Prism> cards in some manner. Use it with a draw 2 Supporter, and as long as the card is on top, you get a lot of mileage out of it! It doesn’t combo well with Cynthia though, as playing it before Cynthia means you just shuffled out the next few cards you might have stacked, and playing it after is really based on whether you draw Dex Finder or not. Never mind that a 2-card combo to try and get the cards you need isn’t as good as a 1-card “draw 6” sort of thing.

Weekend Thought: What’re your thoughts on this week’s cards? Think there are some viable strategies to use them in? Think they could be useful with the cards mentioned in the Side Reviews? What kinds of combinations could you come up with?

Otaku

We close the week with Darkrai [Prism Star] (SM – Ultra Prism 77/156); as a Prism Star card, you may only run a single Darkrai [Prism Star], if it would be sent to the discard pile, it goes to the Lost Zone. I cover it and a few other new or returning mechanics here if you need it. Being a Basic is the best, and that 160 HP is pretty great as well; this card is easy to play and isn’t easy to OHKO, at least outside of its [F] Weakness. The Psychic Resistance is handy, but being a [D] Type doesn’t much while the Retreat Cost of [CC] is mediocre. Darkrai [Prism Star] has the Ability “Nightmare Star”, which triggers when you Bench Darkrai [Prism Star] from hand during your turn; you have the option of attaching two [D] Energy from your hand to this Pokémon. This makes it a lot easier to use the card’s attack, “Abyssal Sleep” costs [DDDD] and does 120 damage for [DDDD] while putting your opponent’s Active to Sleep with the ADDED effect that your opponent must flip two coins instead of one for the Sleep Check, and both must be “heads” for that Pokémon to wake on its own. Nightmare Star is pretty great, but Abyssal Sleep is underwhelming and would be flat out bad if you not for Nightmare Star.

Yet this card would have been our 23rd place pick had our countdown started high enough because it had 13 voting points because I had it as my 8th place pick on my personal top 10. Why’d I rate it so high? I am hoping (and I haven’t completely given up yet) that some deck will take advantage of this and Ninja Boy (or an Energy moving combo) to unlock the power of some [D] Energy using Pokémon, the way yesterday’s Pachirisu (Call of Legends 18/95) did for certain attackers back in the day. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten around to testing any of my ideas, like using this, Max Elixir and (in Expanded) Dark Patch to rapidly ready Guzzlord-GX (as an example). I still think there is potential here, in both Standard and Expanded, but I can’t score the card high because no one demonstrated it as anything more than sweet, naive Theorymon. As long as your deck is mostly or mono-Darkness (in terms of Energy, not Pokémon) then it’ll be a nice, big beatstick that can stall if your opponent has something it can’t OHKO.

Ratings

Standard: 1.75/5
Expanded: 2/5
Limited: 3.5/5

Vince

Ending our week is Darkrai Prism Star. Being a Prism Star means you can have one of that card instead of the usual four and it could be kicked out from the game if it is Knocked Out or being discarded from play, hand, or deck. A Dark type with 160 HP, weak to Fighting, resist Psychic, and a retreat of two, it has an ability and an attack. Nightmare Star Ability states that when you put this Pokémon from your hand into the Bench, you may attach two Dark energy from your hand to this Pokémon. This may help fuel up this Pokemon’s attack, which is Abyssal Sleep that costs DDDD for 120 damage. It puts the Defending Pokemon to sleep and makes the opponent flip 2 coins. Of either coin is tails, that Pokemon is still asleep. This makes it a 75% chance between turns that a sleeping Pokemon couldn’t wake up.

Darkrai’s attack is not something you could rely on, since Sleep can be played around due to switching tactics or even being able to attack while asleep, like Komala’s Hypno Roll or Snorlax-GX’s Thunderous Snore, not that these cards will see play but worth mentioning. All Night Party Stadium also counters that Sleep special condition AND heals 30 damage from that Pokémon that just woke up. So with that attack thrown out from the window, we would have to look elsewhere.

I feel like Darkrai Prism Star would be a nice addition to Turbo Darkrai decks. Putting down this Pokémon and using the ability to get two Darkness energies will mean that Dark Pulse just got powered up by 40 damage, helping that attack reach KO levels faster or if other methods weren’t available in that particular turn. In Expanded, between using four Dark Patches, four Darkrai-GX, one Darkrai Prism Star, or four Max Elixirs, I feel like you have more than enough to get Dark Pulse swinging for heavy damage, if not, then in the 2HKO department. Overall, that’s probably where Darkrai Prism Star would be used.

Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 3/5
Limited: 4/5

21times
PokeDeck
Central

Darkrai Prism Star (UP 77) creeps into the meta from the Ultra Prism expansion set.  This 160 HP Basic Dark Pokemon has an interesting ability: Nightmare Star allows you to attach two Dark energy cards to it when you play it from your hand onto your bench.  So you could play it down and attach two Dark energy cards, attach the third dark energy, and then you’d still be one Dark energy short of powering up Darkrai Prism’s Abyssal Sleep attack.  This attack is reminiscent of the XY Promo Darkrai (XY 114) that forces your opponent to flip two heads to wake up.  Darkrai Prism’s Abyssal Sleep does a little more damage (120 instead of 80) than Darkrai Promo.

So I decided to put these Darkrais altogether in a deck, and I also threw in the UP Weavile just for fun.  So let me just say that right now it’s really bad to build a deck in which all of your attacking Pokemon are weak to Fighting types, but I did actually go 2 W and 3 L with this combo.

I will say that Darkrai Prism is very similar to Darkrai Promo, the style is the same.  And this deck might work better in a mill / disruption style than the straight up attacking build that I tried.  But overall, four Dark energies is a terrible cost.  Even with Elixirs and Wishful Batons, it’s just too hard to get all of these guys powered up.  Weavile wound up carrying the weight in most games, and I just wouldn’t recommend trying the Darkrais.  They’re just one of those ‘mons that’s better in theory than in practice.

Rating

Standard: 2 out of 5

Conclusion

Like I said, I might try again with a disruption deck, but those attack costs are too just astronomical.  To power up four Promos and a Prism, without Wishful Batons, you’d need 16 Dark energy.  OUCH!  Talk about cost prohibitive.