Xerneas Prism Star – Lost Thunder Pokemon Review

Vince

Apparently, for this week, we are looking at several cards that are part of a deck that won first place. The mastermind of this deck is Mew & Mewtwo-GX. If you’ve read what it does, then it’s Perfection ability is so flexible that you can get away with a deck that would’ve looked inconsistent to the average player. If having at least 12+ different kinds of EX and GX Pokémon in your deck isn’t causing enough headaches, then I don’t know what can (maybe energyless Roto Motor Rotom, or a deck with multiple Stage 2s, including Meganium, and just one Super Boost Energy).

Anyways, Xerneas Prism Star from Sun & Moon Lost Thunder is under review for today, and it seems that we haven’t reviewed this card at all in this set’s initial release. A year and a half has passed, but it’s better late than never. Plus, we get to know how it has performed for this long. It is a Basic Fairy Type with 160 HP, Metal weakness, Darkness Resistance, and a retreat cost of two. It’s ability, Path of Light, states that if Xerneas was in the Bench and became the Active spot, then you get to move as many energies from your Pokemon to Xerneas Prism Star, which could help fuel up any attacks Xerneas might have. And that attack happen to cost three Fairy energies to use Bright Horns for 160 damage, and you can’t use that attack on your next turn. This attack actually falls a bit short of 2HKOs now (definitely short of 2HKOs since Fairy weakness no longer exists in Sword & Shield onwards), but back when it was released, it was a clean 2HKO.

I have to divide this into two parts: why it was included in Mew & Mewtwo-GX decks and how it fares in a Fairy deck. For the perspective of Mew & Mewtwo-GX, it was somewhat an inclusion to such decks that ran certain Fairy energies and, of course, some Rainbow and Aurora energies. Even though Xerneas isn’t a EX or a GX Pokémon (they can’t copy Bright Horns), it is a decent single prize attacker that can 2HKO most of the Pokémon that’s on the card pool. Plus, Mew & Mewtwo-GX having some Fairy energies meant that Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX was going to be placed on the discard pile in order for their attacks to be copied (mostly Keleidostorm and Magical Miracle, but not so much on Fairy Song). Discarding methods in Standard could include, but not limited to, Dedenne-GX, Aurora Energy, Mysterious Treasure, and more. For Expanded, however, Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear was definitely the choice to discard stuff from your deck while also thinning it. Such decks can easily burn through almost half their deck, using 4 Battle Compressor, Professor’s Research, and Dedenne-GX to dig through 25 cards on their second turn (if the player decides to go second)! If Mew & Mewtwo-GX was in trouble (like if it was walled by Keldeo-GX, Hoopa SHL, or Alolan Ninetales BUS/TEU due to their respective “Safeguard” abilities), then Xerneas Prism Star could take it’s place as with enough Fairy or Rainbow energies on the board, it can go from zero to attacking and OHKO them in the process instead of relying on a GX attack that bypasses such effects! This is something that running as a single copy as a TecH is reasonable for a Mew & Mewtwo-GX deck (well, you can only run one of them anyways).

On the other hand, Fairy decks wished that they could run 4 Xerneas Prism Star, but they can’t due to the Prism Star rule which only lets you have one of that particular name in that deck. Still, this is a good inclusion for Fairy decks for the same reasons mentioned above: a decent single prize beatstick that could 2HKO anything, or OHKO certain Pokémon when attaching a damage boosting item to it (and can also OHKO Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX for easy prizes). There’s a good amount of support for Fairy types, ranging from multiple Fairy Charms – which can prevent damage done to the holder from certain types of Pokemon – and Wondrous Labyrinth – which increases the attack cost of a colorless energy for non-Fairy types – in Standard. Expanded cards like Fairy Transfer Aromatisse and Fairy Garden are also very helpful cards for Fairy types as it can move Fairy energies around and grants free retreat for Pokémon with Fairy Energies attached. They’re good to some extent, but ultimately it’s the player’s discretion to determine which ones are worth using. Gardeon decks in Standard ran considerably fewer Pokémon and energies while the rest were made of trainer cards. Aromatisse is still a good choice, but you’ve got to worry about Abilities being offline and the risk of being dragged into the Active spot and being KOed, as it’s own 90 HP makes it easy for your opponent to do so. Even Xerneas’s own ability could be offline as well, putting their maneuver to a halt.

Overall, that’s how Xerneas would be used, and it does a good job of filling a role in both formats. It’s also a good pull in Limited, but you have to mind that you can only use Bright Horns once every two turns, which could still be worth it if it OHKOs a Pokémon.

Ratings:

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

Xerneas Prism Star has found some reasons to be used: occasionally at Mew & Mewtwo-GX decks and definitely in Fairy based decks. I’ve experienced this card even in casual play and found that it could be a good backup attacker for when your main attacker, whether it be MewTwos or Gardeon, is liable for being knocked out and gives up multiple prizes. A single prize Pokémon with a 160 HP body (or 200 HP if Fighting Fury Belt is attached) is nothing to be scoff at, as it can tank some of the attacks that EX/GX/V Pokémon dish out. As usual, the drawbacks of being a Prism Star card is that it’s hard to draw into that card when you’re topdecking or using Professor cards – and even worse if it’s prized – and being in the Lost Zone where you won’t get to use it ever again in a match if it ever tries to go into the discard pile (either by KO or discard fodder).

Yes, I temporary reverted to putting ratings near the end because this card’s review is long overdue, though if we reviewed it around the time Lost Thunder just came out, then it would be only good for Fairy decks and nothing more. Now? It seemed to materialize further to have more usage in flexible decks like MewTwo, though with rotation about to happen five months later (if it really is Team Up onwards), the usual saying will apply when players should use it while they still can. Even if Xerneas survives rotation, the discontinued support of Fairy types on Sword & Shield onwards means it still wouldn’t benefit more than what it still available (Wondrous Labyrinth, Fairy Charm Lightning/Ultra Beast/Ability, and Gardeon are the last bits of Fairy based cards for TEU-on).

Otaku

Today we’re looking at Xerneas {*} (SM – Lost Thunder 144/214).  I don’t believe we’ve reviewed a Prism Star card in over eight months, so let’s review.  Prism Star cards have the Prism Star Rule printed on them, which is actually two rules:

• Though you can have multiple Prism Star cards in the same deck, you’re capped at one per name.
• If a Prism Star card would go to your discard pile for any reason, instead it goes to the Lost Zone.

These two restrictions are why Prism Star cards tend to be more powerful than you’d expect.

Xerneas {*} is a [Y] Type, another way you know it isn’t a new card; post-Sword & Shield, VG Fairy Types are being represented as part of the TCG [P] Type.  [Y] Pokémon are decently supported, but eventually they’ll fall behind since no new support is coming.  Likewise, they’re only really useful for exploiting Weakness on XY-era and SM-era Dragon Types… except that’s really important right now, so we’ll come back to that.

Being a Basic Pokémon is the best, and it means that 160 HP is good, even though I’m not sure if it is a little more, a little less or has even odds of surviving a hit or being OHKO’d.  [M] Weakness is very dangerous right now, as Zacian V decks are popular… but it’d OHKO you anyway, so it is more supporting [M] Types where this matters.  Any Resistance is appreciated, and [D] Resistance might be useful against Galarian Obstagoon.  A Retreat Cost of [CC] is high enough you don’t want to pay it, but low enough you actually can some of the time.

Xerneas {*} has the Ability “Path of Life” and the attack “Bright Horns”.  The former works once per turn, when Xerneas {*} moves from your Bench to the Active position.  When that happens, you can move as much Energy to it from your other Pokémon as you want.  For [YYY], Bright Horns lets Xerneas {*} swing for 160 damage, but also places an effect stating it can’t use Bright Horns during your next turn.  Reminder: Bright Horns is the card’s only attack.

It is hard to consider Path of Life in isolation.  It works with any Energy, even though its attack only requires [Y].  At first I thought it pointless, but then I remembered you might want to move something like Weakness Energy to it, or need Energy of a different Type to trigger some other card’s effect.  I couldn’t come up with any good combos that involve using Path of Life on its own, but it certainly makes Bright Horns a lot better.  Without it, you’d have to substitute some other form of Energy acceleration.  While 160-for-three is solid, manually attaching three [Y] Energy is just too slow.

Xerneas {*} earned its review for its use in a particular Mewtwo & Mew-GX build, namely this one.  It runs completely on Special Energy cards, which includes four copies each of Aurora Energy and Rainbow Energy.  This lets Mewtwo & Mew-GX utilize a wide variety of attacks through it’s “Perfection” Ability, and the vast assortment of Pokémon-GX the deck also runs.  Xerneas {*} gives the deck a solid, single-Prize attacker that happens to one-shot Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX, due to Weakness.  Not only is Arceuus & Dialga & Palkia-GX of the most likely Zacian V partners, even this deck included a copy of it!

I’m actually a bit surprised I didn’t see any Xerneas {*} in Expanded decks; the same reasons it is a nice trick in Standard seem like they ought to apply in Expanded.  Garchomp & Giratina-GX decks were even a big thing not that long ago.  As for the Limited Format, go ahead and run this so long as your deck can work in at least three Fairy Energy, and isn’t a Mulligan build.  Just remember that it is harder to shake the effect of Bright Horns here.

Ratings

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 3/5

Xerneas {*} isn’t for most decks, but where it works, it should work reasonably well as a one-time attacker (more if you’re lucky).  Even though it is currently striking a particularly valuable form of Weakness, that isn’t enough for me to bump it from three-out-of-five to four-out-of-five.  What worries me about this card’s long term prospects is how the powers-that-be basically retired the [Y] Typing.  Existing cards are still legal, and will likely remain so for some time in Expanded… but they’ll never be new support for this Type, unless the decision to retire the Type is reversed.