(1) 130+ 'Plasma Storm' Scans!

Boundaries crossed: 9 full arts, 4 ace specs, 4 shinies. Had they included the trainers they should've from this new set, would've been the best set ever released.

This one seems rushed, full of promo's that Japan got in other ways (wish we'd get those in tins or special packs or something, not filling up out sets)

Just my opinion :) only plus's are Lugia FA, Colress, trainers and blastoise to me
 
YES HEATMOR. Everybody will fear y quad Heatmor deck mwahaha

Is it just me, or does that Mamoswine's second attack seem a little overkill? It still sucks. But seriously.
Actually not THAT bad of a set. That.
 
Let's see.

Torterra: Could work as a tank, otherwise it's just average.

Vespiqueen: Could be good in a spread deck. I might try it in my Chandelure deck.

Cherim: Could work with Torterra. Not the most competitive deck, but it could be fun.

Leavanny: Crap.

Maractus: Good in limited.

Foongus Amoonguss: I know which Foongus I'm playing now.

Moltress EX: Decent. Will be better once we get the new Chandelure.

Infernape: Fast, cheap attacker with free retreat, too bad it's a stage 2...

Victini EX: Only good for the first attack. Otherwise, it's an easy 2 prizes.

Simisear: Blastoise Keldeo is better, but this IS an uncommon.

Litwick/Lampent, but no Chandelure? What the hell?

Heatmor: Don't like. Too unreliable.

Squirtle: Stick with BC squirtle. This one sucks.

Articuno EX: Best of the legendary bird EXs. I like the spread attack.

Piloswine/Mamoswine: Could be good with fliptini.

Ludicolo: Good ability on a bad pokemon.

Sharpedo: Druddegon (NV) is much better.

Manaphy: One of the best starters ever. Accelerates energy and replaces itself once knocked out. Couldn't ask for more (well except for a colorless attack cost).

Vanilluxe: Outclassed by basic EXs.

Jellicent: Semi usefull ability (virbank gym combo?), otherwise it's complete garbage.

Beartic: Not bad. Rage can do massive damage and glacier drop hits the magic 90 while potentially discarding key cards from an opponents deck. The HP is good, it might see play.

Magnezone (double brain): There is combo potential, otherwise it's too much work to set up. As for the other magnezone, stick with eels for energy acceleration.

Zapdos EX: Worst of the legendary bird EXs. Tornadus is much better as a fighting counter in eels.

Rotom: Just what eels needed. You no longer have to rely on Ultra ball and Juniper to get energy in the discard. Also has donking potential with colress machine.

Galvantula: The poor mans Rayquaza EX.

Crobat: Nasty attack even more so with virbank city gym. Add in built in draw and free retreat and we got a pretty good card.

Weezing: Well if someone ever wants to built a spread/mill deck, this is the card.

Gallade: Could be amazing with Ho oh EX.

Giratina: Virbank Gym + Poison Hypnotic beam.

Trubbish: The tool drop one could actually be a decent attacker in a Garbodor deck. The Garbodors in this set however, are completel forgetable.

Beheeyem: Too weak.

Continued...
 
Donphan: Not bad for an uncommon.

Lunatone: Good with ether.

Solrock: Would have been better if explosion could be used on turn one.

Lucario (ability): Arguably better than Shaymin EX. Your opponent only needs to have taken one prize to have this thing hitting for at least 90. If they have taken 4, you can one shot EXs. If he gets revenge killed, you're still in the game since he doesn't give up 2 prizes. Easily one of the best non EXs.

Conkeldurr: Even if there was a reliable way to poison or burn yourself, why would you even bother when there are easier ways to hit for 120.

Leipard: Very disruptive, but I'm not sure it's worth it.


Scrafty: If only reinforced headbutt did more damage...

Skarmory: Only for pure plasma decks and even then I think there are better draw engines.

KlingKlang: Here's an annoying deck idea, Durant/Klingklang.

Both Durants: Completely average and forgetable.

Cobalion EX: Very nice. Probably the best metal attacker we have so far.

Druddigon: What a waste of a rare.

Black Kyurem EX: First EX with a completely vanilla attack (slash). Second attack is expensive, but in the right deck (blastoise with lots of energy retrieval), it could be worth it.

White Kyurem EX: I think this is the better of the two. It gets the better ace spec, still has good energy acceleraters, and doesn't need to discard 3 energy.

Clefable: Gimmicky. Just stick with BC ditto for surprise attacks.

Dodrio: Forgetable.

Snorlax: The attack is too expensive, but the ability has some combo potential with hit and run attackers (magnezone) or poison beam + virbank.

Togekiss: The attack is way too weak. Stick with Gothitelle.

Exploud: The star of round decks, can do massive damage with second attack and can destroy their hand with the first. Has potential.

Lugia EX: The plasma discard hurts it too much.

Both Watchogs: Bad.

Bouffalant: If only the second attack cost one energy less...

Braviary: Decent ability, meh attack.

Bicycle: Finally! A draw card that's not a supporter!

Colress: Very good, but there are times when it could be a dead draw.

Colress machine: Broken, just broken.

Escape rope: Could be very annoying for your opponent, but I'd rather just play switch.

Ether: Very good with pokedex.

Eviollite: Don't mind seeing this reprinted.

Hypnotic lazer: If this doesn't make raticate a playable deck, nothing will.

Plasma Frigate: Not sold on it. No weakness is nice, but enhanced hammer destroys this strategy.

Team Plasma Grunt: Just play Cheren for extra draw.

Virbank city gym: Best stadium black and white on. So many deck possibilities.

Dowsing Machine: The big decision, this or computer search?

Scramble Switch: Good in tank decks with multiple copies of the same card.

Victory Piece: Cool card, but gimmicky.

Whew.
 
I find Beartic to be a card with amazing potential. For only two energy, after taking a hit from any EX, it'll OHKO it back. It'll certainly make people think twice about attacking.
 
joelsoh said:
I find Beartic to be a card with amazing potential. For only two energy, after taking a hit from any EX, it'll OHKO it back. It'll certainly make people think twice about attacking.

Actually, it has issues taking a lot of the hits nowadays. It has no real answer to get out of poison from HTL, Darkrai OHKO's it with Dark Claw + HTL, and Mewtwo can build up energy and then sweep through them, not to mention swarming Stage 1 attackers isn't that easy.

It's actually the only really good generic Plasma attacker as of now though, so that's interesting. I think the fact that it's a stage 1 with sub-par HP is going to make it relatively unplayable, but at least it's better than most of the other Plasma Pokemon.
 
btw, Black Kyurem-EX's attack name wasn't changed but White Kyurem's was. From White Rage to White Inferno. Really? White Rage fitted with the nature of the attack (more damage for each damage counter on the user, like Outrage)... Totally unnecessary change...

Another things that makes me mad is they turned Giratina into a non-holo rare. Just to put it into theme deck. And Druddigon comes up from a common in japan to a rare when it should have been an uncommon here. Also, just to put it into theme deck.. Couldn't they pick other pokémon for the deck (like Vanilluxe and non-plasma Magnezone) and just leave Giratina alone... That card is like some sort of counterpart to Reshiram & Zekrom (BW), Kyurem (NV) and Rayquaza (DV). It should have stayed holo.
 
Is it me or are there cards missing like moltrases and zapdoses full art cards.
 
I see great potential in that Klinklang card. The ability to give ALL your steel pokemon a mini-Safeguard ability? Yes, please!
 
After spending all day testing, I'm seeing Clefable have HUGE potential in evolution decks. It's extremely useful for both speed and consistency, and while the flip does hurt it, any way to evolve twice in one turn is gonna be good. Empoleon/Magnezone/Clefable is super fun to play, and is probably the most consistent deck in the format, since you have a titanic amount of raw drawpower, extra evolutions every turn, and the same great attack Empoleon had last format. I think this really might be Empoleon's chance to shine, because with the emergence of Klinklang, all non-EX-based decks get a big boost. The only thing you have to worry about is a big Mewtwo or Garbodor.
 
Puff-Sun said:
After spending all day testing, I'm seeing Clefable have HUGE potential in evolution decks. It's extremely useful for both speed and consistency, and while the flip does hurt it, any way to evolve twice in one turn is gonna be good. Empoleon/Magnezone/Clefable is super fun to play, and is probably the most consistent deck in the format, since you have a titanic amount of raw drawpower, extra evolutions every turn, and the same great attack Empoleon had last format. I think this really might be Empoleon's chance to shine, because with the emergence of Klinklang, all non-EX-based decks get a big boost. The only thing you have to worry about is a big Mewtwo or Garbodor.

Darkrai wants to have a quick word with you. Hypnotoxic/Virbank combined with Dark Claw lets Darkrai hit 140 damage, allowing it to sweep through Empoleons with ease. Not to mention that Keldeo can bash any Stage 2 attacker deck into the ground.

As much as I wish this set could open up some new creative possibilities, the existence of Hypnotoxic kinda ruins any chance of anything being good at the moment that isn't the major metagame decks. All of the cool, creative cards we got in Plasma Storm like Clefable, Magnezone, Crobat, and Gallade are made completely and utterly useless by the crazy fast and high damaging format that the big basics and Hypnotoxic create. It's part of the reason that I hate this set so much. It's got very few playable cards and Hypnotoxic just makes the format incredibly dumb.
 
created619 said:
Is there no FA White/Black Kyurems or are they just missing?

Unreleased as of yet, Japan generally only prints FAs of cards they have in sets (bar Reshiram and Zekrom). And these Kyurems were part of the battle strength decks that japan have. The same goes for Moltes and Zapdos.
 
This set looks really good. My main wants from this set would have to be: Articuno EX FA, Black Kyurem EX, Cobalion EX, Shiny Charizard, Lazer, Braviary, Klinklang, Crobat, Sharpedo, Bicycle, Ether, and Colress. I also want Lugia for trade bait.
 
Puff-Sun said:
After spending all day testing, I'm seeing Clefable have HUGE potential in evolution decks. It's extremely useful for both speed and consistency, and while the flip does hurt it, any way to evolve twice in one turn is gonna be good. Empoleon/Magnezone/Clefable is super fun to play, and is probably the most consistent deck in the format, since you have a titanic amount of raw drawpower, extra evolutions every turn, and the same great attack Empoleon had last format. I think this really might be Empoleon's chance to shine, because with the emergence of Klinklang, all non-EX-based decks get a big boost. The only thing you have to worry about is a big Mewtwo or Garbodor.

Wait how are you able to evolve twice in one turn? Unless I read it wrong when the ability works, it counts as evolving the pokemon. So things like evolving piplup into empoleon through prinplup in one turn should be impossible, right? I'm not trying to bash the deck, I'm just confused that's all.
 
The Pikachu Mafia said:
Wait how are you able to evolve twice in one turn? Unless I read it wrong when the ability works, it counts as evolving the pokemon. So things like evolving piplup into empoleon through prinplup in one turn should be impossible, right? I'm not trying to bash the deck, I'm just confused that's all.

You can't evolve a Pokemon via the normal method in the same turn it's played. Evolution via card effects (such as Clefable's Moon Guidance) get to circumvent that.
You can evolve a Piplup to Prinplup normally, and then use Moon Guidance to evolve it to Empoleon.
However, you can't evolve a Piplup to Prinplup using Moon Guidance, then evolve to Empoleon normally.
 
As my collector side, boundaries crossed had so many full arts, and this set is missing that appeal to me haha. As a player, the laser + darkrai + gym = oh jeez...
 
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