Dark Explorers Lackluster?

C

Card Slinger J

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Seems to me like it's a very bad set, we don't get very many good cards other than Crashing Hammer, Random Reciever, and Ultra Ball 2 of which were cut from Next Destinies. Most of the Stage 2's in this set are unplayable because of how fast the meta is and reprinting Rare Candy almost seems like a sick joke by P!P/TPCi after they errated it from being the good card it once was.

Raikou EX had potential until Terrakion ruined it and it doesn't really have the damage output to be competitive in this format compared to Zekrom EX. Entei EX is alright I guess but then again Reshiram EX variants hardly see play because of how fast the format is, there is no reason why anyone should be running Emboar or Typhlosion especially when Zebstrika can shutdown your setup with Disconnect.
 
Dark Explorers isn't going to be an extremely good set, but it's by no means a bad set. It brings some playable cards to the table, although about half of those cards are very one-sided.

As you stated, Dark Explorers gives us Ultra Ball, Random Receiver, and Crash Hammer. Crash Hammer, upon its release, isn't stellar because it's simply a toned-down Lost Remover. However, it might see more play once Lost Remover gets rotated (not trying to start rotation speculations here), but that's a topic for another thread. However, I'm predicting that Random Receiver and Ultra Ball will both be huge cards, considering they provide fantastic search.

You stated that Raikou-EX won't see any play because of Terrakion. I can't disagree anymore. Raikou-EX WILL see play. A chargeable 100-snipe, one retreat, and 170 HP is very good. Zekrom-EX forces the use of Catcher to hit the Bench, limiting what you call "underwhelming damage". Against Terrakion, you simply have to time your Raikou drop.

Right now, I don't get where you're seeing Entei-EX in this format, because I'm not really seeing it. Who knows, maybe there will be some surprise deck that uses it, but right now Entei-EX looks very underwhelming.

Lastly, onto your Zebstrika comment. Either it's just my metagame, or there's like zero Zebstrika in this format. The Trainer lock is definitely cool, but with the damage output and the fact that Zebstrika is a Stage-1, I've never really found Zebstrika worth it. Besides, Stage-2's don't see much play not because of Zebstrika's lock, but because they're much harder to get out than say an Eelektrik.
 
I don't know. There are enough cards in it to keep me entertained.

Darkrai, dark patch, and darkness claw will be amazing. Maybe the three techs can make Tyranitar playable again.
Empoleon will be a great deck with a few fighting techs. Maybe empoleon terrakion.
Aerodactyl is decent, especially with twist mountain coming out. And on that note, Archeops might be a good answer for eels.
Tornadus gives a pretty darn easy T1 60 damage.

Also I don't think you can make the argument that Raikou EX is bad because of terrakion. Right now zekrom with eels is dominating regardless of terrakion being teched heavily.
 
WHAT??

Darkrai EX, Raikou EX, Tornadus EX, Zoroark, good Zorua, Empoleon, Dark Patch, Sweet looking Rare Candy, Darkness Claw, Ultra Ball, Random Receiver, GOLD CATCHER.

I mean, come on. Each and every one of these cards is going to be insanely widely played.
 
alexmf2 said:
WHAT??

Darkrai EX, Raikou EX, Tornadus EX, Zoroark, good Zorua, Empoleon, Dark Patch, Sweet looking Rare Candy, Darkness Claw, Ultra Ball, Random Receiver, GOLD CATCHER.

I mean, come on. Each and every one of these cards is going to be insanely widely played.
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Only rarity (word I can't say on here)s are going to like the Catcher. Anybody who has any bit of intelligence will play the regular ones unless they just so happen to pull 4 Gold Catchers.

As for the Dark-types, I don't see them getting much play at ALL. Terrakion and Landorus are on the rise, and they can kill off the Dark-types faster than they can kill them.

Empoleon is weak to Lightning. It can just be Catcher'd up and killed off immediately. And honestly...yes, you can potentially do 100 damage for 1 energy, but does that matter when your opponents can do a constant 240 to 300 to you per turn?

Rare Candy is already in the format, is it not? And if it isn't, not like it matters, nobody really plays stage 2s anyway...

That leaves Raikou-EX, Tornadus-EX, Random Receiver, and Ultra Ball. And where are these cards best used? In the--woah, what a coincidence--best decks in the format (Terrakion doesn't count--it'd do absolutely nothing whatsoever if Eels weren't popular).

All this set will do is make the best decks stronger and give other decks tiny tools that give them hope to keep up. As much as I hate to admit it, CSJ is somewhat correct in the sense that this set is lacking...it doesn't really bring anything new to the playing table.
 
Dark toolbox. Not being played at all. With Pokemon giving it a completely amazing engine. So much of a good engine that with Sp. Darks Darkrai EX can realistically be doing at least 120 on turn 1, as well as 20 to do benched pokemon (or even 40-50 if Sp. Dark and Dark Claw work for that). Backed up by a card that has an amazing basic and extreme versatility as one evolution can do 120 damage and the other can copy whatever the attacks are on the opponent's pokemon. Then also backed up by Tornadus EX, which happily cleans up those annoying Terrakions.

And it still doesn't seem good.
 
Deus: Nightmare Autarch said:
So we're getting a new set with a small handful of good cards, but most of the cards are bad and won't ever see play - thus you say it's a bad set.
That's odd. I swear I've seen a set like that before.
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Dark Explorers should have more playable cards, since all EP brought to the table was Crushing Hammer (seen in like one deck), Catcher, Tornadus, Thundurus, Bianca, Max Potion, Cheren, and for a brief amount of time, Gothitelle. Dark Explorers has Ultra Ball, Random Receiver, Darkrai-EX, Raikou-EX, Tornadus-EX, Empoleon, Darkness Patch, Darkness Claw, Zoroark, and a Rare Candy reprint (although you can make the argument that some of the cards are one-sided).

don()shinobi said:
As for the Dark-types, I don't see them getting much play at ALL. Terrakion and Landorus are on the rise, and they can kill off the Dark-types faster than they can kill them.
Well, Terrakion and Landorus are getting huge, but that isn't stopping people from playing Zekrom/Eelektrik. Besides, if you're really worried about Fighting, run something that resists it.

Empoleon is weak to Lightning. It can just be Catcher'd up and killed off immediately.
Which is why you run Terrakion to counter Lightning types. Although, granted, Empoleon's Stage-2ness hurts it.
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Personally, I'm hoping Fighting types will be able to play around with Aerodactyl and Twist Mountain. Yeah, I know Fighting Types are at a pretty big disadvantage this format by themselves (except Terrakion), but hey! Perhaps you could try teching Zekrom in there. Hmm...
 
PumpedAaron said:
Perhaps you could try teching Zekrom in there. Hmm...
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Zekrom can't do damage without already having damage on it, which a player wouldn't do if it would immediately get knocked out by it. If you tried to use it's second attack, you would not only need to run Prism (which would take away consistency by a huge amount as it can not be moved with EXP Share) but you would need 2-3 turns to charge it up, in which it could be Catcher KO'd.
 
Futachimaru said:
Well, Terrakion and Landorus are getting huge, but that isn't stopping people from playing Zekrom/Eelektrik. Besides, if you're really worried about Fighting, run something that resists it.
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And what do Zekrom and Eelektrik just happen to have a weakness to? Fighting. Now, granted, I don't play competitively, I just like to speculate. I've personally never heard of straight Terrakion (and the Landorus) doing anything before States came along. Maybe they're getting big because of the rise of Eels? Either way, Zekrom-EX can still one-shot both Terrakion AND Landorus, so I honestly don't see much of a point in running something with a Fighting resistance in Eels just to take care of those two...
 
don()shinobi said:
And what do Zekrom and Eelektrik just happen to have a weakness to? Fighting.
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That's my point. Zekrom/Eelektrik have Weakness to Fighting, yet they still see play even though Quad Bulls is in the format. This is simply because Zekrom/Eelektrik is a really good deck. While I'm unsure how good Dark decks will be, but if they do turn out to be good, I doubt Quad Bulls will turn players off from running Dark decks.
 
This is the translation:

Reveal cards from your deck until you reach a Supporter card. Put that card in your hand, and shuffle the cards you revealed into your deck.
 
Futachimaru said:
Dark Explorers should have more playable cards, since all EP brought to the table was Crushing Hammer (seen in like one deck), Catcher, Tornadus, Thundurus, Bianca, Max Potion, Cheren, and for a brief amount of time, Gothitelle. Dark Explorers has Ultra Ball, Random Receiver, Darkrai-EX, Raikou-EX, Tornadus-EX, Empoleon, Darkness Patch, Darkness Claw, Zoroark, and a Rare Candy reprint (although you can make the argument that some of the cards are one-sided).
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I'm aware of that; I'm just saying that people shouldn't write Dark Explorers off as a bad set so quickly when Emerging Powers was in a rather similar situation when it came out.
 
AmishEskimoNinja said:
I don't know. There are enough cards in it to keep me entertained.

Darkrai, dark patch, and darkness claw will be amazing. Maybe the three techs can make Tyranitar playable again.
Empoleon will be a great deck with a few fighting techs. Maybe empoleon terrakion.
Aerodactyl is decent, especially with twist mountain coming out. And on that note, Archeops might be a good answer for eels.
Tornadus gives a pretty darn easy T1 60 damage.

Also I don't think you can make the argument that Raikou EX is bad because of terrakion. Right now zekrom with eels is dominating regardless of terrakion being teched heavily.
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Empoleon I don't think will see that much play because of 2 reasons, it's a Stage 2, second it's weak to {L} and can get creamed by ZekEels. Sure you can have Terrakion or Donphan to cover for Empoleon's weakness however they can Catcher your Piplup and donk it before you have a chance to Rare Candy it into Empoleon, they can also stall against Terrakion with Zapdos or Tornadus, or If you're playing against Fruity Stripes.dec they can Disconnect you nonstop so that you're forced to play your Stage 1 with your
Stage 2.

Twist Mountain is VERY VERY flippy for Archeops to see some significant play, and it can also be Counter-Stadiumed by Skyarrow Bridge and I've noticed several ZekEel lists run Skyarrow with all the Basics it runs anyway. I don't see T-Tar making a comeback with all the Quad Bull spam going on, they can just Catcher your Darkrai EX and Retaliate with Terrakion for 2 prizes. As for the case with Raikou EX, it's not that it's bad because of Terrakion but because it lacks the damage output to KO EX's as efficiently as Zekrom EX with 2 PlusPowers and a Strong Volt. I liked Magnezone better for Lost Burn doing 200 damage but the meta is VERY Anti-Stage 2 right now and will be for a long time.
 
That's two of the less prominent cards. So because those two are bad, the rest of the set is terrible? I fail to see the thought process here.
 
Does anyone even know what Pokemon would be in a Dark Toolbox Deck? The new Zoroark, most likely, and Darkrai EX, but what else?
 
Card Slinger J said:
If you're playing against Fruity Stripes.dec they can Disconnect you nonstop so that you're forced to play your Stage 1 with your
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Why are you so scared of Zebstrika. Answer that first, since it isn't really a stellar card.
 
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