Japan's XY11: 'Explosive Fighter / Cruel Traitor', CP5: 'Mythical / Legendary Dream Holo Collection'

Really not buying the hype on this one, sadly. Talonflame demands way too much space in the deck for the payoff: a 40% chance of dealing mediocre damage and getting off some setup that can easily be wiped away by the extremely common early-turn N. Unless you play the full evolution line, the other 3 become useless dead draws for the rest of the game until you can compress them. A fast Talonflame BREAK would be a nice early-game attacker, sure, and maybe you could rush someone down with it, but to play that you kind of have to commit to running it as your primary attacker, since you're already running 4 Talonflames. All the rest will come out just as slowly as the other BREAK cards that been too slow to crack into the meta.
Could be a fun deck for league at least.
 
Now this... This is interesting. Say you start off with Talonflame and a bunch of useless cards right off, can you count that as a mulligan since Talonflame isn't a basic? Do you have to use the effect, or is it optional?

I'd definitely going to give this a try. It seems like it could be something fun to mess around with.
It says you may
 
lol, what if your opponent starts wob?
If your opponent starts Wobbuffet, then you are still ok because if a card isn't face up and it's somewhere on the playing field, it means nothing until the card is turned over. I guess its kinda like the whole Primal Kyogre/Safeguard Suicune situation-the energies are floating in dead space therefore meaning nothing.
 
Thank goodness that Salamence is nowhere near as absurdly broken as it is in the video games. I mean, the card is kinda good-ish if you pair it with Reshiram (or Emboar in Expanded), but... yeah. At least it's better than any other promo Mega I've seen.

And it looks like Pokémon Card Lab has been listening to the widespread complaints about Night March, especially in Standard. Karen is going to really hurt that deck, as well as Vespiquen. In both cases, I think it'll be more devastating than Lysandre's Trump Card used to be because you're not shuffling their Battle Compressors back in.
 
The fact that Karen is likely gonna hit the states AFTER Night March leaves Standard is so tragic... Crossing my fingers that it'll end up legal before Worlds somehow, unless PHF somehow ends up staying in?

I'd LOVE for PHF to stick around actually, as long as Karen would be in the format.
 
Oh, wow! Mega Salamence looks awesome! the Spirit Link looks great too :p
And Karen is great against Night March!
 
Karen is even worse of a nightmare for Night March than Lysandre's Trumph Card. All the Battle Compressors, Ultra Balls and Trainers' Mail would stay behind. But this counter is so incredible specific I'm not sure if I feel comfortable putting it in my decklists :/
 
na na na na

na na na na

hey hey hey

screw you night march

i have been saying there would be a trump card for only pokemon
 
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Karen is really interesting! Pretty much confims that this set was created after the decision to ban Trump Card. Hope to see it being used more than just to counter other decks.
 
Hey night march, hey vespiquen, back to the shadows please and thank you

Praise to karen, ironically the dark type user who brought light to our meta
 
That m-Salamence is really good especially for a promo. Fire has a lot of support and there are a ton of energy switching cards. Worst case you 2HKO something.

Karen I have mixed feelings on. I feel that is too hard a counter for Night March and related decks. I've never been a fan of such hard counters without some kind of cost. I'm glad it exist because I hate Night March but this is another example of bad card design.

The Night March player can't do anything about this card being played against them and no one deserves to lose to a single card drop, no matter how toxic the deck is.
 
Late as usual with important counters. Night March was never intended to exist without Trump Card.
 
M Salamance is actually decent and can ohko with ease. Karen is a great counter to Night March and Vespiquen. In addition it also tends to benefit evolution decks such as Greninja Break. It is a hard counter to these decks but the deck could recover with a sufficient amount of draw supporters and Puzzle of Time to retrieve discarded Battle Compressors. I assume that XY04 will remain in format with a supporter card like this. Love the art on this card.
 
That m-Salamence is really good especially for a promo. Fire has a lot of support and there are a ton of energy switching cards. Worst case you 2HKO something.

Karen I have mixed feelings on. I feel that is too hard a counter for Night March and related decks. I've never been a fan of such hard counters without some kind of cost. I'm glad it exist because I hate Night March but this is another example of bad card design.

The Night March player can't do anything about this card being played against them and no one deserves to lose to a single card drop, no matter how toxic the deck is.
How about Lysandre forcing you to switch into a KO? There's literally nothing you can do about it and it's toxic against ANY opponent. This is something that counters 2 decks that have run rampant due to an oversight from TPCi and countering it diversifies the meta. If this is broken things like Lysandre are broken tenfold.
 
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