By Kenny Wisdom
Kenny Wisdom here again, with a breakdown of the top 3 most tournament playable cards from our new Pokemon Black and White set, Emerging Powers. To be completely honest, there’s not a whole lot to love in this set, but there are still a few good, metagame shifting cards that need to be mentioned, so I’ll break them down here. I’ll probably either write longer reviews of each card and/or switch to a top 5 format for further sets (particularly Noble Victories, as that looks like a fantastic set) as there will certainly be more to talk about, usually. Without further ado…
#3: Tornadus/Thundurus
These cards (at least Tornadus) are pretty essential in new Zekrom builds. Zekrom was always a deck with a lot of potential, but that had two main problems. The first of which being that it was kind of an “all or nothing” sort of deck, where if you didn’t hit the combo early and keep it going consistently you basically had nothing. You didn’t really have a back-up plan, nor did the deck play any secondary attackers (besides Yanmega sometimes). You either got the combo off early or you lost the game, period.
The second problem was it’s softness vs. Donphan. Not only does Donphan hit you for weakness, but being a S1 that requires one energy and a plus power to OHKO you while you require 3 energy to swing into it for 80 damage was pretty ridiculous against you. Thundurus solves the first problem by being a mostly-reliable way of doing a turn 2 80, which is nothing to scoff at. Additionally, Tornadus solves the Donphan problem (sort of) by being resistant to it. The Zekrom deck still isn’t amazing in my opinion, but it went from decent/good to solidly good, perhaps very good. The best thing about these cards is that Zekrom isn’t even the only thing they’re good in, so the potentially is pretty endless here. Definitely some of the most interesting cards from this set, and personally the two that I think will be the most widely used as this format shapes up and for as long as this set is legal.
#2: Gothitelle
Probably my favorite card in the set, it’s proven itself to be a winner already. Think of it as a Vileplume from Undaunted, except for you can still play trainers, while your opponent can’t, and it’s a much better attacker that has some synergy with Reuniclus, Twins, and Pichu (aka the Ross/Team X-Files engine from the 2011 Pokemon World Championship). Another ridiculously good card that’s going to be used for as long as it’s legal in the format. Much like Tornadus/Thundurus, Gothitelle is such an interesting card that although it is very good in combination with Reuniclus, it’s not the only thing it’s going to be good with. It has so much potential and the fact that it’s going to be legal for another two+ years is only to it’s advantage. The downside of this card when compared to something like Vileplume is that you have to focus on it as an attacker and can’t just slap it in with a basic engine like you could with Vileplume, but I don’t think that’ll prove to be too much of a problem and ultimately may even help it out to an extent. With Plume you have to build around it completely by playing very little trainers, or even sometimes completely omitting them. Having to attack with Gothitelle is a very even trade-off for not having to build around Vileplume.
#1: Pokemon Catcher
Gust is the strongest effect in this game. Not much more needs to be said. This card is by far the best in the set and will be played in nearly every deck for the entire time that it’s legal. Such a ridiculously powerful effect.
Thanks for reading, and sorry for being a little late with this!
xoxo
kw
Tags: Card Collecting