Zoroark (Black & White BW #71) – Card of the Day

Hey guys, Captain here with another card of the day. Today’s card is one that’s received a decent amount of hype recently, especially with the emergence of ReshiBoar and Speed Zekrom as deck archetypes; it’s Zoroark from Black and White.

So let’s start off with its stats. It’s a Stage 1 with 100 HP, which is pretty solid but could be better. Being dark type has some advantages, such as being able to use Special D Energy, and this will play a role later.

Unfortunately, it means Zoroark has a x2 weakness to Fighting and will therefore get annihilated by Donphan Prime. -20 resistance to Psychic is pretty good, but may not be a big deal unless Gothitelle decks become popular. Finally, it has a cheap Retreat Cost of 1.

So overall, its stats are pretty solid.

Then there are its attacks. “Nasty Plot” for a cost of a Darkness energy lets you search out any card from your deck. This attack is a bit overlooked and not the main purpose of Zoroark, but can be really effective when used in the right situation. After all, you get to find any card you want from the deck.

The other attack, Foul Play, costs CC and is the reason Zoroark is a bit hyped up. It copies any of the Defending Pokémon’s attacks without having to pay the energy cost. So far, the most notable uses are to counter Reshiram and Zekrom (I’ll talk about these most). For a Double Colorless Energy, you can deal 120 damage, and it gets even better.

Let’s say you copy Blue Flare off of Reshiram. As long as you don’t have 2 R Energy attached, you don’t have to discard anything. And better yet is the fact that you can use a Special D Energy and some other energy to deal 130 damage – enough to Knock Out a Reshiram or Zekrom with one hit.

pokebeach.comThis sounds great, right? It actually isn’t as phenomenal as you might think. If you hit for 120 on a fresh Reshiram or Zekrom, you’re actually doing the opponent a favor. They’ll just use Outrage for the KO and not put up with any adverse effects.

So basically, you’ll need to either hit them while they’re not at full health, or use Special Darkness to hit for 130 and a KO. Let’s say you go with the second option. Seems great, right? Again, it’s not exactly all that great. A good Reshiram deck will be able to stream Reshiram, so Zoroark will get 1-shot the next turn. Zekrom is also very fast, and will likely get another Zekrom ready on the next turn as well.

Then there are some other notable matchups. I mention earlier that Donphan Prime will crush Zoroark. Machamp Prime will as well, though you could hit hard against one of those. You could abuse Blastoise’s attack, but having 100 HP means Blastoise will get the KO next turn.

The hyped up Beartic that will presumably come in the next set is also an interesting matchup. Zoroark having a cheap retreat can give you an advantage there.

So overall, Zoroark is a pretty good card. I realize that I ripped on it a bit saying that it’s really not that good of a counter to Reshiram and Zekrom, but it’s still one of the better options that can be put into a variety of decks. I’ll give it a 3 out of 5.

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Reader Interactions

7 replies

  1. Stephan Deshazo

    Zoroark is used to buy you a turn to get set up and take a prize off them. You should never promote it up unless you can you can knock out the reshiram or zoroark. its great in tyranitar because it can be a attacker until you get a tyranitar set up. With the new rotation you going to have sacrifice in order to get set up.

  2. matthew green

    Zoroark is one of the best cards from the new set. As I have said before all the different card “raters” seem to have different rating scales. This renders the rating system almost useless as a new reader would be totally confused by these reviews. 
     
    Regardless, this was a good review and well written. While I believe this card should be a minimum of 3.5 out of 5 or even 4 I still think the review was solid.

    Zororark as you will find is easily splashable into any deck. While it may not be a deck onto itself. It can be used against any opponents main attacker and also OHKO’s RDL. Saying it can be one shot doesn’t mean anything as this format is designed for one hit ko’s. Zoroark allows you to return those ko’s.

  3. Garrett Williamson

    You didn’t mention how it’ll can still KO an undamaged reshi and zek…

    One card… Plus Power! lol

  4. Andrew Daley

    I really don’t think its as great against Reshiram as Zekrom because even though the copied ekrom attack has the downside that effects Zoroark, it is a lot hard to stream the Zekroms as opposed to Reshirams.

    • Mekkah  → Andrew

      Zoroark shouldn’t be seen as something you throw into your deck and suddenly your match-up vs Zekrom and Reshiram is looking favorable. However, it helps decks that aren’t completely comfortable in the KO exchange to have that extra push. For example, Tyranitar needs DDCC to KO them with Megaton Tail assuming one special Dark or PlusPower. With 1-1 or 2-2 Zoroark in your deck, you will only need half that much Energy to get a KO.

  5. Emil lumen

    Great Article! Thanks for the Foul play ruling, people still get confused with it, glad i read this.

  6. PWman1

    Love this card & use it a lot. Only negative I have is, depending on the attacks your opponents cards use it can have small use. Did face a ’round’ deck in a tournament last wknd, my opponent saw Zoroark & said he was going to crush me as it couldn’t steal that attack, but with some timely Enhanced Hammer / Catchers / Junk Arms (really gonna miss that one), instead I destroyed him easily – stealing Hyper Voice from Seismotoad worked just fine. Great card for taking out the Zekroms & Reshirams, with special dark energy / dark claw / or a plus power (very easy to do) it’s one-shot. Use them in combination & can do the extra 40 damage to take out a Terrakion or Cobalion in one-shot as well. Very easy to set up with Ascension Zorua too. Going 1st always helps, but in many battles have managed the 1st 2 prize cards before being KO’d – which makes this a huge keeper in my book.

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