pokebeach.comkn3ll_, Card of the Day, yeah. I know you know.
And it is… the extremely hyped – with good reason! …Zekrom from Black and White!
Zekrom is a Basic. Basic is good. It has 130 HP. A Basic with 130 HP. Seriously. That’s good. It’s Lightning type, giving it super-effective against Blastoise and Yanmega. A weakness to Fighting hurts, especially with Donphan in the format, but that’s practically an afterthought when it comes to all the good things about this card.
A Retreat Cost of 2 isn’t good, but it’s kinda ridiculous compared to things like Donphan getting Retreat 4. So it kinda is good for what you get.
“Outrage”, for a Double Colorless, will deal 20 damage plus 10 more for each damage counter on Zekrom. Not bad, providing an opportunity for 140 damage without PlusPower or Black Belt.
The real meat of the card is in “Bolt Strike”. At the cost of 2 Lightning and a Colorless, deal 120 damage to the opponent and 40 to itself. This is beyond amazing considering the other cards in the format that can combo with it.
Pachirisu CL has a Poké-power, “Self-Generation”, that allows you to attach 2 Energy to it when you play it from your hand to the Bench. Combined with Shaymin UL’s Poké-power, “Celebration Wind”, you can move those energy from your benched Pachirisu to your active Zekrom. Add in a third Energy that you attach normally during your turn, and it’s a Turn-1 Bolt Strike.
pokebeach.com“Hold on!” you may say. “That’s a lot of cards to have in your hand first-turn!”
That’s 100% correct. But let’s think this through. We can use T/S/S first turn now. And all your core Pokémon are Basics. Dual Ball, Pokémon Collector, and Pokémon Communication can all be used to net the three you absolutely need.
Assuming you get those, it’s a matter of getting three Lightning energy. Interviewer’s Questions is the key here, If you only have a part of a combo (Say two Lightning energy and a Pachirisu) you can use Professor Juniper at a try for the Dual Ball or Shaymin and Energy you need. It’s just too easy to set it up first turn.
Zekrom gets a 4/5. The reason the score isn’t perfect is twofold: it cannot 1HKO it’s brother Legendary Reshiram without help of an item such as PlusPower, and because using a PlusPower also increases the damage it does to itself by 10, making it difficult to get the 10-HP 140-Damage Bolt Strike.
It is my personal belief that Zekrom outclasses Reshiram in terms of set-up and therefore is a better deck. Whether you agree or not is of no difference, Zekrom is undoubtedly one of the best cards of the HGSS-on era.
ALL IS LOST!!!
Great article! I really want to try out Zekrom, but I need to save up to buy those Pachirisu and Shaymin. : /
“…making it difficult to get the 10-HP 140-Damage Bolt Strike.” I think you meant Outrage. But, good point. I think it’s still worth it for the OHKO on Reshiram; you’re not likely to get that heavy Outrage anyway, if your opponent hits you at all.
Really good CoTD
Who would of thought that a cute little squirrel was the mastermind behind a donk(potential) Points at pachirisu (Eviilll!!!)
I’ve been donked by Pachirisu in MD On before. A potential 50 damage on turn 1 is nothing to sneeze at.
Good article, nice to see someone point out all points of a card strengths AND weaknesses.
Good card. However, I think you should do it out of 10.
A card like this deserves higher than a 4… but slightly lower than 5. The only cards in the current format that are worth a 5 are Collector, Reshiram and Emboar, IMO. However, many other cards deserve ‘4.5’.
I think you should mention Zekrom’s use in Reshiboar decks. A simple tech can deal massive damage with outrage to water based decks. (Most water decks can’t OHKO Zekrom; so just use him to outrage)
i think that..He shouldn’t give those cards scores..because their are other decks out there
besides reshiboar(which is the zombie version of yugioh.too easy to play)
and Zekrom Donk is..IDK
The mere existence of other decks doesn’t mean that the cards in reshiboar shouldn’t be given scores…
Zekrom 4/5, Reshiram 4/5, Emboar 4.5/5
Uh, Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think that Zekrom has any potential for Reshiboar decks. I also don’t think that Reshiram or Emboar deserve a 5/5. I personally dislike rating cards at all, but traditionally Cards of the Day contain one.
ALL IS LOST!!
the 2 new dragons are stupid powerful, if kyurem is in red collection i wonder if its going to be super powered as well… seeing as how kyurem is ice that means its weakness would be steel, so if its in red collection and as/more powerful than ROM and RAM then scizor/steelix decks might see some actual play competitively
It would be interesting, Reshiram and Donphan would probably fall out of top tier. Kyugatr would be basically the same thing, though.
It’d be even more interesting if Kyurem was Normal-type to play on its Dragon typing.