Hey guys, and welcome to my newest article. Today I’ll be reviewing my opinion of the top five cards from our new set: Black and White – Emerging Powers. The new set consists of ninety-eight brand-new cards. However after looking through them myself, only about five really stood out. I’ll start with number five and work down. Enjoy!
Honorable Mention – Liepard – Rare 65/98 
Liepard is kinda like Yanmega Prime. I has a nice little snipe attack to Knock Out babies like Cleffa and Tyrogue. It’s called Feint Attack and does 30 damage to any of your opponent’s Pokémon. It’s fast because you only need one darkness energy. It’ll see play in dark toolbox decks like in Tyranitar.
It also has another okay attack that I think would work well with Tyranitar. It’s called Claw Rend and does 80 damage if your opponent’s active Pokémon has any damage on it. That’s pretty heavy for a Double Colorless and a darkness so I think the card overall deserves an honorable mention.
#5 – Bianca – Uncommon 90/98
Bianca is a card that reminds me of Volkner’s Philosophy, but you don’t get to discard a card. It reads: “Draw until you have 6 cards in your hand.” That sound pretty good, I think it is anyway. It can give you a nice save if someone used Weavile to get rid of your hand and it’ll really be good if someone got rid of your entire hand with Sharpedo Triumphant’s attack: Strip Bare. I think there should be at least one in every deck because it’ll help a lot of the time. It can help in situations and be clutch at times.
#4 – Max Potion – Uncommon 94/98
Max Potion is like Blissey Prime but you choose only one of your Pokémon. You heal all damage from it and then discard all energy attached to it. This could be really good with Yanmega Prime because you barely ever attach energies to it. It could also be really good with the already tanking Donphan Prime. You’d have to discard one energy, and then heal all it’s damage off.
I think that’s going to be huge because Donphan already has a tanking Poké-Body of Exoskeleton which reduces all damage done to Donphan by 20 which is already great. I think this card will be really good with pretty much any Pokémon that uses zero to one energy for it’s attacks. Look out for it and choose your attacks right. The damage could be gone in a heartbeat. Expect about one in almost every deck.
#3 – Gothitelle – Rare 47/98 
Gothitelle is like Vileploom from Undaunted. It reads: “As long as this Pokémon is your Active Pokémon, your opponent can’t play any Item cards from his or her hand.” It has a positive and a negative compared to Vileploom, though. The negitive is that only if it’s your active it’s Ability works. So now you have a Pokémon out that can’t really hurt opponent as far as damage goes because its attack is pretty bad.
Madkinesis does 30 plus for three C energies. The plus is 20 more for each psychic energy attached to Gothitelle. The the positive about this card is that you can still play Items, unlike Vileploom where you and your opponent can’t play Items. I think that part of the card is really good, but having it have to be active is bad.
I think that Vileploom is still the better option because you can have other things attack for you. Gothitelle could be used as a started though. I think it might see play in a few decks. You can set it up and then keep it active while you set up. Once you’ve stalled enough, retreat or use a Switch and pound your opponent because they’ll already be at an advantage because they wouldn’t have set up very fast. I think this is one of the best cards in the set.
#2 – Beartic – Rare 30/98
Beartic has received some hype with the partner Vileploom. The two paired together will be a double-edged sword with the power to Trainer-lock and stop your opponent from attacking with Beartic’s attack Sheer Cold which reads: “The Defending Pokémon can’t attack during your opponent’s next turn. That’s really good, but they can retreat out of it or use a Switch. Well, with the Vileploom out, they can’t Switch out of it because Switch is a Trainer or Item.
Retreating will be hard because they won’t be going through their deck that fast without Trainers and Items. Beartic’s first attack takes a water and a Double Colorless so it won’t be incredibly hard to set up. It also has another nice attack that can be used as a Donphan Prime Counter. It’s called Icicle Crash and does 80 for two waters and a Double Colorless. It says the attack isn’t affected by Resistence so that’s a positive too. I think the Beartic/Vileploom deck will have troubles against Donphan and ZPS, but we’ll need to see what the new season brings. Watch out and be prepared for Beartic!
#1 – Pokémon Catcher – Uncommon 95/98 
You: So I hear you lost a ton of games in the HS-On format on Pokémon Reversal flips? Them: Yeah, I hate that card. You: What if you didn’t have to flip? Them: Pokémon would never release a card that broken. You: Oh yes they they will and already have. Them: Jaw drops. (Astounded.)
Yeah. That kid is right. the card is really broken. It’s going to tear up the format. Zekrom was already really good with Pokémon Reversal flips. Now it doesn’t have to flip. Same goes for Donphan. Look for the two of those cards to be the most played cards in the format. Already they are very fast and now you give them built in disruption with Pokémon Catcher. This card is going to be the bomb for ZPS and Donphan players.
I would definitely suggest you watch out for it because it’s going to be big. If you know how big Luxray GL LV.X was then you should know how good this card is going to be. It’s a Luxray GL LV.X without having to Level Up. It’s to the point of being broken so watch out, you’re gonna be catchered.
Should I Go to the Prerelease?
If you want my personal opinion, I say to not go. There are not enough good cards to spend the twenty-seven dollars. Save your money, and if you really want any of the good cards from the set, just order them online. You can always go to the prerelease and trade after play is over. Pre-orders on most of the cards in this set are up so if you really want them and decide to not spend money at your prerelease, just but them online. It’s usually a good investment. In the end, it’s up to you, but this is just me. Choose wisely!
Conclusion
Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed it! As always please check out my YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/cmg123abc123?feature=mhee I have Card of the Days, Recorded Matches, and helpful hints to improve your Pokémon game! I’m starting a sub-for-sub, so if you subscribe to me, I subscribe to you. Thanks everyone! Good luck in the new season!
-The Purple Pro
Emerging Powers proves that because of the hype of Gothitelle in Japan, that Japan and the US are pretty much two separate worlds in the TCG. To me, nothing really stands out. I mean Catcher is really going to be broken, but other than that, I just don’t see EP to be a real format-changer.
half the the reason to go to the prerealease is to get rev rares and things coolectors want along with just having fun.yanmega/kingdra will be BDIF once EP comes out. max potion for healing and catcher to gurantee bench sitter bring ups. i’ve been thinking about a ferrohorn/gothitelle deck. smiliar to cursegar.
Alternatively, go to the Pre-release and have fun!
There’s a stack of Pokemon from EP I intend on testing in MewBox. Hopefully I can churn out a quick article soon.
Please rate this on how I wrote. Don’t say there’s no cards that are good or something un-related like that. Thank you.
You misspelled Vileplume as Vileploom and it doesn’t really read well since every other sentence has similar structure/wording, and there’s filler like ” I think there should be at least one in every deck because it’ll help a lot of the time. It can help in situations and be clutch at times.” that you might as well not have written.
But even besides that, heavily disagreeing with someone is enough of a reason to dislike their articles in my opinion.
I think this set has potential as I have a box from worlds but the list is kinda bad bro. You should make it for TSS and for Pokemon not both in one there different mechanics of the game and Beartic has amazing potential.
actually cubchoo 28/98 and beartic 31/98 (the other beartic) can be used as good starters while your setting-up ability samurott and feraligatr prime (feraligatr is used to provide water energy for your ability samurotts at a faster pace). both cubchoo 28/98 and beartic 31/98 places the defending pokemon asleep with just 1 energy. and beartic has 130 hp and paired with max potion may be able to survive attacks until you get a fully powered ability samurott to win prizes. also, feraligatr, samurott, and beartic have different weaknesses and that’s a nice plus. i think emerging powers makes water decks more interesting. however it needs to be play-tested to see if its worth it. right now im just theory-moning about it. but ill definitely playtest this idea in my local league.
why didnt you mention great ball? i think great ball can be used in consistent decks that rely on fewer types of pokemon that occurs in higher numbers (e.g. 4-4, 3-3 lines).
i disagree with liepard as worth having an honorable mention. in the current format liepard will be blue flare and bolt strike fodder. as we know 80 hp isnt enough at turn 2 or turn 3.
my problem with ability gothitelle is the lack of consistent psychic energy accerelators to power it up quicker. jirachi is too flippy and needs psychic energy in your discard pile ( you’ll need to resort to a turn 1 or turn 2 juniper to dump all those psychic energy to the discard pile but i dont know if anyone will take the risk doing that). there is also no pachirisu-equivalent in psychic either. we need a psychic equivalent of emboar and feraligatr prime to make it a consistent deck. however it may be worth your while hoarding those ability goths until viable partners are published.
also it would have been nice to mention that reverse holos now have designs on them making them appealing for collectors. from the collector point-of-view this release may be interesting for them.
Thank you very much. In my next article, which I’m working on right now, I’m going to slow down and try not to rush.
i understand why you’d want to rush it since most local pre-releases are happening this weekend.
now here’s another example why its nice to slow down and rush. while i was walking i came down on a idea on how to make a goth deck work. the idea is tornadus-gothitelle-jirachi-shaymin. tornadus will be your starting tank. and since tornadus 2nd attack requires it to move an energy card to another pokemon you can actually use it to power a bench goth line. when tornadus is knocked out you will have enough psychic energy in the discard pile to use making it the right time to place jirachi down on your bench to try recycle it. if you are lucky with the flips you can bring down shaymin to transfer it to goth if you have it. again this is theory-mon but interesting to test.
I like the Idea, but.. by the time the Tornadus is knocked out the Opponent would have used any and all trainers he could while he waits, setting up faster. My Idea is like Goth/Zone/Jirachi/Shaymin. only a 1-0-1 Magnezone for draw. if you get goths out first you have some consistancy. and on that you could even judge/zone all game while abusing the sheer fact that they have nothing to move your goth (unless its a muk or something.)
i understand why you’d want to rush it since most local pre-releases are happening this weekend.
now here’s another example why its nice to slow down and rush. while i was walking i came down on a idea on how to make a goth deck work. the idea is tornadus-gothitelle-jirachi-shaymin. tornadus will be your starting tank. and since tornadus 2nd attack requires it to move an energy card to another pokemon you can actually use it to power a bench goth line. when tornadus is knocked out you will have enough psychic energy in the discard pile to use making it the right time to place jirachi down on your bench to try recycle it. if you are lucky with the flips you can bring down shaymin to transfer it to goth if you have it. again this is theory-mon but interesting to test.
I’m no Pro, but I disagree on the value of this set. First, I think many of the trainers and supporters are great. You mention Catcher & Max Potion, but I also think Cheren can replace Engineer’s or Sage’s if you want to avoid the discard, and Great Ball is good for getting members of a thick Pokemon line into your hand. (Okay, Recycle and Hammer are probably too flippy.) As for Pokemon, Thundurus makes a great one-for-one sub for Zekrom without the self damage, there are a lot of Fighting guys that can one-shot with more flexible energy requirements than Donphan, and the water guys are also speedy. (Lowly common basic Basculin, for example, one-shots Donphan with a water and a DCE, which I like better than Alomomola.) In this set I see a number of counters/complements to the current meta, so I’m excited to get my hands on it.
yeah and its an item and with junk arm it theoretically gives stage 2 decks a quicker time to set-up provided you run a lot of rare candy. its an upgrade to professor elm and with junk arm its reusable.
not to mention the reverse holos you can ebay for those collectors to buy. the emerging powers reverse holo price will most likely go up because of the cool design (im saying most likely because id like to see the actual market ). although i would prefer card sleeves over deck box.
Beartic has received some hype with the partner Vileploom.
You have to spell this right man. LOL.
Beartic has received some hype with the partner Vileploom.
You have to spell this right man. LOL.