pokebeach.comHey y’all! Celebi’ here again with a Card of the Day review of the poor ol’ genie, Thundurus. He’s always overshadowed by his big brother Tornadus (who got two COTD articles and a dramatic debate). So I decided to give Thundurus a chance to shine (pun intended – he’s extremely shiny IRL).
Thundurus is a 110 HP basic Pokémon – very hefty, and out of range of being donked by anything but Zekrom. Lightning typing is nice since you’ll hit for weakness on almost any Water type, but it also means you’re weak to Fighting. However, Donphan is seeing less and less play, so this weakness isn’t as horrendous as it used to be. Having one Retreat Cost is OK; not the best but not terrible either.
One of the best advantages of being Lightning type is that you have access to arguably the best Energy acceleration engine in the format – Pachirisu CL and Shaymin UL. These two make it possible for Thundurus to attack on the first turn without much trouble.
But are his attacks worth it? The first, Charge, is nothing special – it lets you search your deck for a Lightning Energy and attach it to Thundurus. If you aren’t able to get Pachi and Shaymin out, by using Charge you can still get off Disaster Volt by turn two (two manual attachments and one by the attack).
Now for Disaster Volt itself. This attack, for LLC, does 80 damage and makes you discard an energy attached to Thundurus. This makes him remarkably similar to Reshiram, whose Blue Flare also costs two specific energy and one colorless. Blue Flare does 40 more damage, but makes you discard two energy, meaning that in order to use that attack again next turn, you’ll need to use some sort of acceleration such as Emboar or Typhlosion. The beauty of Thundurus is that you only discard one Energy, and can just manually attach again next turn.
If you wanted to actually base a deck around Thundurus, you’d need a Pachi/Shaymin engine for consistency and speed. You might also include some cards like Energy Retrieval or Fisherman that can get the energy cards back from the discard.
Noble Victories is coming out soon, and it includes a card that meshes perfectly with Thundurus. That card is Eelektrik. He’s markedly better than his evolution, Eelektross, because he has a great ability: Dynamotor.
True, you can’t attach to your active with Dynamotor, but you’ll be able to grab the energy you discarded and use it to power up a fresh Tornadus on the bench. This way, you can replenish your active’s Energy without worrying about whether to devote your attachment to a backup attacker.
The main problem I see with Eelektrik is its two Retreat Cost, which could be bothersome with Catcher so prevalent. However, once NV comes out, he’s definitely a good option to test in any Thundurus deck.
Conclusion
Zekrom overshadows Thundurus in many aspects: HP, damage output, and Energy conservation. But Thundurus doesn’t have that awful recoil damage. He may never become the BDIF, but he’s barely played at all, so we don’t know quite how he’d do in our metagame. He’s decent, though.
In this article, I’d like to implement a rating system identical to the one on TcgScans.com. Here’s a rundown of the scores.
1 – Totally bogus.
2 – Bad.
3 – Weak.
4 – Sub par.
5 – Mediocre.
6 – Decent.
7 – Good.
8 – Very good.
9 – Extremely good.
10 – BROKEN
I have just one request: if you disagree with my rating, please explain! Rather than just commenting, “That rating stinks, Thundurus is so much better/worse than that!” which isn’t helpful at all, explain why you think the card deserves a different rating and what you yourself would rate it.
So, I’d rate Thundurus at 7/10. It’s a fairly solid card, but it really hasn’t had an impact on the format like Tornadus has, and I think Thundurus will forever be overshadowed by both Tornadus and Zekrom.
What do you guys think about Thundurus? Please comment below! Thanks for reading!
In my opinion this is the card that should have Tornadus’s spot. I don’t see why you’d ever run more than one Tornadus and I would never play any and TPS-Z is just a disgrace. Your reasoning for moving the energy to Zekrom is nullified by Pokemon Catcher. I am glad someone finally did this card because I wanted to see it reviewed.
About your article, I think your concept of Thundurus as its own deck is interesting, I think of it as a 2-of card in Zekrom and the PREFERRED 2-of card in Zekrom, and your concept of ThEPS was interesting. +1 from me.
Have you ever played Zekrom before? There are plenty of reasons why Tornadus is in there, but the most obvious is to help with Donphan. Zekrom is weak to donphan, Thundurus is also weak to Donphan. Tornadus resists Donphan, can 2-shot a Donphan, and Donphan can only 3-shot Tornadus (unless it’s got Heavy Impact powered up).
Alternatively, it’s significantly easier to get a t1 Hurricane going than a t1 Disaster Volt due to the energy requirement.
You know just as well as I do that the ONLY reason you commented on this card was to reference the Tornadus argument you lost. Seriously dude, nobody respects you anymore. You haven’t gotten a “like” since you posted “Your book must be a best seller,” in reply to Dane TWO WEEKS AGO, and you’ve posted 23 comments since then. NONE OF WHICH A SINGLE PERSON HAS LIKED. If your wondering why nobody appreciates anything you post, its for comments like this one, where you complain about previous articles and then whip up a quick sentence at the end in an effort to pretend as though you even read this article. Grow up.
Sad to say. He’s right. Dude, just drop the Tornadus vs Thundurus thing and move on. Battle roads was the proving grounds. And guess what? All the winning Zekrom lists had tornadus, NOT thunderus.
We all make mistakes. It’s moving on that takes maturity.
I don’t see how BR’s proved anything if nobudy played Thundurus in Zekrom.
That’s the ENTIRE POINT.
You had worlds-level players playing in these events, thanks to the change in invite structure. Surely, these top-tier players would play the “right” list. But guess what? No thundurus to be found.
Once you win an event (of sufficient size, a 2-player event does not count) with multiple copies of thundurus in a ZPS deck, then get back to me. Until then, I’ll let the ENTIRE REST OF THE PLAYER BASE do the talking.
And, since you seem to have skipped over it, i’ll post it again for you:
“We all make mistakes. It’s moving on that takes maturity.”
Nobody played Emolga in Zekrom either.
I there’s no way of telling if that would have been any good either, right?
You’re talking to someone who claims that Beartic doesn’t counter Donphan because it doesn’t OHKO it. You’re talking to someone who thinks Tornadus is worthless in ZPST (Seriously, “ZPST is a disgrace”? When it’s one of the top winning decks in the US?). You’re talking to someone who comes up with random hypothetical scenarios without even playtesting. You’re talking to someone who not just fails to realize his lack of thinking, but also goes around degrading others’ sound opinions with his blindly-biased perspectives. Don’t bother reasoning with people like coolestman22, you just might make yourself look dumber.
Change the image profile, but still the same.
“TPS-Z is just a disgrace”
This is absurd.
Wowwwwwwww
Sorry dude, but even I believe that Tornadus is better than Thundurus, and I was the one who started this. My ZPS list is a ZPST, and the “T” stands for Tornadus, NOT Thundurus. Yes, I do still talk about my incident, but I admit to the loss. Time for you to admit as well.
I think Thundurus will get his chance after the rotation. Although by then there will be more BW-on cards so he still may not get used
Tried him in my Zekrom/Tornadus, but I didn’t need 9 attackers and he wasn’t as good as either of the other 2, so I ended up cutting him. Keeping enough Energy on board is hard enough as it is.
Decent article, though in my opinion I’d probably drop the rating down to 6. To me a seven would be a card that wouldn’t be so out-staged by a card like one of the dragons, or Tornadus. But I still believe if the right cards come out in future set has the potential to be a top tier deck.
I disagree, I think the correct rate is 6.01.
whats nv?
“Noble Victories” aka the set we’re about to get (and are already having pre-releases for)
I ran a deck with these cards mentioned, except with pachirisu and shaymin. these are the cards that i used:
Pokemon-17
zekrom-2
thundurus-2
elekid 1
tyrouge 1
pichu 1
elektrik 2
tynamo (40 hp) 2
Rotom 2
Raichu hgss 2
pikachu UD 2
Trainers- 28
engineer’s adjustments 3
Interviewer’s questions 3
pont 3
cheerleader’s cheer (cheren replacable) 2
professor juniper 2
pokemon collector 1
flower shop lady 1
energy search 2
recycle 2
good rod 2
eviolite 2
energy retrieval 2
pokemon communication 2
dual ball 1
Energy- 15
electric 11
rescue 2
dce 2
The purpose of this deck that i have posted is simple: discard energies to build the ones that you want up, for instance, thundurus. for instance, i have run this deck for two weeks, played an average of 4 games a day, and have only ever lost 1 time. it was against a leafeon deck, which is your only real deck to watch out for. if they set up that roserade and confuse your baby they’ve got a prize. Thank you for the thundurus review, and I hope everyone takes this deck into consideration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!