Hey guys, Captain here with another Card of the Day. So today’s card is Emboar from Black and White, but not the popular “Inferno Fandango” Emboar; this is the sometimes overlooked “theme deck” Emboar.
Both Emboar cards actually have the same stats: a large 150 HP, a mediocre x2 weakness to water, no resistance, and a retreat cost of 4. The retreat cost is horrible, but its weakness really isn’t a big deal. The only water attacker it will really need to worry about is the “Shell Armor” Samurott, and SamuGatr is generally slower than ReshiBoar anyway.
First, however, let’s look at its attacks. The first one, Heat Crash, deals a vanilla 50 damage for a cost of FCC. This is pretty mediocre, but having a damaging effect with no side effects may come in handy occasionally. Overall, this attack is a bit sub-par.
Then you have the second attack, which certainly makes up for the below average Heat Crash. This attack, titled Flare Blitz, deals 150 damage for FFCC. However, this much damage comes at a price: you must discard all fire energy attached to Emboar. This can sometimes be horrible and sometimes not that bad. But before I delve deeper into the attack itself, I should mention why someone would even use this card.
This particular Emboar is a very useful tech in ReshiBoar (after all, you already have the Emboar line in the deck) that can 1-shot a lot more cards than ReshiBoar. Reshiram will be dealing 120 for FFC and a double discard of fire energy. That’s great, but there are a bunch of tough Pokemon with 130 or sometimes even more HP. While Reshiram can 1-shot these through the use of PlusPower or Blackbelt, it’s easier just to 1-shot them without depending on other cards (what if you’re Trainer-Locked or you need another Supporter for that turn?), and so Emboar is very good at doing just that.
While I’m talking about it, here are a few very notable Pokemon that will be knocked out from one use of this, but not just one use of Reshiram’s Blue Flare (not taking into account cards like Defender and whatnot): other Emboar, other Reshiram, Zekrom, Donphan Prime, Beartic (I realize this card isn’t out yet, but it’s worth mentioning), Blastoise, and Gengar Prime.
Now back to the attack. If you’re going to use this Emboar, then you should certainly include Double Colorless Energy. This way, with a DCE and 2 fires, you’ll only need to discard 2 fire energies for massive damage rather than 4. That’s pretty good since it’s the same penalty Reshiram pays, and ReshiBoar decks already have sufficient energy recovery capabilities.
Before I close this up, I should mention a few good cards this can combo with. Obviously there’s the other Emboar that allows you to attach as much fire energy as you want per turn. If you’re considering this card for your ReshiBoar deck, then you’ll already have the other Emboar in there. Other cards are Double Colorless Energy, which I mentioned before since it can make Emboar only discard 2 fire energy per use of Flare Blitz. Finally, there’s Switch. 4 retreat cost is horrible, and you should try to avoid discarding quite so much energy just to retreat him.
So all in all, I’d say this card gets a 3.5 out of 5. It’s overall a solid card that can prove to be very useful in ReshiBoar or any straight Emboar decks that pop up (Emboar and Typhlosion Prime, maybe?).
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