kn3ll_, 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 Poke-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 Poke-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.
“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 Pokemon are Basics. Dual Ball, Pokemon Collector, and Pokemon 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 OHKO 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.
