#dragons exalted

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"Baby wants picked back up!!!” Gible - Dragons Exalted 87

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1654: Rayquaza (Dragons Exalted)

Rayquaza was the rare secret card that had some potential. A very quirk first attack and a reasonable second one made it an interesting option for any deck with both Fire and Lightning Energy. This typically meant Eelektrik decks also using Rayquaza EX. This wasn’t a bad spot to fit into, really. Not much more to ask for than an existing good deck!

120 HP was a reasonable number for a Basic Pokemon, though it was low enough to make for some worries against Kyurem and Mewtwo EX. The Dragon Weakness could matter occasionally against other Dragon-types, but remember that Rayquaza itself hit those hard and this was pretty important. The Retreat Cost was the most annoying thing, really; 3 Energy was a lot to pay for something that was a niche attacker.

Dragon Pulse was really cool early in the game. 40 damage for a Lightning Energy could mess up Basic Pokemon if facing someone relying on evolving their Pokemon in some cases. You did have to discard the top 2 cards of your deck, but if you were using Dragon Pulse you likely had an opening to take something out. A reasonable trade.

Shred had a weird Energy requirement, at a Fire, a Lightning, and a Colorless Energy, but 90 damage that wasn’t changed by effects on the Defending Pokemon was pretty decent. Its best use was to mess up a Rayquaza EX or Black Kyurem EX since they gave up 2 Prizes and you only gave up 1. Rayquaza EX was the better attacker otherwise.

Rayquaza wasn’t needed in every Rayquaza EX deck, but it was a nice addition if you wanted a bit of a boost in the mirror match. It did its job there by taking out early Tynamo and smacking Rayquaza EX around. It also wasn’t that great outside of that deck. Still, it was a notable niche if that deck was popular.

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1653: Blend Energy WLFM (Dragons Exalted)

The other Blend Energy combined Lightning, Water, Fighting, and Metal. This one had a couple of uses. The most notable was in BLW-On Klinklang decks, pairing Klinklang with various attackers such as Registeel EX, Cobalion EX, and Kyurem EX. The other, while surprising, was in those Plasma decks since it worked for both Kyurem and Thundurus EX. While those already had Prism, Plasma, and even Rainbow Energy in later formats, Blend Energy was yet another option that could be used.

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1652: Blend Energy GRPD (Dragons Exalted)

The Dragons Exalted set brought along two new Special Energy that could provide 1 of 4 different types of Energy. I’m not quite sure how they decided to distribute types, but this card provided Grass, Fire, Psychic, or Darkness-type Energy. This had some use in decks wanting to use Pokemon of more than one of these types. The most notable spot for the GRPD version was in Darkrai EX and Hydreigon decks, which could move this Energy around to Pokemon that could use any of the 4 types of Energy. Quite useful if you wanted to, say, move this Energy over to Mewtwo EX for a big attack against something with little Energy attached to it. The availability of Prism Energy and the later Rainbow Energy meant that this wasn’t that common of a sight, of course, but it provided some flexibility to a few decks.

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1651: Tool Scrapper (Dragons Exalted)

Sometimes, it was the simple things that were the best. Tool Scrapper was just an Item card that let you choose up to 2 Pokemon Tool cards attached to Pokemon in play and discard them. Not fancy at all, but very effective. Decks that relied a lot on Abilities, which were quite numerous, wanted some of these just to deal with Garbodor. While not as important in other decks, it could still be useful to get rid of something like Float Stone or Muscle Band in an important spot. This was one of those cards that you’d see in a significant number of good decks since Pokemon Tools were rather useful at the time.

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1650: Rescue Scarf (Dragons Exalted)

Rescue Scarf was a pretty simple Pokemon Tool. When the Pokemon this card was attached to was Knocked Out by damage from an attack, that Pokemon went back into your hand but all cards attached to it were discarded. It was notable here that it did work for evolved Pokemon as well, which made Rescue Scarf somewhat useful in the rare decks that still tried to swarm Stage 2 Pokemon. The card itself wasn’t seen much, however, since there were just better Pokemon Tools like Eviolite and Float Stone and the popularity of hitting higher damage numbers with the Hypnotoxic Laser+Virbank City Gym combo could get around it thanks to Poison damage not causing this to work. It was workable in most decks, really, but was rarely your first choice.

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1649: Giant Cape (Dragons Exalted)

Giant Cape was a Pokemon Tool that simply added 20 HP to the Pokemon it was attached to. This could be nice, but there were too many better Pokemon Tools out there. Basically any deck could use Float Stone. Darkness decks could run Dark Claw. There was Muscle Band in the NXD-On format. With many decks not wanting to run a ton of Pokemon Tools since room was needed for a bunch of Items and Supporters, it was hard to find space for a simple 20 HP boost. Basic Pokemon even had Eviolite to run over this, so the only use for this was if you really needed your Stage 1 or 2 Pokemon to survive a specific attack.

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Pokemon Card of the Day #1648: Bouffalant (Dragons Exalted)

While Dragon was split off onto its own type, there were still plenty of Pokemon that could be Colorless. Dragons Exalted even had a few of those, and one of the more intriguing ones was Bouffalant. Okay, so it was a Basic Pokemon who usually only hit 60 damage. The exception was against Pokemon EX, against which it was doubled. This, combined with only needing Colorless Energy, being a Basic Pokemon that only gave up 1 Prize, and being able to take a hit from some reasonably strong attackers, gave a surprising opportunity to a card that wasn’t even rare.

100 HP wasn’t bad for a Basic Pokemon, and it was nice that Bouffalant took a bit less damage from attacks than other Pokemon. The bigger hitters of the day, including those sitting around 120 such as Kyurem, could still KO, but anything that targeted Pokemon EX and could take a single hit from Darkrai EX was notable. The Fighting Weakness could be an issue in the sense that dealing with Landorus EX and Lucario EX wasn’t possible, though it still left several spots for Bouffalant to work. You also didn’t want to pay 2 Energy to retreat if you could help it. The format had plenty of ways to get around that, at least.

Bouffer simply lowered any damage done to Bouffalant by attacks to be reduced by 20, meaning that an opponent needed 120 to KO in one hit and 80 to KO in two. It was a nice touch that could help Bouffalant survive a hit in a few spots.

Gold Breaker was the reason to consider Bouffalant in a deck. 60 damage for 3 Colorless Energy did not impress. Against Pokemon EX, on the other hand, 60 more was added. 120 for 3 against a very common set of Pokemon was no joke, and Bouffalant could fit in with decks using any type. It wasn’t enough to KO most, which could be annoying, but it would usually get a big chunk in and seeing it win 1v1 wasn’t rare. Not bad for a Pokemon that only gave up a Prize.

Bouffalant was one of those Pokemon that was never really required in decks but was an option in quite a few of them. Any deck that wanted some help against Pokemon EX that couldn’t KO Bouffalant and used Double Colorless Energy had a very good reason to consider this. It didn’t take up a lot of deck space and had some nice moments. If you weren’t going up against the very Pokemon Bouffalant needed to beat, then the card was dead weight, making it a bit of a risk. That being said, it was always something to be aware of if you were running a deck based on any Pokemon EX that couldn’t shred through this card in one hit.