Hey everyone! Here I am again, posting my baseless speculation about which Pokémon are going to be the best ones from our upcoming TCG set,
Boundaries Crossed. If you recall, the last time I posted one of these I made some fairly accurate predictions, and some wildly inaccurate ones. Nonetheless, here I am, taking another shot at it. So, without further delay...
Maybe I'm stretching my credibility here. Dusknoir has a horrible Dark-type weakness, a mediocre attack, and he's a big fat 3-retreat lump. Someone will make use of him, however, because of his Ability "Sinister Hand" (nice name for it, too!) which allows you to manipulate the damage on your opponent's Pokémon as much as you like before your attack. He's bizarro
Reuniclus. He's no great shakes, but someone will find a use for him, believe you me.
I don't think Flygon is an incredible card. An Ability that spreads ten damage to each of your opponent's Pokémon is a nice extra, but has to be paired with a decent attack - and Flygon just doesn't cut it in that department. Still, expect to see him out there, paired with
Raticate or
Celebi EX or maybe even
Dusknoir. A rogue deck in the making somewhere down the line? Maybe!
I'll be honest, I'm not convinced. A lot of very knowledgeable players swear up and down that Ditto is going to see a lot of play, but I'm wary of buying into the hype. His "Transform" ability might allow you to play a basic on Ditto the turn after you bench him, and then evolve him immediately, but I don't know how consistently that will be useful, given the hand requirements for that play. However I'm putting Ditto here on this list. Why? I like him. He's a funny Pokémon with a stupid face, and he's interesting enough that I figure he's worth discussing. Here's hoping I'm wrong, and Ditto proves his worth!
Everyone thinks Stoutland is going to be largely useless, and I disagree. Sure, your opponent can use a Pokémon Catcher to get around the Supporter lock afforded by Stoutland's "Watchdog" Ability. But this is a format without Junk Arm, and forcing your opponent to Catcher after every knockout could put them in a difficult place, if they even have the Catcher in hand. Meanwhile, most decks outright rely on playing a Supporter every turn, or at least every other turn, and disrupting that is a really big deal. A respectable 140 HP, 3C attack for 90 (with the possibility of self-damage, sure) and an unfortunate weakness to Fighting types, which is really Stoutland's biggest weak point. He might not be a huge game-changer, but I suspect Stoutland will find a home in decks keen to annoy your opponent, or disrupt their plays. Also, he's totally
Greyfriar's Bobby. Well, Herdier is. Still, must have civic pride and all that.
Ohgodnotthisguyagain. I hated Trainer Lock Vileplume with a burning passion, he was the
rafflesia arnoldii that all the obsessive-compulsive players that wanted to control every match went right for, and it drove me nuts. But that Vileplume is gone, and in it's place we now have this guy, who makes all weaknesses do x4 damage rather than x2. Ouch. He'll be the hero of 6 Corners-style and anti-meta decks that hit just hard enough to OHKO popular Pokémon with weakness. Fire isn't as popular as it used to be, either, so his x4 Fire-type weakness isn't the liability it could have been. I totally like Vileplume as a Pokémon, though, and hope we see some Vileplume Box decks played in the future.
Okay, I don't think too much of these cards if I'm honest, but I'll give them the airing they deserve. Dragon weakness is a bit of a nightmare, turning these into a potentially risky play, but with the new
Ace Spec cards on the go in this set designed to basically encourage us to play them, why not? White Kyurem EX is better than Black Kyurem EX, simply because he can use his bigger attack on consecutive turns, and burn damage can mean he OHKOs Mewtwo EX, so not too shabby. However I can't help but consider these guys gimmicky, and therefore not really worth the effort. I could be wrong, however, so we'll see if my predictions hold up!
Okay, I'll confess, I don't like this Pokémon. Sorry, he just rubs me the wrong way. I don't really think I need to say much about him, however. He pairs perfectly with
Blastoise, can use his Ability to switch automatically from the bench to active position, can be tanked to do incredible damage, has a respectable 170 HP, a negligible grass weakness - basically it'd be crazy if he didn't get played. If Blastoise wasn't coming out at the same time he might be forgotten about, but Keldeo is here to stay.
It might seem odd that Blastoise would be such a good card -
Feraligatr Prime from the last format was similar, and didn't see much competitive play, after all. However a few things set Blastoise apart to make him an incredibly playable card. First of all, Blastoise himself has a basic form that can utilize an ability,
Squirtle with "Shell Shield", which prevents all damage done to Squirtle when he is on the bench. With spread attackers like
Darkrai EX and the upcoming
Landorus EX, this ability is not to be sniffed at. Secondly, his attack, though pricey, can two-hit any EX in the game. And of course, that attack's cost is mitigated by the fact that you can use Blastoise's "Deluge" ability to attach as many basic water energies from your hand to your Pokémon as you like. Grass weakness is nothing to worry about at the moment, either. Add all of this to this the fact that he can easily be paired with
Keldeo EX or
Wailord for more effective attackers, and you can see that Blastoise is a contender.
What is there to say about Landorus EX that hasn't already been said? An excellent turn one attacker that OHKOs both
Tynamo and Dark-type
Deino, potentially unseating two of the most popular decks in the format. A second attack that, with discard, can hit for 150, potentially killing any EX Pokémon that suffered spread from the first attack. This guy is a monster. The disadvantages are his water weakness, which is going to make a comeback with the aforementioned
Keldeo EX and
Blastoise, and his retreat cost. Just how much the game will shift in Landorus' favour is yet to be seen, but he'll definitely make his mark.
I hope this was an entertaining and enjoyable post for you all to read, and I'll be doing another one concerning the Trainer cards in Boundaries Crossed, so look out for that!
