art by Ryo Ueda
It is time to break into a new set with so many cards to point out. This set is promising to give us all the gold we want from tournaments while giving others just the second place silver. We are going to see a lot of new strategies breaking out as we come closer to the eve of Winter Regionals. Which cards from the new set will be pointed at? Will this week’s featured card be the deciding point in matches? Only time will tell as we find out which cards will break into the meta while others just break apart.
This week on TCG Jump, we are going to feature a card from BREAKpoint that is hoping to break out. The Pokemon that we are looking at has been around for a few years in card form and has recently been tucked away in the Expanded format. Now that BREAKpoint has been release, this Pokemon can climb out of the darkness in a new form! This week on TCG Jump, we are pointing out Darkrai EX from BREAKpoint!
Darkrai EX is a Darkness Pokemon with 180 HP. It has a two energy retreat cost, a weakness to Fighting type Pokemon and resistance to Psychic type Pokemon attacks. Darkrai EX has two attacks. The first attack is called Dark Pulse and cost two energy. Dark Pulse does a base of 20 damage and does 20 more for every Darkness energy attached to all of your Pokemon. Darkrai EX’s second attack is called Dark Head and cost a Darkness energy and two other energy. Once Dark Head is ready to use then it can do 80 damage plus 80 more if your opponent’s Pokemon is asleep.
The Pros
Darkrai EX is a quick attacker as it can start dealing damage with a single Double Colorless Energy. It may not be much damange early game but it can really deal a lot of damage in the late game after you place several Darkness energy across your bench. You could use Darkrai EX as a late game attacker if you have Yveltal and Yveltal EX on your bench with a few Darkness energy attached. Simply place down Darkrai EX on the bench and attach a DCE to it. If you have at least four Darkness energy on your benched Yveltal and Yveltal EX then Darkrai EX is doing 100 damage with Dark Pulse.
The real magic to Darkrai is in his Dark Head attack which has potential to do some heavy damage. This attack does a base 80 damage but if you want to hit even harder then simply put your opponent’s active Pokemon to sleep. This makes Dark Head hit 160 damage on your opponent’s active Pokemon. If you attach a Muscle Band to Darkrai EX then Dark Head will be hitting the magic number of 180 damage. This amount of damage is enough to knock out an EX Pokemon if it was asleep. Even better, Dark Head’s energy cost works well with the energy cost for Dark Pulse as you can simply attach a DCE and a Darkness energy to use Dark Head. It is this speed and ease that puts Darkrai EX in position to do some heavy damage.
Darkrai EX even come in a good time as Dark decks are holding their popularity and are seeing a rise in play. There is some good support for Darkness deck as they have plenty of core attackers to choose from in the form of Zoroark and Yveltal. If you have these two Pokemon then you could have a good start to building a strong Darkrai EX deck.
The Cons
Just as Darkness Pokemon are seeing a rise in usage, Fighting type Pokemon are beginning to see the same surge.
If you paid attention to the City Championship results, you may have noticed that Lucario and Gallade saw some usage in the top winning decks. Lucario found a friend with Crobat and Golbat who helped Lucario fill in the gap that it needed to take a knockout. Meanwhile, Gallade found a friend with Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick as a counter against Lighting decks. Most Yveltal-Darkness decks took advantage of this little Gallade trick but Entei decks also decided to include Gallade in their pack.
This spells trouble for Darkrai EX who has a Fighting weakness. Lucario would have to rely less on Crobat and Golbat to knock out Darkrai EX thanks to his weakness. Meanwhile, Gallade can move quickly to knock out Darkrai EX thanks to Gallade’s attack costing a DCE and how easy it is to play a Supporter.
Another weakness that Darkrai EX has is that it relies heavily on outside forces. Dark Pulse’s damage output depends if you have plenty Darkness energy attached to your Pokemon. Meanwhile, Dark Head needs an outside force to put your opponent’s active Pokemon to sleep.
How to Play It
Darkrai EX plays well with others and because of that it can be used to deal heavy damage.
If you want to play a quick gimmick deck then consider playing Darkrai EX with Giratina EX and Double Dragon Energy. Simply attach a DCE to Darkrai and a Double Dragon Energy to Giratina EX. The DDE will be fueling Darkrai EX’s Dark Pulse attack to do even more damage quickly because it can count as two Darkness energy. If you can attach two DDE energy to Giratina EX then Darkrai EX will be hitting for 100 energy easy. If Darkrai EX goes down then you can switch over to Giratina EX who is ready to attack thanks to all the DDE energy you attached to it. Because of this, Darkrai EX could be use as a cheap alternative attack in Giratina EX decks who have a hard time against Yveltal EX decks.
Now if you want to get serious with Darkrai EX then you will want to create a deck revolving around his Dark Head ability. All you will need to constantly hit 180 damage is Hypno (BREAKpoint), Zoroark and All-Night Party.
Hypno from BREAKpoint may have one of the creepiest name ability in the form of Goodnight Babies. It is this ability that you will use to permanently put your opponent’s Pokemon to sleep. You can use Hypno’s Goodnight Babies ability to put your opponent and your Pokemon to sleep once per turn. It may sound bad to put your own Darkrai EX to sleep but that is why you play All-Night Party. This new Stadium card from BREAKpoint allows the player to wake up their Pokemon and heal 30 damage from it. So once your Darkrai EX wakes up by All-Night Party, it is now time to put your opponent’s Pokemon to bed by attaching a Muscle Band and use Dark Head for 180 damage.
I would suggest Zoroark for this deck as a second option to wake up your Darkrai from Hypno’s Goodnight Babies ability in case your opponent finds a way to get rid of your All-Night Party stadium. Simply attach a Float Stone to Zoroark and use Stand In to wake up your Darkrai EX by placing it on your Bench. You can then retreat your Zoroark to the bench for free thanks to Float Stone. This allows you to attack with Darkrai EX to take another knock out. Also, Zoroark can be used as a secondary attacker that can hit hard by attaching a DCE to it.
Malamar EX could replace Hypno’s role in this deck. If you attach an energy to Malamar EX then you can activate it’s Hyper Hypnosis ability. This ability puts your opponent’s Pokemon to sleep which will allow your Darkrai EX to attack with Dark Head without relying on another card to wake it up. The problem with Malamar EX in this deck is that your need to use an energy attachment on Malamar EX instead of using it to power up Darkrai EX or another attacker. You may want to play an Energy Switch or two in this version of the deck to move energy off of Malamar EX and onto a different attacker.
Darkrai EX may rely on some Pokemon to do heavy damage but that could be all it needs in order to break into the format. Once Darkrai EX is ready to attack then it will get right to the point. So you better be careful around Darkrai EX or you may find your dreams of victory turn into one nasty nightmare.
