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TCG Jump: Featured Card- Team Aqua’s Kyogre EX

Team Aqua's Kyogre EXHere comes a high tide that will engulf everything around it! The bigger you are then the harder it will hurt. You better hope that you won’t get washed away by this Pokemon. It could mean some bad things for you if you get caught up in this flood of power. The seas will be storming once this Pokemon hits the field and things will get rough. Prepare for the invasion of the sea as we feature Team Aqua’s Kyogre EX!

Team Aqua’s Kyogre EX is a Water type Pokemon with 190 HP and a four energy retreat cost. It has a weakness to Grass type Pokemon. Aqua’s Kyogre EX has the Power Saver ability where it can only attack if there are four or more Team Aqua Pokemon in play. This does not include itself. Aqua’s Kyogre EX has an attack that cost three Water and a Colorless energy call Aqua Impact. It does 80 base damage plus twenty more for every Colorless energy required in the opponent’s active Pokemon retreat cost.

The Pros
Aqua MukTeam Aqua’s Kyogre EX is from Double Crisis which means it has beautiful art! Though, Aqua’s Kyogre EX is an exception. It has exceptional beautiful art thank to it being a full art! You can see Kyogre there with Aqua Admin Shelley and Matt along with all the Team Aqua Pokemon. It is a beautiful piece and well worth owning one of them.

What makes Aqua’s Kyogre EX nice to have is the huge amount of HP that it has. Aqua’s Kyogre EX has the most HP (outside of Wailord EX) for an EX Pokemon and can take a few hits. Most decks that take one-hit knockouts do so for only 170 or 180 HP Pokemon. That is with Hypnotoxic Laser adding on damage. Now they have to find a way to damage to Aqua’s Kyogre EX prior to it hitting the active. It is a nasty thing to deal with.

It is a good thing that Aqua’s Kyogre EX has so much HP. Once you power up Aqua’s Kyogre EX, you will want to do damage quickly to take some knockouts with Aqua Impact. This attack depends on the retreat cost of your opponent’s Pokemon. Luckily, Double Crisis gave plenty of support to Aqua’s Kyogre EX to help manipulate your opponent’s retreat cost with Team Aqua’s Muk and Team Aqua’s Secret Base. Both cards add one extra energy requirement.

If you have two Aqua’s Muk and Team Aqua’s Secret Base in play then that is an additional three energy cost to retreat on the active Pokemon. If the active Pokemon has at least one energy cost to retreat, it will go up to four which means Aqua’s Kyogre EX will be hitting for 160 damage. Attach a Muscle Band to Aqua’s Kyogre EX and it will be hitting the magic 180 number for knockouts on EX Pokemon. Take note that Yveltal EX has a two energy retreat cost. Imagine how much you can hit with that kind of energy cost.

The Cons
Float StoneThe biggest con to Aqua’s Kyogre EX is the Aqua Impact attack. It cost four energy to use and depends solely on your opponent’s Pokemon. If your opponent’s Pokemon has zero retreat cost then you are only hitting for 80 damage. That means you need to set up your Aqua’s Muk quickly if you want to attack. This may become your best way to manipulate your opponent’s Pokemon retreat cost as Team Aqua’s Secret Base can easily be removed from play by your opponent’s Stadium of choice. It may not be a bad idea to set up as many Aqua’s Muk as you can because you will need them if you want Aqua’s Kyogre EX to attack.

Though, all of this may become useless if you are playing a deck using Darkrai EX or Float Stone. If your opponent attaches a Darkness energy or a Float Stone to the active Pokemon then their retreat cost becomes zero. That means you will need to play around that Pokemon or settle for doing only 80 damage.

Not all hope is lost when a Float Stone comes into play. You can easily remove it by using Startling Megaphone. This card will discard any attached Float Stone and other items on your opponent’s Pokemon. Things will still be pretty tough against decks playing Darkrai EX. It will be difficult to remove all the Darkness energy on your opponent’s Pokemon.

How to Play It
BlastoiseIf you want to get on the boat for Team Aqua then there are ways to play Team Aqua’s Kyogre EX. The first thing you want to do is set up as many Aqua’s Muk as you can to make the retreat cost of your opponent’s Pokemon higher. Play Team Aqua’s Secret Base to help but allow your opponent to play their Stadium first so you can have a higher chance to win the Stadium war.

Now you need to think about how to power up Aqua’s Kyogre EX. That is when you look into the Water support such as Archie’s Ace in the Hole and Blastoise. You will need to find a way to get Blastoise in the discard which can be done via Battle Compressor. Then you will need to get your hand down to just having Archie’s Ace in the Hole. Play that and you have a Blastoise on your bench and a hand of five new cards. Once you do that, make it rain by using Blastoise’s Deluge ability to attach as many Water energy as you want onto Aqua’s Kyogre EX.

Things can be a little bit faster if you run a few Double Aqua Energy. That way you only need two Water energy to attach on to Aqua’s Kyogre EX via Blastoise’s Deluge. Then just let Double Aqua Energy fulfill the rest of the energy requirements to use Aqua Impact.

Team Aqua’s Kyogre EX can bring a storm once it gets set up. It won’t be pretty but it can wash out the competition once it gets a chance.


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