Time to look at Thundurus, another member of the “kami” trio of Pokémon. Given that “kami” translates to “god” in English (note the little “g” for those with a Judeo-Christian view of the divine) I probably won’t be using that term much for them. I’ve heard others refer to them as the “genie” trio, but since I haven’t played the games I don’t know if that’s official or just something someone came up with.
Stats
By their nature Basic Pokémon are the easiest Pokémon to run, unless the card itself has some built in drawbacks. Thundurus has no built in draw backs with respect to basic play, so it is easy to fit into a deck, easy to play from hand, easy to search out from the deck, and easy to recycle from the discard pile. It is a Lightning-Type Pokémon, but true Lightning-Type support seems non-existent. There are many cards to support Energy-Type, but as I like to remind people while the Energy a Pokémon uses is often the same as its Type it doesn’t have to be. So being a Lightning-Type mostly means facing a metagame that, due to the prominence of other Lightning-Type Pokémon (Magnezone Prime, Zekrom, Pachirisu, etc.) has developed minimizing Lightning Weakness and trying to maximize Lightning Resistance.
Thundurus enjoys 110 HP, currently the third highest possible score for a Basic Pokémon. Only the strongest attacks will OHKO it, and only the fastest, hardest hitting decks have a chance of taking it down turn one. The Fighting-Type Weakness will allow Donphan Prime to do just that, as well as a few other Fighting-Type decks rumored to work or struggling to prove themselves. It lacks Resistance, which is unfortunate but fairly common. Thundurus does finish solidly for stats by having a single Energy Retreat Cost. This is fairly common on Basic Pokémon, but becomes less common when you hit this high of an HP score, and is the second best Retreat Score possible: although often inconvenient, rarely will you struggle to get the needed Energy onto Thundurus in order to retreat.
Effects
Thundurus has two attacks. The first requires just (C) but if you want it to do you any good you’ll need a Lightning Energy card in your deck: Charge has you search your deck for said Lightning Energy card and attach it to Thundurus. This is not a brilliant attack, but it is useful if you actually open with Thundurus and don’t have a certain combo ready. This allows a solo Thundurus to be able to move onto his second attack by your second turn, barring an opponent’s intervention. The second attack is Disaster Volt for (LLC). It hits for 80 points of damage and requires you discard a single Energy from Thundurus. While you would be forfeiting setting up any other Pokémon, this can allow a Thundurus to be fairly self-sufficient, with a first turn Energy attachment and Charge allowing subsequent manual Energy attachments to keep a steady barrage of Disaster Volt attacks (and thus 80 points of damage) hitting your opponent each turn. The attacks work well together, although I believe we do get one of those odd moments where something “costing more” might have been better if it in turn justified a better return. By that I mean if Charge had required (L) and snagged two Lightning Energy to attach to Thundurus, it should have opened up some more combos and at the very least allowed you to get “a turn ahead” on Energy attachments; very important when you’re dealing with an attacker that will subsequently require your future Energy attachments.
Usage
Say “Hello!” to Zekrom’s little brother for all intents and purposes. I believe we have enough large Basic Pokémon to build a functional “Haymaker” style deck, although not in the strictest sense since the deck will be packing an Energy acceleration combo and the deck won’t be attacking (at least attacking well) first turn without it. We will also lack as much Type-matching as the original Haymaker was capable of, but ZPS decks now have several alternative attackers with which to stabilize the build while retaining a build consisting of only Basic Pokémon. Zekrom (Black & White 47/114, 114/114), Pachirisu (Call of Legends 18/95), and Shaymin (HS: Unleashed 8/95) can now be backed up not only by Bouffalant (Black & White 91/114) for Revenge fueled KOs, but by Tornadus and Thundurus for a weaker but easier to sustain assault.
Zekrom inflicts self damage with Bolt Strike and that is why I believe the deck has a good use for Tornadus and Thundurus. The deck functions now because of the massive 130 HP on Zekrom (which it cuts down to 90 from its first Bolt Strike) and the fact that Outrage lets it stop hurting itself once it has sufficient damage counters already on it. That first Bolt Strike is impressive (120 points of damage first turn!) but it’s also usually overkill. Few Basic Pokémon will have 120+ HP, and more importantly many will have 80 or less. Enter Thundurus; using the same set-up it can hit for 80 points of damage each turn, though at the cost of your manual Energy attachment. You have the option of letting it go down swinging while setting up the proper ZPS combo so that Zekrom can one-shot anything large your opponent does get going, setting up a Tornadus in case of Fighting or Lightning-Resistant Pokémon, or readying a Bouffalant quickly the turn Thundurus does go down for a probable Revenge KO. You even have the option of sucking the Energy off of a Thundurus to fuel one of the others though you’d better have a method of getting your half KOed Thundurus out of the Active slot. By no means should this be taken as anything more than advanced Theorymon, but I feel confident enough to suggest people take the time to try it.
Now perhaps this build will prove inferior to the classic, despite being better able to adapt: reliability is king, after all and you have to make room for several more Basic Pokémon. I still see Thundurus making an impact because Lightning-decks have a second big, Basic Pokémon that hits hard, but while this one isn’t quite as big and doesn’t hit quite as hard, he also doesn’t take himself out. If I am running a multi-Type deck, I might still prefer Zekrom for its raw power and the fact that in the worst case scenario, I can let it take a hit and hit fairly hard back without any Lightning Energy or substitutes, thanks to Outrage. Still if it truly is a multi-Type deck and is running Lightning Energy mixed with something else, there is something to be said for attacking with a big Basic that doesn’t blast itself along with the opponent. Yes Thundurus requires an Energy discard, but the type isn’t specified. If I am already running an Emboar (Black & White 20/114) and Magnezone (HS: Triumphant 96/102) “Prime” deck, what does that single generic Energy discard mean to me? I’d already be running Reshiram (Black & White 26/114, 113/114) so I’d already be covered for a high maintenance Basic that hits for 120, I’d have a huge Lightning-Type attacker available from Magnezone Prime if 80 just wasn’t enough, so why make your Lightning-Type Energy demands even worse by running something that hits itself? Thundurus even aids the deck by as an opener: do you take out the Tepig, the Magnemite, or the Thundurus that just manually attached a Fire Energy card and used Charge to attach a Lightning Energy card from the deck? Can your deck take down a 110 HP Pokémon on your first/second turn? Again, perhaps the “Magneboar” builds have fallen completely out of favor or are already too crowded to accommodate even a clutch copy: we won’t really know about the former until Battle Roads though the latter seems unlikely.
In Unlimited, this card requires too much of an investment to set-up, even though it has a solid return. If you aren’t playing a super-cutthroat match where both players are spamming each other first turn for game, the next level of “classic” Unlimited decks would shred a Thundurus deck, mostly due to Neo Discovery Tyrogue spamming. For Limited play, this is a must run as long as you can run a handful of Lightning Energy with it. Thanks to Charge powering up shouldn’t be too hard even if you can’t draw into any of your Lightning Energy, though you don’t want to have to use that attack twice before you can Disaster Volt. 110 HP will probably be the biggest score to hit the field most matches and 80 points of damage will OHKO most Defending Pokémon.
Ratings
Unlimited: 4/10
Modified: 7.5/10
Limited: 9.5/10
Summary
Thundurus won’t replace Zekrom. If Zekrom didn’t exist, this card might still be strong enough to support the ZPS deck (though obviously we’d have named it differently): hitting only a little softer but without the hassle is a great option to have. I believe he will work his way into at least a few decks because he can be run alongside Zekrom and not taking out almost a third of its max HP is probably worth hitting for that much less damage in at least a few builds.
