Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Raichu Lv. X

Kayle

Kayle

Active Member
So, I hear that Raichu was a disaster Pokemon in a sense. Hype + fail.

Someone fill me in a bit on Raichu's story? I'm curious.
 
Personally, I'm a big fan of Raichu lv X, it's got a great attack and it's Body that actually should be a Power is amazing. Problems with Raichu are low HP for one thing, it came out at the same time as Machamp so that was also problematic, the non lv X versions are kind of mediocre, the MT Raichu provides energy acceleration and can dish out strong attacks by discarding it's energy, the SF Raichu has a free attack for 30 which is decent, a second attack for 3 energy that is kind of situational, and a final attack that is powerful but discards energy. The main problem though is the bogus amount of Electric Energy needed to attack, lets say you lv up and use Voltage Shoot, first you need 3 Energy to do the attack, second you have to discard two energy from your hand so thats 5 energy cards needed, if you attack again you can either use burst ball which discards 3 putting your necessary Energy at 8 cards if you don't want to empty Raichu, if you Votage Shoot again you need 7 Energy, if you use Explosive Thunder you'll discard at least 3 but that will only get you 90 damage so youd need to discard 4 or 5 to get a good KO. As you can see Raichu uses way to much Energy and it can be a hassle to repeatedly get enough energy to dish out good attacks.
 
PokeNerds looking at Stormfront scans: "RAICHU Lv.X SNIPES THE CLAYDOL N TAKES TWO PRIZES! PokeBody CAN'T BE POWER LOCKED! GOTZ KINGDRA'S WEAKNESS! CITIES WILL BE MINE!!!!"

Raichu Lv. X in reality: Slow Stage 1 Lv. X that does nothing legitimate without 3 energy attached, and had clunky means of getting 2 Lightning in hand and enough in play (Bronzong/Electivire). Couldn't compete with BDIF at the time Kingdra (speed > type advantage), couldn't setup vs. Regigigas. Machamp had its weakness. Only eh vs. Dusknoir.
And I Top Cut in the one city I played Raichu/Electivire, so I'm not just bashing it to be bashing it; the card is subpar.
 
If you could get 3 energy on it faster, Bronzong SF stacks, so you can just have two Cyclers in play and use Voltage Shoot every turn. + Night Maintenance/Palmer's = Pretty decent deck. Snipes like Palkia, just doesn't have the lock. Takes two prizes in a turn when you level up.
 
^^^^^^Both the posts above hit the nail right on the head. Raichu is just too slow for a stage one, because you'll really only want to be doing voltage shoot, which takes 3 energy. But its the two electric energy needed int he hand that really kills this mouse. Having to try and accumulate 4 energy into your hand if you wanted to double voltage shoot was just implausible and therefore it fell out of the meta. A couple of things have made this a little more playable, specifically aarons collection, cycler bronzong, and the abundance of psuedo NM cards, but in the end it just has too little hp to be as slow as it is. i hope someone will make a fantastic decklist for this guy and prove me wrong because this is one cards that falls under the category of "ohhhh what could have been"
 
Kayle said:
Hype + fail. .
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Just like almost every card that people are like OMG its SOOOOO GOOD!!11!1!1 months before it comes out. I mean you proxy and test it but you have no idea how other decks will look like when that set comes out.
 
Flygon laughs all over this thread. That thing was like the king of hype and it lived up to it.
 
Okay name one card besides Raichu that died to hype. All I can think of is Mightyena PL, but to balance it out Dialga G Lv. X was severely hyped and it too lived up to it.
 
Napoleon said:
^ Gallade 4 Lv.X Considered a beast, yet dismissed for Luxray.
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Luxray GL is a totally different card to Gallade 4. Luxray can easily be splashed into any SP deck. Gallade can, but there's really no point. You can even run both cards together (as you know).

The cards are so different there isn't much point comparing them.
 
Shen said:
Okay name one card besides Raichu that died to hype. All I can think of is Mightyena PL, but to balance it out Dialga G Lv. X was severely hyped and it too lived up to it.
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Compared to how well it did, Dialga G was barely hyped at all. Toxitank got more attention than Dialga, until Dialga started to win.

AmphyTric, Blastcatty and TurnCruel all died to hype. Yes I know that they may have won/top cut a few tourneys, but they were hyped way more than that.

When spoilers for Darkrai LV X came out, people were saying 'OMGbrokenshiftone'. It even had its own 'this card is overhyped' thread.

http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=67556

EDIT (for great on-topicness)

Raichu LVX fails because itis frail and needs a ridiculous amount of Energy/Support to do its party trick. Stage 1 LV X cards just don't ever seem to be very playable. Basic LV Xs have speed, and Stage 2 ones have high HP/decent attacks on the Stage 2. The only one that has really seen a lot of play is Magmortar, and that died as soon as a decent Water deck came along (Empoleon MD).
 
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Aight, you win this thread baby mario ;) But I do think Electivire was successful, if only for a little bit... more around Regionals last season though with the dominance of SP decks.

But on topic, yet again, I do wanna experiment with this new Raichu a little bit. It has an Obama spread against SP decks for one less energy, and you get the benefits of the Lv. X's attack. If only it could live long enough to use the Lv. X's attack =/ Lightning seems very favorable in the format right now... Gyara, Kingdra, and Palkia are all weak to it. And we still have ONE MORE CHANCE with HG:SS! lol
 
I wouldn't call Raichu "slow" at all. With a good start it was going to have 3 energy attached T1 and be able to snipe as early as T2. MT Riachu really was fast that way.

The problem for me was always the techs. You could run Bronzong, Electivire, or Rayquaza or whatever to get energy in hand / in play depending on your build. But if you did the early game wasn't nearly as consistent and you opened yourself a lot more to being disrupted by Power Kill, Gengar Snipe, Dusknoir shenanigans, and the like. If you ran without techs the early game was fast and consistent ... but late game was a real pain the tial in terms of keeping your energy going.
 
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