Some of the "missing" EXes

[tutti]

These are based on some of the legendary pokémon that have not been printed as EXes yet (to my knowledge). I have not tried "creating" cards myself before, so there might well be obvious flaws in these, but it looked fun so I wanted to try.

The pokémon I've made cards for are Arceus, Manaphy, Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf. For the former two, I've used their unique video game mechanics to inspire their cards, while for the latter three I've gone with the general theme they seem to have had of being decent utility cards. At the same time, I've tried not to deviate too far from previously seen game mechanics.

Arceus-EX :colorless: HP 190

Ability: Multitype
Once during your turn, you may place a basic Energy card attached to this pokémon on top of your deck. If you do, search your deck for a basic Energy card and attach it to this pokémon. Shuffle your deck afterwards.

:colorless::colorless::colorless: Judgment - 80
You may discard a basic Energy card attached to this pokémon. If you do, treat this attack as if it were done by a pokémon of that Energy's type.

Weakness: :fighting: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless::colorless:

Draco Plate - Item - Tool
If this card is attached to Arceus-EX, treat Arceus-EX's Judgment attack as if it were done by a (Dragon) type pokémon whenever you discard any basic Energy card for its effect.

Manaphy-EX :water: HP 160

:water: Heart Swap
Swap the damage counters on this pokémon with the damage counters on one of your benched pokémon.

:water::water: Rushing Wave - 60x
For each :water: Energy attached to this pokémon, you may search your deck for a Phione, reveal it, and put it on your bench. Shuffle your deck afterwards. This attack does 60 damage times the number of Phione placed on your bench this way.

Weakness: :lightning: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless:

Phione :water: HP 80

Ability: Return
Once during your turn, you may discard this pokémon and all cards attached to it. You may only use one Return ability per turn.

:water: Receding Wave - 30
Shuffle this pokémon and all cards attached to it into your deck.

Weakness: :lightning: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless:

Uxie-EX sychic: HP 140

Ability: Future Sight
Once during your turn, you may search your deck for a basic Energy card, reveal it, and set it aside. At the start of your next turn, attach that card to your active pokémon (the active pokémon at that time). You may only use one Future Sight ability per turn.

sychic: Memento
Discard 2 Energy cards attached to your opponent's pokémon in any way you'd like. This pokémon is knocked out.

sychic:sychic::colorless: Psychic - 90

Weakness: sychic: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless:

Mesprit-EX sychic: HP 140

Ability: Healing Wish
When your active pokémon is knocked out, you may remove up to 3 damage counters from each of your benched pokémon. You may only use one Healing Wish ability per turn (yours or your opponent's).

sychic: Lucky Chant
During your opponent's next turn, the first time they would flip a coin, you may instead choose the outcome of that coin flip.

sychic:sychic::colorless: Psychic - 90

Weakness: sychic: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless:

Azelf-EX sychic: HP 140

Ability: Detect
Whenever you end your turn without attacking, prevent all damage done to your active pokémon during your opponent's next turn. Benching your active pokémon ends this effect.

sychic: Last Resort
You can't use this attack if you have any benched pokémon. Search your deck for 3 basic pokémon, and put them on your bench.

sychic:sychic::colorless: Psychic - 90

Weakness: sychic: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless:

Suicune-EX :water: HP 170
Team Plasma Pokémon

:water::colorless: Ice Fang - 30
During your opponent's next turn, the defending pokémon can't retreat.

:water::water::colorless: Waterfall Crash - 80
You may discard a Plasma Energy from this pokémon. If you do, discard a Plasma Energy from the defending pokémon.

Weakness: :lightning: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless::colorless:

Regice-EX :water: HP 180
Team Plasma Pokémon

:colorless::colorless::colorless: Plasma Laser
This attack does 30 damage to each of your opponent's Team Plasma Pokémon.

:water::water::colorless::colorless: Freeze Charge - 80
During your next turn, this attack does 20 more damage (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Weakness: :metal: x2
Resistance:
Retreat cost: :colorless::colorless::colorless::colorless:

Regirock-EX :fighting: HP 180
Team Plasma Pokémon

:colorless::colorless::colorless: Mining Laser - 30
Put a Plasma Energy from your discard pile into your hand.

:fighting::fighting::colorless::colorless: Speed Charge - 80
During your next turn, this pokémon has no retreat cost.

Weakness: :water: x2
Resistance: :fire: -20
Retreat cost: :colorless::colorless::colorless::colorless:

 

[ShuckleLVX]

Some of the wording needs work to bring them in line with other cards (for example - Azelf should say 'prevent' not 'ignore'), but that's not a big deal. None of these are absurd, and I rather like them. I'd love an interaction between the Pixies. Some individual things -

Arceus would be much better off if it did 90, allowing it to get OHKO's by manipulating Weakness. Counter that power by requiring the discard instead of making it optional and dropping it's HP to 170. Make Draco Plate optional, as attaching it as it is now eliminates his ability to hit any other Weakness.

I think Phione is too strong at 40 damage, drop it to 30.

Manaphy's attack is too restrictive to ever be useful as it is now. It takes two energy minimum, begs for more, requires Pokemon in your deck, AND the bench space to set them down. I remove the requirement basing it on how many energy are attached, so for WW you can search out as many Phione as you can fit on the bench.

Memento is too weak right now - 2 energy and 2 prizes for your opponent, in exchange for 2 energy. Doesn't strike me as a trade you would ever make. Here's what I think would be a little more palatable -

[P][C] Memento
Discard this Pokemon and all cards attached to it. Discard 2 energy cards from your opponent's Pokemon. Your opponent takes one Prize Card.

Lucky Chant is a little hit-or-miss, I would drop its cost to [P] to make it a little more attractive.

Last Resort is too costly for its restriction. I like the restriction and the big search, but drop it to [P].

Overall, I liked these enough to post here for the first time in a long time!

 

[tutti]

I actually thought of many of those points myself

I set Arceus' damage at 80 precisely to keep it from OHKO everything. Guaranteed knockout on almost any pokémon at the cost of discarding one Energy is a little too strong, I think. Even at 80, all it takes is one or two Pluspower, or a Hypnotoxic and a Virbank, to do so anyway. The Draco Plate isn't detachable, but there's always Tool Scrapper, or just running a second Arceus without one. Besides, if you see one Dragon type, chances are there are many more in your opponent's deck

I know Manaphy's attack isn't very good. I had considered putting the Phiones into your hand, but I thought that'd push it too far in the other direction, as you could simply use a shuffling supporter to do it again next turn. I have added an ability to Phione to help with this - along with Super Rod or similar cards it'll make it easier to re-use Manaphy's second attack. I think the Energy cost is right, though. Finding 3 Phiones will do 180 damage, which is enough to KO most EXes. I don't think that should ever come at the cost of less than 3 Energy. Also, do keep in mind that Manaphy's first attack can let you get a Phione off your bench, and heal Manaphy fully, albeit at the cost of a prize card.

The pixies: I thought about giving them some sort of interaction with each other, but decided not to, as I didn't like the idea very much. I agree that their first attacks are too costly, and have dropped them to sychic: as you suggested. Memento is intended to be a big trade-off, something you'd only use if getting rid of those 2 Energy cards is really worth the cost (e,g. removing the fire Energy from RayEels' Rayquaza). I've changed the attack a bit though, now you can discard 2 Energy from any of your opponent's pokémon. Generally, I think removing Energy from your opponent is another one of those things that should have a heavy cost.

Thanks for the suggestions

 

[Winston]

These are great! Shared with some of my friends. These are cards that I think would be really fun to play with. Keep up the good work

 

[ArceusRules]

Arceus EX's type should change rather than its attack. Attacks always come from the Pokémon Type, not of the Pokémon. That said, I think Multitype's affect should be changing Arceus's type, like it does in the video game. Draco Plate could turn Arcues into Dragon Type instead. And I like the magic number of 90, because it can take advantage of Arceus's types to be able to 1 shot anything that's not Wailord, and 180 HP EXs that don't have Eviolite or Giant Cape on them.

Arceus is my favourite Pokémon, btw. So thanx for choosing it as 1 of your cards.

 

[tutti]

Arceus EX's type should change rather than its attack. Attacks always come from the Pokémon Type, not of the Pokémon. That said, I think Multitype's affect should be changing Arceus's type, like it does in the video game. Draco Plate could turn Arcues into Dragon Type instead. And I like the magic number of 90, because it can take advantage of Arceus's types to be able to 1 shot anything that's not Wailord, and 180 HP EXs that don't have Eviolite or Giant Cape on them.

Arceus is my favourite Pokémon, btw. So thanx for choosing it as 1 of your cards.

Originally, the idea was to make Arceus exactly like in the video games. I had a full set of plate items planned, each changing Arceus-EX's type, weakness and resistance, and Multitype would be an ability that allowed you to trade the equipped plate with another the same way the final version trades Energy. Then I gave it some thought, and decided that was far too bloated. I ended up ditching the plates and using Energy instead, since decks already contain a lot of those. Then I dropped the idea of changing weakness and resistance, because having it all printed on Arceus-EX would bloat the card itself too much. Finally, since a TCG card's type (almost) only affects what gets hit for weakness or resistance, I merged the type-changing mechanic into the attack instead of the ability, where it would have the same end result, but require less text and be easier to understand.

Basically, the mechanics strike a balance between being faithful to Arceus' videogame mechanics and being interesting in the TCG rather than annoying and/or unplayable.

As for the damage, the advantages of hitting for 90 are exactly why Arceus-EX doesn't Keep in mind that with just a single DCE attached, Arceus can hit anything for weakness by discarding a basic Energy, and thanks to Multitype, you don't even need to have the right type of basic Energy on hand. Other EXes exist that can hit for 180+ repeatedly, but there's always some sort of requirement or secondary resource to it (e.g. Keldeo needs 7 water energies, Rayquaza needs 3 Eelektrik on the bench, Mewtwo needs 9 energies between itself and the defending) while Arceus-EX just needs a single DCE and a steady supply of one Energy per turn from the hand. At 80 base damage, you still need something extra to one-shot EXes, and that's very much intentional.

 

[runfromafeebas]

Did I mis-read the Manaphy? For one :water: Energy, it can remove all damage on it (provided you choose a Benched Pokemon with no damage counters on it) and potentially knock out a Benched Pokemon? That seems a little overpowered. Other than that, though, nice cards!

 

[tutti]

One of your own benched pokémon. KOing one of your own pokémon is actually the main point - if you use Rushing Wave every 2 turns, you can use Phione's ability and Heart Swap to get 3 Phiones into your discard pile between Waves, and then Super Rod those 3 back into your deck. You're trading a prize to do this, though.

 

[runfromafeebas]

Ok, that clears it up. I don't know if I would take the prize swap a lot of the time, but I guess it would depend on the deck.

 

[tutti]

Manaphy-EX isn't really a very good card, I know. I didn't aim to make it a card that could be the center of a top-tier deck, I just wanted to make an interesting Manaphy-EX card. That was really the aim of all of these - not necessarily good, primarily interesting

 

[runfromafeebas]

It definately introduced a new idea. Since there isn't an official Manaphy EX, there isn't really anything to compare it to. It would be somewhat playable, though.

 

[ArceusRules]

Originally, the idea was to make Arceus exactly like in the video games. I had a full set of plate items planned, each changing Arceus-EX's type, weakness and resistance, and Multitype would be an ability that allowed you to trade the equipped plate with another the same way the final version trades Energy. Then I gave it some thought, and decided that was far too bloated. I ended up ditching the plates and using Energy instead, since decks already contain a lot of those. Then I dropped the idea of changing weakness and resistance, because having it all printed on Arceus-EX would bloat the card itself too much. Finally, since a TCG card's type (almost) only affects what gets hit for weakness or resistance, I merged the type-changing mechanic into the attack instead of the ability, where it would have the same end result, but require less text and be easier to understand.

Basically, the mechanics strike a balance between being faithful to Arceus' videogame mechanics and being interesting in the TCG rather than annoying and/or unplayable.

As for the damage, the advantages of hitting for 90 are exactly why Arceus-EX doesn't Keep in mind that with just a single DCE attached, Arceus can hit anything for weakness by discarding a basic Energy, and thanks to Multitype, you don't even need to have the right type of basic Energy on hand. Other EXes exist that can hit for 180+ repeatedly, but there's always some sort of requirement or secondary resource to it (e.g. Keldeo needs 7 water energies, Rayquaza needs 3 Eelektrik on the bench, Mewtwo needs 9 energies between itself and the defending) while Arceus-EX just needs a single DCE and a steady supply of one Energy per turn from the hand. At 80 base damage, you still need something extra to one-shot EXes, and that's very much intentional.

Fine. 80 Damage is fine. But I'd be using Laser/Bank.

 

[tutti]

I've added Suicune, Regice and Regirock. They don't have any unique video game attributes to play off, and they all had at least one of their counterparts already made, so I couldn't make any "trio" mechanics for them without remaking the first ones. Instead, I chose to make them Plasma pokémon, and extrapolating their counterparts' attack themes.