Hey everyone! It's LuxrayMogul here with your daily card review! Today we discuss my favourite Pokémon that just got a card in a (relatively) recent set! Yes, it's Luxray, card number 46 from Next Destinies. Let's just get right to it!
Luxray is a Stage 2 Lightning-type Pokémon with a decent 140 HP. It has a weakness to Fighting types, which is not a surprise given that it's a common Lightning-type weakness. It has no resistance and a pretty good retreat cost of one. Considering that it's a Stage 2 Pokémon, a one retreat cost is pretty decent considering the twos and threes that other Stage 2s get!
Let's take a look at the attacks. The first attack, Flash Impact does a decent 60 damage with a the single drawback that it does 20 damage to one of your own Benched Pokémon. Still, one for sixty is pretty decent, and we should be expecting such things from a Stage 2. The extra damage is undesirable, but it comes as a price to such a big attack!
Crunch costs two Lightning and a Colorless, and does a measly 80 with a chance of discarding an Energy attached to the Defending Pokémon. It's decent... but compared to Zekrom (BLW114) who does 120 with the same energy requirements, taking the time to evolve up two stages to a Luxray to do a measly 80 damage and an effect that Crushing Hammer (Emerging Powers 92) or Enhanced Hammer (Dark Explorers 94) can do is... not that great to say the least. If Luxray was a Basic then it would have been much better.
In summary, in a format where Electric-types dominate, Luxray may have a difficult time being played because of all the other hard hitting Electric-types that are dominating right now, like the mentioned Zekrom and Zekrom EX (Next Destinies 51, 97).
Luxray's artwork is awesome. Maybe that's just because I love Luxray, and that it's a holo. But Luxray is actually an artwork I like a lot from Next Destinies... compared to some of the newer Pokémon whose artworks seem overly simple. (Understandable because they just came out a year ago).
Overall I'll give Luxray 3.5/5 for awesome artwork, low retreat cost, decent attacks, and for simply being my favourite Pokémon. It loses points for its relatively low damage output for a Stage 2 and lack of playability in this format as an Electric type. It's decent, but I won't expect to see it a lot in tournaments this upcoming season (or this current season for that matter).
LuxrayMogul signing out. Until next time!
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