TWO HALVES. THEY COULD NOT CONTAIN THE RAW UNSTOPABLE POWER OF THE LUGIA SO THEY HAD TO SPLIT IT UP BUT IT DID NOT WORK.


LIKE SERIOUSLY FUCK. LOOK AT THAT ART.

130 FUCKING HP BITCH DONT MESS.
YOU KNOW WHAT IT DOESNT EVEN MATTER THAT ITS ATTACK COSTS SINCE ITS POKEPOWER, OCEAN GROW LETS YOU TAKE THE TOP 5 CARDS OF YOUR DECK, ATTATCH ALL ENERGIES TO LUGIA AND RAPE. IF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT ENERGY YOU CAN USE IT FOR OWNING ON THE FIRST TURN YOU PLAY IT. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE.

IT ALSO DOES 200 FUCKING DAMAGE

THIS MOTHERFUCKER ALSO ONLY HAS RETREAT COST. WHAT A FUCKING BARGAIN. ADD A FUCKING EXPERT BELT AND IT BECOMES UNKILLABLE AND HAS 150 HP. FUCK.

YOU MIGHT BE THINKING "HANG ON BILLY MAYS, YOU CAN ONLY HAVE TWO AT ONCE SINCE IT COMES IN TWO HALVES." WELL FUCK YOU YOU CAN USE FUCKING MANTINE TO SEARCH OUT YOUR DECK. PLUS THERE ARE LIKE 50 FUCKING TRAINERS THAT LET YOU LOOK FOR POKEMON CARDS LIKE BEBE'S SEARCH.

BITCH YOU DON'T WANNA MESS WITH THIS SHIT.

FINAL RATING: 10/10
IT'S FUCKING UNKILLABLE AND WILL DO MASSIVE DESTRUCTION TO ANYTHING.

this card of the week was brought to you by Billy Mays (RIP).

NEXT WEEK: URSARING PRIME

let's keep picking cards mekkah already knows everything about

i am so sorry mekkah next week will be good for sure

I cannot leave a bad TCG analysis untouched.

Lugia Legend (W)
HP: 130
W: L (x2)
R: F (-20)
RC: 1

These stats are perfectly sufficient for HGSS only play by themselves, of course, since afaik no one uses lightning decks. Raichu can OHKO it with Thunderbolt and Ampharos would put a dent to it, but it takes Starmie 7 energies to OHKO it, Donphan does only 40 with Earthquake, and Jumpluff can't OHKO even with a full bench on both sides (and as you will see later, you will never have a full bench if you play this card). Can't speak for what happens if you play with HGSS Unleashed, but if you include DPP, Luxray GL Lv X's attack is barely short of OHKOing Lugia (Luxray GL can do it, but nobody uses that 70 dmg attack since SP decks often don't run much energy). So yeah, beware.

Lugia Legend's main problem is that it consists of two cards that aren't basics, and you can't play or use it at all until you have both halves. You can't play it in the initial set-up even if you have both halves, you can't get it out with Call Energy or Roseanne's Research, etc etc. You also can't have more than 4 cards with Lugia in the name in your deck, so at best you will have 2 halves of each. Not only does this reduce your chances of drawing one, but it's also very possible for some of them to end up in your prizes. The chance of all four of your Lugia Legend cards to end up in your deck after six prizes is around 64% if my maths are right (56/60 * 55/59 * 54/58 * 53/57 * 52/56 * 51/55). So there's around a 36% chance not everything will go according to plan.

Let's look at Lugia's power and attack for a minute. The moment you got both elusive halves and put them on the table, its power lets you look at the top 5 cards of your deck and attach any energy cards you find there to Lugia Legend. This works in perfect conjunction with its attack, Elemental Blast, which is exactly like Neo's Lugia except with the overwhelming power of 200 rather than the retarded 90 (for this cost). You have to have RWL attached, and you have to discard exactly that combination. Ouch.

There's no question that Elemental Blast is going to obliterate anything, barring a Tangrowth lv X supported by a Shaymin lv X, and then something like Expert Belt or Cherrim to support it (Tangrowth lv X has 130 HP and -20 W resistance, you do the math). However, you need to run a deck with an extremely high energy ratio to reliably get that first energy acceleration, and even then you will probably have too little energy to attach again next turn.

How do you use this effectively? Well, to optimize Lugia Legend's performance, you will want to run a deck with a ton of energy. I'm speaking about 40 or more here. You can't really afford to use many other basics (since they'd get caught in its energy gathering net), but you'll need at least one to start the game. This is why you use Mantine HGSS. For W, it allows you to search for any W Pokémon from your deck and put it into your hand, including one of those Lugia halves. However, note that if you have to search both, it won't be until turn 3 that you'll be whipping it out, so let's hope Mantine isn't dead by then! Mantine isn't a complete sitting duck: in a pinch, it can knock out very low HP enemies with its second attack (WW for 40), but then Mantine can't attack next turn.

In a deck with Lugia as your only serious offense, each of them will have to grab 3 prizes. You won't be able to knock out your opponent's entire playfield with an attacker this slow. So you should run some trainers that keep Lugia healthy: I use 4 Moomoo Milk and 3 Full Heal. We can't afford to have it succumb to a random Poisonpowder, here, and retreating costs it one energy. Otherwise, I put in 2 of Oak's New Theory for God knows what reason, and 1 Fisherman to get 4 energy back from the discard if ever needed, but you can probably just throw these out. Literally every one of the other 44 cards is energy. You could run Rainbow Energy if you're afraid of not having the right type, but that +10 damage can mean the difference between life and death. Multi Energy is another option, but note that if the power finds Multi Energy in combination with any special energy, you HAVE to attach them all to Lugia Legend, and Multi Energy counts as C if it's on a Pokémon with a Special energy card. So you probably shouldn't use more than one Multi Energy.

The only other card that you should perhaps consider putting in a Lugia Legend deck is Azelf, since it can fetch halves from the prizes. But I still don't recommend it, since Azelf can't be searched out with Mantine, and if you end up with just Azelf in your initial set-up you are up the creek without a paddle (you can't use its power, and you don't have any way to get Mantine or Lugia out now).

Overall, Lugia Legend is a gimmick. It is extremely satisfying to blow someone away with a 200 damage attack, but most of the time it will be a sitting duck waiting to blow its load. Smart opponents will feed it low HP basics until their major hitter can attack it, probably kill it in 2-3 hits. The combination of being hard to get out, impossible to start with, and being very slow doesn't bode it well.