Plasma Storm (TCG)

Pokémon TCG: Black & White&mdash;Plasma Storm (Japanese: プラズマゲイル Plasma Gale) is the name given to the eighth main expansion of cards from the English Black & White Series of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The Japanese release is the seventh of the BW era.

Description
''Clouds gather, Energy crackles, and when you play the Pokémon TCG: Black & White—Plasma Storm expansion, a new force will be felt as the tempestuous Team Plasma makes its debut! All must make ready for a new battlefield, featuring electrifying Team Plasma Pokémon, game-changing Trainer cards, and Team Plasma Pokémon-EX such as Articuno-EX, Zapdos-EX, and Lugia-EX. And, as all-new, powerful ACE SPEC cards blast the balance of power and even more amazing Pokémon-EX race into battle, a question must be asked: Trainers, are you ready? Prepare for the Plasma Storm!''

Information
Plasma Storm is the eighth Black & White Series expansion, released February 6, 2013. The Japanese counterpart Plasma Gale, was the seventh Japanese BW era expansion and was released September 14, 2012. The English release incorporates many different Japanese releases into its cardlist: Plasma Storm contains the remaining cards in the TCG Freeze Bolt, TCG Cold Flare, and TCG Plasma Gale expansions, the remaining TCG Eviolite alternate artwork left in the TCG Keldeo Battle Strength Deck, the leftovers from the TCG National Beginning Set, the entirety of the TCG Team Plasma's Powered Half Deck, the TCG Black Kyurem-EX Battle Strength Deck, and the TCG White Kyurem-EX Battle Strength Deck, in addition to a few of the TCG BW-P Promotional cards. Plasma Storm is the second largest set of the Black & White Series.

The Plasma Storm expansion features the debut of Team Plasma in the Pokémon TCG. Team Plasma cards sport a blue border and the Team Plasma Emblem behind the card text. Team Plasma Pokémon are all final evolutions and can evolve from non-Team Plasma Pokémon. All non-TCG Pokémon-EX Team Plasma Pokémon are illustrated by 5ban Graphics. Their status as Team Plasma Pokémon allows certain benefits from other cards: TCG Plasma Energy can be attached from the deck straight to a Team Plasma Pokémon by use of TCG Colress Machine. Additionally, certain Team Plasma TCG Supporter cards can only interact with Team Plasma cards, such as TCG Team Plasma Grunt and TCG Shadow Triad.

This set totals at 138 cards, 3 of which are TCG Secret cards. The Secret cards are reprinted from TCG Boundaries Crossed (TCG Freeze Bolt in Japan),  reprinted from TCG Boundaries Crossed (TCG Cold Flare in Japan), and  reprinted from TCG Dark Explorers (the TCG Reshiram-EX Battle Strength Deck (Reshiram-EX) and TCG Zekrom-EX Battle Strength Decks in Japan). Plasma Storm also features two TCG Theme Decks, TCG Plasma Claw and TCG Plasma Shadow, centered around and. Each deck contains an exclusive TCG coin featuring the Team Plasma Emblem. Plasma Claw features, , and Pokémon, while Plasma Shadow features  and  Pokémon.

Plasma Storm features 8 TCG Pokémon-EX, the most out of any Black & White Series expansion. Four of these Pokémon-EX come from the Japanese expansion Plasma Gale: ,, , and , causing these four to be the only Pokémon-EX to have TCG Full Art card (Full Art) prints. The other four (,, , and ) originate from the TCG Black Kyurem-EX Battle Strength Deck (Black Kyurem-EX) and TCG White Kyurem-EX Battle Strength Deck. also received a Full Art print originating from Plasma Gale.

In addition to Pokémon-EX and Full Art cards, Plasma Storm and Plasma Gale both feature 3 TCG Ace Spec card (Ace Spec). Victory Piece is a TCG Pokémon Tool that can be attached to Victini-EX, allowing Victini-EX to use its attacks without any Energy attached to it. Scramble Switch acts as a TCG Switch that can also transfer as many Energy from the Old Active Pokémon to the new Active Pokémon as the player would like. Dowsing Machine has the same effect as the original TCG Base Set card, TCG Item Finder, did. Dowsing Machine would be considered a reprint, but the item from the games that it is based on changed both English and Japanese names.

Plasma Storm features various combos that are strong competitively. Utilizing the Poisoned TCG Special Conditions (Special Condition), Plasma Storm introduces both and, a combination that will cause 30 damage between turns to the opposing Active Pokémon. This pair remained strong within competitive play throughout the next few expansions. Virbank City Gym could also be paired with, resulting in 60 Poison damage in between turns. Another strong Pokémon introduced within Plasma Storm would be. This Klinklang card, with its powerful defensive ability Plasma Steel brought with it a return of Pokémon in competitive play.

This expansion is riddled with errors. The Secret Charizard card was printed with a Fighting Energy symbol within its second attack instead of the correct Fire Energy. Additionally,, , and were erroneously placed before  in the setlist. Furthermore, the Full Art print of TCG Colress was at first printed without all the special etching that it was supposed to (the original print lacked many of the wavy lines featured throughout the card). This mistake was corrected sometime during the initial print run. This Full Art print of Colress was also absent from many of the official checklists initially released for the expansion. It has since been added to the official one on Pokémon.com.

The TCG Prerelease cards (Prerelease promo) is from the TCG BW Black Star Promos, which originated as one of the Japanese TCG BW-P Promotional cards and given to those who bought a booster box of the expansion. In Japan, as a promotion for the expansion, those who go to several stores will receive one of four TCG BW-P Promotional cards:, , , and. Skarmory and Bouffalant were added to the English expansion, though Team Plasma Ball was saved for TCG Plasma Freeze. The N alternate print was later released in English as a TCG BW Black Star Promos (BW Black Star Promo).

In other languages
Plasma-Sturm (TCG) es:Negro y Blanco (TCG): Tormenta Plasma Noir & Blanc Tempête Plasma Uragano Plasma (GCC) Plasma Storm 等离子风暴（集换式卡片）