aroramage |
Get it? He saw it coming? Cause
he's a psy-GET IT?!
So the general conclusion about
Supporters is that the best ones will do one of two
things: draw cards, or switch around your opponent's
Pokemon. Anything else seems to fade away into obscurity
or only see play in certain decks, but staples will
usually do one of those two things. Psychic's Third Eye
does let you draw cards, but it also does something that
is arguably even more important: give you information.
See part of card games is that if
you know what your opponent's doing, you can work around
it, counter them, and ultimately win the game. If you
can beat out your opponent's strategy, they can't do
much, and if you can keep them from achieving victory,
yours is almost guaranteed. Psychic's Third Eye can help
you obtain some information on your opponent's strategy;
if you know the meta well enough, it only takes a few
cards on the board to know what they're up to, but
Psychic can reveal your opponent's hand and show you how
far along they are. It can show you the key cards they
can't play yet for whatever reason or what they're
preparing for in their next turn - there'll be no
surprises for you!
The best thing about Psychic's
Third Eye though is what it does AFTER you see your
opponent's hand: you can discard cards from your hand
and then draw up to the amount you discarded. This is
HUGE!! Not only does it give you the opportunity to
prepare yourself for your opponent, it can even
accelerate your own strategy! Think about it - you can
put Energy into the discard pile for cyclers to get it
back, or Supporters you won't be playing from your hand
cause of Psychic and can use with VS Seeker instead, or
you could even discard Pokemon especially for stuff like
Vespiquen!!
Psychic's Third Eye: we all knew
this was coming...I mean, not literally, but...eh, you
know what I mean.
Rating
Standard: 5/5 (a definite include
in most decks, I can't really think of one that wouldn't
like having it around)
Expanded: 5/5 (another staple card
to compete with the likes of Colress and N)
Limited: 5/5 (no questions asked,
you play this card for the draw!)
Arora Notelaus:...the future is
bright, ENOUGH VISIONS!!
Next Time: Wait, another
countdown?? Of what?!
|
Otaku |
At last
we come to our number one pick from XY: BREAKpoint…
Psychic’s Third Eye (XY: BREAKpoint
108/122)! This is a new Supporter; it allows you
to see your opponent’s hand, then select as many cards
as you wish from your hand to discard, after which you
draw the same number of cards. We’ve long be
waiting for a third major draw Supporter; we got
Professor Juniper at the dawn of the BW-era as
Black & White 101/114, and two sets later we
received N as BW: Noble Victories 92/101,
and while the two received multiple printings, we always
seemed to be looking for a third Supporter that would
finally compliment them. We came close, with cards
like Skyla and Colress, but we didn’t
really get that added draw power in the form of
Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/108). So what does this have to do with
Psychic’s Third Eye?
Decks
no longer must run N and Professor
Juniper/Professor Sycamore maxed out.
Some decks may even leave one or the other out.
Between Shaymin-EX, Battle Compressor and
VS Seeker decks can get amazing draws without
being quite so depending on maxing out major supports.
You can even run some lesser used Supporters that are
amazing in key situations, like Hex Maniac
because of this. The upside is this mean’s
Psychic’s Third Eye could still find its way into a
deck in a similar TecH usage… but the bad news is that
this shift means Psychic’s Third Eye has a lot of
competition to be that “third great draw card” even in
Standard, where N isn’t even an option.
When I first saw this card, I thought it looked like it
might have some potential, but not a lot. Later I
started brainstorming and it seemed like it would be
amazing. Running Night March? Vespiquen (XY:
Ancient Origins 10/98)? Selectively rip
through your deck while getting a peek at your
opponent’s hand! With any deck, if you crash into
something like Seismitoad-EX or Giratina-EX
(XY: Ancient Origins 57/98, 93/98), especially
when the two are used together, selectively chuck
whatever is shut down while drawing more cards.
After all a cluttered hand can shutdown your Shaymin-EX
even when Abilities are otherwise fully functional. Ho-Oh-EX
(BW: Dragons Exalted 22/124, 119/124) can toss
the bird itself along with basic Energy cards, setting
up its key combo while again sneaking a peek at the
opponent’s hand.
On
paper it looks great… but in practice it didn’t pan out.
Unfortunately that practice came after submitting
our Top 10 lists: the drawback of trying to give you a
heads-up is that we had to eyeball a lot of this.
There were too many times when actually testing
Psychic’s Third Eye I found myself with too few
cards I wanted to discard, even in decks where I thought
I’d have plenty. Psychic’s Third-Eye might still
surprise me, but from testing I’ve found a more valuable
new TecH Supporter in the form of Delinquent (XY:
BREAKpoint 98/122). There are also all the
other options like AZ, Colress, Ghetsis,
Giovanni’s Scheme, Hex Maniac, Iris,
Judge, Pokémon Center Lady, Pokémon Fan
Club, Professor Birch’s Observations,
Skyla, Team Flare Grunt, Teammates and
Xerosic that can work in most (all decks) as
singles or doubles… and then we get more deck specific
options like Archie’s Ace in the Hole or Wally,
plus another copy of things you’re already running but
probably not maxed out, like Lysandre. Still,
when you’re not taking it to a tournament, give
Psychic’s Third Eye a try, especially in Standard
where it faces less competition. Plus of course it
is good in Limited; where you likely have a lot of deck
filler, few to no other Supporters, possibly no other
draw power and where seeing the opponent’s hand
can be huge.
Ratings
Standard:
2.5/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
4/5 (but a must run nonetheless)
Summary:
Psychic’s Third Eye does provide an interesting
option, and if it drew two per card discarded or had
some level of guaranteed draw before the discards (so
that you drew X + one per card you discarded), again it
may have been higher functioning. After trying it
out I realized the decks where I thought it could accel
usually were better off taking the hit and discarding
something important in order to use Professor Juniper
or Professor Sycamore. I’m already being
generous with my score because at times it really did
work well, revealing a threat and letting me declutter
my hand while drawing some fresh cards, but most of the
time it was a peak at the hand I couldn’t capitalize
upon with what little I could draw. I could run
Hand Scope if I only wanted to see my opponent’s
hand and rely on Ultra Ball for hand thinning and
any of several other cards for draw power.
An
anticlimactic end to this list, and obviously I am at
fault. Psychic’s Third Eye finishes with 28
voting points; a lot of that was from me as it was
second place on my personal list during its final
revision. A final revision that was came after
what was supposed to be my final revision. Then
again some of the other changes I made still make sense;
it is just if I hadn’t mucked with it this would have
been at least a few places lower on the list. If
someone else makes great use of Psychic’s Third Eye
at a later date, I don’t think I can even claim any
foresight because I am blind to such worthwhile usage
right now.
…
I tried
to make a funny with those last few lines, but if
painful wordplay isn’t your thing, I have just
compounded my offense.
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