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Jirachi UL
Hello and welcome to a week of Rare Holos from
Unleashed. The cards we are reviewing will be a whole
lot better than last week’s. Promise.
We kick off with Jirachi, a Pokémon that usually has
something interesting going on when it appears in the
TCG. This one is no different.
Not that there’s anything interesting or attractive
about Jirachi’s stats. 60 HP is low for an unevolving
Basic, and this, together with Psychic Weakness, makes
it a very easy KO for a lot of commonly played cards.
The Retreat cost of one is a minor inconvenience only.
Things start to pick up when you look at Jirachi’s
Stardust Song PokePower. When you play it from your hand
to your Bench, you can flip three coins. For each heads
you get to attach a Psychic Energy from your Discard
Pile to Jirachi. Flippyness is always less than ideal,
but provided you have the Energy in your discard, this
is likely to net you at least one or two extra Energy
attachments. Combine it with Gardevoir PL and use
Psychic Connect to move the Energy on to your active
Pokémon and you have a useful source of mid-game Energy
acceleration which could find a place in Gardevoir/Gallade
or any deck which can tech the necessary Gardevoir.
But wait . . . this Jirachi has more than one clunky
combo up its sleeve!
Time Hollow, Jirachi’s only attack, is a potential mass
devoluter that allows you to devolve one of your
opponent’s Stage 1 or Stage 2 Pokémon for each Psychic
Energy attached to Jirachi. The obvious partner for this
attack is any Pokémon which spreads damage around the
Field: Gallade 4, Abomasnow, Giratina Lv X are all cards
which fit into this category. If you can put enough
damage on the board with any of these Pokémon, you could
send Jirachi up to take multiple Prizes from KOs on
devolved Claydols and Stage 2s that have been evolved
with Rare Candy.
Sounds attractive in theory, but in practice there are a
few difficulties. Firstly, and most importantly, it is
not the quickest or the easiest combo to set up.
Secondly, spread decks are not particularly effective in
this format, mainly thanks to Nidoqueen RR and Poke
Turn. Thirdly, this strategy will do nothing against SP
decks which play almost no Evolved Pokémon (maybe a
Claydol or anti Mewtwo tech), and which can use Power
Spray to prevent Stardust Song from working.
Jirachi UL is another one of those cards that has a lot
of potential, but isn’t quite right for the current
format. Maybe when the rotation comes and other cards
are released it will be Jirachi’s time to shine. Not a
card to play now, but not one that you should forget
about either.
Rating
Modified: 2.5 (a weak Basic with combo-tastic potential
to excite rogue deckbuilders)
Limited: 1.5 (devoluting not such a killer strategy
here)
Combos with . . .
Any spread-based attacker
Gardevoir PL for Energy acceleration
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