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Flower Shop Lady
As expected, we are seeing some Johto characters pop
up on the HGSS Supporter cards. We’ve already had a look
at the Sage from Bellsprout Tower, and now it’s time to
see what Flower Shop Lady can do. If you have played the
video games, you will know that she is the one who gives
you the Squirtbottle you need to get past that annoying
Sudowoodo.
Flower Shop Lady is a Supporter recovery card and as
such faces direct competition from Palmer’s
Contribution. Since we lost Night Maintenance in
the Rotation, it is almost certain that you will be
putting at least one copy of one of these cards in your
deck, but which one should it be? Let’s compare the two
. . .
With Flower Shop Lady you get to shuffle three
Pokémon and three Energy back into your deck. Remember
that the ‘do as much as you can’ rule applies here. You
don’t need to have three Pokémon and three Energy
is the Discard to play it: you can use it if (for
example) you only have two Pokémon and a single Energy.
Palmer’s Contribution allows you to shuffle back any
combination of up to five Pokémon and Energy. The
downside is that this is one less than you get with
Flower Shop Lady. The upside is that it is much more
flexible; you can use it to get five Pokémon or five
Energy if you want to. The ‘up to’ wording in Palmer’s
text may also make a small but important difference.
With Flower Shop Lady, you have to shuffle in as many
cards as you can. With Palmer, you can choose to just
put one back. Most of the time this doesn’t matter, but
if you just want to return one card and increase your
chances of drawing into it from your deck, then only
Palmer will do this for you.
For 90% of all gameplay situations, there is really
little to choose between the two cards, which both
fulfil an essential role in almost any Pokémon deck.
However, despite getting you that extra card, those one
or two restrictions on how Flower Shop Lady works means
that I would almost always opt for Palmer’s
Contribution.
Rating
Modified: 3 (less flexible alternative to Palmers)
Limited: 4 (prevents decking out, and could return
some of your few good Pokémon)
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