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Today we look at seventh place for our Top 10 Promising
Picks of Plasma Freeze,
Shadow Triad
(BW: Plasma Freeze /116).
…
They are ninjas!
Card Breakdown
Miscellaneous:
Shadow Triad
is a Team Plasma Trainer.
This means it can tap a little Team Plasma
support, but not a lot of it; still any help is better
than none at all.
Type:
Shadow Triad
is a Trainer-Supporter.
There isn’t a lot of generic Trainer support to
begin with – just
Skyla and
Dowsing Machine
– and the former isn’t a great play because you’ll have
to wait a turn to use a fetched
Shadow Triad,
while the latter is an Ace Spec with decent odds of
being able to target a lot of what you would want to use
Shadow Triad
to snag.
Generic Supporter specific support is limited to
Xtransceiver
(not that it sees play) and
Random Receiver
(which has lost a lot of popularity); there are a few
Pokémon that can pull tricks, but they tend to be pretty
deck specific and none of those decks have proven
competitive.
We have had one or two Pokémon that can punish
Supporter usage, but they similarly haven’t made a good
showing, though it is worth noting that the new
Exeggutor (BW:
Plasma Freeze 5/116) can block Supporter usage with
an inexpensive attack.
Effect:
Shadow Triad
allows you to reclaim a Team Plasma card from your
discard pile, be it Pokémon, Trainer, or Energy.
This is a pretty expensive deal that is likely
going to be unusable first turn since you aren’t as
likely to have any Team Plasma cards to target (either
at all, or that you would want to burn
Shadow Triad
on to reclaim).
The longer the game goes, however, the better
this card becomes.
Exactly how much better will depend upon how Team
Plasma heavy your deck is, and in what ways.
Shadow Triad
is the only simple, reliable way to return a
Plasma Energy
from the discard pile to the hand… but
Plasma Energy
is also the only Team Plasma Energy card currently
available (and unless we get a surprise from
Japan,
the only one we are going to get).
Pokémon have multiple recursion options, so most
of your worthwhile targets are going to be the Team
Plasma Trainers.
This does seem like a good effect, though it is
also quite scary since you are giving up access to what
is usually needed draw power or reliable Trainer search
seen in the most played Supporters.
Usage
Card Family:
You can get an idea of the extended Team Plasma card
family
here; the update to my previous article detailing
the kind of support Team Plasma cards have in general is
up.
Pokémon have other options, but unless you run
Sableye (BW:
Dark Explorers 62/108) this is the best way to get
back one of the four Team Plasma Items… which includes
the oh-so-amazing
Hypnotoxic Laser.
Shadow
Triad ends up being one of the four Supporters that
Metagross (BW:
Plasma Freeze 52/116; BW Promo BW75) can snag
with its Ability as well.
Combos:
This is a card that isn’t about overt “combos”; running
it allows you to either effectively exceed the maximum
amount of copies of a Team Plasma Trainer, or when it
comes to any Team Plasma card have more leeway with
however many you are running.
The price of your Supporter is steep, but this is
might allow some builds to get by with just three
Hypnotoxic Laser
or Colress
Machine but still prove effective.
While I downplayed that it can snag Pokémon, this
can be useful; not every deck has room for
Revive and
especially if you just need to reclaim and Bench a
Deoxys EX to
make use of its Power Connect Ability to secure a KO,
that is a Supporter well spent.
Future:
There are some more Team Plasma cards that we have yet
to see stateside, but I don’t know if they are really
going to make much of a difference for
Shadow Triad
usage.
Ratings
Unlimited:
I don’t see this helping the first-turn-win,
first-turn-lock, or even classic powerhouse decks that
last I checked, still see the most play here… plus there
are some older tricks that aren’t so specific for
getting anything out of the discard.
Quick heads up; if your area has a strong
Unlimited format going, consider writing an article on
it for Pojo because I would love to read it.
1/5
Modified:
This is going to be a great choice for some Plasma
decks, but not all of them; for a lot of decks raw draw
power is going to be more important than Team Plasma
specific recursion.
While it is possible a non-Team Plasma deck that
uses Hypnotoxic
Laser might consider running one
Shadow Triad
to function as that “fifth copy”, it don’t know of a
deck that needs one more use of
Hypnotoxic Laser
that badly that wouldn’t be better off with some other
alternatives, like
Dowsing Machine
or Junk Hunt.
3.5/5
Limited:
As long as you are running even a single Team Plasma
card worth reclaiming from the discard pile, even a
single one, you should also make room for
Shadow Triad;
you are unlikely to have any other Supporters to worry
about, so this card is no more “expensive” than an Item,
and most decks should have the room.
4.75/5
Summary
Shadow Triad
will likely be amazing in some Team Plasma decks, but
others may pass on it since you are trading a Supporter
for one card that has to already be in your discard
pile. I
can’t come up with a good reason for using it in a deck
with only a few Team Plasma cards (like a four count of
Hypnotoxic Laser),
so this is definitely specialized.
Shadow
Triad was actually my number eight pick, so again
not too different than what the rest of the group rated
it, or at least the average of the group ratings.
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