Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
#2 Dark Patch
The runner up in our countdown is the card that has
fuelled the astonishing success of Dark decks over the
last three seasons. During that time, Dark decks have
won two World Championships, multiple Nationals, and
more State and Regional tournaments than I can be
bothered to count. A lot of that success has been down
to Dark Patch.
Anyone who has any experience of the game knows that
Energy acceleration is great.
Especially Energy acceleration from the discard pile.
When you can get that from an
Item card
and use it for such powerful Pokémon as
Darkrai EX and
Yveltal EX . . . well, it’s
no wonder this card has seen a ton of play since it was
released. Oh yeah, and the synergy with
Sableye’s Junk Hunt didn’t
exactly hurt either.
Because of Dark Patch, we have had turn two, and even
turn one, Night Spear wreaking havoc. Because of Dark
Patch, Evil Ball is able to reach an insanely good
damage output extremely quickly. It’s really one of
those cards that doesn’t need
much explanation: it’s pretty obvious why it’s good, and
anyone who has played in the last couple of years can
testify to its effectiveness first hand.
With Dark Patch gone, Dark decks have taken a
substantial hit, though I would not rule them out of
contention. Yveltal EX in
particular is too good an attacker to go away any time
soon, and it can always use its non-EX version for
acceleration, even if it isn’t as explosive as that
which it got from Dark Patch. As for Extended . . . I’m
sure that Dark will continue to feature, and will be
only too happy to get its key card back.
Rating
Overall impact: 4.75
Extended: 4.25
|
aroramage |
Hey guys, welcome to the countdown! Today, we've got
Dark Patch on the mind today and with good reason! It's
about to leave the format forever, and it might take
Dark decks with it into Expanded! Is it that crucial to
it? ...well, maybe not, but there's no denying that
alongside Darkrai-EX and Sableye, this card made the
present-day Dark deck what it is!
And of course it's a very simple effect: you get to
attach a Dark Energy in your discard pile to a Dark
Pokemon on the Bench. That's usually an instant Junk
Hunt on Sableye or a set-up to Darkrai-EX or
Yveltal-EX's attacks! It turned that hand of Juniper and
several Dark Energies into an advantage and allowed up
to two, three - four if you were incredibly lucky -
cards into your hand!
So why is Dark Patch ranked so much higher than
Sableye, another card on the list that supports Dark
decks? Well, the short answer is that Dark Patch has a
different usage than Sableye, and while they combo
incredibly well together with great synergy,
individually they have very different means of getting
stuff done.
Dark Patch has always been a true Dark deck staple
since its release, allowing for easy Energy acceleration
from an area of the board that you wouldn't normally
think to use for such a thing (if not for cards like
Dark Patch). It only has the one effect, so it's clearly
defined on what you use it for and isn't that complex a
card to deal with. On the other hand, Sableye's Junk
Hunt has a broader range to it, expanding across all the
Item cards in the format including Dark Patch, but it's
important to recognize that this costs your attack for
the turn. There's a distinct difference in strategic
usage with Sableye bringing back two Items at the cost
of an attack than there is with just using Dark Patch,
and it's because of this difference that Dark Patch has
been seen in several decks across Worlds rather than
Sableye - not because the players at Worlds aren't
strategic enough to know how to use Sableye but because
Dark Patch is a better safer option that doesn't cost
you a potentially critical attack.
What it all comes down to is consistency and speed,
and given that most decks run 4 Juniper/Sycamore, having
something like Dark Patch on hand was invaluable.
Sableye worked well with Juniper/Sycamore as well, but
while functionally he did something similar to Dark
Patch, it wasn't a freebie move that could be done at
any time. And that's why Dark Patch is ranked so highly
on this list, and that's the kind of impact it's going
to keep with it in Expanded. Now the question at this
point is how will Dark decks in Modified deal with the
loss of their greatest asset? We'll find out soon
enough, I'm sure!
Rating
Modified: N/A
Expanded: 5/5 (it is the single most important card
that any Dark deck should be running 3-4 of, no
questions)
Limited: 4.5/5 (considering this set featured stuff
like Darkrai-EX and Sableye and a host of other pretty
good Dark Pokemon, this is a must in a limited Dark
deck!)
Arora Notealus: It really does look like one of those
band-aids you see that are super small and stuff. I just
imagine a Trainer smacking one of their Pokemon with one
of these and saying, "Go get em!"
Next Time: Wait, there's a next time? What card could
possibly be ranked higher than Dark Patch?!
|
Otaku |
The runner up for our list of Top 10 key cards cut by
rotation is Dark Patch, originally reviewed
here;
once again it is a card we haven’t looked at in over two
years, but its been amazingly influential during its
run. Dark Patch is an Item that allows you to
attach a basic [D] Energy card in your discard to one of
your Benched [D] Pokémon. Now for many Darkness-Type
Pokémon, this card was essential as they were
underpowered without it; those are the Darkness-Type
Pokémon that rarely if ever saw competitive play. What
did see play were things that were at least somewhat
good to top notch even without Dark Patch.
It is pretty easy to see why Dark Patch is so
good; Items are the easiest cards in the game to play,
barring specific requirements. If an Item is in your
hand and no effect is preventing them from seeing play,
as long as you can pay any costs to use said Item and it
isn’t being played for no effect (exactly what
constitutes no effect can at times be confusing)... you
can play it. It isn’t like Energy or Supporters that
are once per turn, or Pokémon that need Bench space or a
target to Evolve from or Stadiums that are once per turn
and you can only have one out on the field at a time and
you can’t play another copy of one that is already in
play. As such, you would expect them to have the
weakest effects in the game; it is just a matter of
balance.
Instead, we have a very potent effect (Energy
acceleration) performed via an Item. It is a
one-and-done form of Energy acceleration, restricted
both in what Energy it accelerates and what can receive
the acceleration, but its still potent, especially as it
attaches Energy from the discard, possibly the best
place from which to attach as it allows spent, “dead”
Energy cards to have a purpose once again. Even if
there were no additional combos to be had from this, its
a good effect. As there are many, many combos, it is a
truly stellar effect. Sableye (BW: Dark
Explorers 62/108) was used to spam almost every
worthwhile Item, and this was one of them… actually so
were most of the other combo pieces like Ultra Ball
(search for something by discarding Darkness Energy,
attach Energy with Dark Patch) and Energy
Switch (in case you needed the Darkness Energy
to end up on a different target), plus many others.
Honestly, its too good of an effect, and I’m glad to see
it go; it will be really hard on Darkness decks,
however; they do have some options, like Yveltal
(XY 78/146) to pick up some of the slack, and in
fact Yveltal already sees play for that reason.
Still, it now has to pick up the slack for both
Sableye and Dark Patch. In Expanded, I very
much expect this to be a must run for decks running a
decent amount of basic Darkness Energy and
Darkness-Type Pokémon, and the exact counts can
fluctuate pretty wildly. If you’re fortunate enough to
be playing in a Limited tournament with BW: Dark
Explorers boosters, this is nearly a must run.
Obviously if you’re running a +39 deck, you don’t need
it because you won’t have anything on the Bench to
attach to even if you are running Darkness Energy
(and have a means of discarding it). While unlikely,
the same thing can happen in a “regular” Limited deck as
well; if your deck does have a reason to run Darkness
Energy and at least one Darkness-Type Pokémon, it is
at least worth consideration as you tend to have plenty
of room for such tricks… and if you’re running mostly
Darkness Pokémon and basic Energy, its a must of course!
Ratings
Modified (NXD-On):
4.5/5 - Scored for decks that are purely or mostly built
around Darkness-Type Pokémon basic Darkness Energy
cards; the less you have of either, the less reliable it
becomes (though technically it can be more valuable when
it does actually work in the case of lower Energy
counts). It doesn’t quite hit a perfect score, because
running a full four is no longer the standard to my
knowledge, and of course even in a true
mono-Darkness-Type deck it can still be a dead draw.
Modified (BCR-On):
N/A - If it were legal, it would score as above, perhaps
a bit less due how hard the contents of XY: Furious
Fists are expected to be on Darkness-Type decks.
Expanded:
4.5/5 - Back to form here; unless Expanded diverges in
an unexpected manner, I see no reason it would differ
from the current Modified Format.
Limited:
4.25/5 - The score allows for those odd pulls where
whatever Darkness-Type Pokémon you received just aren’t
fit for any kind of deck you can build, as well as those
built around a single Basic Pokémon and 39 other cards…
which is to say most of the time it is indeed a must
run.
Summary:
Dark Patch and its success may be while
Blacksmith is a Supporter; notice that the next time
we got Item-based, Type-restricted Energy acceleration,
it was put on the kind of Trainer you could only use
once per turn! The loss of Dark Patch should at
least force a small but noticeable shift in
Darkness-Type decks, and in the worst case scenario may
even kill off the ones we currently recognize… which
wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
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