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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Buddy-Buddy Rescue

- BREAKthrough

Date Reviewed:
December 1, 2015

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.1
Expanded: 2.1
Limited: 4.8

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


Otaku

You know, some cards get cool sounding names like yesterday's subject, Assault Vest while today?  We get Buddy-Buddy Rescue (XY: BREAKthrough 135/132), which sounds goofy but in an endearing way.  One fits the “epic monster battles” side of things, the other fits the “virtual pet” side instead.  So… is it any good? 

Let us start with what the card is: a Trainer, specifically an Item.  There are more effects that refer to “Trainers” collectively than I realized, and most are either favorable (like Trainer’s Mail or Skyla), won’t matter for Buddy-Buddy Rescue (Pokémon with Ω Barrier) or just have had little to no success.  Items on the other hand don’t have a tremendous amount of support though there are a few notable cards like Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers 62/108) while the Item counters include cards that completely block them from being played by one or both players: Trevenant (XY 55/146), Seismitoad-EX and Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98).  Though some Items like Ultra Ball have a cost to play, it isn’t built into their generic templates like the restrictions on using Supporters or Stadiums: even though they often have effects much weaker than those of Supporters, the fact a player can use several together on the same turn still makes Items quite powerful. 

Buddy-Buddy Rescue is… probably not one of those Items, but I think it might have its uses.  Its specific effect is that each player adds a Pokémon from their respective discard pile to hand, with your opponent choosing first.  This is one of those situations where you want the opponent to pick first, as it allows you to adapt should it somehow prove relevant.  The cards going to the hand is probably why you aren’t limited to just Basic Pokémon and it allows you to reuse coming-into-play effects.  Of course your opponent is still getting something back, but you may be able to shuffle it away or even discard it again with another card, if that would be advantageous.  Of course when it comes to getting Pokémon back from the discard, there is serious competition (and some not-so-serious but still relevant).  Revive can put a Basic back directly to the Bench without giving your opponent anything, Max Revive can put one on top of your deck and either Sacred Ash or Super Rod can return multiples to the deck (not a huge hurdle given typical draw/search options).  So why burn an Item to get a single Pokémon back into hand when your opponent gets the same chance?  

It is not written to be optional; while I believe you should be able to play it when only one of you has a Pokémon in the discard pile (same way you can use Escape Rope so long as at least one of you has something on the Bench to promote), if a player has something in the discard, something must be “rescued”.  This means a deck using something like Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) and its “Bee Revenge” attack will have its damage output ever-so-slightly lowered.  If you can spring it when there aren’t other options, this can force something your opponent was preparing to target with Archie’s Ace in the Hole or Maxie’s Hidden Ball trick back into hand.  Not enough to justify running the card on its own, but if your deck already needs to reclaim a Pokémon and prefers for it to head straight to hand, not worthless.  That being said, I don’t think it is overly useful either.  This might find some niche use in Standard or Expanded but its main calling is Limited where it could be amazing or backfire horribly if you don’t pay attention to your opponent’s options (still run it so long as you’ll have something in the discard pile to reclaim). 

Ratings 

Standard: 2.1/5 

Expanded: 2.1/5 

Limited: 4.8/5 

Summary: Buddy-Buddy Rescue does something (reclaiming a lost Pokémon) and in some ways does it better (adding it directly to hand) but with the risk of helping out your opponent as much or more than yourself, a risk other options lack.  Including those that can send multiple Pokémon back to the deck: quantity over quality.  I have this fuzzy notion at the edge of my mind saying “There is something you’re missing.” but for now, it is one of those cards that isn’t the best at what it does so unless we do find a niche use, even if it might look awesome when someone uses it off a top deck to reclaim and immediately re-play a Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108).


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