aroramage |
What do you mean we're having
another countdown in the midst of our countdown? That's
just silly! We just finished the Top 10, and the next
set is...well, actually, it's already out. That's right,
we're gonna be talking a little bit about the new set,
Generations! Now this set is just an extra set made to
celebrate Pokemon's 20th Anniversary this year, and it's
only packaged in with certain collections, like the Mew
Collection Box that came out this month!
...which reminds me I need to go
stop by GameStop before they stop giving out Mew codes
for the game...
ANYWHO, this set is mostly made up
of reprints of cards from earlier sets, but there are a
few cards that are brand new, and of those we've
compiled a small list of our Top 3 cards for the set,
starting with Revitalizer! It's a pretty basic Item card
that only has the effect of adding 2 Grass Pokemon from
your discard pile to your hand, but that can still be a
big boost to Grass-oriented decks.
Since there's no limit to what
Pokemon you can bring back aside from the Typing, this
means you can get back some pretty powerful Pokemon -
Sceptile-EX, Virizion-EX, Genesect-EX, Vespiquen, Combee,
Exeggcutes that have been discarded, the new Adaptive
Evolution Caterpie and Metapod line-up, the list goes on
and on. Combined with cards like Battle Compressor, this
can easily turn into a "Grab 2 Pokemon from your deck"
type of card, and there's not much the opponent can do
about it outside of locking you out of Items with
Seismitoad or Vileplume, the latter of whom can also be
added to your hand with Revitalizer!
Now does this bring new life to
Grass decks? Not really, it's just a new card that helps
them do their thing even more. But hey, the simplest
cards always do, right?
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (certainly another
great tool for the Grass deck players)
Expanded: 4.5/5 (I mean, it's no
Forest of Broken Plants, but we didn't need another of
those anyway)
Limited: N/A (...I'll be honest,
I'm not sure how you'd run a Limited format with this
particular set, since the boosters are only available in
specific collections like this. I'd assume this would be
a 3/5 though, given the limited line-up)
Arora Notealus:...I mean...I don't
wanna bring the mood down on Grass decks, but we should
be honest and call this what it is: fertilizer. Yeah,
that's definitely what that is. Immunizer, Revitalizer,
more like Fertilizer. Guess they didn't want that
implication being made though...I mean, would you want
to rub fertilizer on your Grass Pokemon? You know what
that stuff's made of, right? I mean, where would they
even get that?
Next Time: From beyond the realms
of time and space, the mind endures throughout the
cosmos...and wears a really cool cape.
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Otaku |
Now that we’ve finished our countdown for our Top 10
picks from XY: BREAKpoint… it is time for another
countdown! The-powers-that-be scheduled another
set for this month; Generations officially
released February 22nd (just two days ago when this
article was new). February 27, 1996 is the date
when Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters
Green officially released in Japan, so it is the
birthday of the entire franchise… even if most of us
didn’t get to join in until a few years later.
With another set, comes another countdown, but this time
it is just a Top 3. Why? This set is
1.
…mostly reprints, shrinking its effective size, so no
need to cover more.
2.
…largely commemorative and for new/returning players, so
it isn’t worried about being particularly competitive.
3.
…being released so close to another set that I didn’t
want to make anyone compose a second Top 10 so soon.
4.
…released just in time for us to have a three day gap to
fill at the end of this week.
The usual rules apply so all those reprints weren’t
eligible for the Top 10. An interesting note is
that this set seems similar to the original Base Set
in terms of card selection. Cards are not
reprints of Base Set cards, as some mistakenly
reported previously. Almost every reprint is of
something originally released or re-released in an
XY-era expansion. Generations also includes a
subset like we saw in BW: Legendary Treasures,
once again referred to as a “Radiant Collection”: cards
with similarly styled “cute” artwork and altered
numbering system. These cards were released in
Japan as the PokéKyun Collection. They
are eligible for the Top 10 list.
So with that out of the way, we come to our #3 pick:
Revitalizer (Generations 70/83). This
is an Item that allows you to add two Grass-Type Pokémon
from your discard pile to your hand. This isn’t a
major effect, but then again it is a minor cost; an Item
with no extra requirements to use it. You trade
that one card from hand (Revitalizer itself) for
two cards from the discard pile, albeit restricted to
not only a specific major card division (Pokémon) but
also a specific Type (Grass). To add a single
Pokémon from the discard pile (any Type) also requires
an Item (Buddy-Buddy Rescue) that also allows
your opponent to do the same thing, so the price seems
fair. Now, why would this card be particularly
good? The answer lies in what Grass-Types
are prominent; Ariados (XY: Ancient Origins
6/98), M Sceptile-EX, Sceptile-EX (XY:
Ancient Origins 7/98, 84/98), Vespiquen (XY:
Ancient Origins 10/98) and Vileplume (XY:
Ancient Origins 3/98). Not all of these have
the same need for Revitalizer but now we get into
the specifics.
Ariados
and Vileplume are Bench-sitters used for their
Abilities… and while they can work together, more than
one Ariados and more than one Vileplume on
your Bench at a time are redundant, providing incentive
to run lower counts of them. Throw in how many
times you’ll need to discard them because even with
Forest of Giant Plants you can’t get their lower
Stages in play before you have to use Ultra Ball
or Professor Juniper/Professor Sycamore to
chuck them, and we see why an Item that can get back the
entire Ariados or two-thirds of the Vileplume
line could be appealing (yeah, even when Vileplume
locks down Items). Vespiquen is a high-caliber
glass cannon that does more damage based on the amount
of Pokémon in your discard pile and (like most) tries to
rip through its own deck as quickly as possible.
It is a somewhat common problem that you’ll be a
Vespiquen shy of what you need to win (sometimes
easily, sometimes at all); again this provides an Item
that can get back the entire line, or two of whichever
Stage you need. For any and all Grass-Types that
Evolve from other Grass-Types, if Forest of Giant
Plants is involved you can even immediately
get an Evolution line back into play!
I don’t want to build the card up too much; there are
other options to reclaim discarded Pokémon, but this is
an Item to add it to your hand. Now if they had
gotten their own equivalent to Archie’s Ace in the
Hole or Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick, perhaps it
would be better… but I don’t know, and they didn’t.
We see some Vespiquen decks at least using
Buddy-Buddy Rescue or Puzzle of Time to get
back an extra attacker; the former might be what
Revitalizer replaces, while the latter actually
combos wish Revitalizer. The big,
impressive combo (that can still work as smaller, less
impressive combos) is using Teammates to get two
copies of Puzzle of Time, then play those to get
a Double Colorless Energy and Revitalizer
back from the discard pile. At last use
Revitalizer to get back the Vespiquen (that
was probably the Pokémon just KOed). If you had
another Combee already in play or run
Forest of Giant Plants, you’ll have an attacker for
this turn and the start of one for the next turn.
This is quite deck specific, unless Revitalizer
ends up being the missing piece that makes Ariados
a more common site in general, which is doubtful.
Still a solid addition to Standard and Expanded play.
If you are able to participate in some sort of Limited
event with Generations product (the set doesn’t
seem to be using the traditional release methods), then
as long as you have even a few Grass-Types worth
running, this is a great pull. The thing is, you
might not, so it really isn’t an automatic inclusion for
your deck.
Ratings
Standard:
3.5/5
Expanded:
3.35/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
A nifty trick for Grass-Types, one that I suspect will
become relevant to the competitive scene as at least on
paper. I have no first or second hand testing
results, so try it for yourself if you can snag a copy.
This card takes third place because it tied with our
second place pick. Why? Because this was my
number one pick for the entire set but wasn’t on any
other lists. As this is just a Top 3, it meant one
card that showed up on multiple lists took first place,
and I had to break a tie between second and third, which
Revitalizer lost.
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