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Our eighth place
finisher is Korrina (XY: Furious Fists
95/111, 111/111), yet another Supporter for this week.
So as with
12th place
Xerosic,
10th place
Blacksmith, and
9th place
AZ all the pros and cons of being a Trainer and
Supporter apply. Trainers’ Mail helping you snag
Korrina from the top four cards of your deck is
nice, VS Seeker allowing you to play it from the
discard pile is very nice, and the cards meant to
counter general Trainer usage and Supporter usage aren’t
particularly good, which is also very nice for
Korrina. Her actual effect is searching your
deck for one Fighting Type Pokémon and one Item, which
makes her surprisingly layered. One effect or the
other would be unimpressive, which is backed by the fact
we kind of do have two such cards: Trevor and
Skyla. Few decks run Trevor (which can
grab any one Pokémon) because we’ve got Ultra Ball;
get the same effect as an Item with a two card discard
cost that most decks can cope with and some can even
turn to their own advantage. We don’t have a
Supporter to search out an Item but we have something
better as Skyla can get any Trainer from your
deck; usually it’s an Item you’ve already burned your
Supporter for the turn on Skyla and decks only
run so many Stadium cards (which are also once per
turn), so while both targets are restricted its still
getting two cards for one. Turns out that has been
working real well for the Fighting Type.
The reason for that
boils down to the combos. The Fighting Type has a
nice variety of useful Basic Pokémon that can allow you
to tailor your assault to the current situation, and I’m
specifically thinking of ones that also can get started
with a single Energy card: Carbink (XY: Fates
Collide 50/124), Hawlucha (XY: Furious
Fists 63/111), Landorus-EX, Lucario-EX,
and Zygarde-EX all spring to mind, and in more
recent times we’ve gotten some useful Fighting Type
Bench sitters like Carbink (XY: Fates Collide
49/124) and Regirock-EX. Not a Basic but
Carbink BREAK is pretty handy to most Fighting Type
decks now as well and again, attacks well for one
Energy. While you’ll often prefer a Strong
Energy fuel your Fighting Type, a basic Fighting
Energy will do and Korrina can acquire it by
first pulling out a Professor’s Letter. If
you need a second Pokémon, just get an Ultra Ball
or other search Item. In Expanded you can even
include Computer Search so that Korrina
effectively gets any one Fighting Type Pokémon plus any
one card! Sometimes you’ll be more focused on the
Item than the Pokémon in question, such as getting the
right Tool for the situation, a clutch Switch,
Super Scoop Up, etc. or even a VS Seeker for
the next turn. If you need extra draw power,
besides the draw based Items, you can just get Ultra
Ball and one piece of discard fodder (if you need
it) in the form of a Fighting Type Pokémon you can
spare, then discard it and one other card to fetch
Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/108).
So I’ve just
explained how this was used prior to rotation and how it
will still be used in Expanded; Korrina is a
staple for a Fighting Type deck, even many decks that
are only partially Fighting. So what if it were
reprinted and soon was back in the game? It would
continue to be used as described above except a
lot of the cards I just mentioned - like our
18th place pick
Lucario-EX - and a few I implied - like our
13th place pick
Focus Sash - are also gone. Fighting
decks would still love to have Korrina, but
unless they get even more new support to replace the
old, she just isn’t as great as she once was. Like
with the other Supporters we’ve covered, losing
Battle Compressor hurts a little as well. It
is also important to remember that Fighting Type decks
aren’t losing an impossible to replicate trick - besides
raw draw power there are cards that can replace
Korrina for Pokémon or Item based search, they just
aren’t that great two-in-one deal. In Limited
play, Korrina is great unless you have really
lousy pulls in a set full of Fighting Types and with
several Items that are good for Limited (if not general)
play.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
3.65/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Korrina is still a great card for Fighting decks
in Expanded play and their Standard counterparts will
miss her, but they do have alternatives so they can get
by. Korrina also left Standard with some of her
best dance partners, so even if she came back, she still
wouldn’t be as strong as she was approximately right
before rotation.
Korrina
tallied 34 voting points, one behind tomorrow’s seventh
place finisher and three above yesterday’s AZ.
I had her in my 11th place slot on my own list; the
cards which ranked higher either lacked a sufficient
replacement in the current Standard format, were general
usage instead of deck specific, or both. As such,
I think she’s being a bit overrated in the eighth place
slot, but by the end of next week we’ll have a much
better idea if made the site list skew low, high, or
come in on target.
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