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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	I'd compare Wicke to N like I did Sophocles to Sycamore, but that's really not fair. N's wayyyyyyy better than this card and has nothing to do with it. See Wicke does cause both players to put their hands back in their decks and draw a new hand, but it counts the number of cards you had in your hand to begin with prior to shuffling them into the deck. In other words, you shuffle your hand into your deck and then draw the same number of cards. The same thing happens to your opponent.  While structurally it's essentially a "redo" of sorts for you and otherwise doesn't change the overall advantage, it can be disruptive against the opponent if they've got something valuable in hand. I don't imagine Wicke will see a lot of play to begin with, but once N rotates out of the format, we will likely see a very similar rise in usage the way we'll see Sophocles rise up with Sycamore - maybe even more so, given that she'll be used in a format more centered around Evolution.  Wicke's usage for now is limited, but once the "superior" card has been sifted out, she may come out to be a potential dominator in the format...either that or just end up on the side.  Rating  Standard: 2.5/5 (not too shabby in terms of disruption, but mainly just a refresh)  Expanded: 2/5 (compared with N, she's not as powerful a disruptor)  Limited: 4/5 (but without N, she could be reasonably solid)  Arora Notealus: Wicke is one of the scientists at the Aether Foundation and noteworthy as a scientist with the most interesting fashion statement. Seriously, among the scientists and workers around and about, who else even has Wicke's fashion sense, putting on display for the world to see her huge......umm...tracts of land!  Next Time: The last of the Tapus reviewed!
21times	Wicke (Burning Shadows, 127/147), like Sophocles (Burning Shadows, 123/147) yesterday, is a brand new draw Supporter card from the Burning Shadows expansion set.  Wicke has both players shuffle their cards into their deck and then draw the exact same number of cards they had prior to shuffling. In most of the pre-release videos I watched, the reviewers quickly passed this card by.  Most didn’t present any situation where it could add value.  I can see at least one situation: for example, if your opponent only has a couple of cards in their hand, it is very logical to use Wicke.  Many times we play down our hand and maybe only have a card or two left, but one of those cards is a Professor Sycamore (Steam Siege, 114/114) or N (Fates Collide, 105/124).  If you play Wicke at that point, your opponent probably won’t have a draw supporter in their hand afterwards, and, in that situation, it’s better than N because you aren’t giving your opponent three or four more cards than they currently have. But that’s about the only scenario I can see where Wicke might be useful.  I would guess that at most she’s a one of, but, honestly, I’m not putting her in any of my decks. Rating Standard: 1.5 out of 5 Conclusion Many sets have Supporter cards that don’t see play:  Ilima (Sun & Moon, 121/149), Psychic’s Third Eye (Breakpoint, 108/122), Lass’s Special (Fates Collide, 103/124) just to name a few.  We’ve just been pretty spoiled since Sun & Moon because all of the Supporters coming out of these past couple of expansions have been so good.  They’ve all had at least a niche that allows them to see at least some usage.  And Wicke potentially has a place, I just think it’s scenario for usefulness is so narrow that most players just can’t afford to put it in their lists.
Otaku	Today we look at the new hard to pronounce card… Wicke (SM: Burning Shadows 127/147, 147)!  She’s a Trainer-Supporter that causes each player to shuffle his or her hand into his or her deck, then draw a new hand of the same size (don’t forget to count before shuffling!).  I’m not sure if there are any pieces of generic Trainer support or counters in Standard play; in Expanded, there are some nice bits of Trainer support but no worthwhile counters.  When we narrow it down to Supporters, however, we still have Tapu Lele-GX in Standard to provide good Supporter search, while Expanded has that and VS Seeker, to add in easy Supporter recycling.  There are even a few cards, like Battle Compressor in the Expanded Format, which provide indirect assistance for Supporters (usually with VS Seeker); there are some Supporter counters in Expanded, but again, no worthwhile counters.  Being a Supporter means Wicke must compete with all other Supporters; you may only use one during your turn, so all others in your deck are dead-in-hand until the next turn, when you may once again use only one.  This might make you think decks would run light on Supporters, and in some sense, they do in Expanded play (thanks to Tapu Lele-GX and VS Seeker), but the best of them have amazingly potent effects so that each missed “Supporter usage” is akin to a turn without attacking (a waste that can cost you the game!).  So, is Wicke among those potent effects?  Let us reduce her effect into its components to see how they measure up.  Technically, Wicke forces each player to count his or her hand size, but both players should be aware of their own and each other’s hand sizes anyway; it is just something you do if you wish to make informed decisions.  Mostly, the first part of the effect is just there to remind players to do this before moving onto the next step, as it can’t be “rewound”, a term that means both players try to get their hands, field, etc. back to where it was before a certain action (usually playing a particular card or using an attack) occurred.  Why would the game need to rewind?  How about when you and your opponent cannot agree how many cards one or each of you had in hand before shuffling them away?  This could be an easy way to blunder into a big penalty in competitive play, and it is annoying even in a friendly, casual matchup.  The next step is each player shuffling their hand into their deck, then drawing that a new hand of the same size.  As you’ve just used Wicke, your hand is one card smaller than when it began and you’re out your Supporter for the turn.  This can be a good deal if your hand was already pretty large and/or there are other extenuating circumstances, such as vital cards or a deck too small to use Professor Sycamore, or if the current Prize counts make N unfavorable.  Of course, there are other, simpler options for these situations, like a search card (which may not even have to be a Supporter) or smaller draw Supporter, like Hau; especially when one’s hand is modest, that is where this draw effect proves most inadequate.  So, what about forcing your opponent to shuffle and draw?  Your opponent isn’t going to risk decking out, as he or she has added as many cards to the deck as shall be drawn.  Unless we get some effects triggered by the act of drawing, this is about disrupting an opponent’s plans.  Against a small hand, this can be deadly; it is not uncommon for a player to intentionally reduce his or her hand size because, at the start of his or her next turn, the first play will be to use Professor Sycamore (or VS Seeker for Professor Sycamore).  A large hand, however, gives a decent chance of drawing back into key cards - like Double Colorless Energy - and/or another draw card.  N (mid-to-late game) and Red Card usually will do hand disruption better.  Now we need to put it all together; is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?  I think so but not by much.  Again, if Pokémon develops more effects that would activate when a player draws cards, that’d be something, but I don’t know if such a thing exists at all in the Pokémon TCG.  It might help in a few control decks, but it seems too imprecise for that. I could see a niche developing for Wicke, but if there is one now then I’m not seeing it.  She’s yet another draw Supporter to revisit in about a year when we’re stripped of most of our comfortable, familiar, proven options.  Something that won’t apply for Expanded, as stuff like N and Professor Juniper/Professor Sycamore aren’t leaving there due to set rotation.  At the same time, the combo options make me think she is ever-so-slightly better in Expanded than in Standard, at present.  Any draw Supporter is usually welcome in the Limited Format, and Wicke is no exception.  Ratings  Standard: 1.65/5  Expanded: 1.75/5  Limited: 3.75/5  Conclusion & Top 10 Background  Wicke still has a chance of getting you the cards you need, and without the pain of having to discard anything, but unless you already have a flush hand, the odds aren’t all that great you’ll end up better off after she’s done her thing.  Still, she is once again a functional card in most decks; a poor choice that is far from the best, but you’ll almost always be able to use her.  Possibly “always”; cards that have you shuffle your hand away always shuffle your deck even if that hand is “zero” cards but Wicke has each player count first, so I’m not sure if that makes a difference.  Wicke earned two voting points and only made one of the personal Top 10 lists, so she’s effectively our 16th place finisher from our countdown of the best of SM: Burning Shadows.  As stated yesterday, she actually tied with Sophocles, but after failing to break the tie by rolling dice (as each rolled a “7” on 3d6), I remember Sophocles was my 25th place pick for my top 25.  If that sounds odd, I’d restricted myself to a Top 24 to match the one other “extended Top 10” list I’d received.  Wicke did not come close to making my own list, as you might be able to tell by how I’ve score her card.  In fact, I went back to the review I’d already written for yesterday’s Sophocles (before it was posted) and bumped its scores up a bit; reaching for positives about Wicke (can probably always be played) reminded me of a similar positive to Sophocles (can always be played if you’ve got two other cards in hand).
Vince	Today we’re looking at Wicke, a Supporter that makes both players count the number of cards they have in their hand, shuffle them into their deck, and draw that many cards.  So, if you have, let’s say, five cards in your hand (with Wicke) and your opponent has 2, then both players shuffle; you draw 4 cards (because you played Wicke from your hand, bringing the count down from 5 to 4) and your opponent draws 2.   If you can’t make use of your current hand full of “dead cards” in that particular turn, Wicke can help you out of a tight spot, much like other shuffle-based draw cards.  However, you can’t further punish your opponent because they already have such a small hand (overusing resources).  You might even help out your opponent by drawing into cards that the opponent actually needs.   Wicke is a double-edged sword like N, either helping or hindering you, your opponent, or even both.  This is not a card to worry about for the time being, but once rotation happens and we lose both N and Sycamore, then I can see her being heavily played.   Standard: 3/5  Expanded: 3/5  Limited: 5/5
Retro	A new style of memes has arrived in the Pokemon community. And it’s the thicc meme. Well, what do you expect when Wicke was first introduced in the Sun and Moon trailers? This meme started to appear left and right. However, memes aside, Wicke is the only person in the Aether Foundation that isn’t mad. In fact, she does help you in your journey in catching the Ultra Beasts. But we are in the TCG realm here, and such relationships do not apply. What does apply though is that Wicke has arrived to give you more draw support!             Wicke is a draw supporter that has an effect similar that of Sabrina’s Gaze (Gym Heroes 125). It forces each player to reshuffle their hand to their deck and draw the same number of cards according to their previous card count. So if you have 8 cards before you play Wicke, you will get 7 new cards, because 8 minus 1 = 7. So does your opponent; if he has 6 cards in his hand, he will get 6 new cards. Now we have seen this effect come into play in the ever-popular Supporter; N (XY Fates Collide) also forces a reshuffle of each player’s hand and gives you a new hand based on each player’s Prize Card count. Reshuffling is always good, don’t get me wrong. It allows you to preserve resources, denying easy victory and also slowing down your opponent with just the fact that a reshuffle Supporter hasn’t been seen anywhere and it might come back to get you.             And just like in the last XY meta block, where everybody runs 4 Professor Sycamore and 3 N, in the SM-on format everybody will run Wicke for that amazing disrupt/resource preservation power it has, alongside possibly 4 Sophocles we saw yesterday. This combination is the one that I would foresee to be one of the most popular combinations in tournaments when the meta has shifted.             However, as good as Wicke is, N will be a million times better than Wicke because of one reason. You see, the main usage of N, aside from resource preservation and game slowdown, is because it is the perfect comeback card. If you have 4 prizes in your hand and maybe only 2 cards in hand, and your has only 1 prize left and they have say, 8 cards in hand, all you might need to win is just a single N to give your opponent the dreaded N-to-one possibility. And if their top deck isn’t anything good, you essentially win! We have seen this not long ago in the 2017 TCG Masters World Championship; just as Naoto Suzuki was about to win the game, what happened? Diego Cassiraga fired off the N-to-one technique, giving him the victory. Wicke will not do that in the slightest; if Naoto say had 3 cards, when Diego used Wicke instead, Naoto might have gotten 3 new cards, getting a higher possibility to get that last Guzma and Float Stone to win the game.             That I think worries me most about playing Wicke; as good as it might have been, it is not the perfect win condition as N is now. And moving to the slower BKT-on era, I think N will be a million times better. So, just hope that a new card can help boost Wicke’s playability to thicker heights. Rating: Standard: 2.7/5 (N trashes it in terms of usefulness and playability) Expanded: 2/5 (N and Colress trashes it in terms of usefulness and playability) Limited: 4.5/5 (The only reshuffle card in the format, can be useful for reasons explained above) Next on SM Burning Shadows reviews: The Worlds-winning Tapu shows up late.