Delinquent – BREAKpoint – Pokemon Review

aroramage

You better believe that if Team Skull ever went to Kalos, they’d recruit a few Delinquents here and there. Seriously, I’m sure that’s got to be a thing somewhere. I mean why wouldn’t that? It’s not like they’re from rivaling gangs or anything…or maybe they are?

Delinquent is a Supporter card that simply says to discard a Stadium in play, and if you do, your opponent discards 3 cards from their hand. Pretty much disruption at its most basic. In the time of its initial release, there were a lot of Stadium cards running around seeing play in many decks, and against such decks, Delinquent could provide a means of getting rid of the problems not only on the field but any future problems in the hand as well. Parallel City would actually be one of the good targets to hit with Delinquent, freeing up board space!

The only thing is, discarding from the hand in Pokemon is usually a tricky business. Hitting Energy cards will usually just feed into some Energy accelerators, and hitting Supporters only sets up for VS Seeker. That usually only leaves Items, which are quickly played out most of the time, Stadiums, which aren’t always run in high enough numbers to end up in one’s hand, and Pokemon, which weren’t always a detriment. Against decks like Night March or Vespiquen, for instance, discarding Pokemon only served as fuel for the attack. 

These days, with the more Evolution-centric Pokemon-GX, Delinquent could see a little bit of play for discarding the middle evolutions before they could be evolved out of, but there are also a lot fewer Stadium cards that see play than in Expanded. The infamous Stadium Wars aren’t as active in the current Standard game, and without a Stadium to discard, Delinquent doesn’t play a huge role in most decks. Even in decks that would want to discard Stadiums, there are just now better options; Zygarde-GX for instance partners better with Bonnie, which lets him use his GX Attack again.

For now though, Delinquent remains a great tech choice depending on what deck you’re facing in the format, but admittedly it’ll be hard to see if she sees any level of play thanks to all the discard-centric strategies.

Rating

Standard: N/A (not that it would matter too much these days, but I can’t say there have been too many Stadiums out these days)

Expanded: 3/5 (it’ll provide a nice tech option against decks running a Stadium)

Limited: 2/5 (while the disruption is nice, the Stadiums are few and far between, and neither is particularly useful if you don’t have the right cards)

Arora Notealus: Isn’t the full art version of this card so neat with that Mightyena? What a cute idea for a full art pic! And for such a…not so wanting to be cute girl. Clearly she is not interested in being affectionate. More like…uhhh…de…fection…ate…nailed it.

Next Time: Yet another one of those new-fangled belts that help everyone!

Vince

Delinquent may not have made the top 10 cards of BreakPoint, or the year of 2016, but at least she can finally be placed in our top 25 cards lost to rotation! What she does is to discard a Stadium card and make your opponent discard three cards from their hand. That is some serious disruptive card if I’ve ever seen one. Even cruel is that you can play your own stadium, benefit that stadium for that turn, and discard it with Delinquent while your opponent carefully chooses which cards to toss. OR, you can discard your opponent’s stadium that they just played while still discarding their three cards from their hand. Either way, their hand is a lose-lose situation for the opponent, or to you if the opponent used it against you.

You could argue that you might have cards that you really want to be discarded such as Energy or Pokémon, but if you’re stuck with key cards that are mostly trainers, then you won’t have much options left. I wouldn’t rely too much on Delinquent, though, as the effects could be beyond your control whether it helps or hurt your opponent’s setup depending on what cards they currently have on their hand. Not to mention that being a Supporter card means you would’ve used it for draw power.

Standard: 3/5     Expanded: 3/5     Limited: 3/5

21times
PokeDeck
Central

Delinquent (BKP 98) has seen an uptick in usage in the past month or two, largely thanks to Tord Reklev’s Zoroark GX Controls deck that came in second at NAIC.  I liked this card so much that I ran FOUR of them in my Sylveon GX deck that I took to NAIC in 2017.  In fairness, my strategy was built on stripping your hand of cards and included Red Card as well.  That was my favorite tactic: play a Stadium out, throw down Red Card, and hit you with Deli.  In successive months, when Tormenting Spray (BUS 125) came out, I tried that as well, but that strategy was significantly hindered by the preponderance of Octillery, Zoroark GX, and Oranguru.  And I had tried Sylveon GX with Garbodor, and it had been a failure.  Granted that was back in May of 2017 when we had finally gotten Tool Removal back in the format and BKP Garb quickly saw its use diminished because now everyone was running Field Blower… but I digress. 

Using Delinquent can be a very effective strategy against your opponent.  If your opponent is holding a Rare Candy or a DCE or a pair of Puzzles, a well timed Delinquent can absolutely ruin their game.  Unfortunately, in today’s meta where more and more archetypes are wanting to put cards in the discard AND there are more ability based draw support Pokemon in the format than ever before during the time I’ve been playing, the effectiveness of Delinquent has significantly diminished in value.  Delinquent is great in Theorymon, in reality it just falls a little short.

Rating

Standard: 2 out of 5

Otaku

This week, it is a bit early to dive into SM – Celestial Storm, so we’re taking time to look at some of the cards that didn’t quite make our recent Top 10 Countdown of Cards Lost to Rotation. I’d put the year in there to clarify, but the rotation that happens September 1, 2018, is referred to as the “2019” rotation on the official Pokémon website, which is so confusing it seems simpler to include this clunky sentence of explanation. We began the week with a twofer because we were unable to post any reviews on Monday, plus Wednesday had already been planned as a twofer so you’ve probably noticed my reviews either went up late or not at all (yet). Today we’re looking at Delinquent (XY – BREAKpoint 98/122. 98a/122). Had the aforementioned countdown started with a high enough number, Delinquent would have been our 14th place finisher, having earned a total of 39 voting points by appearing on two out of three of our individual reviewers’ lists. One of those was my own list, where she was my 15th place pick.

Delinquent is a Trainer-Supporter that requires you discard a Stadium from the field in order to use it, and if you do, your opponent must discard three cards (he or she chooses) from hand. Thanks to cards like Hau, we know that the developers feel like a Supporter is worth drawing three cards, so costing your opponent three cards is great if you also discard your opponent’s Stadium. Sometimes you’ll want to discard your own Stadium card as well, and that’s still a good deal. What if you do not want to discard your own Stadium? You’ll have to work out whether it is worth more or less than forcing your opponent to discard three cards and that can be tricky because your opponent gets to pick. If it wasn’t for an opponent often thinning his or her hand down to three or fewer cards, Delinquent might not be so good, because of that difficult choice… but when an opponent is stuck topdecking and has to rely on his or her draw for the turn to jumpstart his or her deck again, it is often worth it.

Perhaps “was” often worth it is a better term. Players have gotten to the point that it seems like every deck is worried about a late game N, and so running some reusable Bench-sitting draw power. I know that, in reality, only certain decks do this and some are doing it because the rest of that Pokémon is awesome – like Zoroark-GX – but the point is that forcing your opponent into a topdecking situation to a highly luck-based option (due to Ability-based draw). Another change that hurt Delinquent was the release of Field Blower; Paint Roller was the lackluster Item-based Stadium removal, while Delinquent was the strong-but-costly Supporter-based option (with the bonus of hand disruption). Once we received Field Blower, we had Tool removal that could double – even while still removing one Tool instead of two! – as Stadium removal. Something that has been both a help and a hurt to Delinquent has been the number of decks that have cards they may wish to discard in hand. This is extra painful when you sacrificed your own Stadium to force your opponent to discard three cards and just hit stuff they wanted to be rid of, or at least not enough to have been worth your Stadium and Supporter for the turn.

All that being said, while we have something like Tapu Lele-GX to search out low count Supporters, Delinquent would have been nice to have around. She’s one of those Supporters that you wish you could slip into everything “just in case”, but often have to leave her out for something a little more crucial. Were she sticking around, I’d bet that, sooner or later, she’d have another chance to shine in the Standard Format. Actually, if her performance is like it was at the North American International Championship, she’ll go out with a good show: while only a few were played overall, two of those were found in the second place and third place decks. In the Expanded Format, she’s got a lot less representation in that last Expanded Format event I can find results for, but at least showing up in the 12th place finisher’s deck is something. As for the Limited Format, if you’re playing using older boosters she’s one of those must-run cards but not because she’s insanely powerful, but because it is a “Why not?” situation. Your deck isn’t exactly going to be flooded with Supporters, and XY – BREAKpoint has two Stadium cards so there’s a chance she can help you even if you’re not running any other sets alongside XY – BREAKpoint.

Ratings

Standard: 3/5     Expanded: 3/5      Limited: 3.25/5