Iono – Paldea Evolved
Date Reviewed: June 12, 2023
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 4.75
Expanded: 4.00
Limited: 5.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
New set, new cards! I hope you enjoyed opening booster packs of Scarlet & Violet Paldea Evolved. For this week, I’ll be looking at some of the most anticipated cards that might see a lot of play, and Iono is one of them. She is a Supporter card that states that both players shuffle their hand onto the bottom of their deck. And if they did that, they get to draw a card for each of their remaining prize cards.
Based on the wording, Iono seems to be a hybrid of N from BW Noble Victories and Marnie from Sword & Shield. You’re putting cards from your hand in your deck, just like N and Marnie. You’re also drawing cards from your deck, just like N and Marnie. But for Marnie, you get to draw 5 cards while your opponent draws four cards. For N, both players draw cards for each of their remaining prize cards. For Marnie, both players don’t have to shuffle their deck while N does. I guess these are the only comparison that I can think of.
Simply put, Iono is a must run, perhaps the second-best Supporter, only behind Professor’s Research. I remember lowballing on N back when the crew was reviewing the second best card lost to rotation. Despite being 2v1 on that review, he is just as strong as before, even being at a crowded field of other Supporters. I wasn’t able to compile a top X list lost to rotation of Regulation Block “D”, but I’m sure Marnie (and perhaps many others like Quick Ball and Crobat-V) are definitely one of them.
Iono can do many things. During early game, she can be your reliable hand refresher. Despite not shuffling your deck, the cards you draw are still random. Drawing six cards would be the equivalent of Cynthia from Ultra Prism. During the progression of the game, if your opponent is down to one prize remaining, you can use her to disrupt your opponent’s progress. Most of the time, there’s not much your opponent can do with one card in their hand, though it might be hard to tell. Maybe it could be Professor’s Research so that your opponent will get a hand of seven cards. Or Bibarel in play that can net your hand yield to five cards. Any anti-N and/or anti-Marnie cards that players try to use to deal with a possible lower hand yield will apply to Iono.
One thing I forgot to mention is that certain control-based decks would try to abuse Iono’s effect to great extent. There are certain Pokemon that KO itself (such as Forretress-ex) and your opponent gets free prizes. However, that won’t matter if you used Iono to shuffle your opponent’s entire hand and draw a smaller number of cards. It only works very early in the game when their setup is just barely started. It did get out of hand at one point because Island Challenge Amulet can be attached to Jirachi-EX from BW Plasma Blast to OHKO itself and give your opponent two prizes. Island Challenge Amulet was banned in Expanded because of that. Jirachi-EX had 90 HP while the amulet reduces the max HP by 100 on Pokemon-EX and Pokemon-GX.
Beside those degenerate tactics, I don’t think there is a similar card that lets you give free prizes on the same turn the Pokemon is played. Pretty frequently, you would have to wait for at least one turn to initiate that, and maybe your opponent might see it coming. For now, as hyped as this card is made to be, it would be imperative to run a full four copies of her. We might be seeing another deja-vu of the Supporter trinity of Professor’s Research, Boss’s Orders, and Iono.
Ratings:
Standard: 4.75/5
Expanded: 4/5
Limited: 5/5
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