Pokemon Center Lady – Throwback Thursday (2014)

Vince

This week’s Throwback Thursdays contains two cards to look at, but what we’ll be looking First is Pokemon Center Lady. This card actually debuted in XY Flashfire and it has been reprinted in the Hidden Fates set. As a Supporter, you are limited to playing one of them per turn unless you have either Lt. Surge’s Strategy or Magnezone’s Dual Brains Ability to let you use more than one. Would Pokemon Center Lady justifies the use of your Supporter for your turn?

Well, she heals 60 damage from one of your Pokemon as well as removing all Special Conditions from that healed Pokémon. During the time this card was released, Supporters are reserved for mostly draw power and maybe a few awesome niches here or there. Professor Sycamore or Professor Juniper and N took over most of their decks due to being the best draw/disruption power possible in various formats where they are legal. Lysandre didn’t provide draw power, but it was used for the gusting effect that was reliable after Pokemon Catcher got an errata that made it half as reliable. Pokemon Center Lady was thought to be pointless as Max Potion heals all damage, and the drawback can be mitigated. Even today, she could be outclassed by Mixed Herbs, which heals 90 damage and removes all Special Conditions…if you played two of them from your hand at the same time.

However, Pokemon Center Lady avoids some of the drawbacks from other competitions, aside from arguing that she’s the only Supporter in your hand. Sure, there are anti-Supporter effects, but not enough for them to see play. Item lock strategies are pretty common, like Seismitoad-EX using Quacking Punch to lock your opponent’s from playing items. Or Garbodor’s Trashalanche to punish heavy item usage. Pokemon Center Lady doesn’t have those problems and can be used a bit more freely. There are very few decks dedicated to inflicting Special Conditions every single turn as long as they got the resources to keep using them. Raichu’s Shock Lock or Accelgor’s Deck and Cover are few examples of infuriating moments where your Pokemon can’t do anything, and Pokemon Center Lady is part of the solution if you didn’t already have Rush In Keldeo-EX (or if you can’t fit it into your deck or being at risk of a two-prize liability isn’t for you). Healing 60 damage also undos Deck & Cover, and while HP counts rise as high as 300, 60 damage might turn some 2HKOs into 3HKOs; you would have to deal at least 180 damage as a surefire way to make Pokémon Center Lady not healed enough to tank the second blow.

Overall, Pokemon Center Lady would be an option to deal with few decks that gives you trouble, so I can see it being used at a single copy at best. Standard might not have too much competition against other Supporters, but draw power still exists there, and even more so in Expanded when said Supporters still exist in this format. She also appeared in some theme decks, but the contents of various Theme Decks from the XY series are pretty lackluster. For Limited, this is a good pull unless you also pulled Lysandre.

Ratings:

• Standard: 3.25/5
• Expanded: 2.5/5
• Limited: 4/5 (this is for XY Flashfire, Hidden Fates would be N/A)
• Theme: 3/5