Rose / Rose Tower – Top 15 Pokemon Cards in Darkness Ablaze #6

Otaku

Not for the first time, we’re fudging things a bit as we cover two closely related cards for our 6th-place pick: Rose (SSH – Darkness Ablaze 168/189, 189/189, 196/189 and Rose Tower (SSH – Darkness Ablaze 169/189).  Rose is a Trainer-Supporter that attaches up to two basic Energy cards from your discard pile to one of your Pokémon VMAX, but if you attached any Energy through this way, the rest of the effect forces you to discard your entire hand.  Rose Tower is a Trainer-Stadium that let’s the turn player draw until they have three cards in hand, once during their turn.  The text doesn’t expressly say so, but yes, the traditional restriction about using the effect before you do anything that ends your turn upon resolution (like attacking) still applies.

Obvious combo is obvious: use Rose, then refill your hand with Rose Tower.  Can the cards be used separately?  Absolutely, but with the natural combo and the related themes (Rose Tower is owned by Chairman Rose) meant at least half-reviewing each card in the other’s reviews had they been separate.  You can only play one Supporter and one Stadium per turn, with the added restriction of being unable to play a Stadium if one with the same name is already in play, so there’s stiff competition for both in your deck.  Rose Tower only cares about your hand size, so it is only a “bad” choice for decks that already have enough Stadiums they need to run, or those that are unlikely to see their hand-size fall below three.  A three card hand is indeed small, but a deck loading up on easy-to-spam cards, and/or with the right kind of discard costs can probably do it somewhat reliably.  Such strategies tend to work well with most other draw cards, and Quick Ball is both an easy-to-play Item and a way of discarding an unneeded card from your hand…

Rose doesn’t have a purpose unless you’ve got a Pokémon VMAX running on at least some basic Energy cards.  You literally cannot play it unless you’ve got a Pokémon VMAX in play and at least one basic Energy in the discard pile to attach.  Unless you’re running a Pokémon VMAX with no Energy, or fueling it entirely with Special Energy cards, seems like at least one copy of Rose makes sense for any Pokémon VMAX focused deck.  Why?  For emergency use.  Yes, even if you have other Energy acceleration.  If you’re using it to setup for a game-winning attack, discarding your hand won’t matter.  Getting basic Energy cards into your discard pile should be simple between staples such as Quick Ball and Professor’s Research.  What about reloading your hand afterword?  You could use an attack, but odds are you weren’t attaching Energy to a Pokémon VMAX just to attack to add cards to your hand.  That leaves Abilities…

…but not just any Abilities.  However they add cards to your hand, they can’t require you have a particular card – or any cards at all – in hand.  Ending your turn is also a deal breaker, for the same reason attacking to draw was out.  Cincinno (Sword & Shield 147/202; SSH – Black Star Promos SWSH009), Crobat V, Dedenne-GX, Oranguru (Sword & Shield 148/202) and various others may still be in your deck, but their Abilities are not options after using Rose.

• Audino (SM – Unified Minds 177/236) let’s you draw a card with its “Hearing” Ability if it is your Active.
• Oricorio-GX isn’t a great option, as you want to avoid your Pokémon VMAX being KO’d, but if something else of yours is going to be KO’d during your opponent’s previous turn, its “Dance of Tribute” can be activated during your turn to draw three cards.
• Persian-GX (SM – Unbroken Bonds 149/214, 207/214, 227/214) is similar to Oricorio-GX; so long as your opponent KO’d one of your Pokémon-EX/GX (not Pokémon V, though) during their last turn, at some point during your turn, you may search your deck for two cards.
• Sawsbuck (SM – Cosmic Eclipse 16/236) has the Ability “Seasonal Blessings” that simply lets you draw a card.
• Silvally-GX (SM – Cosmic Eclipse 184/236, 227/236, 262/234) has the Ability “Disk Reload”, letting you draw until you have five cards in hand.

Now, if this sounds nice, but maybe not enough to justify 6th-place, let us talk Expanded.  There is a lot more competition here, and more counters, though the latter is more for Rose Tower than Rose himself (Field Blower).  There are more combos here as well, though.  Recovering from Rose’s discard without Rose Tower is much easier with Exeggcute (BW – Plasma Freeze 4/116; BW – Plasma Blast 102/101).  Remember how I said you couldn’t use stuff like Cinccino that require you discard a card from your hand to draw?  Exeggcute’s “Propagation” Ability lets you add it to your hand from your discard pile, and instead of Cinccino you can use Zoroark-GX.  This also means other discard costs are easier to cover as well, so a top-decked Ultra Ball can get something like Crobat V.  There’s also Oranguru (Sun & Moon 113/149; SM – Black Star Promos SM13; Shiny Vault SV44/SV94); its “Instruct” Ability is a one-sided version of Rose Tower.

Rose Tower also seems like a solid generic choice, as both decks that rip through their hands and decks that try to wreck your hand are even more common – or perhaps, more capable – here than in Standard.  I don’t think it will replace the infamous Tropical Beach, but that’s because slower decks often have bulkier hands.  Moving onto the Limited Format, Rose is a dead card unless you’re also running a Pokémon VMAX, and getting basic Energy cards into your discard pile tends to require something being KO’d (with Energy attached) or retreating.  In other words, your lucky Pokémon V/VMAX Mulligan deck should skip it, but if you weren’t willing to take that risk and are running your Pokémon VMAX alongside other Pokémon, you may as well make room for Rose.  Rose Tower also doesn’t fare well here, but that is because lowering your hand to less than three cards is very hit or miss.  You are likely to have a lot of stuff just stuck in your hand, with no way to use or discard it.  You can use Rose Tower to discard an opposing Stadium, however!

Ratings (Rose)

• Standard: 4/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 2/5

Ratings (Rose Tower)

• Standard: 4/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 3/5

Rose and Rose Tower are a combo I expect to make at least one Pokémon VMAX deck.  I’m not sure which one – it may not even be known yet – but something should eventually put them to good use.  Until then, Rose is a nice emergency play for most Pokémon VMAX, I think, and maybe just a solid option in general.  Rose Tower goes with Rose unless a deck truly has all the other Stadium cards it needs, and a few might.  Rose Tower also strikes me as a good, generic deck for anything that doesn’t already have something better and which can sufficiently thin its hand.  Not universal application, but pretty general.