Shaymin Prism Star
– Team Up
Date Reviewed:
October 12, 2020
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.25
Expanded: 1.75
Limited: 3.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
 Vince Next up is Shaymin (*), also from SM Team Up, and we have actually reviewed it on April 5, 2019. So, what changes did Shaymin (*) discover? Well, the unfortunate thing is that Grass typing, as a whole, isn’t a good type to use competitively, mostly because of Welder fueling up certain attacks with ease for attack costs involving (R) and (C) Energy, sometimes for Fire Pokemon. On top of that, Metal Pokemon from the Sword & Shield series has Grass Resistance and it reduces the damage taken by 30! Combined with Lucario & Melmetal-GX’s Full Metal Wall and Metal Core Barrier further strengthening their staying power, and Grass types would hardly damage them at all. At least it can now exploit weakness on some Dark types that are weak to Grass. It’s own attack, Flower Storm, is a good concept of an attack, but part of me wishes it’s damage multiplier is higher due to power creep. 30x for GG is somewhat acceptable although you need some investment to achieve certain numbers. If you’re going to OHKO any Pokémon, you would need to have 12 Grass Energies on your side of the board to achieve that. For Basic Pokémon-V, maybe eight energies should suffice. Now, there are ways to get grass energies on the board, but I doubt anyone can attach at least 12 energies in one turn. Rillaboom might be a good choice, as it’s Voltage Beat ability lets you search your deck for 2 Grass energies and attach them to one of your Pokemon. It is a Stage 2, however, and unless there’s a super fast shortcut to getting them in play faster (not even in Expanded since Forest of Giant Plants is still banned there), you won’t be able to benefit from this ability as soon as you hoped. I don’t know anything else that Shaymin (*) would fit in besides Rillaboom in Expanded, but I guess there’s Venusaur from SM Shining Legends has an ability that doubles the value of each basic Grass energies as it makes one grass energy become two grass energies. Combining Venusaur and Rillaboom may seem good on paper…but it doesn’t work out in practice as having 2 different Stage 2s makes the deck inconsistent. Because Shaymin is a Prism Star, one must not rely on using this as the only attacker; it is a secondary backup attacker at best. There are several Grass type heavy hitters like Buzzwole & Pheromosa-GX, Rillaboom V-MAX, Dhelmise-V (and it’s future Dhelmise V-MAX), future Venusaur-V, and more. Ratings:
Conclusion: Shaymin (*) is a good backup attacker for grass decks except that the grass type as a whole isn’t seeing as much competitive play. Even then, it might be able to pull a win or two, as the player sees satisfaction of knocking out the biggest Pokémon for three prizes….if sufficient investment was made. |
 Otaku Tuesday’s Card of the Day is Shaymin {*} (SM – Team Up 10/181). Being a Prism Star card is a mixed bag. You can only run a single copy of a particular Prism Star card, though unlike Ace Specs, you can run multiple different Prism Star cards together in the same deck. If a Prism Star card would hit the discard pile for any reason, it is instead sent to the Lost Zone. Prism Star cards tend towards better stats and effects, or at least, better relative to what you would get for the same costs on a baseline version of the Pokémon. Attackers with Lost March do not get to count Prism Star cards for the effect of Lost March, Wobbuffet (SM – Lost Thunder 93/214) has an Ability that prevents Prism Star Pokémon from attacking and voids their Abilities, and Lisia lets you snag two Prism Star cards from your deck.
Shaymin {*} is a Grass type; this isn’t too impressive when it comes to exploiting Weakness, and also means crashing into Resistance against modern Metal types… which is one of the few places where Resistance really matters. The type-based support is also dubious; some of it looks good, and has even performed well in the past, but I’m not too sure about the present. Shaymin {*} is a Basic Pokémon, so at least one card equals one copy, and you can easily drop Shaymin {*} in a single turn, instead of having to wait to evolve. Shaymin {*}’s 80 HP is bad; this is a probable OHKO even in the early game, or when your opponent’s setup is poor. Adding insult to injury, it means Shaymin {*} received no HP bonus from its Prism Star status; all other recent, baseline Shaymin cards have 70 or 80 HP. It does make the card’s Fire Weakness and lack of Resistance less relevant. At least Shaymin {*} enjoys a perfect free Retreat Cost.
Shaymin {*} knows one attack, and only one attack: no Ability. For [GG], Shaymin {*} can use “Flower Storm”, doing 30 damage times the amount of basic Energy attached to all of your Pokémon. If you cover Flower Storm’s Energy costs with basic Energy, this means you’ll do at least 60 damage. Which isn’t all that comforting a minimum, considering Shaymin {*} is going down in one hit and once it does, it is gone for good. If we just look at Energy to damage, this attack is poor; two for 60, three for 90, four for 120, etc. It also doesn’t count Special Energy; not only can you not drop Triple Acceleration Energy for a bonus 90 damage, but even things like Aurora Energy aren’t going to help you out…
…but there’s a key feature of an attack like this. All the Energy you need to help bolster the attack’s damage? It can be on anything on your side of the field, so long as you’re meeting the printed cost of “Flower Storm”. You can have three massive Pokémon, one with four basic Energy attached and the other two with three, then send Shaymin {*} up front with two basic Grass Energy attached and swing for 360 damage! That’s enough to one-shot even the largest Pokémon VMAX, barring Resistance or effects. So, this is a great attack then?
No. Building up that many basic Energy cards on your Bench is difficult, even with Energy acceleration. Think of how many recent, competitive decks run on 12+ basic Energy? Emphasis on the “plus”, because if you run exactly 12, then just one (one!) Prized, still in your deck, or discarded, you’ll max out at 330. Without Energy acceleration, you’ll need to build gradually, with low or no Energy attackers or blockers up front… and your opponent will almost certainly take notice and hope to use a card like Boss’s Orders to force something Energy-laden up front to quickly KO. Then there’s the actual Energy cost of Flower Storm; with Special Energy not contributing to the attack’s damage, you’re probably locked into running Shaymin {*} in a Grass deck.
That does leave a probable use for Shaymin {*}: Rillaboom (Sword & Shield 014/202; SW – Black Star Promos SWSH006; SW – Darkness Ablaze 197/189) decks. One use of its “Voltage Beat” Ability can easily get two basic Grass Energy onto Shaymin {*}. What it cannot do is quickly drop another 10 Energy onto the field. That’s pretty demanding, though: how much Energy do we need to OHKO typical Basic Pokémon V? With 210 to 230 HP, you’ll need a total of seven or eight Energy. That’s still quite a bit, and so you see the problem Shaymin {*} is facing. Expanded offers more combos, but a lot more competition and counters. The Limited Format robs it of any fancy support, but it has a free Retreat Cost, and you won’t have to worry about Boss’s Orders. Shaymin {*} earns its keep here as a pivot Pokémon!
Ratings
Power creep, the shifting metagame, and the type-shuffling of Sword & Shield hit Shaymin {*} really hard. When we first looked at it, it was on the happy side of “average”, but now it will regularly face attackers that it won’t be able to 2HKO, let alone OHKO (Zacian V). Which is a bad thing when you’re a glass cannon and reliable 2HKOing with some OHKO’s sprinked in is your “job”. |
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