Urn of Vitality – Battle Styles
Date Reviewed:
March 29, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 1.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Urn of Vitality (SW – Battle Styles 139/163) sounds more like a Yu-Gi-Oh card than an Honorable Mention for out countdown but… here we are! Single Strike Energy (SW – Battle Styles 141/163, 183/163) is our 5th-Place finisher, while the other Honorable Mention is Houndoom (SW – Battle Styles 096/163, 179/163; SW – Black Star Promos SWSH090). Urn of Vitality is a Trainer-Item an it lets you shuffle up to two copies of Single Strike Energy from your discard pile to your deck. Urn of Vitality is also a Single Strike card, letting it access this Battle Style’s support. Recycling Special Energy cards is very difficult, but Urn of Vitality only works with Single Strike Energy. Fortunately, Single Strike Energy is basically Strong Energy for Single Strike Pokémon. What is more, Houndoom’s Ability lets you attach a Single Strike Energy from your deck to your Single Strike Pokémon. Being able to recycle these Energy just became pretty significant.
In the Expanded Format, we have Special Charge, a Trainer-Item which can shuffle any two Special Energy from your discard pile to your deck. While being a Single Strike card is nice, yeah, Urn of Vitality is a nerfed Special Charge, but that’s okay. Special Charge is from 2016; it isn’t getting a reprint anytime soon. In the Expanded Format, are you running Tower of Darkness? Are you not running any Special Energy other than Single Strike Energy? If so, then Urn of Vitality makes sense. Otherwise, use Special Charge.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 1/5
Urn of Vitality is another card that, had we not lumped it together with Single Strike Energy and Houndoom, I still would have felt important enough to maybe make my Top 15, but as the scores suggest, it is important to some Single Strike decks in Standard, but it isn’t that great in its own right. If Single Strike Energy wasn’t so great, then Urn of Vitality would be a lot worse. Unless we get more Single Strike support that makes Urn of Vitality a better deal, in Expanded you just stick with Special Charge. I’m also not sure if any Single Strike decks (using Single Strike Energy or not) will be worth using in Expanded.
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