It looks like all the rumors of a new expansion set coming out in June for Pokemon Pocket were true.
The Pokemon Company International (TPCi) has officially announced that Eevee Grove will be added to the game on the 25th of June, 11PM PDT (June 26 for some parts of the globe).
New Eevee ex
We can’t rightfully start this announcement off without looking at the crux of all the Eeveelutions.
The new Eevee ex is a little confusing in its design. In terms of raw stats, this version of Eevee is leagues better than its normal counterpart, but it does come at the cost of becoming an ex Pokemon.
Being an ex, this Eevee may prove risky if knocked out early, and there’s the fact that the Electric-type Oricorio exists. Interested players may want to evolve Eevee ex right away if they want to use it.
As if this weren't enough, the most confusing thing about this card is its ability. Eevee can basically evolve into any of its evolution forms already.
The ability itself doesn’t seem to do anything different. We do have to wonder what TPCi was thinking when they decided to make this the actual ability for the card.
As far as deck building goes, being an ex Pokemon means a player could actually run 4 copies of Eevee in their deck.
Pocket does have a normal one as part of the card pool already, so consistency will not be a problem for an Eevee-focused deck.
More ex Eeveelutions
Speaking of ex, TPCi also revealed two new ex Pokemon in the form of Flareon ex and Sylveon ex.
The former draws some parallels to the recently released Blacephalon, but unlike the Ultra Beast, Flareon ex has a bigger health pool and doesn’t hurt itself as much.
The energy discard upon using its Fire Spin is more negligible than it appears since Flareon ex can retrieve one Fire energy at the cost of 20 health. In fact, you could use the discard synergistically with Blacephalon due to Lusamine.
This energy retrieval does leave Flareon open for reprisal if the enemy Pokemon isn’t knocked out in time, but there aren’t a lot of Pokemon that easily absorb 130 damage.
Even current meta units like Giratina ex can’t return fire without repercussion once on the receiving end of Flareon’s attack.
As for Sylveon ex, it’s another copy of Professor’s Research. By that merit alone, people running an Eevee would simply auto-include this card at maximum copies.
Some wily players may try to run Sylveon Ex with a Fossil line-up like Rampardos just to turbo out the Fossil Pokemon a whole lot quicker.
As for Sylveon ex’s combat potential, it’s admittedly decent but not the best. It is a speedy Pokemon, though, being able to attack for 70 damage at two energy cost is nothing to scoff at.
The Rest of the Cast
TPCi was gracious enough not to keep players wanting by already revealing to us the rest of the Eeveelutions.
Jolteon starts off as a pretty decent gap closer. Its Beginning Bolt attack only gets a single use out of its damage boost, but that means anything with 60 health or less is within lethal range.
Lefeon and Espeon can be looked at as two sides of the same coin. The former scales the more the controlling player invests energy into it, while the latter will scale the more the opponent builds their board.
Unfortunately for Leafeon, its scaling is pretty lackluster, even if a player were to go all-in on it. Sylveon could be a tech choice for an Eevee deck, but it’s wholly dependent on the opponent’s movements.
Glaceon and Vaporeon shore up the Water-type section. Glaceon is a fast sniping unit that can go around any bulky frontline for softer targets on the bench.
Vaporeon feels like a weird mix of Guzzlord ex and Gyarados ex. Vaporeon doesn’t have the raw firepower that either ex Pokemon have, but it’s faster to get online than the former -with Misty- and it’s not as not as random as the latter.
Water Pokemon enthusiasts may want to look into these Eeveelutions as pretty good tech options, especially if entering a Double Deck format.
The last Eeveelution in the line-up, Umbreon presents itself as a pretty unique counter to any deck that relies heavily on Basic Pokemon like the Ultra Beasts. That said, Umbreon is not without its flaws.
Its damage output will fall out of favor pretty quickly if the match drags on for too long. While its Dark Bindings can put a stop to Basic Pokemon, it can be dealt with by a quick retreat.
There’s also the possibility that a player could still run into a bad matchup. Any deck that focuses on Stage 2 Pokemon like Solgaleo ex would happily feast on Umbreon.
New Trainer Cards
Thanks to fast-acting community members, we’re able to glance at some of the new support cards shown in the trailer.
Penny is a funny, if somewhat unreliable Supporter card. There’s actually a lot more going against it than for it, but having access to a potential third copy of a staple Supporter card like Professor’s Research might be worth slotting in a single copy of Penny.
Eevee Bag comes as a two-for-one special as it doubles as either another copy of Giovanni or a Potion, the latter being upgraded to target all of your Eeveelutions.
Alcremie Line
TPCi also included the pretty humorous Alcremie line-up to round off the announcement.
Featuring its pre-evolution state, Milcery, and backed up by Swirlix, Alcremie is designed to scale off how many times the controlling player has used Milcery and/or Swirlix’s Sweet’s Relay attack throughout a game.
With a x40 modifier, Alcremie can theoretically one-shot even the beefiest Pokemon currently in the game. That, however, would require a heavy amount of turn investment of just chipping away with Sweet’s Relay. Not to mention, each of these three isn’t hard to knock out.
A lot would have to go right for a deck focused on the Alcremie line to work, so its meta viability is highly suspect. We have to admit that it would be really funny to see an Alcremie just one-shot high meta contenders like Buzzwole ex or Giratina ex.