The reveals keep coming as spoiler season for the twin expansion, Mega Brave and Mega Symphonia, is officially underway. This time, we’re looking at the first salvo of Trainer and single-prize Pokemon cards to be released this coming September 26th.
Single-Prize Pokemon
Pachirisu
Tingly Incisors: 10 damage. During your opponent's next turn, whenever your opponent attaches an Energy from their hand to the Defending Pokémon, put 8 damage counters on that Pokémon.
Pachirisu is showing a card design we’ve been seeing more and more of in recent times. Mirroring the likes of Budew (from Prismatic Evolutions) or Shaymin (from Destined Rivals), Pachirisu is a Basic-stage utility Pokemon that can disrupt the opponent’s early game.
Pachirisu’s potential 80 damage can easily allow the controlling player to weaponize line-up manipulation cards like Counter Catcher in the early game.
This does require some match-up knowledge, though. You’d need to know what targets of opportunity to hit to slow down the board building.
For better or worse, the reliance on Lightning-type energy keeps Pachirisu from being a total nuisance. This means Pachirisu would not be as easy to slot into any deck unless it can easily access said energy type.
Will Pachirisu break the current meta line-up of the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG)? Probably not. That said, toolbox decks like Joltik or Raging Bolt could easily slip in Pachirisu somewhere in their deck list if the player feels inclined.
Makuhita and Hariyama, Vulpix and Ninetails
Makuhita
Corkscrew Punch: 10 damage.
Confront: 30 damage.
Hariyama
Ability: Sumo Catcher
Once during your turn, when you play this card from your hand to evolve one of your Pokemon, you may switch one of your opponent's Benched Pokémon with their Active Pokémon.
Wild Press: 210 damage. This Pokemon does 70 damage to itself.
Vulpix
Stampede: 10 damage.
Combustion: 20 damage.
Ninetales
Suspicious Shapeshifting: Discard the top card of your deck. If that card is a Supporter, use its effect as the effect of this attack.
Blaze: 60 damage.
These Stage 1 evolution lines may be more appropriate for the Gym Leader Challenge format than standard rotation. Their damage output compared to Pokemon used in modern tournament decks is pretty sub-par.
Ninetales’ ability to copy a discarded Support card may be suspect, but it does bypass the hard limit of a single Supported card played per turn. Making this ability consistent and efficient is another puzzle, and one that might be too convoluted to use in a modern competitive setting.
Hariyama, on the other hand, is a walking Boss’s Order. The natural line-up manipulation is indeed helpful. That said, its effectiveness in the active zone is devalued because of the need for three Fighting-type energy to activate.
In Gym Leader Challenge, players are limited to a single copy of a card in their deck outside of basic energy. Having a pseudo-second copy helps apply a little more consistency in a format where it's hard to come by.
Sobble, Drizzile, and Inteleon
Sobble
Surprise Attack: 30 damage. Flip a coin. If tails, this attack does nothing.
Drizzile
Double Stab: 30x damage. Flip 2 coins. This attack does 30 damage for each heads.
Inteleon
Bring Down: The Pokémon in play that has the least HP remaining, except for this Pokémon, is Knocked Out. (If there are multiple Pokémon, choose 1.)
Water Shot: 110 damage. Discard an Energy from this Pokémon.
This is not the first Stage-2 evolution line to be revealed for the set, nor is it the most impressive one so far in terms of raw stats.
Sobble and Drizzile do offer some pretty high damage for their appropriate evolution stage at the cost of a single Water-type energy. That is, if you’re willing to gamble on a coin flip.
However, Ineleon’s most interesting capability is that it can knock out any Pokemon on the field except itself. The lack of targeting discrimination means that friendly fire is on the table, though.
Thankfully, a seasoned player could easily build a board where they could match or exceed the health pool of all the opponent’s individual Pokemon.
Inteleon’s loophole of being able to choose the actual target in case of a tie gives a player more leeway when using Bring Down.
Inteleon’s frightening attack is two-fold. First, it turns the standard nature of a Pokemon TCG match on its head due to Inteleon being capable of sniping the opposing board.
Second, this is still under a single Water-type energy cost. Even Ineleon’s Water Shot costs a single energy. The discard cost is pretty much negligible due to how cheap Water Shot is to activate already.
A player going second could easily use a Rare Candy to turn Sobble into Intelleon and start going on the offensive.
As dangerous as this card design is, this Inteleon may be TPCi’s way of bringing back single-prize Pokemon into the limelight.
It’s some food for thought. Perhaps it’s time for the Pokemon TCG to balance out the sheets between single-prize Pokemon, the ex Pokemon, and the upcoming Mega Evolutions.
Trainer Cards
Premium Power Pro, Wally’s Compassion, and Lillie’s Determination
TPCi is already showing us some translated cards on top of these reveals.
Premium Power Pro is just a basic, but hearty, extra damage from fighting-type Pokemon. Since it’s an Item card, Premium Power Pro can easily stack with other damage boosting cards like Black Belt’s Training to bridge the damage threshold for a knock-out.
The current rotation has Cynthia’s Garchomp ex. So, the capability of nuking any beefy Pokemon out of the active zone with just a few cards is possible.
Wally’s Compassion is a very powerful archetype support for Mega Evolution. Being able to heal all damage done on a robust body like Mega Venusaur ex can undo all the effort the opponent has been building.
The bounce of all the attached energy cards might give a player pause, but that just puts more importance on energy acceleration. Alternatively, a player could use a Pokemon like Gholdengo ex that can easily make use of the sudden influx of cards.
As for Lillie’s Determination, it’s basically another flavor of Professor’s Research. Depending on the deck, Lilie’s Determination may even be better than the latter card just because you can draw back into a starting hand size.
Mega Signal and Mystery Garden
Mega Signal
Search your deck for 1 Mega Evolution Pokemon ex, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your deck.
Mystery Garden
Once during each player's turn, that player may discard 1 Energy card from their hand. If they do, that player draws cards until they have as many cards in hand as they have Psychic-type Pokemon in play.
The final two cards of this reveal, Mega Signal, are basically a Nest Ball for Mega Evolution Pokemon. It’s simple but welcome consistency for the marquee Pokemon being (re)introduced.
Mystery Garden has Gardevoir ex written all over it. The version of Gardevoir it will work best with may be up for debate, though.
The current meta leader, from Scarlet & Violet, can easily retrieve energy cards from the discard pile already. Since Gardevoir ex decks tend to run a wide board of Psychic-type Pokemon, Mystery Garden just adds fuel to the late-game engine.