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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Fluffy Berry

EX Unseen Forces

 

Date Reviewed: 09.21.05

Ratings & Reviews Summary
Unlimited: 2.25
Modified: 3.25
Limited: 3.5

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  5 is the highest rating.


Otaku

If you find the review is too long, skip straight to the Ratings and Summary! 

 

Name   : Fluffy Berry

Set       : EX Unseen Forces

Card#   : 85/115

Rarity   : Uncommon

Type    : Trainer

Sub-type: Pokémon Tool

Effect Text: Attach Fluffy Berry to 1 of your Pokémon (excluding Pokémon-ex and Pokémon that has Dark or an owner in its name) that doesn’t already have a Pokémon Tool attached to it.  If that Pokémon Fluffy Berry is attached to is a Pokémon-ex or has Dark or an owner in its name, discard Fluffy Berry

 

As long as Fluffy Berry is attached to a Pokémon, that Pokémon’s Retreat Cost is 0.

 

Attributes: Fluffy Berry is the second of the new batch of Pokémon Tools from EX: Unseen Forces that we are going to look at.  Like all Pokémon Tools, it is a Trainer: Trainer denial is moderately popular in Modified and extremely common in Unlimited, but all Trainers are hit that hard, so it’s not going to drop the score: just remember to use common sense.  What does help is that Pokémon Tools activate after they are already in play, and that means that if you can drop them into play before the assorted Trainer prohibiting cards hit the field, they’ll work fine.  Sadly, this too comes with a downside: since they remain in play, there are specific cards that can target them – like Ancient Technical Machine (Ice) – that aren’t currently seeing a lot of play.

 

Fluffy Berry is restricted to use by Evolved Pokémon that aren’t Pokémon-ex or Pokémon that have either an owner or Dark in their names.  This is even more restrictive than Curse Powder, and just as restrictive as Energy Root.  This is obviously a negative thing in that your options are lessened, but hopefully it will compensate by being more powerful.

 

Proving that Nintendo is learning how many rule lawyers play this game, once again the card states that if the Pokémon it is attached to stops being a non-Pokémon-ex or suddenly has Dark or an owner in its name, it is discarded.  Yes, still a lot of cutting and pasting, but it’s the only way I can get these done in time: it’s a very busy week and I will hopefully get my act together enough to earn some interviews for internships/jobs, plus assorted projects for classes.

 

 

Abilities: Super Balloon Berry.  Like Balloon Berry, this basically zeroes out a Pokémon’s Retreat Cost.  Unlike Balloon Berry, Fluffy Berry doesn’t go away unless you’re KO’d or Evolve in a manner to violate the attachment restrictions.  This seems very strong, but will probably not be as useful as other Pokémon Tools in general.

 

Uses and

Combinations: This is definitely more a niche card.  True, almost anything can benefit from having its Retreat Cost reduced, but the amount of advantage that provides can be very minimal for a lot of decks.  Also, like all permanent Tools, it prevents the use of “one and done” Pokémon Tools like Crystal Shard and Strength Charm.  So it works best for cards that need to do a lot of retreating and don’t already have a free retreat cost.  A slightly outdated example would be EX Ruby/Sapphire Slaking: since it can’t attack after using it’s big attack, instead of being forced to run like four Switches, four Warp Point, etc, you could have just slapped Fluffy Berry on and let him retreat for free each turn to another benched Slaking (or whatever you wish to use between turns).  A similar-yet-different contemporary example would be EX Fire Red/Leaf Green Victreebel.  It is a card often combined with EX Deoxys Weezing.  Use Weezing’s Liability attack to reduce the opponent to 10 HP (and simultaneously KO your own Weezing), then bring up Victreebel whose Acid Sampler Poké-Body to place a damage counter on the opposing Active Pokémon, finishing it off between turns.  This leaves Victreebel active, which isn’t good since you want to send up another Weezing to do the same bit next turn.  So use Fluffy Berry.  Retreat the Victreebel for free on your next turn (scoring 110 points of damage to OHKO the Victreebel in one shot would be a real feat), bring up a Weezing, and repeat.  Combos like this are where Fluffy Berry shines.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 2.25/5-Like most of this week’s cards, its low because a) Evolutions as a whole aren’t played as much and b) the decks that do use Evolutions usually have better choices.  However, it is a thought if you have something like Neo Genesis Slowking sitting on your bench.  After all, a Focus Band or Gold Berry would probably be more useful on your attacking Pokémon, and it’s just big enough to have a decent shot at surviving… so I could see using a Fluffy Berry to allow it to retreat back to the bench for free.

 

Modified: 3.25/5-Please keep in mind that this card is for very specific combos, and in those decks it would be much more important than this score would seem to indicate.  It’s just only moderately useful in general.

 

Limited: 3.5/5-Odds are you won’t have all free-retreating Pokémon, and Fluffy Berry makes a nice trick.  However, you aren’t as apt to have as many Evolutions, and this doesn’t give as much “oomph” as the other Pokémon Tools.  So while it’s handy, it’s not as game breaking as extra damage or extra HP or ignoring your Weakness or healing some damage (which the other Pokémon Tools in this set do), and it may not even be as useful as many other cards that are competing for deck space.

 

Summary

Fluffy Berry will not be something to throw into just any deck, even though most decks that feature Pokémon that are legal targets for it will also benefit from it.  The benefit is just too minor for the majority, but there is a definite minority of decks where eliminating that Retreat Cost opens up many combo opportunities, or stream-lines existing ones.
 


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