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We close out this week with another Pokémon that lacked
a representative in the Standard legal card pool,
Jynx (XY: Furious Fists 37/111). As a
Psychic-Type she doesn’t enjoy much support right now
but can look forward to XY: Phantom Forces and
though being able to attack into Weakness could be handy
(more on that when we get to the attack), though
Resistance can also be a bit of a pain in certain
match-ups. Being a Basic is great right now as its the
easiest Stage to get into play and to squeeze into a
deck; you still might have to worry about running into
Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106) but again
that will only matter if you attack with this Pokémon
and (again) more on that in a moment.
70 HP is a bit underwhelming, but it is enough that you
might survive a shot from your opponent if they aren’t
fully set-up. Psychic Weakness does make it a real
hazard; Mewtwo-EX scores a OHKO with just a
Double Colorless Energy and even Deoxys-EX
just falls 10 short without a Plasma Energy
attached (or no Energy attached to Jynx). Lack
of Resistance is actually appropriate, given that in the
video games, Jynx are Ice/Psychic hybrids and so the
only two Types they Resist don’t work with the TCG Type
models (or that matter, the Weakness really should have
been a different one as it also doesn’t align with how
the various Types “should” interact). Jynx has a
single Energy Retreat Cost to finish off the bottom
Attributes, and this is solid: you can usually afford to
pay it without derailing your set-up, though it isn’t
good enough to be a major selling point.
Her Ability is what caught my eye for this card: once
per turn (before your attack) Victory Kiss allows you to
remove a damage counter from your Active Pokémon if
Jynx is on your Bench. While it would be better if
you could affect any Pokémon and of course if you could
remove more (okay with it not working on herself, given
the name), the metagame is full of match-ups where key
KOs require just a little bit of “prep” damage,
including the self-inflicted (such as from using
Rainbow Energy). The corollary is that many KOs are
OHKOs or 2HKOs with substantial overkill. Still,
this Ability could prove useful. Her attack, Hug, does
30 points of damage and prevents the attacked Pokémon
from retreating during your opponent’s next turn.
Unfortunately it costs [PCC] which means it needs to be
hitting for about 90 points of damage (costing much less
would also have been adequate).
So does Jynx have a place in Standard? Yes, I
believe she does but as of yet… I haven’t been able to
deduce exactly what it is. It may be a TecH for when
minimal-but-repeated healing comes in handy, and if that
is the case, she might be beneficial (but not
necessarily optimal) for most decks. The other trick
would be playing multiples of her; Victory Kiss is
worded so that multiple copies should be able to be used
each turn. It would probably take three or a full four,
but a “free” Potion (or Potion + 10) for
your Active can really add up in certain matches… or for
“tank” decks.
I haven’t been able to try it, but I honestly wonder
what M Heracross-EX could do with a few Jynx
and a Virizion-EX on the Bench. I doubt it
would be more effective than how it is currently used,
but Seismitoad-EX might be another candidate; you
block Items so it is harder to score a OHKO against
Seismitoad-EX than a lot of other Pokémon, so a
Bench full of healing Basics could keep the lock going
several extra turns per Seismitoad-EX. Now
matter how you use it, you’ll either need it to be
expendable (in the M Heracross-EX example you’d
prefer your opponent waste time taking Jynx out
than damaging your OHKOing attacker) or to be protected
(Seismitoad-EX would both protect and prefer an
opponent wasted an attack on Jynx).
I think her prospects are actually better in
Expanded and it is due to a single card: Level Ball.
This makes a TecH copy a lot more viable. For Limited,
you run her unless you’re running a +39 deck (one big
Basic Pokémon plus 39 non-Basic Pokémon cards); the
having the Energy for Hug is optional as you’re using it
for Victory Kiss.
Ratings
Standard:
2.25/5 - In this format most cards need to either pull
double duty (or better) or else the one role they do
play, they need to perform exceptionally. Jynx
is a solid healer, but nothing more. This is a
general score though; if you need small-but-repeated
healing she’s probably the Pokémon for the job.
Expanded:
2.75/5 - Level Ball makes Jynx much better
for general and specific use, though still a bit
underwhelming. For general use, the slot going to her
could easily go to Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) or a Jirachi-EX, for example.
Limited:
4.9/5 - Unless you pull that awesome big Basic (probably
a Pokémon-EX) that can power-up and hit hard enough,
fast enough to win you the game before being
overwhelmed… you should be running Jynx to
provide healing to everything else in your deck!
Summary:
Just shy of being an “average” card in Expanded and
still not hopeless in Standard, Jynx really does
show some (all be it limited) promise. It doesn’t help
her that right now that Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted
54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze 119/116; BW:
Legendary Treasures 68/113) is as popular as ever
and shuts down the one thing she really has going for
her, but I’d still prefer sets full of “almost there”
cards to the filler (and vanilla filler) we see so
often.
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