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Looks like we get to "revive" an
old card again! Huh? Huhhhhh? :D
...alright, I'll stop. Revive here
was last seen in the original Black&White Set, which has
long since rotated out. Course back in its day, there
were far fewer Pokemon-EX to work with, but those that
were around benefited GREATLY from this card. And it is
a LOT better than its original Base Set form, where you
had to stick on a bunch of damage counters until it only
had half its health remaining.
The basics of Revive are simple:
pick a Basic in your discard pile and put it onto your
Bench. That's the BW version's text, and that's the
version that's been reprinted in this set. You can see
why back in the early EX days this card was so good -
Pokemon-EX for the most part count as Basic Pokemon, so
any Basic-support turned into Pokemon-EX-support. Emolga,
Skyarrow Bridge, Revive - you get the idea. EX were
nuts!
So why has Revive come back now?
Well now, we've not only got a LOT more Pokemon-EX to
work with, but we've also got Mega Evolutions to work
with as well. Imagine this: you've got a poor Mega Evo
stuck in your hand, and all the copies of your
Pokemon-EX are in your discard pile. You'd play
Lysandre's Trump Card to bring it back, but it might
take too long to shuffle things around, draw into what
you need, and play the card back on the field. So what's
an easy way of doing that? Revive. After that, Spirit
Link and Mega Evo it - done. Unless it's Rayquaza-EX, in
which case do that all in one turn.
I imagine a sneaky combo to be have
the Mega in hand already, use Battle Compressor to send
the regular Pokemon-EX to the discard, play Revive to
bring it back, and then Spirit Link-Mega Evolve. So
naturally, I expect Colorless M Rayquaza-EX builds will
absolutely run Revive/Battle Compressor as a means of
guaranteeing a Turn 1 M Rayquaza-EX - and that's
considering the combo I mentioned in his review!
Other than that kind of craziness,
the ability to bring back a Pokemon-EX - even just a
regular one - is still a powerful thing to have. The
only things I can think of that would keep Revive out of
some decks are the space within them for their strategy
and Seismi-flippin-toad-EX.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (a good card
especially for Pokemon-EX!)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (well...duh)
Limited: 4/5 (the more Basics you
run, the better this gets; the more EX you've got, the
better it gets)
Arora Notealus: That moment when
you've got to deal with all this stuff again on top of
the newer stuff. I imagine Seismitoad-EX will keep a few
of these in check, but most decks outside of that will
just have to brute force it as usual. This could be a
problem if the Pokemon revived is, say, Seismitoad-EX.
AH HA!!
Next Time: Hey, a Stadium!
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