aroramage |
Dang, if only we had a Lt. Surge
card to put up today for Veteran's Day...although that
could just be an American holiday, so that wouldn't make
sense for a lot of folks out there...ah well, details,
WE'RE REVIEWING BROCK'S GRIT!!
So what rock-hard determination and
persistence can we expect from the likes of Brock? Well,
true to his grit, his Supporter effect shuffles back
Pokemon and basic Energy back into your deck from your
discard pile - ideally 6 total. The good news with this
is that you get to choose your ratios between how many
Pokemon and basic Energy you put back - you could even
put 6 Pokemon back or 6 basic Energy back if you so
desired. Definitely a lot of options, although if you've
got less than 6 of one and at least some of the other, I
think you need to put as much as you can back.
That being said, how can we really
make use of Brock's Grit? We've been in a format of
speed and precise dumping into the discard pile to get
the most benefits, but with the rotation of certain
cards, things have taken a bit of a slower pace. Battle
Compressor's no longer around to just dump what's needed
into the discard, and Bronzong leaves us one of many
Pokemon short of Energy acceleration. Sure, we've still
got Carbink BREAK and the new Mewtwo-EX, but these
aren't Abilities - they're attacks, which are by their
very nature slower.
This actually does leave us some
room for Brock's Grit to have a real presence in the
format. Recycling valuable resources like Hoopa-EX and
Shaymin-EX can prevent prematurely decking out and make
use of them for later, most notably with M Gardevoir-EX
(STS). Her Despair Ray can discard them for her own
attack, from which on the next turn Brock's Grit can be
played and recycle those discarded Pokemon with ease. On
top of that, with so few Energy to go around, putting
back a few key amount can keep you from running out in
the late game when you'd need it, although you'll want a
quick draw option ready to go so that you're not getting
dead draws.
Brock's Grit runs in the face of
adversity for sure. As the game shifts into a new
direction, Brock stands proudly on his own merits and
prepares himself for the future. He won't always be
around, but he's gonna do his best to leave an impact on
the way things are going. He'll work hard to make things
right again, promoting the decks that need it most while
taking away from those decks that don't need it as
badly. He'll fight where he needs to and where he has to
and-DANGIT I SAID NO MORE POLITICAL SUBTLETIES IN MY
CARD REVIEWS
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (he's gonna be
pretty big as a tech in the format to come)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (but he'll be much
less played in a format with more options - and faster
ones at that)
Limited: 4.5/5 (truly he is what we
need in a slower time period)
Arora Notealus: Stay strong, Brock.
We will endure, and we will fight.
Weekend Thought: What're your
favorite cards out of this week's pick? Think there are
some that should be higher? Did you catch a card that
ought to have made the list? Are you super nostalgic for
these old art designs? I mean seriously, it's been years
since I've seen that 3D Diglett of silliness! Among
others, of course.
Next Time: TIME TO BREAK AWAY FROM
TRADITION WITH A FIERY NEW ADDITION!!
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Otaku |
In the United States of America, today is Veterans Day.
As such I am taking this opportunity to say “Thank you!”
to those who have served in the United States Armed
Forces. Especially those who risked so much to
protect my rights even when we don’t agree on how I
ought to use them. For readers in several other
countries, it there are quite a few World War I related
remembrances as happening, and in fact Veterans Day
evolved from a similar such thing in the USA.
There are also some totally unrelated holidays (the
world can be a big place at times), so feel free to
check your calendars to see what’s happening.
With that concluded, I’ll mention that my review for
Mewtwo-EX (XY: Evolutions 52/108, 103/108)
went up
yesterday
afternoon, ruining what had been a streak of me being
all nice and on time. I hurt my back not too long
ago, then overdid it before I’d fully recovered.
Perhaps by the time it’s fully healed I’ll finally learn
to be concise, because for now I need to write in much,
much shorter stretches. Thankfully our sixth place
finisher might allow me to do just that because it’s
Brock’s Grit (XY: Evolutions 74/108,
107/108). Even with it borrowing the art from one
place and the effect being inspired from another, that’s
still a lot less to cover than with many an Evolution
line. To begin with, this is a Trainer card.
As there aren’t any worthwhile anti-Trainer effects
unless we delve into the recesses of the Unlimited
Format, that’s a good thing. You need at least one
Basic Pokémon in your deck for it to be considered
legal, you need a Pokémon (or something which counts as
one) in play to avoid losing the game, and if you want
to attack you’ll normally need a Pokémon and the correct
Energy… but Trainer cards have often been what made it
all work. There aren’t a lot of cards that work
for any and all Trainers, but at least I can toss
Trainers’ Mail out there as not only an example for
both Standard and Expanded play, but one that’s
frequently used to good effect.
Being a Supporter means Brock’s Grit has to
compete with all other Supporter cards. The only
restriction on how many Supporters you may run in your
deck is that rule about needing at least one Basic
Pokémon, but under normal circumstances you may make use
of only a single Supporter each turn, leaving the rest
dead in hand until the next turn. Sometimes you’ll
have a turn where not using a Supporter is okay, maybe
even a good thing but usually whiffing on a
Supporter for the turn is a sign of a weak hand as they
truly do that much for you in this game. Few decks
can afford to run few Supporters, but too many and
they’ll get in each other’s way, even though they are a
vital source of draw power, search, disruption, and even
some more specialized effects. Supporter cards
were developed so that Pokémon could preserve the
powerful Trainer based effects it had when the game
first began, but finally have a solid balancing
mechanism without saddling them all with various costs.
VS Seeker is the main piece of “Supporter
support”, allowing players to be a bit more flexible
with their Supporter selection as it reclaims one from
the discard pile. Thus a piece of TecH may be
spammed or an essential staple used much more than four
times. In Expanded it is even better as you can
use Jirachi-EX to search out a Supporter, or
Battle Compressor to toss them into the discard
pile… where you can avoid drawing into overly
specialized ones (like TecH not needed for the current
match) while a VS Seeker nabs one that you do
need, faking the search of Jirachi-EX.
So… what does Brock’s Grit actually do? You
may shuffle any combination of six Pokémon and/or basic
Energy cards from your discard pile to your deck.
If you have less than six cards, the usual “Do as much
as you can.” rule applies. This is a fairly
generic effect, aesthetically appropriate for Brock
more for for his role in the animation. There he
often served as a caregiver, for his companions, for
Pokémon in general (as he focused on being a skilled
breeder), and when at home for his siblings. Not
sure how much of that worked its way back into the video
games, but as the first Gym where you can earn a badge,
this might be appropriate for another reason as we make
the shift to the TCG. When learning this game, you
need the freedom to experiment and that means not
worrying about running out of Energy and/or Pokémon.
Not that that this is only an effect for beginners;
Brock’s Grit is a pretty nice option for decks in
general. In fact the only knock against it,
besides the usual competition for deck space found among
Supporters, is that it faces a lot of
competition. Super Rod has the same effect, but
for half as many cards (three), and is an Item so you
don’t have to use up your Supporter for the turn on it.
Sacred Ash returns up to five Pokémon from your
discard pile to your deck and it too is an Item, while
Energy Recycler is the same except for basic
Energy cards. Karen is a Supporter like
Brock’s Grit, but she shuffles all Pokémon from
both players’ discard piles back into their
respective decks. Other Trainer cards can add
Pokémon or Energy directly back into your hand from the
discard pile, and some Pokémon Abilities and attacks can
also recycle your cards.
What may help Brock’s Grit stand out above these
is that Super Rod has long been the best
“generic” option and we’ve seen a pattern of effects you
find on both Item and Supporter proving worthwhile on
either, so long as the Supporter steps things up enough.
This is due to the potent nature of Item lock as well as
the potent nature of VS Seeker (especially with
Battle Compressor) and how in both Standard and
Expanded play we have enough non-Supporter draw search
that unlike during most of the BW-era and the early
XY-era, your deck can be built so that it doesn’t slow
to a crawl when your Supporter is doing something other
than drawing cards. Your typical deck has three or
four copies of VS Seeker, and while you usually
won’t need that much recycling, it is quite nice to have
the option of reclaiming up to 24 Pokémon and/or basic
Energy cards (and without helping your opponent).
So when should you use something else? When you
cannot spare your Supporter for the turn, when you don’t
manage a sufficient return, or when you find yourself
being forced to pick between keeping something in your
discard pile you want there or recycling what you really
want back in your deck. I’ll also add or when you
really, really need Karen to help with your Night
March matchup; I’m not ready to give up on her yet, but
I did separate this out from the rest because it’s often
both deck and metagame specific.
So… where did this come from? Brock (Gym
Heroes 15/132, 98/132) has a totally unrelated
effect, but Gym Heroes 15/132 and Brock’s Grit
(XY: Evolutions 52/108) have very similar art;
the backgrounds are different as are a few details on
the image of Brock, but it’s the same underlying image
with alterations. The effect is similar to several
other cards. I mentioned how it is like a double
Super Rod, but until being re-released in the
BW-era, Super Rod had a different effect; however
its effect was seen as far back as Nightly Garbage
Run (Team Rocket 77/82). Several other
cards released that had similar effects, and Town
Volunteers (Aquapolis 136/147) became the
first Supporter to try it. Unlike Brock’s Grit
it only shuffled five cards, but it was still limited to
Pokémon or basic Energy cards. Actually both it
and Nightly Garbage Run are worded a bit oddly:
all cards which counted as “Pokémon” while in your
discard pile at the time of each card’s release were
affected, but the designers felt the need to list
different Stages of Evolution so later on when we got
cards things like Level-Up cards or modern BREAK
Evolutions, those would be excluded. Palmer’s
Contribution (PL: Supreme Victors 139/147)
used more modern, future friendly wording to do what
Town Volunteers did. Flower Shop Lady (HS:
Undaunted 74/90) was the last card that shuffled
both Pokémon and basic Energy to your deck from your
discard pile, and she even affected six cards.
However she also specified exactly three Pokémon and
Basic Energy cards, making her less flexible than
Brock’s Grit.
Ratings
Standard:
3.35/5
Expanded:
3.5/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
Brock’s Gut should see successful competitive
play in Standard and Expanded play, following the simple
guidelines I just laid out in earlier in the article.
If you pull it while participating in a Limited Format
event, only leave it out if for some reason your deck
can’t make good use of it; realistically that’s probably
only in a +39 deck where your entire deck includes only
a single Basic Pokémon and usually has more Energy than
you’ll need so there is no demand for recycling either
Pokémon or basic Energy. Most decks should be able
to use in Constructed play, with some using it very,
very well, which would justify a higher score… except
it’s entering a crowded field at this point.
Brock’s Grit
managed nine voting points for our collective Top 10
list, and it all came from me as I had him as my second
place pick. This might be too high, but I believe
it only to be by a little; as should be clear by now,
this set doesn’t have all that many impressive cards.
Second place might be reaching a little, probably
influenced by my fondness for Brock as a character in
the animation and the comics, as well as his original
English voice actor Eric Stuart. Not that Bill
Rogers did a bad job after him, I am just less familiar
with his work. 6th place seems too low, however, and if
it wasn’t for the presence of similar cards already
available, Brock’s Grit would be my number
one pick for this set. He’s got solid general
usage, plus added potential in some more specific
builds. Brock’s Grit missed out on at least
tying for 5th place by just a single point, and only
beat out our seventh place finisher by the same amount.
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Happy Friday! Today we finish off
the week with Brock’s Grit, a Supporter from the new
Evolutions set. Is anyone else loving the full arts for
these Kanto Gym Leaders? First we had Giovanni, and now
Brock and Misty – here’s to hoping the remaining five
will get cards as well. I think Brock’s Grit has a lot
of potential and will certainly become a staple in a
number of competitive decks.
You can think of Brock’s Grit as a
more powerful Super Rod. Instead of shuffling any
combination of 3 Pokémon and Basic Energy, you can now
shuffle 6. The different here is huge, allowing decks
like Rainbow Road and Greninja BREAK to quickly recover
resources. While Super Rod doesn’t use your Supporter
for turn, it is significantly weaker and might get
discarded before you can actually use it, making your
discards more adversely impactful throughout the game.
Brock’s Grit may be a Supporter, but the Ability to use
it multiple times via VS Seeker easily warrants its use
alone. Any deck that relies on a large number of Pokémon
– sans Vespiquen – or runs 9-10+ Energy with Max Elixir
should run Brock’s Grit over Super Rod, in my opinion.
Expanded it a bit of a trickier
situation. This format is a bit more aggressive thanks
to Night March and the possibility of a turn one Item
lock thanks to Trevenant BREAK. Yveltal decks are also
scary because they now have both Dark Patch and Max
Elixir to power up attackers, so having to waste a
Supporter to recover Energy is pretty bad. The more
ideal combination here would be 1 Super Rod and 1 Karen.
Super Rod can recover a few cards quickly, while Karen
can recover all Pokémon while disrupting your opponent
by putting them back in their deck as well to give them
a dead late game. There’s a reason why the Top 8 at
Philadelphia Regionals didn’t feature Night March, and
that’s largely due to Karen being a staple in Expanded.
Ratings
Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 1/5
Limited: 2/5
Summary: Brock’s Grit may
not be a game-changer, but it does provide players with
another option to recover resources, albeit in the form
of a Supporter card. While Super Rod may be preferred in
certain decks that focus on speed, I think the card has
a lot of potential in a number of decks that focus on
Evolutions and high Energy counts to accelerate
attackers, at least in the Standard format.
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