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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Wishful Baton
- S&M: Burning Shadows
- #BUS 128

Date Reviewed:
Sept. 12, 2017

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.63
Expanded: 2.40
Limited: 4.20

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Ehh, it's a better Exp. Share, but you need it attached to the Pokemon getting KO'd, and it assumes you've got 3 Energy on it to disperse to another. At the very least, it can help power up something new in a hurry, but I don't think overall it'll see much play in decks. 

Rating 

Standard: 2/5 (just beat out by better tools in better space) 
Expanded: 1.5/5 (still, useful effect I guess) 
Limited: 4/5 (though with Garbodor I doubt this will even get the chance for
play) 

Arora Notealus: I wonder what you can wish for with such a baton... 

Next Time: PUMP UP THOSE MUSCLES


21times

Wishful Baton (Burning Shadows, 128/147) enters the meta through the Burning Shadows expansion set.  This Tool card allows you to move up to three Basic energy to any benched Pokemon when the active Pokemon it is attached to is KO’d.

What a card this would have been back last December and January when Darkrai EX (Breakpoint, 74/122) and Xerneas Break (Steam Siege, 82/114) were running around all over PTCGO.  I’ve actually had some success with it in Darkrai GX (Burning Shadows, 88/147), Ho-Oh EX (Breakpoint, 121/122), and Lycanroc GX (SM14; Guardians Rising, 74/145).  It’s a good card that will help you continue attacking and putting pressure on your opponent.  I like it a lot in decks that only run Basic energy, and I have been pretty surprised at how infrequently it gets knocked off by Field Blower (Guardians Rising, 125/145).

I wrote back on June 1st when we reviewed Field Blower that I had initially thought Field Blower would be a four of in any decklist.  Even just a few days before we turned in our Guardians Rising lists, I actually had it as my number 1 card.  I since tapered back my view on it, but the pendulum is now swinging back that way again.  Right now, I believe that if you are running a deck that is ability dependent, you need to run four Field Blowers.  Decks that are running Garbotoxin Garbodor (Breakpoint, 57/122) carry four Float Stones (Breakthough, 137/162) and frequently two copies of Garbodor BKP.  I’ve noticed recently that virtually all of my opponents only ran one or two Field Blowers (some none!).  I rarely had my tools get knocked off, they almost always were able to stick.  I also found that if I put one tool out early, even if I had a second in hand, my opponent would use Field Blower straight away to discard that single tool, even if it wasn’t immediately impacting the game.  Guys, just because you have a card in your hand doesn’t mean you have to play it!  It’s not like this only happened once, it occurred several times, and I’m sure it was a big part of why I was able to liberally use my tools without fear of having them discarded.  Long story short, right now I would have no problem including as many tools as you want in your decklist because people just aren’t running a lot of Field Blowers.  Two just isn’t enough.  It’s harder to find them with only two, and you can really get stuck if one is prized or you have to discard one with Professor Sycamore (Steam Siege, 114/114) or Ultra Ball (Sun & Moon, 135/149).  There were so many games where I’m 100% certain that my opponent was kicking himself for only playing one or two Field Blowers.

Rating

Standard: 3 out of 5

Conclusion

If you’re running a deck with a lot of Basic energy (Volcanion (Steam Siege, 25/114), Darkrai EX / GX, maybe even Gardevoir GX (Burning Shadows, 93/147), Wishful Baton can potentially be a tremendous asset for you.  I would highly recommend trying it out, especially considering that people are running a limited number of Tool removal cards.


Vince

Today, we’re looking at Wishful Baton, an item Pokemon Tool that only works when you’re the Pokemon with the tool attached to it is in the active spot.  If this Pokemon is knocked out by damage from an opponent’s attack, move up to three basic energy attached to that Pokemon to one of your benched Pokemon.

 

In terms of raw power, Wishful Baton is three time as powerful as Exp. Share.  However, it lacks flexibility than, say, three EXP Shares on three different Pokemon.  Regardless, this is one serious energy conservation!  Benched Pokemon would actually get powered up even faster, to the point where you can meet those energy costs up to three energy attacks!  Decks that would love to conserve energy include energy transfer users such as Klinklang’s Shift Gear (Black & White), Hydreigon’s Dark Trance (BW Dragons Exalted), Aromatisse’s Fairy Transfer (XY), Golduck BREAK’s Hyper Transfer (XY Breakpoint), and Lunala-GX’s Psychic Transfer (Sun & Moon) to maintain energies.

 

Of course, being a tool card would make it vulnerable to Yveltal’s Fright Night ability, Garbodor’s fueling damage output of Trashalanche, and Field Blower.  It may not happen all the time, but it’s enough to assume that tools won’t stick around for more than one turn.  It’s even worse for Wishful Baton, since that relies on your opponent’s turn to trigger the effect, in which at that time they would already have an answer to remove the tool before taking the KO.

 

Ratings:

 

Standard: 2.5/5 

Expanded: 2.5/5 

Limited: 4/5

 

Notes: I do wonder how a wishful baton that is used as an instrumental piece of equipment translates to moving these basic energies around.  They must have their purpose and reason!


Retro

            Have you ever heard of the move Baton Pass? That single move which helps boost the viability of a certain Pokemon just because they can pass the stat bonuses to the team’s main attacker without them worrying about having to perform risky stat boosting moves like Swords Dance and Quiver Dance. Heck even many teams are based around just Baton Passing stat changes to a teammate! One of the best examples of this Baton Pass pivots is Scolipede; since it has the Speed Boost ability, you can just stall out your opponent and pass your gained speed boosts to a slow but powerful teammate. And what does this has to do with today’s card? That’s because that similar idea has converted itself to a Pokemon Tool card, in this case; Wishful Baton.

            Wishful Baton allows you to conserve energy, in its simplest sense. Just like Baton Pass, where you can pass stat changes to a teammate, Wishful Baton essentially pass up to 3 basic energies to 1 of your Benched Pokemon when said Pokemon is your Active Pokemon and is knocked out by an attack. Reminds you of another Tool card? Well, its similar to Exp. Share, a card which has seen numerous reprints and is now a staple in energy scaling based offensive decks. There are several reasons why this card at points is better than Exp. Share. One, you can move up to 3 energies from your defeated Active Pokemon immediately, so the energy conservation power is better. Two, by moving 3 energies from one Pokemon to another, you essentially swapped Pokemon; if this Tool is attached to something like a Lapras-GX (SM Base Set) or a Darkrai-EX (XY BREAKpoint) which really loves its energies, you can essentially keep the majority of the energies on the field instead of in the discard pile, meaning that the pressure is still on the opponent by keeping the energy for the next Pokemon from the bench to attack.

            However, although there are multiple reasons why this Tool might be better than Exp. Share, the latter card also has its upsides. Firstly, Exp. Share is safer because you can attach it to the Pokemon in your bench, which compensates the fact that its slower in its energy conservation technique. Secondly, you can stack multiple Exp. Shares in multiple Pokemon so more than one Pokemon can get the energy from a defeated teammate, unlike Wishful Baton’s move-all-to-one clause. But these 2 are bad for the similar reason why passive Tools such as Hard Charm (XY Base Set) and Bursting Balloon (XY BREAKpoint) isn’t played too much anymore. Your opponent is the one controlling how they will react to the Tools; they can play Field Blower (SM Guardians Rising) to remove them, they can just not attack the said Pokemon, or they can just pass their turn without attacking, hoping to see how the game goes. Whilas active Tools such as Choice Band (SM Guardians Rising) are played everywhere because you can make use of them as soon as you play them.

            Neverthless, I believe that Wishful Baton is an amazing Pokemon Tool card that might has its usefulness in some scenarios and decks that mained Pokemon with heavy attack costs; and is able to give Exp. Share a run for its money.

Rating:

Standard: 3/5 (It does has its usefulness, but it is easily counterplayed by denial cards. Play this if you are brave enough)

Expanded: 3.2/5 (Very useful for many Pokemon that is rather Tool independent, of which there are many in Expanded; so Wishful Baton is more useful here.)

Limited: 4.6/5 (This is the best conservation card in the format; many Pokemon will be blessed with the appearance of Wishful Baton with no real denial methods here.)

Next in SM Burning Shadows:
You really want to be buff?


Otaku

Another late review from me, and it was to my benefit; having a chance to read the others reviews helped me polish my own points, even come up with a few that they didn’t mention but which I would have missed if things they said hadn’t gotten me to thinking.  Since I’m late, there isn’t much point to forcing myself to be concise, so hopefully, you appreciate a little more content, even if it is theoretical.  If you skipped Monday’s review, we are long done with counting down the site’s Top 10 list for SM: Burning Shadows, and we’ve even reviewed all the cards that made at least one personal Top 10, but didn’t have the voting points to make the actual list.  Including those gave us an effective Top 18, and now we are looking at cards that made 21times’ Top 24 or my own Top 25 lists… mostly because it was an easy way for me to get some interesting picks with minimal effort for the next few weeks.  I did take a bit of time to plug them in as if they were their own separate top 10 but instead of counting down, we’re counting up… so if these had officially been part of things, today’s subject would have been our 20th place pick. 

Wishful Baton (SM: Burning Shadows 128/147) is a Trainer-Item, specifically a Pokémon Tool.  When the Pokémon to which this Tool is attached is KO’d while Active, you may select up to three attached basic Energy cards and move them to one of your Benched Pokémon.  There is a lot to unpack here, and yes I’m going to start with the most fundamental first.  Trainer cards are essential for a modern, competitive deck, and maybe barring a lucky gimmick deck that made good, this has always been the case.  In the early days of the game, players quickly gravitated towards decks that were 50% to 75% Trainer, and those are not exaggerations; I do mean decks running 30 to 45 Trainer cards.  You know, like now.  Multiple factors caused a dramatic drop in Trainer usage, but it keeps rising back to its present level.  There aren’t many currently useful bits of general Trainer support in the Expanded Format, with even less in Standard.  Thankfully, none of the general anti-Trainer effects in these formats have ever proven competitive; go back further, though, and they could be downright tyrannical.  Item specific support is similar, but anti-Item effects have proven competitive even in the present, let alone the near past.  As a Pokémon Tool, we have another level of support and counters to consider; regrettably, it is a similar story as there are a few pieces of Tool-specific support but more pieces of Tool counters that have helped define the competitive metagame. 

With all that going against them, you may wonder why would you use Pokémon Tools at all?  That is a good question; the short answer is that some are simply that potent, the slightly longer answer is that, not unlike Ace Specs, Stadium Cards, and Supporters, their existence creates a pseudo-resource.  Essentially, each Pokémon has a “Tool Slot”, with a few possessing more than one.  When we combine the short and the longer answers together, that’s the reality; some Pokémon just aren’t complete without the Tool of best fit.  This can range from simple damage buffs to Evolution aids to complex combo pieces.  Wishful Baton aims to be the latter.  Most of the complexity owes to the multiple conditions you must fulfill for the effect.  Let’s list them out (even the obvious): 

  • Wishful Baton must be attached to a Pokémon
  • That Pokémon must be your Active
  • That Pokémon must be KO’d
  • The KO must be via an opponent’s attack
  • The attack must score the KO via damage
  • You need at least one basic Energy attached to move
  • You need at least one Benched Pokémon to receive the Energy

Field Blower is a loose staple in Standard, and the Expanded Format features multiple proven and unproven cards that can discard a Tool or Tools from your Pokémon.  Protecting against all of them is impossible; there are Abilities, attacks, Items, and Supporters that all could discard Wishful Baton.  Similarly, the same assortment can also force you to change out your Active or discard attached Energy.  Less Supporters, the same assortment can even KO a Pokémon without damage.  If we narrow it down further to just attacks and Abilities, then we get to cards that can simply negate the effects of Items (including Tools) or prevent them from being played. 

However, when Wishful Baton works it is amazing!  This is Energy acceleration via Energy retention, and even though it is restricted to basic Energy it can provide quite a boost when optimized. When it is two Energy, it is still good, but when it is only one, you may have been better off with Exp. Share.  Speaking of which, prior to Field Blower we saw Exp. Share putting Darkrai-EX (XY: BREAKpoint 74/122, 118/122) based decks on top, at least for a bit.  Comparing and contrasting with Exp. Share brings up two other facets of Wishful Baton; while it may move up to three basic Energy cards, it is a one-time deal.  It also means your Active Pokémon is giving up a Tool slot (probably its only one) for the effect, instead of being able to use the more obvious options (Choice Band, Float Stone, etc.).  Darkrai-EX may or may not have been better off if it had been able to run Wishful Baton back in the day, and at present, it probably won’t be showing up in the more recent iterations of the deck.  So what decks should consider it?  I don’t have any specific ideas, in that the decks where it might work seem to already have better options.  In general, consider decks that lock down Items, as that blocks your opponent’s most likely means of discarding Tools or Energy, or decks that can protect their attached cards.  Of course, you also need these decks to use decent amounts of basic Energy, need two or more Energy to attack, and not have a better Tool option, which is what eliminates most decks from consideration. 

The closest I can come are longshots at best, but here we go.  The first is not-quite-general usage, due to how many decks use attackers with low Energy requirements or run on mostly (even all) Special Energy; collectively, they might make a majority.  Still, Wishful Baton might have a future as a “pressure card” or “bait”.  Most decks only have so much they can do to deal with an opponent’s Stadiums and/or Tools, with a lot of that centered on Field Blower.  Yet, most decks only have room for one or two copies of Field Blower, thus you can force them into a painful choice; have two Tools and another Tool or a Stadium in play, and Field Blower can’t take them all out at once.  All the targets to be of comparable merit and compatible infrastructure (at least on your end of things); if the choice really is obvious, you’re not going to come out ahead.  It might work better to have Wishful Baton out early, so your opponent specifically tries for a Field Blower, then reveal the more important cards later.  The problem is that there are multiple ways a deck might be able to deal with this trick (or Wishful Baton in general).  Some Ability reliant decks pack four Field Blower to counter Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122).  Your opponent might have their own Stadium plus Field Blower ready.  Your opponent might be able to KO the Pokémon with Wishful Baton attached without it being Active and/or without using an attack that does damage… and of course, you had to get Wishful Baton on something with two or three Energy attached ready, up front, and have it not be better off with say Choice Band attached so that a 2HKO became a OHKO.

Here are some of the decks or deck concepts I could come up with that might be able to make use of Wishful Baton; the big issue with most of these is they’ve got something better and/or they aren’t that great anymore themselves.  The aforementioned Darkrai-EX decks, M Gardevoir-EX (XY: Primal Clash 106/160, 130/106; Generations RC31/RC32), and Xerneas BREAK decks love keeping Energy on the field, but you might prefer Choice Band or Muscle Band for extra damage, Fighting Fury Belt for extra HP and damage, Gardevoir Spirit Link (only for M Gardevoir-EX), or Exp. Share if you want the Energy spread out or being (relatively) safely collected by Regirock (XY: Black Star Promos XY49).  Entei (XY: Ancient Origins 15/98) was once a big deal because - at the time - its attacks could be quickly powered up and its “θ Double” Ancient Trait could allow you to focus on soaking damage (with Assault Vest), doing more damage (Muscle Band), or both (Fighting Fury Belt).  Wishful Baton might be another viable inclusion, especially as Volcanion-EX can now handle bumping up damage output. 

Primal Groudon-EX and Regirock both have a key Ancient Trait as well, this time “Ω Barrier”; it protects them and - due to how the Pokémon TCG handles things - cards attached to them from the effects of your opponent’s Trainer cards other than Stadiums and Tools.  I already mentioned Regirock in “mass Energy” decks, since it can sit on the Bench safe from Crushing Hammer, Guzma, etc. with a bunch of Energy attached, including having an Exp. Share safe from most Tool removal attached to gather more basic Energy as your attackers fall.  Players learned that this also opens up some amazing combos, in part because these are Fighting-Types.  Slap a Focus Sash on these and it is pretty hard for your opponent to score a true OHKO, and thanks to the damage buffs of the Fighting-Type, you should be scoring OHKO’s or at least 2HKO’s yourself.  Throw in stuff like Scramble Switch, Puzzle of Time, Max Potion, Eco Arm, etc. and something expendable and disruptive like Wobbuffet (XY: Phantom Forces 36/119; Generations RC11/RC32) to buy you time to actually build up your first attacker, and you had what were at least once strong decks; I’m not sure how they are performing now, though.  I also already mentioned they favor a different Tool and hinted that they like to use Strong Energy, a Special Energy that Wishful Baton can’t touch.  Primal Groudon-EX even needs four Energy, not just three. 

Trevenant BREAK is another candidate.  Your opponent will be Evolving it from Trevenant (XY 55/146) so that you have a pseudo-Stage 2 with 160 HP and the “Forest’s Curse” Ability that keeps your opponent from playing Item cards from hand while something with Forest’s Curse is Active.  Trevenant BREAK needs [PC] to use its own attack while Trevenant lends it an attack that costs [PCC].  Both attacks spread some damage or damage counters, so something like Choice Band or Muscle Band aren’t obvious picks.  Bursting Balloon or Float Stone were more common when I last paid attention, but I’m not sure what their Tool of choice is right now.  Perhaps the real issue is the decks tend to favor Double Colorless Energy and Mystery Energy, which are not compatible with Baton Pass.  They also like Dimension Valley that the attacks cost just [P] and [PC], respectively.  What gives me a flicker of hope is that the decks also like to run Silent Hill and if they move away from the Psychic-Type support and/or Special Energy, it could open up the deck to some new Pokémon combos.  Pure conjecture on my part, though. 

I haven’t gotten a review up for it yet (oops), but Noivern-GX caught my eye this set.  In Expanded, it has got Double Dragon Energy, but its stuck using Rainbow Energy or the desired Basic Energy cards in Standard.  Setting up a Stage 1 with two or three Energy isn’t too bad, but doing it twice in rapid succession hurts… and Noivern-GX is about doing decent-ish damage while locking down an opponent’s Special Energy or Items.  You’ll have to sacrifice the damage bonus from Choice Band, but Wishful Baton could allow three Basic Energy to go from fueling your first Noivern-GX to your second.  If you’re using its first attack to block Items, then Wishful Baton is safe from Field Blower (barring an opponent’s use of Pokémon Ranger or the like).  If your opponent’s damage output is low enough, you might even be sneaky and use your own Field Blower to chuck a Choice Band right before your opponent KO’s Noivern-GX and slap a Wishful Baton on it instead at the last minute. 

Where Wishful Baton I do not have to guess about Wishful Baton is in both the Limited Format and the Theme Format.  SM: Burning Shadows has no Special Energy in it, and both the “Luminous Frost” and “Rock Steady” Theme decks don’t have any either, so just focusing on basic Energy won’t matter.  You usually (or absolutely) won’t have another Tool option, either, nor is your opponent likely to have a means of discarding Tools or basic Energy cards from your Pokémon.  So attach and enjoy massive Energy swings… unless you’re running a +39 deck in the Limited Format (no other Pokémon in play makes this useless), or you’re just having bad luck.  There is also a chance your opponent can still play around the effect of Wishful Baton, such as with effects that Poison. 

Ratings 

Standard: 1.75/5 

Expanded: 2/5 

Limited: 4.5/5 

Theme: 4.5/5 

Conclusion 

Wishful Baton has a potent effect but in the right deck and under the right circumstances.  Even without discarding it, your opponent has decent odds of being able to play around it or having a strong enough deck to power through it.  Rely on it too much, and when you miss the combo your deck falls apart, but don’t rely on it enough and what was the point?  It faces a lot of competition as the Tool for your Active Pokémon, some of which can be accessed immediately so it won’t matter (or matter as much) if your opponent discards or plays around it.  It isn’t entirely wishful thinking, but I couldn’t find a use for this card where it was straight-up the best play. 

If you were wondering, Wishful Baton did not make my own Top 25, but it made 21time’s Top 24 as his 11th place pick, tying yesterday’s Plumeria.  Six dice rolls later because they tied twice more with the first two attempts, and Wishful Baton had to settle for being the sort-of-but-not-really 20th place finisher.  Finally… yeah, I’m just going back to mentioning these things as part of the “Conclusion”, even if it necessitates its a second paragraph.  The additional section or altered final heading seemed a little more clunky.


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