Blaine – Genetic Apex
Date Reviewed: February 27, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Let’s heat things up with Blaine (A1 221, 268)! He’s a Trainer-Supporter that grants +30 to the damage your attacks do to the opponent’s Active, during the turn you play him, but only for Pokémon named “Magmar”, “Ninetales”, and “Rapidash”. Blaine is available at the ♦♦ and ★★ rarities.
We’ll see if it changes this Friday1, but at the time of writing, there’s neither any Trainer support or counters in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket. There’s also no Supporter support. There are three cards that can prevent the opponent using Supporters: Psyduck (A1), Gengar (A1), and Gengar ex (A1). You may only use one Supporter during your turn, before you attack. This is supposed to justify their stronger effects; we’ll see if it worked that way for Blaine.
How good is a +30 damage bonus? For a Trainer-Supporter, only considering how the Pokémon TCG Pocket works, it’s very good. Take Giovanni (A1 223, 270); it’s an often played Supporter, and it only grants +10 damage. Giovanni, however, works for anything; Blaine only works for cards named “Magmar”, “Ninetales”, and “Rapidash”. You don’t have to specify one of those when you play the card; you don’t even need one in play; the effect seems to rest on the field, not a specific Pokémon.
Attacks can only receive a damage buff if the attack can do damage in the first place. Something reduced to zero by fixed damage penalty can still receive a damage buff, which might let it “hit through” the damage reduction. Attacks that are doing zero damage because they were never meant to do damage, or do zero damage because of their own mechanic2. If you fail a Confusion Check, or another card effect says your attack does no damage, etc. then damage buffs won’t change that.
Even when the buff is applied, the benefit may be completely superficial. Your hand size dropped by one, and maybe you paid a cost for it, and you did do more damage… but nothing else changed. It took you the same number of turns to score the KO it would have without the buff. Nor did you trigger (or avoid triggering) any effects because of the damage difference. Your opponent didn’t do anything different because of it either, like change tactics, or expend a healing effect.
Before we finally discuss our options for Magmar, Ninetales, and Rapidash, remember Blaine only boosts cards with those exact names. If, in the future, we get a card named “Ninetales ex”, you will not be able to increase the damage of its attacks with Blaine.3 Pokémon that evolve from or into the named Pokémon also are unaffected by Blaine.3
We have three versions of Magmar available. They are all Basic, Fire Type Pokémon with 80 HP, (W) Weakness, (C)(C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. Magmar (A1 044) can use “Magma Punch” for (R)(R), to do 50 damage to the opponent’s Active. Magmar (A1a 012) also needs (R)(R) to use it’s “Fire Blast” attack to do 80 damage to the opposing Active, but discards (R)(R) from itself. Magmar (A2 023) can use “Stoke” for (R) to attach a (R) Energy from the Energy Zone to itself.
Ninetales (A1 038) is a Stage 1 (R) Pokémon that evolves from Vulpix. It has 90 HP, (W) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. “Flamethrower” costs (R)(R) to use, and let’s Ninetales do 90 damage to the opponent’s Active, but also discards a (R) from itself.
We have two versions of Rapidash available. Both are (R) Type Stage 1 Pokémon with 100 HP, (W) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and one attack. For (R), Rapidash (A1 043, 231) can use “Fire Mane” to do 40 damage to the opposing Active. Rapidash (A1a 011) knows “Rising Lunge”; for (R)(C), this attack does 40 damage the opponent’s Active and has you flip a coin. If “tails”, the attack just does the base 40; if “heads”, Rising Lunge does an extra 60 damage (100 total).
Before to Mythical Island, Blaine Decks were at least somewhat competitive. You’d run Ninetales (A1 038) and Rapidash (A1 043, 231), as well as their lower Stages. Often with one other Basic, like Magmar (A1 044) or Farfetch’d (A1 198); I preferred the latter. Farfetch’d is small and cannot make use of Blaine, but it’s got a different Weakness and only needs one Energy to do 40 damage. Throw in some Giovanni, the other typical Trainers of the time, and try to quickly smash your opponent before they can do the same to you. Ideally, you’d lead with a single Energy attacker, while building a Ninetales or two.
After Mythical Island, the main change was using Rapidash (A1a 011) either alongside, or instead of Rapidash (A1 043, 231), and Ponyta (A1a 010) instead of or alongside Ponyta (A1 042). The mixed batches may have been due to experimentation or personal card shortages. Magmar (A1a 012) joins the rotation; the good news is it can hit almost as hard as Ninetales, but the bad news is its double Energy discard cost and 10 fewer HP. Ninetales, at least at this point, still had a solid chance of surviving a turn to attack again. Which meant you could attach a replacement (R) Energy and attack a second time.
With Blaine, everyone except Magmar (A2 023) is better. I’m personally not thrilled using either Magmar, since the ones that do damage both require two Energy; I’m saving deck space by (potentially) running one fewer cards than a Stage 1, but Magmar still has to do nothing for a turn (two if you went second!). A steady 50 doesn’t really mean much, especially if your opponent can still build up their own attackers. Even if you can Blaine both turns, it might not be enough.
Magmar (A1a 012) at least can hit 110 damage with a Blaine. If you’re lucky, it’ll be against something like Celebi ex (A1a 003, 075, 085) and – assuming no additional card effects – score a OHKO. Rapidash (A1 043, 231) only does 40 damage, but there are still times I wish I ran it instead of the newer one; not because 40 is so good, but because it only needs (R) in order to do so. All the good attackers (and even the not-as-good) that can utilize Blaine need two Energy. If you start with something that discards its Energy, you can’t build up a backup attacker.
Rapidash (A1a 011) needs two Energy and is flippy, but it’s attack doesn’t discard an Energy, while still hitting for a decent amount. 40 for two is mediocre, but 100 for two is good. Blaine makes it a 70/130 split, bringing smaller or injured Basic Pokémon ex into OHKO range. Even though either Rapidash has 100 HP, it isn’t going to survive long unless you’re already dominating the match-up by constantly OHKOing opposing attackers.
I tend to favor Ninetales myself. Vulpix (A1 037) cannot attack for damage, but if you can flip “heads”, its “Tail Whip” attack will prevent the Defending Pokémon attacking next turn. Unless it evolves, or gets sent to the Bench; if either of those things happen, the effect goes away. Vulpix also has just 50 HP, so fellow aggressive decks may be able to donk it. Even with all of this, even though it needs to constantly be feed another (R) Energy, Ninetales is the best attacker in the deck. It only does 90 damage (120 with Blaine), but no coin toss is required. If you can load it up and it doesn’t get OHKO’d back, it can take out just about anything in two hits.
You might be able to still win with a Blaine deck, but that’s because it is still a solid – and aggressive deck – and luck favored you. Not that I can be certain; at the time I’m writing this, the results page shows the most used Blaine variant (Ninetales/Rapidash) has all of 63 uses since Space-Time Smackdown released. Current top deck Exeggutor (A1 023, 252)/Celebi ex has almost 5,000! Even with a (R) Weak deck on top, Blaine decks appear to be obsolete. There are many new tricks that would help it… but did I mention the deck doesn’t really have room for anything else?
Rating: 3.25/5
Yes, 3.25 is pretty high for a Supporter not seeing any recent competitive success. +30 damage, even restricted to cards named “Magmar”, “Ninetales”, and “Rapidash” is not bad. It’s actually pretty good. I wish it applied to their lower Stages and Evolutions as well, but if it did, those Basics would need to be unable to attack Turn 1 or 2 for damage. We don’t need another Misty on our hands… For now, Blaine’s a good card waiting for there to be enough worthwhile attackers who can use it.
Here I thought this was going to be a short review…
1Assuming the release date for the next, smaller set is accurate.
2For example, an attack that says to flip three coins, then do 20 damage times the number of “heads”. If you flip even one “heads”, Giovanni could increase the end damage by 10. If you flip zero heads, then Giovanni’s +10 wouldn’t be applied.
3Barring any card effects other than Blaine’s that would say otherwise.
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