Electromagnetic Radar – Unbroken Bonds Pokemon Review

Vince

Electromagnetic Radar is a pretty nifty item card that makes you have to discard two cards from your hand. Surprisingly, there’s a lack of the clause such that if you can’t discard two cards from you can, then you discard as many as you have possible. So even discarding a card still works, though you still cannot choose to not discard any. Anyhow, once you do that, you get to search your deck for two in any combination of Lightning type EX and/or GX Pokémon, regardless. That means, if applicable in certain formats, you can search for Basic, Stage 1, Stage 2, and/or Mega Evolutions.

The effect strongly suggests that Electromagnetic Radar can only be useful in decks that use EX/GX Lightning Pokémon, cause otherwise it’d be useless anywhere else. Good thing there’s some good EX/GX Lighting Pokemon wandering around, waiting to be searched. Whether you need Dedenne-GX for draw power, Zeraora-GX for smooth maneuvers, or Pikachu & Zekrom-GX for aggressive beatdown, Electromagnetic Radar will get you to fetch them! Older cards that could enjoy being searched with includes Thundurus-EX for Plasma style decks and even Manectric (both the Basic EX and the Mega).

Since those available options are already there to begin with, Electromagnetic Radar will never be useless, and eventually, you would have to start using them since Ultra Ball is about to leave Standard. Quantity of a specific kind can sometimes be better over flexibility.

Ratings:

• Standard: 3.5/5
• Expanded: 3.5/5
• Limited: 3.5/5

Missed insight: About Celesteela-GX from yesterday, it’s an alright card, being a decent wall and able to manipulate your prize cards, but the matter is that it is a one time deal and that the ability can be played around.

Otaku

Electromagnetic Radar (SM – Unbroken Bonds 169/214, 230/214) is a Trainer-Item requiring you discard two other cards from your hand in order to play it. If you do, you then search your deck for up to two [L] Type Pokémon-EX/GX and add them to your hand, showing them to your opponent first and then shuffling your deck. Essentially, this is like a variant Ultra Ball; the same upfront costs to get two Pokémon instead of one, but with some hefty restrictions on what you can search. While there are many Pokémon-EX/GX which are [L] Types, this card seems most suited for Pikachu & Zekrom-GX decks, where you’ll have several targets. However, Ultra Ball is currently still slated to rotate out of the Standard Format come August 15th, so in the 2020 Standard Format, this might be your only option for searching out such Pokémon. Which could matter because of one specific Pokémon-GX: Dedenne-GX. Dedenne-GX isn’t everywhere right now, but it’s seeing a decent amount of play. Post-rotation, it may see a surge in play, a drop off, or remain about the same… but Electromagnetic Radar could become very important as an Item-based out to it.

After all, while it becomes overkill in terms of search if you only want to run a single Dedenne-GX but need to approximately double your odds of pulling it, you can still run just one but then also run an Electromagnetic Radar. For decks that need to discard cards from hand, Electromagnetic Radar (with or without Dedenne-GX) may be important for that trick as well. This didn’t actually make our countdown for SM – Unbroken Bonds, but I’m starting to wish I’d snuck it in as a twofer or two-in-one with Dedenne-GX. Guess I’ll just enjoy the short review today, instead.

Ratings

• Standard: 3.2/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 3.5/5