Cherish Ball #2 – Top 11 Pokemon Cards in Unified Minds

Otaku

Cherish Ball (SM – Unified Minds 191/236, 250/236) secured second place in our countdown.  This Trainer-Item lets you search your deck for a Pokémon-GX, then add it to your hand, shuffling your deck afterward.  This is short, simple, and oh-so-sweet.  Even if we still had cards like Ultra Ball and Nest Ball, there’s be at least a niche for Cherish Ball to occupy.  As we no longer have those cards, or even Great Ball and Timer Ball, Cherish Ball should see quite a bit of play, only missing in decks that run few to no Pokémon-GX and those better off with one of the few alternatives… and even then, it might be better to use Cherish Ball alongside the remaining search options.

Just don’t forget that decks focused on Evolved Pokémon-GX – unless the deck includes a shortcut for fielding them – will need some other search to fetch their lower Stages.  You may be able to leave such search to Supporters such as Professor Elm’s Lecture and Poké Maniac.  Cherish Ball even has good prospects in Expanded, though probably not great… at least, not yet.  If Cherish Ball worked for both Pokémon-EX and Pokémon-GX, it would be great now, and I could be mistaken and there may already be enough powerful Pokémon-GX to build a topnotch deck.  As for the Limited Format, you run this.  If you have no Pokémon-GX, have a bunch of them, or are running a Mulligan deck around a single copy of a Pokémon-GX, you run it.

As for the Limited Format, seeing your deck (arguably shuffling it as well) is well worth an Item, so even if you have no Pokémon-GX, you run this.  You also include Cherish Ball if you were fortunate enough to pull a Basic Pokémon-GX worth running solo in a Mulligan (+39) deck for the same reason.  Of course, if you’ve got one (or more) Pokémon-GX to search out in your deck, Cherish Ball is amazing!

Ratings

• Standard: 4/5
• Expanded: 3.2/5
• Limited: 4/5

Cherish Ball was not my personal second-place pick, but in hindsight, it probably should have been.  For certain, it should have been higher than the mere seventh-place slot I gave it.  We’ve got far fewer search options than we’re using to having in UPR-On Standard, so a good deal becomes almost golden by comparison.  Though the point spread between today’s card and tomorrow’s was wide enough that I’d have had to make Cherish Ball my first place pick to force them to tie… and our collective top pick was also my personal one, so I’m far from convinced I was wrong about it.

Vince

In light of losing some of the Ball related items due to rotation (losing Ultra Ball and Nest Ball), Cherish Ball places high on the list as the second best card of Unified Minds. This is an item card that lets you search for a Pokémon-GX and put it onto your hand. It also benefits from Apricorn Maker, such that he can fetch you up to 2 Cherish Balls, which can nab you 2 Pokémon-GX, and considering that Pokémon-GX has been used quite frequently, despite the drawbacks of being a Pokemon-GX, this is a huge asset for such decks. And there is no built in restrictions or costs besides somewhat limited search range, which is still enough to work with.

Imaginary is on the sky! Several Pokémon-GX see play due to being the main focus of the deck or having much greater utility. Major celebrities like Pikachu & Zekrom, Charizard & Reshiram, Mew & Mewtwo, Dedenne-GX, and more are getting the spotlight every single minute! I don’t think I can do in depth about what this card does, but hopefully those examples can give you an idea how specifically good Cherish Ball is for Standard for the most part. Expanded retains all of the Ball related cards from Black & White onwards, so Cherish Ball is facing huge competition against others, as well as NOT fetching you Pokemon-EX. In Limited, it is only as useful if you pulled more than one Pokémon-GX.

This is a pretty straightforward card, and given what the Standard format allows, expect to see a lot more with Cherish Ball, which might be used in all 4 copies.

• Standard: 4.5/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 3/5

aroramage

Every generation needs a super powerful Poke ball type of card to work with! And this generation, that power belongs to the Cherish Ball!

Cherish Ball’s an Item card that lets you add any Pokemon-GX to your hand from your deck. This can include any of the Pokemon-GX released since Sun & Moon Base Set, including the Tag Team Pokemon-GX that recently started coming out. I know that’s more or less a given, considering they’re still Pokemon-GX anyway, but I figured I ought to make a note of it in case you might have thought otherwise.

Now why is that a good thing? Oh right, cause you can grab ANY Pokemon-GX! There are no restrictions, and considering the power level of Tag Team-GX these days, this kind of power is universally good. A lot of decks these days will usually be running some form of Pokemon-GX in them, whether that’s for support or as an attacker, and that means Cherish Ball can grab them and make these decks far more consistent with their plays. Makes stuff like Garchomp & Giratina-GX, Reshiram & Charizard-GX, and Pikachu & Zekrom-GX a whole lot more intimidating with this hanging around, doesn’t it?

Cherish Ball will definitely be apart of a lot of decks for the duration of its stay in Standard, and considering that Gen 8 will likely start their base set sometime in February of next year, this card’s going to rotate out just when it needs to, assuming that Pokemon-GX doesn’t continue into Gen 8. Technically, Pokemon-EX lasted through Gen 5 and Gen 6, so it wouldn’t be unlikely for Pokemon-GX to continue into the next Gen – dare I say, it’s highly probable that they’ll keep printing Pokemon-GX, unless they wanna make up some other big type of Pokemon that costs 2 or more Prizes when it gets KO’d to throw into Expanded alongside EX/GX.

So for the time being, cherish this card, for it is very very strong.

Rating

Standard: 5/5 (hard to argue against the power level of this card)

Expanded: 4/5 (I think this will see less play generally here, just because it’s more dependent on what Pokemon-GX show up over time and are also strong in the Expanded environment)

Limited: 3/5 (really only good if you also pull a Pokemon-GX, otherwise it’s unusable)

Arora Notealus: I will admit that it’s a tad strange that a Poke Ball reserved exclusively for event Pokemon would become the official go-to for Pokemon-GX. Like maybe if they were “Event Pokemon” in name it would make sense, there aren’t too many Pokemon that aren’t legendaries that have been in events…wait…is that what the E in EX stands for??

Next Time: And our #1 card for the set gets the seal of approval!