Melony – Battle Styles
Date Reviewed:
July 1, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.50
Expanded: 3.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Melony (SW – Chilling Reign 146/198, 195/198, 218/198) takes second place in our countdown! This Trainer-Supporter has you attach a [W] Energy from your discard pile to one of your Pokémon V. Then, so long as you accomplished the first part, you get to draw three cards. The most obvious card with which to compare and contrast Melony is Welder. Not that you need the reminder, but Welder is a Trainer-Supporter that lets you attach up to two [R] Energy from your hand to one of your Pokémon, then so long as you attached at least one, you get to draw three cards.
Both cards are Trainer-Supporters, putting them on even footing. Melony attaches one Energy from the discard pile, while Welder attaches two Energy from your hand. Two is obviously bigger than one but attaching from the discard pile is superior to attaching from the hand. The opposite of attaching from the discard pile is attaching from the deck. The earlier it is in the game, the better attaching from the deck is. The later it is in the game, the better attaching from the discard pile is. The former has the added benefit of thinning your deck, the latter has the benefit of recycling Energy as a side effect of attaching. Attaching from the hand is the tier below these two; you get bonus Energy attachments but you need the targeted Energy in your hand. Quantity still matters, but if this was all there was to the cards, Melony and Welder would be almost even, with Welder having a small lead.
Welder could attach to either your Active or your Benched Pokémon. They can be any type or Stage of Pokémon, and regardless of any other game mechanics the card may possess. That is as good as it gets… but Melony is restricted to only attaching to Pokémon V (which includes VMAX). It is still great that Melony doesn’t care about Stage or type, Active or Benched, but you cannot use her on the majority of targets. However, with how the metagame works, being compatible with Pokémon V is probably better than not working with them. Melony is still inferior to Welder in this regard, but she still is doing well.
How about the Energy being targeted? Welder says [R] and Melony says [W], and as neither are working with Energy already in play, that means basic Fire Energy and basic Water Energy. Clearly, working with any Energy would be best, but also quite powerful, hence it not happening. Not being compatible with Special Energy that count as [R] or [W] isn’t fun, but it is understandable. After all, that wouldn’t just include Heat [R] Energy or Wash [W] Energy, but Rainbow Energy and similar cards, plus some oddball stuff like Rapid Strike Energy. A crude guesstimate is that they’re actually on fairly even terms, except Welder is mature so we already know most of its tricks.
However, I left a piece out: Weakness! While both cards can be used on Pokémon of any type, [W] Pokémon should get a little more out of Melony that most other types, just as [R] Pokémon tend to get more out of Welder. Fire hasn’t usually been the dominant type since Welder released, but Metal types have been competitive or dominant for quite a while. Water types have a similar edge of Fire, but you’re countering a counter… you’re just not getting the same benefit. Both Supporters draw three cards if you attached any Energy through their effect. Technically, this makes them less reliable draw than something like Hop, but that’s because they’re really Energy acceleration. Drawing three cards is just to keep your deck from stalling out because a Supporter that attached enough Energy to not need such compensation would be difficult to properly balance. I do give a slight edge to Melony here, as having one Energy in the discard seems a bit easier than having one in the hand, as explained above.
Melony is not as good as Welder. It is better in a few specific ways, but overall is clearly weaker. Melony is still a great card, though. While she competes with Frosmoth and Froslass (SW – Chilling Reign 036/198) as [W] Energy acceleration, though she can compliment them as well. Frosmoth’s Ability lets you attach one [W] Energy from your hand to one of your Benched [W] Pokémon… but you can do it as many times as you want, so you can power up multiple targets or dump massive amounts of Energy, provided you have enough Water Energy in hand. Frosmoth isn’t the force I expected when we first saw it, but has proven sufficiently competitive over the last 16 or so months since its release. Melony works with your Active; I cannot promise every Frosmoth deck should run both, but I can see Melony being a good inclusion for many.
Froslass attaches a single Water Energy from the discard pile to one of your Pokémon, via its Ability. This is a coming-into-play Ability, so you don’t get multiple uses. It has no attachment restrictions on what receives the Water Energy. For decks that don’t need a lot of Energy but do need to attach to an Active, Melony and Froslass might work well together. If some of your Actives aren’t Pokémon V, Froslass makes even more sense. If you’re mostly dealing with Pokémon V, then you probably ought to take a similar approach to Welder decks; just focus on using and reusing Melony. Yes, you’re limited to four copies of Melony, but that’s what Pal Pad is for.
Melony was not my choice for the second best card of this set. As I hope I’ve explained, she’s good, just not as good as Welder. I did have her as my 5th-Place pick, and… I’m honestly not sure I got it right this time. I believe Melony will work very well with Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX… which I had as my 4th-Place pick. Melony should probably work decently (if not well) with some of our other [W] type Pokémon V. The thing is, if Melony didn’t exist we’d just find a way to make Froslass or Frosmoth work. I mean, we’ve been doing that in many cases already, like with Inteleon VMAX. So I definitely think second place is too high for her… but again, she’s still a very good card. In Expanded, she has to compete with Aqua Patch… but again, I suspect the two will actually just compliment each other, at least in decks built around Pokémon V.
Ratings
- Standard: 4/5
- Expanded: 3/5
Vince
Standard: 3
Expanded: 3
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