Welcoming Lantern – Chilling Reigns
Date Reviewed: July 14, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 1.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
It has been mentioned a few times before, but Welcoming Lantern (SW – Chilling Reign 156/198, 230/198) is a new Trainer-Item from the latest set. It is also a Single Strike card, so if you’re running a Single Strike deck with Tower of Darkness, you could discard it with that Stadium’s effect to draw two cards. Yeah, no other effects in English apply to Single Strike Item cards. Speaking of effects, Welcoming Lantern’s is pretty straight forward: you play it, then add the Single Strike Supporter of your choice from your discard pile to your hand. That’s right; Single Strike Pokémon have their own VS Seeker!
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The catch is that there are only so many Single Strike Supporters. I don’t know how long this mechanic will see new releases – many like this only get two or three sets – but here are your current options:
- Bruno – Shuffle and draws four, or seven if at least one of your Pokémon were KO’d during your opponent’s last turn.
- Flannery – Discard a Stadium in play and a Special Energy from one of your opponent’s Pokémon. If only one of the preceding are in play, you can still use Flannery to discard that one card.
- Karen’s Conviction – +20 damage per Prize card your opponent has taken for attacks made by your single Strike Pokémon against your opponent’s Active.
- Single Strike Style Mustard – Bench a Single Strike Pokémon (regardless of Stage) directly from your deck to your Bench, then draw five cads. Can only be played if it is the last card in your hand, and you have an open Bench space.
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Yeah, so far, that’s all, folks! I had us review Welcoming Lantern now because I figured it would be silly to wait until we’d reviewed all the Single Strike Supporters… but there were only two left to review!
The good news, this makes Welcoming Lantern much more balanced than VS Seeker. While legal in Standard – and last I checked in Expanded – VS Seeker borders on being a true staple. Not every deck runs the full four copies allowed, but many do. The ones that don’t usually reflect decks that absolutely have no room to spare, cannot freely use their Item cards, etc. VS Seeker is just that good of a card. Welcoming Lantern is not VS Seeker, but for a Single Strike-focused deck, it looks really good. All four Supporters I mentioned are situational. There will be turns you won’t want to or literally cannot use them. I keep teasing Hop about being underpowered, but even a “Draw 3 cards.” Supporter that was also a Single Strike Supporter would be a useful addition at this point.
The good news, this means running just one or two of each Single Strike Supporter with three or four copies of Welcoming Lantern might be a viable strategy. You’ll still be running Supporters like Professor’s Research and Boss’s Orders that lack any Battle Style, and the whole thing still takes up a good chunk of deck space, but it can be done. Or, if you just really need to make use of a specific Single Strike Supporter, you could max both it and Welcoming Lantern out for eight total uses per game. It should make it at least a little easier to use Single Strike Style Mustard. Not in Expanded, though. Odds are slim to none that you’ll have room for both Welcoming Lantern and VS Seeker, even in a Single Strike deck. Unless we get some better Single Strike Supporters…
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 1/5
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