Gloria- Brilliant Stars
Date Reviewed: June 5, 2023
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.0
Expanded: 1.0
Limited: 5.0
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
It seems like we have another female player character after Rosa (SM Cosmic Eclipse 204/236)! Could Gloira (SWSH Brillant Stars 141/172) be just as good as her?
Well, she lets you search your deck for up to three Basic Pokemon that doesn’t have a Rule Box and put them onto your Bench. In a way, she’s similar to Brigette (XY Breakthrough 134/162) since she also fetches for a similar amount. The difference is that Brigette lets you either fetch for three Basic Pokmeon that isn’t a Pokemon-EX or one Basic Pokemon-EX and put them onto your Bench. Gloria only fetches baseline Basic Pokemon: No Radiant Pokemon, Pokemon-V, and Basic Pokemon-ex can be searched for in Standard while in Expanded, you couldn’t fetch for Basic Pokemon-GX, Basic Pokemon-EX, and Basic Prism Star Pokemon. This actually hurts Gloria’s viability to some major extent: Most decks use at least some of those Rule Box mechanics due to having awesome abilities and/or being an amazing attacker.
There might be some Pokemon that Gloria can fetch for. Sobble from Battle Styles for its Keep Calling attack to fetch for three more Basic Rapid Strike Pokemon and put them onto your Bench. Then, they could be eventually evolved into Inteleon with the Quick Shooting ability. Other Expanded options could be Drizzile/Inteleon with the Shady Dealings ability. Ralts could be fetched as well so that it can evolve next turn into Kirlia to activate its Refinement ability or to Rare Candy into Gardevoir-ex. Seems like there are some reasonable targets for Gloria to use. However, the fact that the player isn’t able to play Supporters on their first turn makes the tactic slow. Brigette was able to do that due to first turn rule changes. During the XY-era and SM-era, the player going first can play Supporter cards. So, while they still cannot attack on their first turn, bringing forth more reinforcements is another good strategy. The quickest moment Gloria can be used is if you chose to go second, and that turn could’ve been used for something else that does more such as Professor’s Research or the upcoming Iono.
While Gloria could be outclassed by Brigette, she might have some use in Standard depending on your deck having non-Rule Box Pokemon. Might be useful in rogue decks, but I don’t see too many of those. I still have Tatsugiri/Dondozo, so maybe Gloria might be the perfect card to make use of. And if you were to pull several Basic Pokemon in Limited, then she’ll do a great job bringing reinforcements.
Ratings:
Standard: 2/5
Expanded: 1/5
Limited: 5/5
Newer cards with similar (or identical) effects get looked at, but when similar effects are weakened due to restrictions, then it significantly affects how this card is being played. That pretty much happened to Gloria. There might be situations where she can be useful, but you would probably run Nest Ball instead despite lower quantity but as an Item card instead of a Supporter.
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