Name:
Mr. Briney’s Compassion
Set/Card#:
Dragons #87/97
Type:
Trainer
Sub-Type:
Supporter
Text:
You can play only one Supporter card each turn. When you play
this card, put it next to your Active Pokémon.
Choose 1 of your Pokémon in play (excluding Pokémon ex).
Return that Pokémon and all cards attached to it to your
hand.
Attributes:
First I’ll state the obvious-this is a Trainer card. What does
that mean? Under normal circumstances, you can play as many
Trainers per turn as you want. What else? You have to worry
about Chaos Gym, Dark Vileplume, and
Neo Genesis Slowking blocking it.
Most Trainers are one-shot deals, as this one is no exception.
It is a Supporter, so it is a touch harder to play and makes
other Supporters harder to play. There is also a Pokémon,
Armaldo,
that blocks Supporters. This sounds bad, but wait until
the next section before judging it: simply put, just as a Stage
1 or 2 Pokémon needs to be better than a Basic to justify the
trouble of playing it, so too does a Supporter. And yes, this
paragraph was almost entirely cut and pasted from my review of
TV Reporter. ;)
Abilities:
Mr. Briney is
da man! The salty seadog gives you a no-flip “Super
Scoop-Up” with only two snags to it-no Pokémon ex allowed, and
it’s a Supporter. This is the kind of thing a Supporter works
well as: its own effect is something your probably wouldn’t want
to use more than once a turn anyway and yet is powerful and
useful none the less. This provides both healing and a way to
switch out your active.
Uses/Combinations
There are a lot of good hitters that aren’t Pokémon-ex.
These bad boys just got a One-Up for the cost of having to
re-build. There’s more to it than that though. What about
decks with a) useful Pokémon Tools, b) Special Energies, and/or
c) multiple Evolutions for the same line? This can make them a
lot easier to play. Any deck that falls into the above and is
not exclusively referring to a Pokémon ex should really consider
this card. Deny your opponent a prize and be able to set up a
back-up hitter. Could also be nice for those times when you
have to pre-maturely attach a Trainer. Nice not having to truly
throw away a Plus Power when you Oak. ;)
Ratings
Unlimited:
3.5/5-I’m having some trouble nailing
down the score for this format. Why? First, are there Pokémon
that can benefit from this? While you don’t see a lot of
Evolutions, you do see a lot of Sneasels
with just 10 HP left (from a successful Focus Band flip). Since
Supporters aren’t played as much in this format, its more than
likely that you’d be able to use this to grab the weasel, and
more importantly his precious Darkness and Rainbow Energies.
Powering Sneasel is and keeping it
alive are the cards only real weaknesses, and this card can help
deal with them. Similar cards like Murkrow
also benefit. The few evolutions seen can also benefit from it,
especially ones like Steelix and
Scizor which need those Metal
Energies. An added benefit is those times when Gold Berry
doesn’t look like it will have a chance to trigger-all
cards attached are brought back, even Trainers!
Modified:
4/5-Definite Power card.
Only decks that rely mostly on Pokémon ex should ignore it.
Everything else should seriously consider it.
2-on-2/ TMP:
4.25/5-Why the bonus? Because its
easier to rebuild here. In 2-on-2, you can
Briney an active Pokémon, and the other should still be
able to hold the fort. In TMP, there is a similar bonus in some
respects-based on the wording, I believe you could use it on
your team-mates Pokémon… which means they can still use other
Supporters, like saving a Stage 1 you had to fall back on, then
on their turn, they play the basic, then a PETM, and finally
Rare Candy to the Stage 2. Not great, but useful. It’s also
nice since a partner could use it on a deck (say
Gardevoir/ex) that focuses heavily
one a Pokémon-ex but also has some important bench sitters (Gardevoir
of Gardevoir/ex decks).
Limited:
4.5/5-I did draft a RH one at an unofficial side-event for the
Ames, IA City Championships (I helped judge the main event).
Nice thing about it was a) if my big hitter was about to die, I
could save both it and its valuable energy and b) it functioned
as an emergency “Switch” when needed. Never needed it for the
first bit, but won a match because of the second. Real nice if
you get something that can block damage to itself (like the non-Holo
Salamence I got and ran).
Summary
One of the few recent Trainers that proves useful in Unlimited.
Wonderfully, its also great in the
other formats too.
-Otaku (nintendotaku@hotmail.com)
