If
you find the review is too long, skip straight to the
Ratings and Summary!
Name
:
Here Comes Team Rocket!
Set :
EX: Team Rocket Returns
Card#
:
111/109
Rarity :
Secret Rare
Type
:
Trainer
Sub-type:
Supporter
Effect Text:
You can play only one Supporter card each turn. When
you play this card, put it next to your Active Pokémon.
When your turn ends, discard this card.
Each
player plays with his or her Prize cards face up for the
rest of the game.
Attributes:
Here Comes Team Rocket! This card is both new and
old. Originally released with the original Team Rocket set
with different art, it was a plain Trainer then. With its
re-release, it becomes Supporter. This means little to
Unlimited, where there are few Supporters in decks in
general (though Supporter us is on the rise). In Modified,
it means this card has a lot of competition to beat out for
deck space.
Abilities:
Flipping over your Prize cards is good. Flipping over your
partners (if TMP is ever resurrected) is good. Flipping
over your opponent’s Prize cards is usually bad. Let me
explain. Flipping over your won Prize cards is good. Why?
Your deck is 60 cards. In a normal match, you start with
six prizes. So 10% of your deck is locked away from you.
In a well made deck, it doesn’t usually cripple you… but it
can due to random chance. Six slots are enough to eat up
the maximum four copies allowed of a card, and there are
many useful cards run at a three count. Two such sets of
cards could end up there. How likely is that? Not very,
but it’s happened to me at important tournaments. -_- The
thing is you give your opponent the exact same benefit.
Therefore, you have to combo this in order to get any real
benefit out of it. The second problem is that multiples are
useless, other than increasing the odds of getting one at
the right time. Even an extra Dunsparce serves a purpose,
but once you’ve used one copy, the other copies can only be
used as discard fodder.
Uses/Combinations:
So, what combinations are there to abuse this? Not a lot.
There are a handful of cards that can affect your prizes…
and most aren’t really affected by this card. Either you
get a redundant effect, or you make it so you can’t use them
(and they are almost never played by an opponent with a well
made deck). One real combo would be… Rattata Lv12,
which can switch a Prize card of your choice with the top
card of your deck.
So the
only real use is one automatically available to your
opponent-making sure something vital doesn’t get stuck in
your prizes. If this happens to you regularly, run this. I
suppose there is a slight combo with Pidgeot from
Hidden Legends: rip it from your deck, so you can know
concretely what is in the Prizes and what ones to go for
first.
Ratings
Unlimited:
3/5-This card can help keep TecH from getting stuck in the
prizes to long. I find it rare to win or lose a game with
one player taking no prizes, unless there is a significant
difference in deck or player skill. However, when all
copies of a vital card get stuck in your prizes, it means
one prize is all you’ll get. As such, I feel it deserves
this score-if you have room, a single copy is solid TecH.
With all the draw/search power in Unlimited, one is all
you’ll need. And if it gets stuck in the prizes… better it
than something really important.
Modified:
3/5-It’s interesting: this card is about as useful here, but
for different reasons. Most decks will lack the ability to
rip out whatever they need for their deck. I do see a good
deal of “subtle” TecH here; running one alternate version of
your main Stage 2, for example. A few decks are as TecH
heavy as in Unlimited, and they will really want to consider
this.
Limited:
4/5-Why so high? The odds of getting a search card in this
format, which gives you at least a chance of knowing what is
missing from your deck (and thus in your Prizes). Also, the
odds of having another Supporter (let alone another Trainer)
to play the turn you draw this are slim to none. Finally,
since a lot of cards are in singles, it makes knowing your
prizes much more valuable, even if you extend the same favor
to the opponent.
Summary
Reviewing
this card now that it is a Supporter makes me wish I had
played it more in Unlimited. I still might try to squeeze
in that one copy just in case, perhaps even in both
formats. There have been too many times when I have had my
playing and deck building skills appear worse than they are
due to that X Factor inherent to TCGs. We have a card that
can eliminate that, and while its not potent enough to
warrant using in every deck, it is worth using in any that
can spare a single slot.
