If
you find the review is too long, skip straight to the
Ratings and Summary!
Name :
Fluffy Berry
Set :
EX Unseen Forces
Card# :
85/115
Rarity :
Uncommon
Type :
Trainer
Sub-type:
Pokémon Tool
Effect
Text:
Attach Fluffy Berry to 1 of your Pokémon (excluding
Pokémon-ex and Pokémon that has Dark or an owner in its
name) that doesn’t already have a Pokémon Tool attached to
it. If that Pokémon Fluffy Berry is attached to is a
Pokémon-ex or has Dark or an owner in its name, discard
Fluffy Berry
As long as
Fluffy Berry is attached to a Pokémon, that Pokémon’s
Retreat Cost is 0.
Attributes:
Fluffy Berry is the second of the new batch of Pokémon
Tools from EX: Unseen Forces that we are going to look at. Like
all Pokémon Tools, it is a Trainer: Trainer denial is moderately
popular in Modified and extremely common in Unlimited, but all
Trainers are hit that hard, so it’s not going to drop the score:
just remember to use common sense. What does help is that
Pokémon Tools activate after they are already in play, and that
means that if you can drop them into play before the assorted
Trainer prohibiting cards hit the field, they’ll work fine.
Sadly, this too comes with a downside: since they remain in
play, there are specific cards that can target them – like
Ancient Technical Machine (Ice) – that aren’t currently
seeing a lot of play.
Fluffy
Berry
is restricted to use by Evolved Pokémon that aren’t Pokémon-ex
or Pokémon that have either an owner or Dark in their
names. This is even more restrictive than Curse Powder,
and just as restrictive as Energy Root. This is
obviously a negative thing in that your options are lessened,
but hopefully it will compensate by being more powerful.
Proving that
Nintendo is learning how many rule lawyers play this game, once
again the card states that if the Pokémon it is attached to
stops being a non-Pokémon-ex or suddenly has Dark or an
owner in its name, it is discarded. Yes, still a lot of cutting
and pasting, but it’s the only way I can get these done in time:
it’s a very busy week and I will hopefully get my act together
enough to earn some interviews for internships/jobs, plus
assorted projects for classes.
Abilities:
Super Balloon
Berry.
Like Balloon Berry, this basically zeroes out a Pokémon’s
Retreat Cost. Unlike Balloon Berry, Fluffy Berry
doesn’t go away unless you’re KO’d or Evolve in a manner to
violate the attachment restrictions. This seems very strong,
but will probably not be as useful as other Pokémon Tools in
general.
Uses and
Combinations:
This is definitely more a niche card. True, almost anything can
benefit from having its Retreat Cost reduced, but the amount of
advantage that provides can be very minimal for a lot of decks.
Also, like all permanent Tools, it prevents the use of “one and
done” Pokémon Tools like Crystal Shard and Strength
Charm. So it works best for cards that need to do a lot of
retreating and don’t already have a free retreat cost. A
slightly outdated example would be EX Ruby/Sapphire Slaking:
since it can’t attack after using it’s big attack, instead of
being forced to run like four Switches, four Warp
Point, etc, you could have just slapped Fluffy Berry
on and let him retreat for free each turn to another benched
Slaking (or whatever you wish to use between turns). A
similar-yet-different contemporary example would be EX Fire
Red/Leaf Green Victreebel. It is a card often combined
with EX Deoxys Weezing. Use Weezing’s Liability
attack to reduce the opponent to 10 HP (and simultaneously KO
your own Weezing), then bring up Victreebel whose
Acid Sampler Poké-Body to place a damage counter on the opposing
Active Pokémon, finishing it off between turns. This leaves
Victreebel active, which isn’t good since you want to send
up another Weezing to do the same bit next turn. So use
Fluffy Berry. Retreat the Victreebel for free on
your next turn (scoring 110 points of damage to OHKO the
Victreebel in one shot would be a real feat), bring up a
Weezing, and repeat. Combos like this are where Fluffy
Berry shines.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2.25/5-Like most of this week’s cards, its low because a)
Evolutions as a whole aren’t played as much and b) the decks
that do use Evolutions usually have better choices. However, it
is a thought if you have something like Neo Genesis Slowking
sitting on your bench. After all, a Focus Band or
Gold Berry would probably be more useful on your attacking
Pokémon, and it’s just big enough to have a decent shot at
surviving… so I could see using a Fluffy Berry to
allow it to retreat back to the bench for free.
Modified:
3.25/5-Please keep in mind that this card is for very specific
combos, and in those decks it would be much more important than
this score would seem to indicate. It’s just only moderately
useful in general.
Limited:
3.5/5-Odds are you won’t have all free-retreating Pokémon, and
Fluffy Berry makes a nice trick. However, you aren’t as
apt to have as many Evolutions, and this doesn’t give as much
“oomph” as the other Pokémon Tools. So while it’s handy, it’s
not as game breaking as extra damage or extra HP or ignoring
your Weakness or healing some damage (which the other Pokémon
Tools in this set do), and it may not even be as useful as many
other cards that are competing for deck space.
Summary
Fluffy
Berry
will not be something to throw into just any deck, even though
most decks that feature Pokémon that are legal targets for it
will also benefit from it. The benefit is just too minor for
the majority, but there is a definite minority of decks where
eliminating that Retreat Cost opens up many combo opportunities,
or stream-lines existing ones.
