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Jirachi
Jirachi is a starter Pokémon, plain and simple. It has
no other use than to get your deck set up and running.
Last Format, starter Pokémon were fairly common with
Stantler and Absol seeing play at first, before
Pachirisu and Phione took over later in the season. In
this Format, use of starters has almost disappeared as
the game is now so much faster, and decks built around
Basics like AMU and the SP Pokémon have become very
popular.
So, is Jirachi good enough to persuade people to run
starter Pokémon again? It is certainly pretty good at
its job. Jirachi’s first attack, Detour, costs no
Energy, and allows you to get a second use out of the
Supporter that you have played that turn. Being able to
use a Roseanne’s Research or a Bebe’s Search twice in
one turn is certainly going to help you to set up
quickly. In addition to this, Jirachi has an excellent
PokePower, Final Wish, which allows you to search your
deck for ANY card when Jirachi is knocked out. That is
certainly a very nice bonus to have and more than makes
up for the fact that Jirachi won’t be on the field for
very long with only 60 HP. Use a Bebe’s twice to get a
Basic and a Stage 2 then, when it is KO’d, fetch that
Rare Candy and you are pretty much set up.
Of course, there are a couple of drawbacks to the card.
The main one is that, if you go first, you cannot play a
Supporter, so Jirachi does nothing much for that turn
(its second attack is pure filler and will almost never
be useful). It is also completely dependent on you
having the Supporter you want in your hand in the first
place.
While I can see some Stage 2 decks teching in a Jirachi
or two to help with set up, or even mid-game recovery,
it is too slow for the majority of decks to use right
now. In other Formats, it would have been amazing.
Rating
Modified: 3 (a great card in a Format that is too fast
for it)
Limited: 4 (ANY Supporter is good here, and you don’t
get many of them. Using them twice is brilliant) |
