Max Potion
Max Potion is one of the cards that
Japanese players got in the first Black
and White set, while the rest of us had
to wait for it. Obviously I don’t know
the reason why it was held over, but I’m
pretty glad it was, considering that it
would have made
Gyarados SF decks completely
unstoppable.
Like virtually all Trainer-Items (that’s
what they are called now), Max Potion
has a straightforward effect: you remove
all damage counters from a Pokémon, then
discard all the Energy attached to that
Pokémon. Clearly, this can be a great
card to play – it turns potential two
hit KOs into three hit KOs, potentially
buying you another crucial turn with an
attacker, or keeping a benched support
Pokémon in the game. Because of the
Energy discard cost associated with the
card, Max Potion works best (and
easiest) with Pokémon that require
little or no Energy to attack, such as
Yanmega
Prime, Donphan
Prime, or a
Tyranitar Prime that is just
being used for Spinning Tail.
There are ways to make Max Potion work
with more Energy intensive Pokémon, but
this is where it gets into awkward combo
territory. If you have a means of moving
Energy freely around the Field say with
Meganium
Prime’s Power or
Kinklang BW’s Ability, then you
can avoid the discard cost.
Unfortunately neither of
those Stage 2
Pokémon are very playable at the moment.
You could also use
Shaymin UL to shift Energy to a
back up attacker after swapping the
damaged Pokémon out (if you can still
manage the Retreat cost or have a
Switch). Alternatively you could combine
Max Potion with
Reuniclus and put the damage
counters onto an
Energy-less Pokémon. The trouble
with that is that
Reuniclus is unlikely to survive
the use of Pokémon Catcher unless you
play it with
Vileplume . . . which in turn
will lock you from playing Max Potion.
However you play it, a little bit of
care is needed with the card though.
There’s no point in healing your
Yanmega with
Max Potion if it is just going to be
one-shot next turn by a
Zekrom (for
example). Even so, it can be a real
clutch card which can be used to get
ahead in the Prize race by denying your
opponent that knock out they were
planning for. I can definitely see a
copy or two of Max Potion being
teched into
low Energy Stage 1 decks, and the
potential is there for it to play a key
role in future decks that can make use
of healing and tanking strategies.
Rating
Modified: 3.5 (very useful card that is
only hindered by Trainer Lock and a OHKO
format)
Limited: 4.5 (OHKOs are rare here, and
Trainer Lock even rarer)
