Reuniclus
52/101 (Noble Victories)
Today’s card is the first of two from
Noble Victories that feature
Reuniclus,
the cute but weird Pokémon who made
tanking/Trainer-Locking a
tournament-viable strategy. That was the
Black and White version though, which
means that any new
Reuniclus has a lot to live up
to.
This Reuniclus
is a Stage 2 Pokémon with a puny 90 HP.
Never understood that, because in the
video games
Reuniclus is pretty bulky with
excellent defences, but in the TCG it
faints as soon as
Reshiram or
Zekrom so much as look at it. The
Psychic Weakness is more or less a
non-issue when HP is this low, while the
Retreat cost of two doesn’t do anything
to make this card any more endearing
(artwork aside).
With no Abilities that can be used from
the Bench and that pitiful HP, there
would be no point whatsoever in giving
Reuniclus
expensive attacks, and to be fair, they
didn’t. The first, Future Sight costs
just one Energy
of any Colour and lets you look at and
rearrange the top five cards of your
deck. We’ve seen this attack a few times
before (Celebi
TM, Cresselia
MD), and it’s sort of useful on a Basic
Pokémon as something to do on the first
turn or two. On a Stage 2 though? Forget
it. Do you
really want to put all the effort
into setting up a
Reuniclus just for that?
Especially when all
your opponent has to do is play
Judge or N on their turn to cancel out
any marginal benefit you gained from
using it.
So, that leaves us with Net Force. It
costs a single Psychic Energy and does
40 damage for
each Reuniclus
that you have in play. Now I know what
you’re thinking . . . that could add
up to 160 damage
for one Energy . . . and that would
indeed be absolutely brilliant.
Unfortunately it’s just not practical.
Getting multiple
Reuniclus into play is hard
enough in the first place: it’s a Stage
2 with an incredibly weak 30 HP Basic.
Keeping them in play when they have just
90 HP is even harder. Setting up a
constant swarm of
Reuniclus with the new Rare Candy
rules and lack of Broken Time-Space is
impossible: you will have to endure at
least a turn with
Solosis on your Bench, where he
can be easily
Catchered up and KO’d or simply
eliminated easily by spread damage (Kyurem)
or damage counter placement (Chandelure).
Reuniclus
is the kind of card that some players
get excited about without thinking it
through. Yes, in theory it can do a ton
of cheap damage, but it’s no
Jumpluff
HGSS or Beedrill
GE. Those Pokémon were better, and they
succeeded in a format where they had far
more support (BTS,
Claydol,
Uxie, old Candy rule).
Sorry, but low HP Stage 2 swarm decks
are just not viable right now. If that’s
what you want, you will have to wait a
set or two for the new
Empoleon . .
. and I’m not even sure that can cut it.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (please don’t be tempted)
Limited: 2 (you’re unlikely to pull
enough Reuniclus
to make it worthwhile)
