Welcome dear readers as we begin another
week of our Top 10 countdown.
As we started in the middle of
the week with the list and took
Christmas Day off, we are now on the
number four spot.
So what card just missed out on
the Top 3?
Colress, a card we first reviewed
here: in an interesting parallel
Colress was our number four choice
for the Top 10 Cards of BW: Plasma
Storm.
So does being the fourth place
pick overall mean it’s moved up, stayed
the same, or become better?
In this case, I believe it has become
better accepted but is not actually
stronger or weaker; two of the cards
that topped it (Lugia
EX and
Scramble Switch) probably shouldn’t
have.
To explain adequately has created
ludicrously long reviews even by my
standards, and yes that is plural; I am
currently on my third (almost) full
attempt.
You see,
Professor Juniper,
Professor Sycamore, and
N are amazing, even if the first two
I listed can’t be used in the same deck.
It can be hard to appreciate if
you didn’t play during the right period
of the game’s history, when we were
reliant on Supporters for most but not
all of our major draw power.
So these three are amazingly strong, but
as you can’t play the first two at the
same time and most decks need to run a
good 10-12 draw Supporters, we get to
where
Colress comes in.
It is a Team Plasma affiliated
Supporter, opening up some options few
decks will use but that are good to
recognize exist, like reclaiming it with
Shadow Triad.
It has you shuffle your hand into
your deck and then draw cards up to the
total amount of Pokémon in play (both
players, not just one or the other).
This means a minimum draw of two
up to a maximum of 12.
Colress
does a great job; yes it is pretty bad
when you aren’t shuffling to draw at
least five, but at least you can still
use it in those circumstances and adjust
your deck so that you avoid them.
You also won’t have to worry
about discarding important cards like
with
Professor Juniper or helping your
opponent into a better hand like with
N.
It is at its weakest first turn,
but it seems like a small price to pay
unless you’re deck works best with a
small Bench or employs a strategy that
will prevent your opponent from having a
Bench.
The times when
Colress hits six to twelve cards is
more than enough to balance out the
weaker draws, which should be a rarity
outside of a player's first turn.
I do worry at how “spoiled” the format
has made us with regards to Supporter
strength; few if any competitive decks
have a good reason for running
Supporters like
Tierno or
Cheren, which draw a straight three
cards, even though that is still
stronger than where most Supporters used
to be (draw three but have to discard or
shuffle away one).
We have a format that has
multiple factors rewarding playing decks
that can easily play down your hand,
which in turn makes the format even more
suited to
Professor Juniper and
N which in turn drives the format to
be even faster.
Colress
isn’t much of an option for Unlimited;
you certainly can play it but as you
have access to “old school” draw power
that was Item based, including cards
like
Professor Oak (discard hand, draw
seven cards).
Simply put Supporters here can be
reserved for those more obscure effects,
like that of
Seeker.
It isn’t truly bad so much as
outclassed by older cards.
For Limited, you pull this, you
run it; technically you could get by
without it if you’re running a deck with
a big, Basic Pokémon and 39 Energy, but
you might as well drop one Energy for
the option.
Ratings
Unlimited:
2/5
Modified:
4/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary
So by now most are comfortable
Colress; it isn’t a card to max out
for most decks and of course some decks
shouldn’t run it at all because they
work better with something else (Bianca,
Random Receiver,
Skyla, etc.) but one or two
Colress is a common sight for deck
lists.
I actually had
Colress in my number eight slot for
my picks, but I regret it as its impact
wasn’t deep but it was wide… not the
first time that theme will apply to the
Top 4.
