At last, it is that time again; the Top
10 Promising Picks of BW: Plasma
Freeze!
For those that weren’t here for
the last few lists like this, the
choices are “promising picks” because
unlike our yearly Top 10 lists, these
are based on speculation or (at best)
early testing (sometimes even Japanese
results and rumors).
So the reviewers submitted their lists
and the Pojosama compiled the results,
averaging them out.
Our first candidate is one that
received some hype followed by a lot of
doubt,
Ghetsis!
I prefer to “dissect” cards when
I review them, but that doesn’t work as
well for Trainers where there just isn’t
as much to break down and what is there
is more closely interwoven.
Ghetsis
is a Trainer-Supporter with a Team
Plasma affiliation, and its effect
forces your opponent to reveal his or
her hand to you then shuffle all
revealed Items back into his or her
deck.
Finally, you then must draw a
number of cards equal to the number your
opponent shuffled back into his or her
deck.
This effect has three major
components, and I believe this has made
it very easy to “misclassify” this card;
I consider it disruption but I find
those that really don’t like it think of
it as “draw power”.
The first effect is “information” based;
you get to see your opponent’s hand.
This may technically be a “side
effect” made necessary by the rest of
the card’s effects, but that doesn’t
mean it isn’t useful.
What it does mean is that it
probably isn’t worth much; most
“information only” cards in Pokémon are
about revealing Prizes.
This kind of effect right now is
worth at most an Ability slot on
something that already has another
reason for being played, or again as
part of a larger effect.
The second effect is “disruption”; your
opponent loses Items from his or her
hand; it could be zero, or it could be
up to 58 (through that requires
unrealistic circumstances).
As you are shuffling the Items
back into the deck, they are not
completely gone; your opponent will
giving up potential draw power as they
are re-drawing those cards instead of
something new as the game progresses.
If the cards in question were
already sitting dead in hand, this can
be quite potent, but on the other
extreme there are multiple forms of draw
power that are happy to have you
de-clutter the hand before being used.
The third and final effect is draw
power, which is equal to the amount of
Items the second effect sent back to
your opponent’s deck, this makes the
return from this card start out
pathetic, but means the unlikely “big
hit” creates a huge swing in card
advantage.
Now these three effects together
are actually pretty good, so the
question now becomes “Is this worth my
Supporter for the turn?”
Right now I would say yes… but
only if you have a particular combo or
can make room for a single of it without
taxing the rest of your deck’s space.
In the case of the former, the best
candidates I can see are those decks
with an auxiliary form of draw power,
like
Empoleon, and those that block or
negate Item usage, like the new
Dragonite (BW: Plasma Freeze
83/116).
Togekiss actually does both but
lacks a strong offensive, or it would be
the best choice.
Using combinations like these,
Ghetsis is less of a problem when it
fails and/or has reduced odds of
failing.
The latter is probably more relevant to
most players, running
Ghetsis as tech.
If a deck is using
Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers
62/108), and a decent chunk of decks do,
you can drop
Ghetsis knowing you’ll get to draw
at least two cards while sending two
cards your opponent valued enough to
attack to reclaim back to their deck.
Considering many such decks are
Item heavy, in these matches
Ghetsis is likely to provide at
least
Cheren level draw power while also
scoring disruption… or if your opponent
tries to play around it, forces him or
her to rethink much of his or her
strategy.
It doesn’t still count as “tech” (as it
isn’t really countering something
specific), but that general threat to
Items in hand is pretty important.
Whether it is a lucky opening
Ghetsis when it does hit a good deal
of Items or just at a point where you
hit the one Item you really needed to or
revealed you didn’t have to hold back
because your opponent really did have a
dead hand,
Ghetsis has the capacity for some
killer players.
Also
important to general usage is the
“threat” value and how your opponent may
adjust to the risk of being hit by
Ghetsis.
True, just existing creates some
of this threat, but running a single
copy has to make your opponent wonder…
is there more in this deck?
The
threat of
N can lead a player to hoard search
and similar Items in hand since it is
much easier to draw them or the
resources you wanted than just the
resources you wanted… but
Ghetsis makes holding onto such
Items a risk as well.
Ghetsis
is a Team Plasma Supporter, which I
mentioned but didn’t go into detail on
earlier; most of the Team Plasma support
won’t help it, but the few pieces that
will such as
Shadow Triad do enhance its value,
and I am unaware of any cards that
punish Team Plasma Trainers or
Supporters (though cards that punish
usage of their Pokémon are already out
in Japan).
Lastly, I’ve explained this cards good
and bad points for Modified, but what
about Unlimited and Limited?
Reversing the normal trend, it is
reasonably handy in Unlimited but a poor
pull for Limited.
Unlimited runs on Items, and most
first turn win/lock decks that need to
use Supporters have tricks to use more
than one per turn, so while it probably
isn’t the best play, you can use a few
Erika to beef up both players hands,
then
Ghetsis to send most of the
important stuff your opponent drew back
into his or her deck while you get even
more draw power.
In Limited, the main reason it
isn’t useless is that you won’t likely
have a different Supporter to use, and
knowing your opponent’s hand is more
important here as that hand is hard to
change; expect to get no draw power from
it.
Ratings
Unlimited:
3/5
Modified:
3.25/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary
Ghetsis
is another piece of combination
draw/hand-disruption, with the latter
really being the card’s focus as the
former will rarely be potent enough to
carry the card.
It isn’t anywhere near as useful
as
N (the poster boy for this
combination), but it seems a lot more
useful than
Hugh.
Still,
Ghetsis just missed by personal Top
10 list (clocking in at #11 of my Top
20) because this just seems like the
wrong format for it; most Items can be
played immediately for a return, and
most decks are totally reliant upon
Supporters for draw power, so despite
Item counts being high in decks it is a
risky play.
On paper, it looks like a single
Ghetsis is worth it, but I don’t
have the real world results to prove it.
