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#4 Float Stone
In the current format, having your Pokémon mobile enough
to move in and out of the active slot without having to
discard Energy is incredibly important. There are
several reasons for this including the need to shake off
Status Conditions; making use of Energy acceleration
that only attaches to Benched Pokémon; and thwarting
your opponent’s attempts to buy a turn or two by playing
Pokémon Catcher on a non-attacker. This is in addition
to the usual benefits of being able to switch to a more
effective attacker, or deny a Prize on a damaged
Pokémon. It’s no coincidence that some of the most
successful decks in recent history make extensive use of
being able to retreat for ‘free’. Think of
Blastoise/Keldeo-EX
with the Rush In Ability,
Darkrai-EX’s Dark Cloak, and
the Eelektrik NVI based decks that used
Skyarrow Bridge. Those decks
that didn’t have this feature were basically forced to
devote deckspace to running
four copies of Switch.
Coming in at #4 on our countdown is a Pokémon Tool card
that provides a real alternative to one-use Trainers
like Switch and Escape Rope. You simply attach Float
Stone to a Pokémon and it now has no Retreat cost. Yep,
even major Pokémon fatties like
Snorlax and Mamoswine
can be as nimble about the Field as an
Emolga or
Accelgor. Obviously this
strategy is vulnerable to Tool Scrapper, and also
prevents you from attaching other useful Tools like
Plasma Badge, Rescue Scarf and
Eviolite. Another issue to consider is that,
unlike Switch, they don’t give you an ‘extra’ retreat
for the turn: you can’t move a Pokémon to the Bench with
Float Stone to get rid of Poison (for example), and then
promote it again. Nevertheless, the fact that Float
Stone can be used until your opponent plays Scrapper or
the Pokémon gets knocked out means it is worth of
serious consideration in decks with high retreat
Pokémon.
There are a couple of Pokémon which can make especially
good use of Float Stone, however. The first is
Keldeo-EX which can use its
Rush In ability and then Retreat for free with Float
Stone to effectively give you a Switch every turn:
particularly useful if you are trying to remove a Status
Condition from your active, but still
want it there to attack with
at the end of your turn. The second Pokémon who gets a
boost from this Tool is Garbodor
DRX. In this case Float Stone does double duty, acting
as the Tool which triggers the
Garbotoxin Ability lock and preventing your
opponent from simply dragging out the non-attacking
Garbodor to buy themselves a
turn or two while you hunt for a Switch.
With mobility being such a key component of a successful
deck, this functional reprint of Fluffy Berry is bound
to see a decent amount of play for the foreseeable
future. It removes a serious drawback from high retreat
Pokémon like Landorus-EX and
Kyurem PLF, while
interacting nicely with a couple of Pokémon that are
pretty popular already.
Rating
Modified: 4 (a card which addresses a real need)
Limited: 4.5 (Prize denial and Energy conservation are
both very important here and Float Stone helps with
both)
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