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Welcome back as we continue the first week of our Top 10 Promising
Cards of XY: Phantom Forces with our seventh
place pick! As a reminder, reprint cards were not
eligible for the Top 10 list, which was created via each
member of the review crew each submitting their own Top
10 card list to Pojo, who then averages them out to
produce the master Top 10 list we use for the review
order. The official release date for this set in the
U.S. is November 5th, so XY: Phantom Forces cards
aren’t tournament legal until November 21st; however
we’ll be scoring them as if they were indeed legal.
With that out of the way, the number seven pick is Robo
Substitute (XY: Phantom Forces 102/119)… or
possible Robo Substitute Team Flare Hyper Gear (XY:
Phantom Forces 102/119). I’m not 100% clear if the
smaller text is intended as part of the official card
name or not; we’ve had similar “not actually part of the
card name” text in that position before but it isn’t
overly important anyway since there is no other card
named Robo Substitute. An interesting thing to
note is that the card appears inspired by the move
“Substitute” from the games; the Japanese card’s name
matches the Japanese move’s name, replacing “Substitute”
with “Scapegoat”. Maybe we’ll see some Abilities or
attacks that interact with it?
Whether “Team Flare Hyper Gear” is part of the name, a
sub-designation or both, one expects we’ll see cards
relating to that in the future. For now all Robo
Substitute has to worry about are effects that
target Trainers or Items… well unless you’re using the
card’s effect. Robo Substitute can be put into
play as if it were a 30 HP, Colorless Basic Pokémon; you
may discard it from play at will but can’t Retreat and
it doesn’t award any Prize cards when KOed. To
reinforce, on that last bit it is worded so that effects
that increase how many Prizes you take when you KO
something still won’t apply. No word of if it can
attack via cards like Technical Machines, but as none
are currently Standard or Expanded legal anyway, that
probably isn’t a major concern. Based on the lack of
text referencing it, apparently this can receive attack
effects (including Special Conditions) and have Pokémon
Tools attached… which I bring up because of some old
cards: Clefairy Doll (Base Set 70/102) and
Mysterious Fossil (last printing EX: Power
Keepers 85/108) which were quite similar but
specifically were stated as having no attacks and being
unaffected by Special Conditions. Since it says it can
be Knocked Out (just not for Prizes) then I would assume
effects that trigger when something is KOed still apply
when Robo Substitute is KOed (but not when it is
discarded).
Based on past rulings, while in play Robo Substitute will
also still count as a Trainer; it is one of the few
special cards that while in play (but not anywhere else)
will count as Pokémon and Trainer, so once in
play it has to worry about effects that work against
either of those major card divisions. I couldn’t find
any current cards that “discard all Trainers in play”
or “discard all Item cards in play” (or other
variations) but there are some among older cards and
they should be able to take out Robo Substitute
alongside Pokémon Tools and Stadiums. With my
unofficial rulings based on past precedent or card text,
let’s move onto why this card has people excited right
now.
“Porter” decks or “Hit-and-Run” decks or one-of-several-other-names
decks are built around a strategy of using an attacker
that sends itself to the Bench, promoting something
different in its stead. This can backfire at times, but
usually allows you to keep said attacker going far
longer than you normally could, helping you get ahead on
Energy. Such decks try to force you to attack Pokémon
that you either can’t seriously injure, that provide
beneficial effects (from the perspective of the player
running them) when injured or that are relatively
inconsequential to KO. That last category is where
Robo Substitute earns its stripes. Gengar-EX
(XY: Phantom Forces 34/119, 114/119) is the
latest such attacker while Donphan (BW: Plasma
Storm 72/135) has already enjoyed tournament caliber
success. Even though most such attackers aren’t going
to hit hard enough for a OHKO, that matters a lot less
when the opponent is attacking into something that is
easy to put into play and doesn’t award any Prizes.
You could of course run it in general for when you need to buy
time; you can discard it at will so can always send it
up when something is KOed or your opponent plays a
Warp Point and then discard it when you know what
you really want in the Active position, or leave it up
to force the opponent to waste an attack or effect to
get rid of it. This can be very potent but it comes
with the same downside as the previous use. First you
can’t play this as your opening Basic, so it won’t
reduce your mulligans. Second, while it behaves as a
Pokémon in play it won’t count as one in the discard
pile, meaning once you burn through them they require
something significant to get them back into the deck or
hand, like Lysandre's Trump Card or Dowsing
Machine, respectively. Third, Item blocking cards
have been a longstanding aspect of the Pokémon TCG
(technically before Items were known as such) and at
present (so before we really have solid information on
the impact of this set), its a fairly popular aspect of
the game (usually in the form of Seismitoad-EX).
The fourth and final concern is the simplest but
perhaps the most important; without a porter strategy,
you’re slowing down your own offense at the same time.
Ratings
Standard: 3.5/5 - Composite
rating; in general Substitute Robo is a solid
card that misses the cut because there just isn’t the
room in most decks, while in a few key decks it should
be quite valuable.
Expanded: 3.5/5 - Nothing
added to the card pool here strikes me as being
particularly beneficial or problematic for Substitute
Robo.
Limited: 5/5 - Very nice to force the opponent to waste resources or to
give yourself some breathing room when deciding what you
really want Active, and it might even be handy in the
odd +39 deck. The big concern about deck space in
constructed will almost never apply here.
Summary: Substitute Robo, barring any surprise rulings, is a useful
card that like many before it is crowded out of general
usage by the sheer volume of options, but when you find
a deck that can use it well its a very effective play.
It still just missed making my own list because this
set was chock full of cards that were impressive in
specific decks but not very good in general or were very
good in general but not in specific decks, with a few
that managed to be both. We’ll find out if I didn’t
give Robo Substitute enough credit soon enough!
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