Otaku |
You
know, some cards get cool sounding names like
yesterday's
subject, Assault Vest while today? We get
Buddy-Buddy Rescue (XY: BREAKthrough
135/132), which sounds goofy but in an endearing way.
One fits the “epic monster battles” side of things, the
other fits the “virtual pet” side instead. So… is
it any good?
Let us
start with what the card is: a Trainer, specifically an
Item. There are more effects that refer to
“Trainers” collectively than I realized, and most are
either favorable (like Trainer’s Mail or Skyla),
won’t matter for Buddy-Buddy Rescue (Pokémon with
Ω Barrier) or just have had little to no success.
Items on the other hand don’t have a tremendous amount
of support though there are a few notable cards like
Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers 62/108) while the
Item counters include cards that completely block them
from being played by one or both players: Trevenant
(XY 55/146), Seismitoad-EX and
Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98).
Though some Items like Ultra Ball have a cost to
play, it isn’t built into their generic templates like
the restrictions on using Supporters or Stadiums: even
though they often have effects much weaker than those of
Supporters, the fact a player can use several together
on the same turn still makes Items quite powerful.
Buddy-Buddy Rescue
is… probably not one of those Items, but I think it
might have its uses. Its specific effect is that
each player adds a Pokémon from their respective discard
pile to hand, with your opponent choosing first.
This is one of those situations where you want the
opponent to pick first, as it allows you to adapt should
it somehow prove relevant. The cards going to the
hand is probably why you aren’t limited to just Basic
Pokémon and it allows you to reuse coming-into-play
effects. Of course your opponent is still getting
something back, but you may be able to shuffle it away
or even discard it again with another card, if that
would be advantageous. Of course when it comes to
getting Pokémon back from the discard, there is serious
competition (and some not-so-serious but still
relevant). Revive can put a Basic back directly
to the Bench without giving your opponent anything,
Max Revive can put one on top of your deck and
either Sacred Ash or Super Rod can return
multiples to the deck (not a huge hurdle given typical
draw/search options). So why burn an Item to get a
single Pokémon back into hand when your opponent gets
the same chance?
It is
not written to be optional; while I believe you
should be able to play it when only one of you has a
Pokémon in the discard pile (same way you can use
Escape Rope so long as at least one of you has
something on the Bench to promote), if a player has
something in the discard, something must be “rescued”.
This means a deck using something like Vespiquen
(XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) and its “Bee Revenge”
attack will have its damage output ever-so-slightly
lowered. If you can spring it when there aren’t
other options, this can force something your opponent
was preparing to target with Archie’s Ace in the Hole
or Maxie’s Hidden Ball trick back into hand. Not
enough to justify running the card on its own, but if
your deck already needs to reclaim a Pokémon and prefers
for it to head straight to hand, not worthless.
That being said, I don’t think it is overly useful
either. This might find some niche use in Standard
or Expanded but its main calling is Limited where it
could be amazing or backfire horribly if you don’t pay
attention to your opponent’s options (still run it so
long as you’ll have something in the discard pile to
reclaim).
Ratings
Standard:
2.1/5
Expanded:
2.1/5
Limited:
4.8/5
Summary:
Buddy-Buddy Rescue does something (reclaiming a
lost Pokémon) and in some ways does it better (adding it
directly to hand) but with the risk of helping out your
opponent as much or more than yourself, a risk other
options lack. Including those that can send
multiple Pokémon back to the deck: quantity over
quality. I have this fuzzy notion at the edge of
my mind saying “There is something you’re missing.” but
for now, it is one of those cards that isn’t the best at
what it does so unless we do find a niche use, even if
it might look awesome when someone uses it off a top
deck to reclaim and immediately re-play a Shaymin-EX
(XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108).
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