aroramage |
Been a little while since we
checked our mail, hasn't it? No? Just me?...I should
really check that box more often.
ANYWHO, Trainers' Mail is by and
large one of the best Trainer cards out there today.
It's like how stuff like Bicycle took off in terms of
draw power, only in Trainers' Mail's case, it's more
like adding more Trainers to your hand. Giving yourself
the ability to use effects outside of Supporters always
saves on room, at the very least, and at most it grants
you the power to thin your deck out - something that
gives consistency, which every competitive player should
strive for with their decks!
Sure, there are ways to shut down
Trainers' Mail - Seismitoad-EX and Vileplume are the two
big culprits that come to mind that can effectively keep
Trainers from their Mail, thanks to its characteristic
as an Item. This can make things very difficult for
players if they rely too much on it, but thankfully it's
not the only Trainer-getter - Skyla's around to help,
but she does have the slight detriment of being a
Supporter, making such searches, while extended to the
entirety of the deck, ironically a bit more limited than
the Mail call!
Build your deck well enough though,
and even Seismitoad-EX can't keep you from your Mail!
...Vileplume might thought.
Rating
Standard: 4/5 (a very good card to grab whatever you
need!)
Expanded: 4.5/5 (retrieving Trainers has never been more
valuable!)
Limited: 5/5 (thinning your deck is always worth it,
even if it's just by a single card)
Arora Notealus: So the Pokemon
World doesn't really have mailmen, they have mail
Pokemon. I know that cause it's clearly shown in a few
episodes of the anime and hinted at in the games that
there are Pokemon who get used to deliver the mail you
keep buying in the PokeMart - DON'T THINK I CAN'T SEE
YOU THINKING ABOUT SENDING FLOWER MAIL TO SOMEBODY!! I'M
ONTO YOU!!
Next Time: And the #1 card of 2015
is...unanimous!
|
Otaku |
The second best Pokémon TCG card of 2015 is…
Trainers’ Mail (XY: Roaring Skies 92/108;
XY: Ancient Origins 100/98)! Originally this
card finished in
fourth place
for our Top 10 list from XY: Roaring Skies
because like with Sky Field, some of the
reviewers just didn’t see how good it really was; yes I
was one of them as I barely included it as my number 10
pick. Ouch. Trainers’ Mail is an Item that
allows you to look at the top four cards of your deck
and if you want, reveal a Trainer card you find there
before adding it to your hand. In my defense,
Lysandre’s Trump Card had not yet been banned and
Item lock decks (especially Seismitoad-EX) just
seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. Not
that I predicted the specific abuse we saw between
Seismitoad-EX, Lysandre’s Trump Card, a vast
amount of Supporters and Shaymin-EX (XY:
Roaring Skies 77/108; 106/108) so that you could
basically throw your deck at your opponent up to twice
in a single turn, with multiple turns of ripping through
some or all of your deck before resetting it again and
again.
Why is a card that just gives you a chance of snagging a
Trainer from the top four cards of your deck so good
though? Tying into what I didn’t see coming, for
TCGs in general decks are a balancing act between
reliability and versatility. The former means
running as many copies as you are allowed of your best
cards, in addition to many draw, search and recycling
card effects, while the latter focuses on running as
many different cards as are needed to handle all the
challenges a deck may face. Trainers’ Mail helps
with both of these, though more the former than the
latter. Decks have been, currently are and most
likely will continue to be Trainer heavy so while you
are only looking at the top four cards of your deck and
yes you will whiff (either totally or at least
for something worth grabbing) some of the time, a well
built deck will often enough snag something worth
playing if not that you really needed. Though not
to the level of Skyla (a Supporter) or
Computer Search (an Ace Spec which required a two
card from hand discard), Trainers’ Mail at least
gives you a chance of pulling lower count cards (like
but not limited to TecH) as well, hence slightly
improving versatility through indirect means.
As you have the option of taking no card with
Trainers’ Mail, it is very useful for some well
known combos; if you don’t find another Trainer worth
grabbing a follow-up Shaymin-EX just draws an
extra card, and while it can be used to grab VS
Seeker or Archie’s Ace in the Hole/Maxie’s
Hidden Ball Trick it again proves useful as
something you can safely play without having to add
another card into hand, unlike say Acro Bike.
I cannot say with much confidence, but based on what I
have seen of Standard and Expanded play (almost entirely
based on PTCGO play as I haven’t been able to keep up
with real world tournament results), Item lock is still
a major part of Expanded and with only so much deck
space in general, I find it harder to make room for
Trainers’ Mail there. As such I think
Trainers’ Mail is just a little more useful in
Standard than Expanded. Unless you fail to pull
anything, it is still a great pull in Limited as well.
Ratings
Standard:
4.25/5
Expanded:
4/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary:
Trainers’ Mail is a potent card that lessens the
need to draw exactly what you need in a given hand.
With draw power that doesn’t shuffle the deck it
effectively extends your reach by four cards, which lets
you really dig deep as Professor Sycamore plus
Trainers’ Mail means you can access a Trainer up to
11 cards in. Even though it is so good I don’t
know if it has reached “staple” territory yet, or
perhaps it has and that is why some of my decks aren’t
working as well; need to trim the fat and make room for
it. Even if I am not just making a terrible
mistake and it is a luxury some decks can’t afford, it
definitely functions in any deck and fairly well
even if it isn’t the optimum choice, perhaps excepting
Vileplume (XY: Ancient Origins 3/98) decks
since you shut down your own Items as well. So… it
still scores phenomenally high.
I had Trainers’ Mail as my second place pick… and
everyone else’s as well, hence why out of three lists it
scored 27 voting points. It only lost out to
tomorrow’s card by three points, but then again a card
with 30 points had to top all three lists, so perhaps it
wasn’t as close as it looks on paper.
|
Jason Klaczynski
(Three time
World Champ) |
#2 Trainers’ Mail (Ancient Origins)
Decks that rely on playing a lot of
trainers early in the game, such as Night March, or in
Expanded, Blastoise decks like the one that won this
year’s World Championships, rely on Trainers’ Mail to
search out the key trainers they need, all while helping
their deck find a crucial Turn 1 supporter.
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