Otaku |
We finish our tiny week with a review of Karen (XY:
Black Star Promos XY177). Technically she is
not legal until October 7th (if I calculated correctly)
as she only just released as part of the Battle Arena
Deck: Keldeo Vs Rayquaza on September 21st. I do
not believe any other major release becomes legal during
this time, so we will just be reviewing her as if she
were already legal. I haven’t stated this for a
while, but if you do not enjoy a long read, just skip
to the Ratings section below, which includes a summary.
Karen
is a Trainer card, specifically a Supporter, that
shuffles all Pokémon from each player’s discard pile
into their respective decks. There aren’t too many
card effects that will care about her being a Trainer:
while there are a couple dozen effects that mention
“Trainer card” or “Trainer cards”, most are quite
specific and will never apply to Karen.
Stuff like the Ancient Trait “Ω Barrier” which as far as
I know, only works while that Pokémon is in play.
Probably should get a ruling on that just to be certain,
as it could be important later on. Apart from such
things, we have a few attacks that haven’t been
historically significant that might add, discard, or
count (for the purpose of damage) the Trainers in your
hand. Perhaps a few other even more obscure
effects I missed. There are a few noteworthy
Trainers that work with other Trainers. If you are
using it as your Ace Spec, Dowsing Machine can
add any Trainer card from your discard pile to your hand
at a two card discard cost, Skyla can add any
Trainer from your deck to your hand, and Trainers’
Mail can snag any Trainer (other than another copy
of itself) from the top four cards of your deck (if
there is such a card there). Trainers’ Mail is
the only one that seems particularly relevant as
competitive decks still use it for added
speed/reliability, but the other two are fringe benefits
because Karen is a Supporter.
Supporters are that precious once-per-turn Trainer card
that usually has an effect that is assumed or in fact
was proven too strong as an Item. Unlike Ace Spec
cards, which were a kind of Trainer restricted to one
per deck - not just up to one of each Ace Spec, but only
one Ace Spec card overall - you may run many Supporters
in your deck, but you still only may use one per turn
and the rest are going to be dead in hand until your
next turn. This means they still all compete with
each other more than another Trainer card subcategory,
Items. Many Supporters have had pretty good
effects, but not good enough to see competitive play
because of all the really great, great, kind of great,
and really good Supporters crowding them out. VS
Seeker alleviates some of this, as it allows you to
return a Supporter from your discard pile to your hand,
and so niche Supporters can still slip into a deck as a
single but be used multiple times (through VS Seeker)
when needed. In Expanded this works even better
due to Battle Compressor, allowing you to
intentionally remove such specialized Supporters from
your deck early on (so they aren’t dead draws later on)
or if you do need one, then Battle Compressor
followed by VS Seeker effectively searches it
from your deck.
So with all that said, how does Karen stack up?
Her effect is a scaled back Lysandre’s Trump Card,
which has some worried. Thankfully, while the
official reason for Lysandre’s Trump Card
being banned was how it made it almost impossible to win
through mill tactics, there were several abusive plays
it allowed because it recycled everything but itself:
all Pokémon, Trainers, and Energy cards. Even if
we hadn’t gotten it alongside VS Seeker (and
Dowsing Machine was not an option), players would
have included one, two, up to four so that they could be
reckless with their decks. As long as you’re
focused on winning through Prizes, it doesn’t matter
that Lysandre’s Trump Card recycled everything in
your opponent’s discard pile (other than copies of
itself) as well. Since we did get it
alongside VS Seeker, you only needed one
Lysandre’s Trump Card for a potentially infinite
deck. VS Seeker proved so useful that it quickly
became a four-per-deck staple, so that doesn’t really
count against the combo’s “size”, and decks which were
worried about Lysandre’s Trump Card being Prized
could just run a spare copy, run a Town Map (so
they could make it one of their earlier Prize pulls), or
both.
Karen
just returns Pokémon. There are decks that can
make excellent use of this trick, of course. The
obvious is M Gardevoir-EX (XY: Steam Siege
79/114, 112/114) and its “Despair Ray” attack.
Said attack can do big damage for just [YC], so long as
you have plenty of Benched Pokémon to discard (each adds
10 to the base 110 damage). Karen allows a
potential reload with much fewer resources. M
Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 76/108,
105/108), infamous for using Sky Field so that
its “Emerald Break” attack hits big numbers; but when
Sky Field gets discarded (especially by an opponent
using Delinquent or Parallel City) a lot
of Pokémon are likely to be discarded. Again,
there are other ways to get them back, but Karen
gets every Pokémon in the discard pile back for a single
card. Useful Pokémon with effects that put
themselves into your discard pile, if not right away
than with only a minor delay are another category:
Audino (BW: Boundaries Crossed 126/149),
Klefki (XY: Steam Siege 80/124), and Unown
(XY: Ancient Origins 30/98). Lastly are
cards with useful coming-into-play effects that players
often want to discard themselves, because afterwards
they are just wasting space and potentially easy Prizes,
most notably Hoopa-EX (XY: Ancient Origins
36/98, 89/98; XY: Black Star Promos XY71) and
Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/108). Any of these (or similar cards which I
did not elaborate upon) will benefit from Karen
in at least some (if not most) builds, and many can
often work with each other (namely the Hoopa-EX
and Shaymin-EX for either of the aforementioned
attackers).
What about decks in general? Mass Pokémon
recycling can be good, but sometimes you have stuff
you’d rather leave in the discard pile, and you are
extending this benefit to your opponent as well.
So why should your average deck consider Karen?
In most cases, it is because the drawbacks can be
advantageous in some situations. As a Supporter,
most decks can reuse Karen up to four times, so
while she is more costly to play, she’s more reliable.
So many games I’ll get something like Super Rod
early and have to toss it or use it for a reduced effect
because I need to use Professor Sycamore or
Shaymin-EX or Ultra Ball. With Karen
I usually have the option of getting it back with VS
Seeker. Yeah I might recycle stuff I didn’t
really want to, but the scope is every Pokémon in
both discard piles. This can counter mill decks,
but it won’t hard counter them (make them completely
harmless); most decks need their Energy and Trainer
cards as well, so you may only be delaying the
inevitable. Now for the reason most of you already
knew; what this does hard counter are attacks based on
Pokémon in your discard pile. Flareon (BW:
Plasma Freeze 12/116), Night March attackers, and
Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) have at
times been the dominant deck in the game, and indeed
prior to rotation while the latter two didn’t win
Worlds, what did win were decks with strong match ups
against them.
Some believe their dominance was a mistake;
Lysandre’s Trump Card used to threaten a reset of
the discard pile every turn. However
Lysandre’s Trump Card would recycle the
draw/search/discard engines of the decks built around
these cards, in addition to the Pokémon they wished to
keep in the discard pile. Maybe I was wrong, but I
even would risk a Lysandre’s Trump Card myself in
such decks, because sometimes I would over do it and
risk losing via deck out, or at least running out of
viable attackers. How could I hope that would
work? Well as I was getting all of my copies of
Acro Bike, Trainers’ Mail, Battle
Compressor, Professor Sycamore, etc. back, a
turn or two and I would be swinging away again at full
strength. Karen avoids this; instead such
a deck only has its Pokémon recycled and now has
to try and discard them through whatever Trainers
remain. Waiting for your opponent to KO enough is
rarely an option as he or she will take his or her
remaining Prizes long before the “Bee Revenge”, “Night
March”, or “Vengeance” attacks can do significant
amounts of damage.
A single Karen may not become a staple for the
same reason many other dramatic hard counters get left
out: it might work a little too good. If
Karen crushes these decks as well as expected, then
enough people will stop running them, and so at best we
might get into a cycle: decks countered by Karen
do well, people run Karen, those decks fall out
of favor so people use them less, Karen falls out
of favor because deck space is so precious, decks
countered by Karen start to win again because
people have stopped running her, so people start packing
Karen again, etc. Most decks want a card
for Pokémon recycling, so Karen may still have a
shot. She faces competition though, especially in
the decks that don’t want to recycle every
Pokémon in both players discard piles. In Standard
you’ve got Super Rod to shuffle three cards from
discard pile to deck, and they can be Pokémon or basic
Energy. In Expanded, you have Sacred Ash to
shuffle five Pokémon from discard pile to deck. It
isn’t out yet, but Brock’s Guts is a new
Supporter we ought to receive in XY: Evolutions,
and if translated correctly he’s basically a double
Super Rod; six cards from discard pile to deck, but
they must be either Pokémon or basic Energy cards or a
combination of the two.
Personally, I’m probably going to use her in many decks.
No, not to be a creepy otaku, but a stubborn one as
she’s going to cost me to obtain in one way or another.
Right now Karen is only available in the
aforementioned Keldeo Vs Rayquaza Battle Arena Deck set.
Either you’ve got to buy it or find someone who did and
trade for a copy of Karen: there is only one copy
of her in that deck set. Fortunately besides here
there are several major Trainers (and some still good
cards) for players who are new to the game, or want to
free up some rarer versions of these cards for trade.
The Battle Arena Deck is actually two decks sold
together, and each contains a VS Seeker, a card I
have seen going for up to $15 USD. Even if this
release causes the price to drop, it should still be
worth the MSRP of $29.99 (again, USD). Players on
the PTCGO should be able to acquire Karen by
using a Redemption Code found in the Battle Arena Deck
or (again) by trading. Again though with only one
Karen in the Battle Arena Deck, a lot of folks
probably aren’t going to have a spare copy to trade.
Ratings
Standard:
3.35/5
Expanded:
3.75/5
Limited:
N/A
Summary:
Karen brings the safer aspect of Lysandre’s
Trump Card back to the Pokémon TCG, which counters
some infamous attackers. Only one such attacker is
found in Standard, so Karen has to earn her place
mostly by being what she is: mass Pokémon recycling that
hits both players, in the form of a Supporter.
Most decks could use her, but only some can use her
well, and they may be enough so that the rest don’t have
to include her at all. Just the threat of a hard
counter might be enough to discourage Vespiquen
decks from competitive play.
In Expanded Karen can counter more threats, and
much more importantly, has access to Battle
Compressor. A single Karen you can toss
possibly on your first turn, and if you end up needing
it you just use VS Seeker to reclaim and use it
(assuming Items aren’t being locked down). She
isn’t an option for Limited as I do not believe anything
official uses Battle Arena Decks, though she’d be a must
run there, I think. We actually might want to push
for Nintendo to create such a Limited events; a little
Prize support means it should be no more (perhaps less
expensive) for us, and with both increased production
(often bulk production reduces the cost per unit) and
overall increased sales still increasing profits.
|
Zach Carmichael |
When Lysandre’s Trump Card
was first released in Phantom Forces, players did
not really see any underlying concerns about it making
the game unhealthy. Both Acro Bike and
Trainers’ Mail changed that, however, allowing
players to burn through their decks mindlessly while
recycling all cards back into their deck to quickly gain
an overwhelming advantage against their opponents.
(Jason Klaczynski won a Regional Championship last year
using a Seismitoad-EX deck that did just that.)
The card was eventually banned from tournament play,
leaving players only with options such as Super Rod
and Revitalizer in Standard to recover discarded
Pokémon. Perhaps the card developers underestimated the
power creep that is evidently apparent in today’s format
but still sought to make a card with an effect similar
to the infamous Lysandre’s Trump Card, albeit
with a lesser effect. Karen is just that card,
and I believe it will bring a much-needed sense of
balance to the game.
Karen makes both players
shuffle all Pokémon in their discard piles back into
their respective decks. Unlike Lysandre’s Trump Card,
it does not put Trainer or Energy cards back into the
deck. Typically, a deck that centers around Pokémon-EX
might contain 10-12 Pokémon total, so shuffling this
relatively low number of cards back into the deck is
certainly more balanced compared to up to 58 cards with
Lysandre’s Trump Card! However, I would argue
that the fact it forces your opponent to do the same is
what makes the card worth looking at.
In Standard, perhaps the most hyped
deck right now is Vespiquen. Its “Bee Revenge”
attack is dependent on the number of Pokémon in your
discard pile. The deck usually plays around 25 Pokémon –
you don’t even have to do the math to realize that’s a
lot of damage! Adding to this, it is quite easy to put
so many Pokémon in the discard with this deck because it
is geared toward speed. Unown’s “Farewell Letter”
Ability lets you discard the Pokémon to draw a card;
Klefki lets you do something known to players as
“key-chaining,” or using its “Wonder Lock” Ability to
stream discarding multiple copies of it; and maxed out
counts of cards like Acro Bike and Shaymin-EX
allow the deck to burn through cards at a blazing pace.
Finally, it can be rather difficult winning against a
Vespiquen deck just because it is using single-prize
attackers, giving your opponent a massive advantage in
the prize trade if you can’t constantly Lysandre
out their Shaymin-EX. Karen aims to
balance this by putting all of those Pokémon back in the
deck. This can be incredibly powerful in the late game,
as your opponent will have already burned through their
Item and Supporter cards, leaving them with a deck full
of useless Pokémon and a “Bee Revenge” attack that does
negligible damage.
With Mega Rayquaza-EX,
things become a bit stickier. While the ability to
shuffle all of your Pokémon back into the deck sounds
very good in a deck that relies on a high count of
Benched Pokémon – especially in a format where
Parallel City is everywhere, keep in mind that
Karen is balanced by the fact that it is a Supporter
card. It is a situational card, one that can’t be used
freely by Mega Rayquaza-EX players unless they
can also hit other draw cards like Shaymin-EX to
refill their bench. Many competitive players have argued
that the card doesn’t warrant the spot in the deck for
that reason alone; perhaps playing two Super Rod
is a better option if only because it can recover both
Pokémon and Basic Energy while still allowing you to
play a Supporter such as Professor Sycamore to
continue drawing cards.
In Expanded, Karen also
serves the purpose of counteracting Night March, which
took 1st at the U.S. National Championships
this past July (using Vespiquen as a secondary
attacker nonetheless). Night Marchers such as Joltik
and Pumpkaboo also rely on the number of Pokémon
in the discard pile for maximum damage output, so
Karen can quickly turn the tides in this match-up.
Again, using Karen in the later stages of the
game is crucial in order to force your opponent to have
a deck full of Pokémon that no longer serve a purpose if
they are not in the discard pile. Notably, Karen
is also a useful addition to decks that rely heavily on
Evolutions in general. Greninja BREAK players
will rejoice, as they can now shuffle their entire
Evolution lines – typically a 4-4-4-3 Greninja
line – back into the deck. Trevenant and
Yanmega BREAK decks can also benefit from this new
Supporter.
Ratings
Standard: 3.5/5
Expanded: 4/5
Limited: N/A
Summary: Karen will
certainly see play in both Standard and Expanded
Formats. Whether or not it becomes a staple in
competitive decks remains to be seen, as it is a
Supporter Card that is situational at best and not every
deck can benefit from the effect. That said, in Standard
we are now seeing the rise of Evolution and Pokémon
BREAK cards, and these types of decks can certainly take
advantage of putting all Pokémon back into the deck. As
the game continues to evolve this season, we will
progressively get a better of picture of how playable
Karen will be.
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