Otaku |
At last, it is time
to countdown the top 10 cards of Sun & Moon, as
determined by the aggregate efforts of aroramage, Zach,
and myself! As usual, each reviewer submitted his
own personal top 10 list, and the results were averaged
out to produce the list we are actually using.
Reprints were not permitted for the list; we
already know a card like Ultra Ball is good (and
actually pretty hard to top)!
We have a cynical
celebration of Valentine’s Day; we needed to take Monday
off, so your reward is two reviews today… except, as
stated, you’re not actually getting an extra review.
Kind of like how some people basically save all their
gestures of love for holidays (like Valentine’s Day),
instead of showing them year round and doing something
above and beyond to commemorate the holiday (if
they celebrate it at all). I’m a bit scared to
check and see if our subject is oddly appropriate for a
Valentine’s Day review as fifth place is Professor
Kukui (Sun & Moon 128/149, 148/149), the
younger, shirtless Pokémon Professor. Well, maybe
just a quick Google search as I don’t have either Gen
VII game (I don’t even have a 3DS at all), nor have I
seen the animation or read the manga, so I know nothing
about him beyond his card. *executes search*
Yeah, I don’t recommend you do that search any place
someone might get the wrong idea; even with SafeSearch
on, even doing a general (not Image) search, the
labors of his fans might give people the wrong idea,
especially on Valentine’s Day.
Alright, with my
awkward attempt at a sort-of-comedic-introduction out of
the way, onto the actual card. This is a Trainer,
specifically a Supporter. No real drawbacks to
either right now; a few effects are anti-Trainer or
anti-Supporter, but they are (thankfully!) nowhere near
as potent or common as, say, the anti-Item effects.
It’s all good as instead, this allows you to snag him
with cards like Trainers’ Mail or recycle
Professor Kukui with cards like VS Seeker.
That last one is usually pretty important for
Supporters: regardless of a low or high count of a
particular Supporter, being able to use it extra times,
or not lose total access to it should you need to
discard it for another effect, can make a good card
great and a great card broken. That
isn’t an exaggeration; Lysandre’s Trump Card may
have avoided being banned if VS Seeker didn’t
allow you to reuse it with ease as it recycled
everything but itself. Of course, Battle
Compressor also helped as
Battle Compressor
=> discard [insert one to three Supporters] => VS
Seeker
Is still one of the
fundamental combos of Expanded play. So what does
this seeming tangent have to do with Professor Kukui?
Plenty,
but if you don’t get it now you will after I
explain the effect. Professor Kukui does two
things when you use it.
-
Your Pokémon’s attacks do +20 damage
this turn.
-
You draw two cards.
The card itself
lists them in the opposite order, but it is the
damage bonus that you need to really focus upon.
As I’ve said before, damage buffs and debuffs only
matter if they shift how many turns it takes to score a
KO, barring effects with specific damage related
triggers. Something that can already OHKO
everything in the game, or at least everything without a
protective effect, does not need Professor
Kukui. With Pokémon-GX often having as good or
better HP scores than Pokémon-EX, as well as people
trying to put Giovanni’s Scheme to good use (it
offers a similar damage buff), there is clearly a
demand. In most decks, though, it isn’t enough to
justify running multiple copies of this card; you won’t
need +20 damage all the time, just for a few specific
match-ups or problem Pokémon.
So what about the
draw? Does it matter? Yes! Giovanni’s
Scheme has seen some successful competitive play,
but the main thing holding it back is general Supporter
competition. That will affect Professor Kukui
as well, but Giovanni’s Scheme tends to
have it worse; that card gives you a choice between
doing +20 damage or drawing until you have five
cards in hand. If you don’t need the damage and
have five or more cards in hand, Giovanni’s Scheme
is a waste. Two cards aren’t much but are still
something. Thanks to various alternate draw,
search, or weird combo effects (looking at you, Acro
Bike), while most decks cannot afford to constantly
use their Supporter on a non-draw effect, they can often
afford it several times per game. This has led to
a rise not just in the inclusion of several Supporters
in lower counts, but of the TecH Supporter. As a
reminder, TecH is a single card inclusion to counter a
specific threat to your win. Being a single card,
it ultimately decreases your deck’s reliability but
the few wins this costs you is exceeded by the number of
wins gained from what it counters. Professor Kukui
seems to fit the bill; you won’t always need +20 damage,
but when you do it delivers, turning a 2HKO into a OHKO,
a 3HKO into a 2HKO, and hopefully your deck doesn’t
perform worse than that against any other serious
matchups. It is possible that Professor Kukui
is one step beyond even this; Lysandre is
sometimes TecH, but many decks rely upon it enough to
run a two count and would run more if they had space. Lysandre
isn’t just for a problem matchup, it is for most
matchups.
Does every Standard
deck need this card? No, but I suspect most would
do well to incorporate one copy, or at least have it
alongside some of the other similar pieces of
established TecH options like Hex Maniac,
Pokémon Ranger, and others. The same goes for
Expanded; it faces more competition there, both as a
source of damage buffs and as a Supporter, but gains
access to Battle Compressor. The net result
is that is should be as good (maybe even better) for
Expanded play. Love this card in Limited; any draw
power and any damage buffs are appreciated here, so a
great card that combines the two is rarely unneeded.
It also great to have when Theme Decks face off.
Ratings
Standard:
4/5
Expanded:
4/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary:
The bad news about Professor Kukui? You
have yet another card you’ll want in most of your decks,
but for which you’ll struggle to make room. The
good news? You’ve got a nifty source of +20 damage
that may eat up your Supporter for the turn, doesn’t
interfere and, in fact, may complement other sources,
while still drawing two cards so you still end up with
one more card in hand than you began. Now if I
could just stop misspelling his name (I was not familiar
with the kukui tree prior to this card).
Professor Kukui
earned a total of 12 voting points, tying with our
fourth place finisher, Umbreon-GX (Sun & Moon
80/149, 142/149, 154/149). Yes, I am naming it
outright as these reviews are going up the same day, so
I know that you know exactly what took fourth
place already. These two beat out our previous tie
(in sixth and seventh place) by two points (not one, as
I mistakenly reported on Friday. As such, I double
checked; tomorrow’s third place finisher beat
Professor Kukui and Umbreon-GX by a healthy
four point margin.
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