aroramage |
Don't worry, this is like the last
couple of cards we've got from the BIG LIST OF THE TOP
2016 cards and then we can move on.
Puzzle of Time has been an
interesting card since its release. Its design lends
itself to running the card at max copies in order to
benefit the most from it, but you can only really play
it at its full potential when you've got two copies.
Having 1 copy lets you take a look at what's coming up
from the top 3 cards of your deck and prepare yourself
for the road ahead while playing 2 copies at the same
time lets your retrieve whatever you need from your
discard pile and puts it back into your hand.
It's got a great effect in it, but
you really have to run 4 copies to get the most out of
it. There are a few decks that do benefit from its
second effect though (because let's face it, no one's
gonna run a lesser Pokedex when they don't even run the
original); one that comes to mind is Greninja BREAK, who
can use the cards to cycle back Water Energies, although
it might just be worth it to run 4 more Water Energy.
Night March actually ran Puzzle of Time to cycle back
the limited amounts of DCE that it ran to power its main
attackers, though it could just as easily bring them
back too.
That all being said, depending on
your deck's particular needs, Puzzle of Time isn't a
necessary card. And if it's not something you'd run at 4
copies in your deck, then there's really no need to run
it at all; running 3 copies is just an odd combination,
and running it at 1-2 copies just means it won't come up
as often as a pair, making it less consistent. This is
the sort of situation that has nudged Puzzle of Time out
of many decks, since it's guaranteed to take up 4 slots
out of a limited 60-slot deck.
Never mind you'd never want them to
get Prize'd.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (my initial review of
this card pretty much sums up my main point about it)
Expanded: 3/5 (it's either you're
running the 4 copies you need or you're not running it,
and competitively, it seems people don't think they need
to run all 4)
Limited: 4/5 (at least not unless
there's an absolutely vital resource that's needed like
in Night March)
Arora Notealus: Puzzle of Time is
by no means a bad card, but it could be made into more
of a must-run if it had been able to be played without
the need for a second copy and just given the option
between looking at the top cards or retrieving something
from the discard. Obviously I'd tone it down to just
grabbing 1 card, maybe even limiting the type of card it
could be from the discard pile like say making it a
Pokemon or an Energy card, but then it might have seen
even less play. Who knows, it's something to tinker
with, and at the very least the concept was proven to be
a necessity within some decks.
Next Time: Somebody shows up with
this bad attitude, and you're like, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAA"
|
Otaku |
Our 12th place
finisher, the card that not only came close to making
the actual top 10 but also just misses being “the best
of the rest”, is Puzzle of Time (XY:
BREAKpoint 109/122). You can read our original
reviews of it
here,
complete with a strained Yu-Gi-Oh joke on my part.
It was our fifth place pick for its expansion, and I
still think it ought to have ranked a bit higher.
Let us review the basics of this card, and then we’ll
discuss how it did in 2016, and its prospects for 2017.
Puzzle of Time
is an Item card that allows you to play two copies at
once. If you play only one copy, you get the first
effect listed in the bullet points of the card text
while the result of playing two copies is the second
effect. Looking at the top three cards of your
deck (with the option to rearrange them) is the first
effect; a nerfed Pokédex. The second effect
is much more potent, adding two cards from your discard
pile directly back to your hand, no restrictions!
You may only have up to four copies of Puzzle of Time
in your deck, so even if none are Prized, discarded, or
blocked (by Item lock), you’ll only get to use the
second effect twice, unless you combine them with an
Item recycling effect such as the “Junk Hunt” attack
found on Sableye (BW: Dark Explorers
62/108). Puzzle of Time cannot target itself,
but only because the two copies being used are not in
the discard pile until after the effect resolves; if a
third copy (and even a fourth) is already there,
you can indeed retrieve them. I believe the rules
of Pokémon prevent you using such a tactic to stall
(same reason Energy or damage counter moving effects
cannot be used ad infinitum), so using two copies to get
two more copies from the discard pile will only matter
if some effect you want to trigger would activate in
response to the play. If one Puzzle of
Time card hits the discard pile prematurely,
snagging it back can make sense, though, as you still
come out one card ahead in the long run.
So what made
Puzzle of Time so good? Lysandre’s Trump Card
was banned, which affected us in two ways. Some
strategies that needed key elements - like Special
Energy - to be recyclable had few other places to turn
than Puzzle of Time. Other strategies were
strengthened because you could not force your opponent
to recycle his or her discard pile; besides Night March
and Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98)
with their discard pile dependent attacks, you also had
supporting effects like VS Seeker or the Energy
acceleration provided by Bronzong (XY: Black
Star Promos XY21; XY: Phantom Forces 61/119).
Just about any deck could benefit from Puzzle of Time;
while Pokémon and basic Energy cards are relatively easy
to reclaim from the discard pile, Trainers and Special
energy aren’t and while some decks can get by without
Special Energy cards, all make good use of
Trainers. There were alternatives to Puzzle of
Time that predate it; Milotic (XY: Primal
Clash 44/160) adds a single card from your discard
pile to your hand via its “Sparkling Ripples” Ability
when you Evolve something into it from hand. That
is a Stage 1 which Evolves from a 30 HP Basic (every
Feebas printed has 30 HP), and Abilities are
about as easy to block as Items, so you can see why
Puzzle of Time would supplant it even in the face of
potent Item locking decks. Decks like Night March
got to the point where they ran on just four Double
Colorless Energy and relied upon Puzzle of Time
to recycle them; Puzzle of Time wasn’t for every
deck but it definitely made its mark on the competitive
scene.
Then we got
Special Charge; this fellow Item shuffles two
Special Energy cards from your discard pile to your
deck. While you’ll need to draw into or search
them out afterward, and you can’t get back anything
else, many of the major decks running Puzzle of Time
could replace at least two cards (sometimes upwards of
four) with a single card. Sometimes the two were
even used together for the same good reason some decks
still use Puzzle of Time; there are other cards
you want back from the discard pile. Getting other
discard reclamation cards like Special Charge
just further increased their yield, plus you have stuff
like Stadium cards which lack a better, generic
recycling option. By late 2016 and into 2017, Puzzle
of Time is down to niche usage, being useful in
general (again just about any deck can benefit from it),
but with no stand out deck that even kind of has to run
it in either Expanded or Standard play. Something
I did not focus on was the first effect, which actually
is pretty good; there are many simple combos such as
with Acro Bike that can make manipulating the top
three cards of your deck a profitable action, but we
recently got Pokédex back for Standard play, so
decks that really focus on such a thing have a
better option. Puzzle of Time is a must run for
Limited play; even if you only have one copy that effect
is handy here, and if you do get multiples and can pull
off the second effect, even better. This might
mean more if Limited play was seen more often in
Pokémon; the only regular example in this game is the
Pre-release, and those are of course long gone by now.
Ratings
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3.5/5
Limited:
5/5
Summary:
Puzzle of Time was really important to
several top decks prior to Special Charge because
recycling Special Energy cards was important to those
top decks. Both effects now have alternatives that
can do the job about as well or better, at least
adjusted for actual deck needs. Nothing else snags
any two cards from the discard pile, but needing two
copies of Puzzle of Time to play at the exact
same time to do it means most decks will settle for a
slightly slower but more reliable alternative, like
using Special Charge to get back Special Energy
cards. It is better in Expanded, where a few decks
can exploit it well; besides Sableye you have
any deck spamming its Ace Spec card. Which
brings us to a final recommendation of remembering this
card; a carelessly designed gimmick, or just a really
important Stadium card, and Puzzle of Time could
become big again.
Puzzle of Time
received five voting points, taking 9th place on my own
personal top 10 and 8th on the list of another reviewer.
I was tempted to treat this and Special Charge as
a single entry, given the similarity in their usage. Special
Charge received six voting points, so together they
would have had 11, enough for 6th place. As is,
Puzzle of Time tied with
last Friday’s
Pokémon Ranger. Both were one point away
from joining the three-way-tie we had had in points for
the 9th, 10th, and 11th place. Actually about that
11th place card…
|
