Avery – Chilling Reigns
Date Reviewed:
June 19, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.75
Expanded: 2.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
Our 14th best card is Avery, who is not only outclassing those draw three supporters, but also provides a disruptive element. He is a Supporter card that lets you draw three cards. Then your opponent has to discard their Benched Pokemon until they have three remaining. How useful the disruptive element varied. It may not help as much if your opponent discards a Crobat-V and Dedenne-V after they serve their purpose. On the other hand, reducing your opponent’s bench size means Eternatus VMAX loses some of its power.
Standard: 2.5
Expanded: 2.5
Otaku
Avery (SW – Chilling Reign 130/198, 187/198, 211/198) is our 14th-Place pick from the latest expansion. Avery is a Supporter with two effects. First, you draw three cards. As long as you draw at least one, his secondary effect activates, your opponent has to discard Pokémon from their Bench until they have only three Benched Pokémon. Yes, it just says “three Pokémon”, which might include the Active, but the translations for the Japanese card specified “Benched Pokémon”, so I’m going to read it that way. Due to the specifics of the wording, I don’t think you can use Avery unless you’re drawing at least one card. The only way to draw none is if your deck is empty, and if that is the case, you already know the secondary effect won’t activate and thus the Supporter would do nothing but burn your Supporter use for the turn. Playing a Supporter under such circumstances isn’t permitted.
Drawing three cards is weak, as demonstrated by how cards like Cheren, Tierno, Hau, and Hop have seen next to no competitive success over nearly a decade. Draw three cards with drawbacks used to be competitive, but that was years – and much power creep – earlier. Fortunately, Avery’s second effect can devastate decks that need to fill their Bench. It acts as a natural counter to something like an Eternatus VMAX deck. Unfortunately, there’s also a real chance of it backfiring given how most players use Crobat V and/or Dedenne-GX. You’re usually helping your opponent out if you play Avery and they can just discard spent coming-into-play Ability Pokémon.
In Expanded, I actually like Avery a bit more, because of VS Seeker. Being able to trade an Item for the exact Supporter you need from your discard pile significantly helps a semi-specialist like Avery. You can just TecH in a copy to frustrate decks that need a big Bench, though you might still prefer to just run Sudowoodo (SM – Guardians Rising 66/145; Shiny Vault SV20/SV94). As such, this isn’t enough to bump up its score for this Format. Overall, I’d say Avery is a decent card. No where near as good as Birdkeeper, but better than Allister. I didn’t include Avery in my Top 15, but I can see why someone else would.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 3/5
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