Beast Bringer – Unbroken Bonds Pokemon Review

Vince

Who knew that a giant clam (or possibly Scizor’s silver claw) has some utility in the Pokémon TCG!

Beast Bringer has the reputation of bringing in the hurt in the early stages of the match. As the tool works for just Ultra Beasts and needs your prize count to be exactly six cards, if an Ultra Beast knocks out the opposing Pokémon-EX or Pokémon-GX by an atttack, you get to take one more prize card. For EX/GX Pokemon, that’s three prizes you would take, and four prizes if a Tag Team is Knocked Out. This could get you far ahead of the game, though the prize count shouldn’t be an indicator of whenever someone is winning or losing, comeback victories happened before more than I can count.

The scary thing is that depending on which ones you’ve knocked out and take prizes, you may sometimes help your opponent. Getting three prizes may give your opponent the opportunity to use Beast Ring unless you KOed a Tag Team, which bypasses that range. Sledgehammer will never benefit once the Beast Bringer player pulls ahead. Your Naganadel’s Turning Point will enjoy boosted damage if you took three prizes! So far, that’s what I can think of from the top of my head in regards to cards interacting with prize cards, which is mostly from Ultra Beasts. Perhaps the most tempting thing to accomplish is to time it right with Beast Game so that you’ll instantly win due to taking all six prizes.

For Limited, you’ll never be able to benefit from Beast Bringer since matches start with four prizes instead of six.

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 1/5

Otaku

Beast Bringer (SM – Unbroken Bonds 164/214, 229/214) is a Pokémon Tool that can be attached to anything but its effect will only trigger for Ultra Beasts.  Said effect is that you take an extra Prize when damage from the equipped Ultra Beast’s attack KO’s a Pokémon-EX/GX while you have exactly six Prizes left.  That means, unless you or your opponent increase how many Prizes you have remaining to six (or more), you’ll only have one chance to make use of Beast Bringer.  As a Tool, it also means you can’t make use of a card like Choice Band at the same time.

I can see a use for Beast Bringer, but it is fairly niche.  Any really aggressive Ultra Beast deck might consider it to try and take an early Prize lead more easily.  Of course, both past, present, and future cards exist to punish doing such a thing, so that may be unwise.  You can also find something that already gets to takes extra Prizes from scoring the KO, and slap on Beast Bringer for an even bigger payday.  If you can finish off an opponent’s Tag Team Pokémon with (for example) Guzzlord-GX’s “Glutton-GX” attack while Guzzlord-GX has Beast Bringer attached to itself, you’d take six Prizes at once!

I cannot rate this card particularly high, as it seems like there are better things to run in Standard and Expanded.  In the Limited Format, it is a Tool that does nothing because you each begin with only four Prizes!

Ratings

• Standard: 1.5/5
• Expanded: 1.5/5
• Limited: 1/5