Caitlin – Chilling Reigns
Date Reviewed:
June 21, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.00
Expanded: 2.00
Limited: 2.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Caitlin (BW – Plasma Blast 78/101; SW – Chilling Reign 132/198, 189/198, 213/198) is our 12th-Place pick in the countdown. She’s a Trainer-Supporter that lets you put any number of cards from your hand onto the bottom of your deck. You pick the order for the bottom-decked cards. You then get to draw that the same number of cards from the top of your deck. She’s also one of those “significant reprints” that are still eligible for our countdown, as she hasn’t been Standard-legal since 2015. You can read our original review for her here, where she was our 5th-Place pick for BW – Plasma Blast! So, how good was she back in the day?
From what I remember, not very. Oh, I did think Caitlin has potential back in the day. It is just that I was wrong. While her effect does let you draw while safely bottom-decking cards you want to keep, even setting up for certain combos (Restored Pokémon)… yeah, you’re still ending up with one fewer cards in hand after using your draw Supporter. Caitlin was released alongside obvious winners like Professor Juniper and N. I thought, especially for decks with complicated setups, she might have a role since she provided draw without shuffling away one’s hand or having to discard it. I don’t remember her seeing competitive success.
Still, I could be wrong. What I can tell you is that I checked the contents of the World Championship Theme Decks from when she was legal. None of them included a copy of her. I even found two decks running Bianca and one running Shauna, other Supporters I remember seeing little to no competitive success! Most of the time though, it was Professor Juniper (later Professor Sycamore) and N. After that, it might be Skyla or Colress or some other Supporter, but not Caitlin. This is why she didn’t make my list, and why I’ve got to award her bottom marks. Just maybe, though, I’m missing something about the current metagame?
Ratings
- Standard: 1/5
- Expanded: 1/5
- Legacy: 1/5
Vince
This may not be a Throwback, but she is a reprint: Caitlyn from BW Plasma Blast, which happened to be the 12th best card of SS Chilling Reign. She was reviewed once where she was the 5th best card of BW Plasma Blast. What does she do and how did it rank that high?
She is a Supporter card which refreshes your hand. When you play her, you get to put as many cards from your hand into the bottom of your deck, then draw that many cards. So, if you were to put five cards from your hand into the bottom of your deck, you get to draw 5 cards. When it was first released, it saw a decent amount of play as it provides an alternate source of draw that doesn’t force you to discard your entire hand to draw seven cards (professor’s research) or to shuffle your hand into your deck and draw cards based on your remaining Prize cards (N). True, she won’t give you an higher draw yield, and that she could be useless at times if you don’t have anything to put back into your deck for later use. But overall, she is a resourceful card.
She was my 8th place pick for Chilling Reign due to how useful she still is, despite facing competition with Marnie. For an effect that hasn’t been seen for quite a long time (looking at you Claydol DP Great Encounters), this is a welcome return!
Standard: 3
Expanded: 3
Legacy: 3
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