Dashing Pouch – Pokemon COTD

aroramage

Dashing Pouch is the kind of Tool that’s useful for one particular situation, and in this case, that’s running away and conserving Energy. If the Pokemon Dashing Pouch is attached to retreats and uses Energy to do so, then you get to add the Energy back to your hand. It’s not super useful overall, since you’re likely switching Pokemon around with things like Guzma, and even in most situations, you’d rather have a different Tool around like Float Stone, which makes the Retreat Cost nothing, or Choice Band, which helps do more damage.

It’s not that Dashing Pouch is absolutely useless – it’s just significantly outclassed by other Tools in the format.

Rating

Standard: 1.5/5 (for that rare situation where you’d want to retreat something manually, I’ll give it credit)

Expanded: 1/5 (but with more Tools available, this card just doesn’t have the strength to compete)

Limited: 3/5 (on the plus side, at least it’s useful in a Limited environment where there’s less Energy overall)

Arora Notealus: The pressure to retreat is usually mitigated to other Supporters and not really on Tools. Dashing Pouch is just one of those cards that does better in smaller formats. If there was like, a format that grabbed a handful of cards like this to put together a deck, then I could see it having play. Officially though, there’s no such format, but maybe there are friendly friend formats like that.

Side Reviews: Lycanroc-GX – this promo is okay, all things considered. Crunch is a little underpowered at 2-for-30, but at least it discards an Energy card. Accelerock though is pretty good as a 3-for-120 vanilla move, meaning Lycanroc-GX can 2HKO most things on its own. Lycanfang GX doesn’t seem like it’s worth it, even as a 3-for-200 move, mainly cause of the discard for 2 Energy and the once-per-game clause. Still, Lycanroc-GX does have potential if Fighting Types get some extra support in the next couple of sets!

Bewear-GX – it’s been a couple of weeks since I last talked about Bewear-GX, marking my return to the reviews! Big Throw GX is still one of the crazier things about Bewear-GX, but I don’t think there’s been much of a rally behind Bewear-GX as a whole for it. Maybe there’s room for the big bear in some casual decks, but I think that’s where he may remain for the time being.

Next Time: Out in the desolate land, only two kinds of Pokemon rule – those that can survive, and those that can dominate the rest.

Vince

Like Damage Mover from last week, Dashing Pouch does things whose potential doesn’t actually click for me. It’s nice for you to get those energies back to your hand instead of discarding it, but unless you use a Pokémon who enables unlimited energy acceleration, you may find yourself some dead cards.

Plus, there are many better tools out there that can advance your game plan rather than to save resources. If you can get the energy cards back by any means such as Fisherman, Super Rod, or Energy Retrieval, then there’s no need of Dashing Pouch.

It’s also useless on Pokémon with free retreat cost, since nothing attached will go back to your hand.

Standard: 1.25/5 
Expanded: 1.25/5
Limited: 1.5/5

Otaku

There’s niche cards and then there’s Dashing Pouch (SM – Crimson Invasion 92/111).  Moments ago, while otherwise occupied doing other things that had to be taken care of before I could write this review, I finally realized this card’s purpose.  This is a Trainer-Item, specifically a Tool, and its effect causes the Energy you discard in order to retreat to return to your hand instead.  Energy conservation can be valuable in Pokémon,  and the effect doesn’t require you use Dashing Pouch with Pokémon or Energy of a particular Type, making the card seem nice and generic.  The catch is we’ve got so many better options for generic – and sometimes even specialized – plays.  Float Stone is also a Pokémon Tool, so it has all the pro’s and con’s of Dashing Pouch, but it zeroes out the Retreat Cost of the Pokémon to which it is attached, so that no Energy is required to retreat in the first place.  Switch is not a Pokémon Tool, but a one-and-done Trainer-Item; that means it still deals with most (but not all) that Dashing Pouch and Float Stone would face but not only does it not require any Energy attached, it doesn’t even use up your manual retreat for the turn.  When we start looking at Trainers which aren’t also Items, we’ll find Supporters, Stadium cards, Pokémon (usuaully through Abilities), and even a Special Energy card we can use to get a Pokémon out of the Active position.  Some of these work together for amazing combos, like Keldeo-EX and Float Stone.

Returning the Energy to hand is usually better than discarding it outright, but getting basic Energy cards back from the discard pile is usually simple and cost effective, with cards like Energy Retrieval or Super Rod (to name just a few).  Now, Energy on a Benched Pokémon can be useful or it can be useless; maybe you’re going to attack with your former Active again or maybe your deck utilizes something that counts how much Energy you have left in play.  Sending the Energy back to the hand means you’ll need to reattach it, which is usually a once-per-turn affair.  So, when would it really pay off to Dashing Pouch over some of the previously mentioned cards and combos?  When you’ve got multiple Energy attachments from hand during a turn and/or when there are Special Energy cards you wish to reuse.  Yes, it is that simple.  It also works with some classic combo; if your retreat forced you to discard all Energy attached to a former attacker, you can wipe away all its damage with Max Potion.

If you’ve got a Pokémon like Blastoise (BW – Boundaries Crossed 31/149; BW – Plasma Storm 137/135; BW – Plasma Blast 16/101) with its “Deluge” Ability that allows you to attach as many [W] Energy from your hand to your Pokémon as you like during a turn, this might replace Float Stone.  Low Energy attackers that have a similarly low Retreat Cost – but not “free” for either – may also be inclined to try it if the deck runs few Energy.  Sure, you can recycle Double Colorless Energy with Puzzle of Time or Special Charge, but the former requires comboing with another copy of itself and the latter shuffles the Energy into your deck (so you must fetch it before reusing it).  The issue there is that most such decks I can think of which would qualify utilize glass cannons (which aren’t likely to survive to retreat the next turn) and/or really prefer an attack boosting Tool instead.  Going back to semi-general usage, Dashing Pouch does nothing for those blessed with a free Retreat Cost or to which you don’t want to attach Energy in the first place. The Limited Format also sees a dramatic split in the card’s usage; if you’re running a +39 deck it is worthless, but for most everything else, its good to great!

One last thing: we’ll need a ruling about this card and the soon-to-release Super Boost Energy.  We need to know if the [Prism] Card Rule can be bypassed with Dashing Pouch, or if a discarded Super Boost Energy will still send itself to the Lost Zone before Dashing Pouch could return it to hand.  Having a “quadruple Rainbow Energy” you can resuse is better than one you can’t, and if you’re using it on multiple Stage 2 Pokémon-GX, they may have the HP and attacks to make the combo worthwhile.

Ratings

Standard: 1.75/5

Expanded: 2/5

Limited: 3.25/5