Drifblim – Unified Minds Pokemon Review

Vince

Halloween week…..or at least the bulk of this week is. We’ll be looking at three ghost Pokémon, a familiar face, and the #11 best card of Cosmic Eclipse. But first thing’s first, we’re looking at Drifblim from Unified Minds.

Perhaps the only thing worth looking at is it’s Tag Transport Ability, which lets you switch your Active Tag Team Pokemon with one of your Benched Pokemon. I suppose that if you lack a Switch Item Card, or that you want a switching effect that can be used every turn – as long as this Pokémon is in play – then Drifblim can be of service. And it helps that it can evolve from Ditto Prism Star.

Even though I haven’t seen Drifblim being played as much, I think it could be useful in decks using Espeon & Deoxys-GX. Being a Psychic Type means that Drifblim can help add 30 more damage to its Psychic Club attack. The more the merrier. And Tag Transport can ignore the CC retreat cost because you are switching your Tag Team Pokemon. Other than that scenario, I can’t see Drifblim by used anywhere else.

Ratings:

• Standard: 2/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: 3/5

aroramage

It’s the week of spooks and scares before new cards come rolling in, so let’s have a spooktacular week taking a look at some creepy Pokemon here and there!

Drifblim is a Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon, 100 HP, with a Dark Weakness, a Fighting Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 1. When he’s not busy carrying off people into the afterlife at dusk in order to provide soul energy for its flotation, Drifblim can be seen aiding TAG TEAM Pokemon with its Tag Transport Ability, though it does have its own Spinning Attack for a 3-for-70 strike.

Being able to give your TAG TEAM Pokemon the ability to switch out freely is always a plus, but generally it’s hard to fit in the room for a 1-1 line-up for that purpose. Looking at popular TAG TEAM Pokemon and their decks, not many run alongside a Drifblim. Perhaps it’s this limited application that prevents Drifblim from transporting TAG TEAM Pokemon more often on a competitive level, but it might also just be that most decks that have these Pokemon would prefer to run 2 other cards rather than a pair that can let a couple of their Pokemon rotate around freely.

A novel idea to say the least, but it doesn’t look like people are picking up what Drifblim’s trying to fly away with.

Rating

Standard: 1.5/5 (free retreat isn’t bad itself, but the limited application really hurts Drifblim in the long run)

Expanded: 1.5/5 (not to mention there are other Pokemon that can do the same thing but better)

Limited: 2/5 (if you get a good TAG TEAM, certainly try him out, but don’t expect anything big)

Arora Notealus: Seems like you’d have to be filled with hot air to take up Drifblim seriously. But not like literal hot air, clearly Reshiram & Charizard-GX aren’t biting into that. Though should we talk about how someone actually hung onto a Drifblim only to disappear and never be heard from again?

Next Time: Disappearing out of mysterious rings is truly scary~

Otaku

Welcome to a Halloween-ish Week of reviews, ending with a special treat: the start of our Top 11 Countdown of SM – Cosmic Eclipse!  For now, though, let’s look at Drifblim, a Ghost/Flying-Type in the video games, and [P] Type in the TCG.  This Typing makes it a lot easier to search out from your decks, thanks to Mysterious Treasure.  It is a Stage 1, so either you’re running Drifloon or you’re Evolving it from Ditto {*}.

100 HP is a probable OHKO while Active, and isn’t overly sturdy even while on the Bench.  The bottom stats are okay, at least at the moment; [D] Types aren’t huge, any Resistance is welcome, and Retreat Cost [C] is very affordable.  Its “Spinning Attack” only does 70 damage for three Energy, but the cost is specifically [CCC] so you can fuel it with just Triple Acceleration Energy, so it isn’t all bad.

Which just leaves its Ability, “Tag Transport” and that is exactly why we’re looking at Drifblim (other than the theme).  Each instance of Tag Transport you have in play gives you a once-per-turn switching effect if your Active is a TAG TEAM Pokémon and you haven’t attacked yet.  The Pokémon you’re promoting from the Bench can be anything, but your initial Active must be a TAG TEAM.  With TAG TEAM Pokémon being the dominant force in the metagame, some support for them should be great, right?

When I perused the available tournament results from Limitlesstcg.com I didn’t see any decks using Drifblim.  Maybe I somehow missed them, but it seems as or more likely that running a Stage 1 that provides a reusable-but-restricted-Switch isn’t as good of a deal as I thought.  Deck and Bench space is precious, and just a 2-2 Drifblim line eats up the same space as running four Switch.  Plus, if Drifblim is a good enough deal for your deck to run, then its a good enough deal for your opponent to KO… and it ain’t hard to KO.

I’m not thinking of anything in Expanded that would make it better… in fact, there are many more bounce, switch and Retreat Cost reducing effects that can easily replace Drifblim.  As for the Limited Format, Drifblim only makes sense if your TAG TEAM is one that can’t field a Mulligan-style (+39 style) deck.  It is probably more useful here as a splashable [P] Type attacker.

Ratings

Standard: 1.9/5

Expanded: 1.6/5

Limited: 2.2/5

Drifblim and its Tag Transport do have potential, but also a lot of alternatives that effectively do what it does. Great Catcher (releasing in SM – Cosmic Eclipse) might give decks a reason to run Tag Transport, but things aren’t looking too good for Drifblim.