Faba – Lost Thunder Pokemon Review

Vince

Faba is a Supporter card that lets you choose from your opponent’s Pokemon either a Pokémon Tool, Special Energy, or Stadium card in play, and put them into the Lost Zone. I can hear playing moaning about not drawing cards because insane draw power was usually seen on prominent Supporters like Cynthia, N, or Professor Sycamore, but between other sources of draw power that are not Supporter cards – Standard options like Oranguru, Zebstrika, or the future Dedenne-GX – cards like Faba can be used a bit more freely.

Faba has three different effects that it is less likely to be a dead card in your hand unless your opponent doesn’t have any of the three. Enhanced Hammer is useless if your opponent didn’t have any Special Energy, and Field Blower would be useless if your opponent didn’t have either a tool or stadium card. What Faba has over the two is sending those cards into the Lost Zone, not the discard pile. Certain TCG like Yuhioh or Magic the Gathering does bring cards from their Forbidden Zone back to the game, but for Pokémon? NOTHING brings back cards from the Lost Zone, although you could make use of cards in the Lost Zone, like what Mew Prime did back in the day, or this set’s Lost March crew consisting of Natu and Jumpluff. 

I actually like this effect on a Supporter card because item lock or anti-lock is still the on-going thing, for both Standard and Expanded. You can’t use items when Noivern-GX or Seismitoad-EX does their usual thing or if Trevenant and Vileplume are online. And you even get punished for using items if Garbodor comes in and smack you with it’s Trashalanche attack. You might have to make room for maybe at least two copies in Standard, although in Expanded – with Battle Compressor and Vs Seeker – you can do with just one.

I would have said that Faba would replace Xerosic, but the kicker is that Faba doesn’t get rid of your own stuff, only your opponent. So Xerosic may have a tiny niche on that regard, and despite not able to discard Stadium cards, another Stadium can replace it, or just flat out remove it with Paint Roller. Overall, it’s a wonderful addition in Standard and Expanded, albeit competing with May cards in both card pools because of deck space and other niches, and a chance to whiff on the wrong time. In Limited, there’s plenty of cards to get rid of, so Faba has a use there.

• Standard: 3.5/5
• Expanded: 3.65/5
• Limited: 4/5

21times
PokeDeck
Central

Faba (LOT 173) debuts in the Pokemon Trading Card Game from the Lost Thunder expansion set.  This Supporter card allows you to choose a Pokémon Tool or Special Energy card attached to 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon, or any Stadium card in play, and put it in the Lost Zone.

So we’ll definitely have Tool and Special Energy removal for the better part of the next three years.  And this is better than just bumping a stadium with another stadium because Lusamine can potentially bring that stadium back.  There are a lot of disruption decks running around that will certainly make use of this card.  It might even find a niche where it becomes a two or even a four of at some point in the not too distant future.  Three decks carried a single of it at Sao Paolo, but ten decks took it to Roanoke, with two of those ten actually putting a pair of them in their lists. 

It provides a tremendous amount of versatility and gives you choices.  The more choices you have the more options you have, the more options you have, the more potential paths to victory you might be able to find.  I would bet that as this season progresses, we’ll probably see more of this card.  I think the rogue, disruption decks will only increase as we get more cards to supplement their arsenal, and as we do, Faba will rise in popularity – and usefulness – as well.

Rating

Standard: 2.5 out of 5

Conclusion

I would have liked to see it be just a little more powerful: send any energy to the Lost Zone or any of your opponent’s benched Basic Pokemon or pick a card from your opponent’s hand and put it in the Lost Zone… but maybe that’s too much.  Someone will find a place for Faba in the coming months, and then this card will be like a punch to the stomach when you’re opponent plays it.

Otaku

This Friday is Faba (SM – Lost Thunder 173/214, 208/214) day! Faba is a new Supporter that lets you select either a Stadium in play, a Special Energy attached to one of your opponent’s Pokémon, or a Tool attached to one of your opponent’s Pokémon and send it to the Lost Zone. Quick note; remember that this TCG doesn’t usually differentiate between targeting cards ATTACHED to a Pokémon and that Pokémon.  For example, a Regirock (XY – Black Star Promos XY49) won’t have to worry about Faba discarding an attached Tool or Special Energy from it because its “Omega Barrier” Ancient Trait protects it (and by extension, cards attached to it) from the effects of your opponent’s Trainer cards.

A (relatively) quick search of cards involving the Lost Zone shows that it isn’t too common for something other than an attack or combination of attack and Ability to send your opponent’s cards to the Lost Zone. I can only find three other examples that don’t involve attacking: Lost Remover, Lysandre {*}, and Palkia {G} Lv.X (Platinum 125/127). Lost Remover is an Item that lets you send a Special Energy attached to one of your opponent’s Pokémon to the Lost Zone e.g. 1/3 of Faba but as an Item and not a Supporter. Lysandre {*} lets you select and send a number of cards from your opponent’s discard pile equal to the amount of [R] Pokémon you have in play. Palkia {G} Lv.X is a little easier to use than Lysandre {*}, but not by much; its Poké-Power can be activated once during your turn, and before you attack. When used, if a player has a Bench with four or more Pokémon on it, that player selects three of those Pokémon and the others are sent to the Lost Zone, along with all cards attached to them. Of these, only Lysandre {*} is still legal, so there isn’t really any competition for discarding a Stadium or Pokémon Tool/Special Energy card attached to your opponent’s Pokémon and sending it to the Lost Zone.

If you’re not worried about your opponent recycling something you’ve discarded, then sending what you’ve discarded to the Lost Zone isn’t really an important part of the effect. In which case, there is suddenly a LOT more competition for Faba. I’m not going to name most of it because they include well-known cards such as Enhanced Hammer and Field Blower. Faba cannot compete with those if you’re only worried about specifically discarding Pokémon Tools or Special Energy cards or Stadiums; Field Blower even can discard a Stadium card, up to two Tools, or a Stadium and a Tool and it is only an Item card! Nothing gives you the choice of one of the three, however, and sometimes being a Supporter instead of an Item or Pokémon Ability is an asset. Xerosic demonstrated this while it was Standard-legal and even in Expanded, though Faba may replace it there. Xerosic can discard a Special Energy or Pokémon Tool from any Pokémon in play, regardless of which player controls the Pokémon, Energy, or Tool in question. Sometimes, you do want to discard your own Tool or Special Energy card; when Xerosic was new, so too were Aegislash-EX and Pokémon Tool F cards (Head Ringer and Jamming Net). Not a lot of cases where you’d want to send your own Pokémon Tool, Special Energy, or Stadium to the Lost Zone but it would be better to have the option than not.

Xerosic isn’t in the Standard Format. Neither are some key pieces of support and (Item) counters which made Xerosic great when it was Standard-legal; you can’t pull off a Battle Compressor => VS Seeker =>Faba combo in Standard because two of those three aren’t legal, nor do you need to worry about a Seismitoad-EX using its “Quaking Punch” to deny you access to your Items. While worse for Faba, I’m rather happy that all three of those Expanded Format cards are only available there. Faba can still take advantage of Supporter reclamation like Lusamine and/or Pal Pad, so he isn’t always going to be a one-and-done option. Faba won’t feed the damage output of “Trashalanche” when you face Garbodor (SM – Guardians Rising 51/145, 51a/145) the way Enhanced Hammer or Field Blower do. He won’t be countered by the Abilities on Alolan Muk, Glaceon-GX, or Slaking (SM – Celestial Storm 115/168). Even in the Expanded Format, the few situations where Xerosic can be more useful are no longer commonly applicable.  Faba will thus most likely all but replace him. Let me clarify, though; in neither Format is Faba likely to become a maxed out staple. He might flirt with being a staple single or double, but will probably just become a solid single some decks run when they can spare the room or really need to fear one of the three subclasses of card Faba can banish. For the Limited Format, Faba is a must run; while the only Stadium cards in this set are all Prism Star cards and so have built-in protection from Faba, there are seven Tools (not including multiple printings) and Memory Energy in the set.

Ratings

• Standard: 3.35/5
• Expanded: 3.5/5
• Limited: 3.5/5

Faba’s major selling point in all formats is doing the job of two or three other cards all in one package, even if it means using an Item instead of a Supporter, and sometimes BECAUSE you’re using an Item instead of a Supporter. In the Expanded Format, where Special Charge is still legal, sending the Special Energy being discarded to the Lost Zone is equally important. If you don’t have a copy of Faba yet, go ahead and snag one NOW while he’s still easy to find and not too badly priced.