Flannery – Chilling Reign
Date Reviewed: July 24, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 2.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Flannery (SW – Chilling Reign 139/198, 191/198, 215/198) is a Trainer-Supporter, and also a Single Strike card. Her effect is that you discard a Special Energy from 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon, and discard a Stadium in play. While you may only discard Special Energy from an opposing Pokémon, you hit the Stadium regardless of who’s it is. You can use this card to only discard a Special Energy if there is no Stadium in play, or only to discard a Stadium if your opponent has no Special Energy attached to any of their Pokémon. Other card effects can also lead to only receiving one of the two effects on the card (like Prism Star Stadium cards), but otherwise these effects are mandatory once Flannery has been used. You cannot, for example, use Flannery to discard a Special Energy attached to one of your opponent’s Pokémon but ignore a Stadium you wish to leave in play.
Flannery belongs to two card “families”. As stated, she’s a Single Strike Supporter. This is quite good for her, as it means Welcoming Lantern can recycle her from the discard pile. Her kind of effect can very from clutch to useless in your typical game, so being able to run one of but potentially have access to more (through recycling her) is a very good thing. Now, the other card family to which Flannery belongs is not an official, named or otherwise mechanically connected group of cards. Even their effects substantially differ, but a core theme is there; discarding the stuff that helps your opponent’s Pokémon.
Xerosic is a Supporter that released during the XY-era and it let you discard either a Tool or Special Energy attached to a Pokémon in play. Faba is a Supporter from the SM-era, and it let you send one of
- a Tool attached to one of your opponent’s Pokémon
- a Special Energy attached to one of your opponent’s Pokémon
- a Stadium in play (belonging to either player)
to the Lost Zone. Xerosic can discard from your own stuff, and in his day that was more important as there were Team Flare Tools you attached to your opponent’s Pokémon, as well as the Spirit Link Tools that were vital to most Mega Evolutions but were useless after Mega Evolving. Faba is probably the most powerful, seeing as not only sends its target to the lost Zone and can hit so many different things… but Flannery isn’t a nerfed version of either. Instead, she’s another useful variant as she gains the benefits of being Single Strike support and while she can’t touch Tools, she discards up to two things at once.
I don’t recall Xerosic or Faba being great right away, and while they were never universal, must-run staples, they had their place in control decks, and sometimes the metagame was such that they were heavily played pieces of TecH. As such, I expect a similar fate for Flannery. Even in Expanded, though I would probably go with Faba over her unless I knew I’d frequently be discarding both a Special Energy and Stadium.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 2/5
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