Furfrou- Forbidden Light – Pokemon Review

Vince

This will be an unusual day for this specific card today because it is more like a rant on my part. It’s not like this card is blatantly bad, it’s just that the thing that this card tries to do gets outclassed by other cards, regardless of category. Which still makes competitive players dismiss this card with prejudice, which says a lot on what we think about these cards in a competitive standpoint. Furfrou is a Basic Colorless type with 90 HP, weak to Fighting, and a retreat cost of one. It’s only attack, Return, does 20 for C, and draws cards until you have 5 cards in your hand.

Effects like this attack is the equivalent of “Draw cards. Your turn ends.” similar to Professor Oak’s Hint or Tropical Beach. They only get you more cards for your hand, but then your opponent gets full control as to what’s going to affect your hand. It could be shuffled via N, Judge, and others while your cards from your hand can be discarded by Delinquent or other effects. The goal for every player’s turn is to make as much use as you can as opposed to getting resources at the end of your turn while being at the mercy of your opponent, and Furfrou doesn’t do that.

Seriously, if you really want to draw cards, you’ve got numerous draw based Supporters and even Pokémon whose abilities lets you draw more cards. Furfrou is an example of terrible timing, as you are using an attack just to draw cards, ending your turn and letting your opponent decide your fate. And that concludes my rant for today’s card.

Standard: 1/5
Expanded: 1/5
Limited: 1/5

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PokeDeck
Central

Furfrou (FLI 99) prances its way into the meta from the Forbidden Light expansion set.  This 90 HP Colorless Poodlemon has a single attack, Return, which does only twenty damage but allows you to draw cards until you have five in hand.

I have been thinking A LOT about how we are going to start games in the new meta.  So often now we simply throw three or four Brigette into a decklist with four Ultra Balls and a couple of Tapu Lele and know that the vast majority of the time we’ll be able to drop three Basic Pokemon down onto our bench turn 1 and get off to a great start.  After September 1st, however, that won’t be possible because Brigette is rotating out of the Standard format, and we’ll have to come up with other ways to get off to a good start.

Compounding on that problem is that Octillery BKT is also dropping out of the Standard format.  Octillery increased in usage by 44% after FLI.  In addition to being a valuable draw support mechanism, it also counters the tactic of the late game N, preventing your opponent from leaving you powerless to continue your strategy because you can’t get the cards in hand that you need to close out the game.  While N is leaving post rotation, the possibility of not having enough cards early or late in the game is a definite concern, and Furfrou may help eliminate that weakness.

Furfrou is a card that I have been thinking a lot about lately, partly for its ability to put cards in your hand, but partly as I have been thinking about how to counter some of these powerful early set up aggressive attacking decks that currently dominate the meta.

Remember back in September 2017, when you’d wheel out Alolan Vulpix and it would facilitate your ability to build up Metagross GX by tutoring two Pokemon out of your deck?  And you could sometimes Beacon for even two turns?  Yeah good luck with that today.  We saw earlier this week that that was the best I could come up with for Garchomp, and I couldn’t even win half of my games with that.  Buzzwole and the Necrozma twins are just too fast for you to sit around and try to set things up.  It seems like no matter what you do, they are going to hit you early and hit you hard.

So if I can’t stop you from hitting me early, what card(s) can I put up in the active to benefit me the most while not forcing me to sacrifice any of my feature Pokemon before I want to get them into the action.  Basically, what card can I put up in the active that will give me some benefit, something to help me accelerate my offensive strategy that I can afford to lose if it’s KO’d early on?

Furfrou fits the bill perfectly.  It has 90 HP, and even with its Fighting weakness, forces Buzzwole GX to attach either a Strong energy or have Diancie Prism out to OHKO it.  It does a little bit of chip damage (twenty) but more importantly puts up to five cards in your hand.  It’s one of the cards that I am considering as a potential starting strategy.  It also has the benefit of putting cards in your hand after a late game N.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the amount of cards Furfrou netted me.  I teched it into a STS Hoopa decklist, hoping that it would provide me with a nice little supplement of cards going into my next turn.  Furfrou only averaged two cards per attack, however, and the median was two as well.  Compared to other potential post rotation starters out there, Furfrou falls far short of the standard they have set.  I’ll keep it in mind, but right now I think there are a number of other techs out there (Dunsparce or Drampa GX to name two) that will facilitate your development far more than Furfrou does.

Rating

Standard: 1.5 out of 5

Conclusion

Draw up to five just isn’t enough to cut it for Furfrou.  Maybe if it were six, seven would REALLY be an eye opener.  But draw up to five is a pass for me.