Galarian Articuno V – Chilling Reigns
Date Reviewed:
June 29, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 4.00
Expanded: 5.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Galarian Articuno V (SW – Chilling Reign 058/198, 169/198, 170/198) is our 4th-Place pick! I don’t know if it will prove relevant, but that “Galarian” in the name means this card can use Galarian Chestplate. As a Pokémon V, this card gives up two Prizes when KO’d, can’t make use of certain beneficial effects, is vulnerable to certain detrimental effects. So far, all Basic Pokémon V have significantly more HP than their baseline counterparts, and some have far better effects. Galarian Articuno V is a [P] type, letting it access some of the new [P] support from this set, but I’m not sure how much that will mean to this card.
Galarian Articuno V is [D] Weak, which is dangerous. I don’t recall some super-splashable Darkness Pokémon tearing things up, but we do have at least one strong [D] deck (Eternatus VMAX) that I expect to weather the the addition of SW – Chilling Reign. Galarian Articuno V enjoys [F] Resistance; while not a massive benefit, it is nice that this Pokémon is a bit sturdier against the miscellaneous Fighting decks in the metagame. Its Retreat Cost of [CC] is neither good nor bad; low enough you can afford it much of the time, but high enough sometimes you can’t either in the short term or the long run.
Galarian Articuno V has the Ability “Reconstitute”. This Ability may be used once, during your turn, prior to your attack. It is not a true “once per turn” Ability; if you have more than one instance of it in play, you can use each of them once during your turn. Reconstitute requires you discard two cards from your hand in order to use it, then you draw a card. At first glance, maybe you immediately went to the combos you could pull off using this card, or maybe you recognized that, in terms of net card advantage, you’re actually at a negative one (-1). Most decks have cards they can afford to toss, and many have cards they actually want in the discard pile, either because they’re not needed this game and so are just taking up space, or to fuel certain card effects. Getting just one card for them isn’t much, but Galarian Articuno V provides a reusable option to dig just a bit deeper in your deck. That’s good!
The card’s lone attack is “Psyray”. For [PCC] it lets Galarian Articuno V do a quick 110 damage, plus Confuse your opponent’s Active. It isn’t a big amount of damage, but for the cost? Seems close enough. Confusion is literally a hit or miss Special Condition; while I’d rather the attack did 10 more damage, Confusion is something few players want to risk attacking through. Now, this attack would be underwhelming if it was Galarian Articuno V’s main focus but… this is just a “good” filler attack. Needing one [P] Energy makes it a little less splashable, needing three total Energy makes it a bit too demanding, but you’re running Galarian Articuno V primarily, if not exclusively, for its Ability. So Psyray is still all right.
I’m worried I’ve undersold you on the Ability of this card. In Expanded, this should be brilliant, at least while Abilities are functioning. Exeggcute (BW – Plasma Freeze 4/116; BW – Plasma Blast 102/101) “Propagation” Ability lets you return it to your hand from your discard pile. It says once per turn, but going from the discard pile to hand resets that effect, so each can basically be used over and over again. You can’t us a single copy to cover multiple discard requirements in a single effect, but just two Exeggcute mean Computer Search, Ultra Ball, and now Reconstitute are “free”.
While not as impressive in Standard, there are enough decks that want certain cards in the discard pile, or just pack enough spare or situational cards, that they can easily afford at least one or two uses of Reconstitute. A side effect of the Ability is ultimately thinning your hand, which can feed into some of the other powerful draw effects, like that of Crobat V. Does every deck need Galarian Articuno? Probably not, but I expect to see it in a wide variety or decks. I had Galarian Articuno V as my 8th-Place pick… and I can’t tell if I was low-balling it or not. I don’t think I’d put it any lower than that, and probably should have had it a smidge higher. Really, the biggest concern for Galarian Articuno V is competing for Bench space. If you only have room for one Crobat V and one Dedenne-GX… yeah, you’re not dropping either of them for Galarian Articuno V.
Ratings
- Standard: 4/5
- Expanded: 5/5
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