Giovanni – Genetic Apex
Date Reviewed: January 10, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
The second best Trainer from Genetic Apex is Giovanni (Genetic Apex 223/228, 270/228)! The turn you use Giovanni, the attacks made by your Pokémon will do an extra 10 damage to your opponent’s Active. The text makes it clear that damage done to either player’s Benched Pokémon will not be increased. Nor will damage your Active Pokémon does to itself.
Giovanni will not allow an attack that does no damage to do 10 damage. Some examples of when there is no damage for Giovanni to increase:
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The “Find A Friend” attack found on Caterpie (Genetic Apex 005/228).
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Flipping no “heads” when using the “Pin Missile” attack found on Jolteon (Genetic Apex 102/228).
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Attacking a Dugtrio (Genetic Apex 140/228) that got “heads” on its “Dig” attack the previous turn.
Giovanni either places an effect on all your Pokémon in play, or on the field, or on you. I was unable to determine which it is before this review. If it only applies to Pokémon already in play, a Pokémon you Bench after using Giovanni would not get the +10 to damage. It also would affect whether or not you could play Giovanni when nothing currently in play can make use of its effect. If you can, the upside is you can burn a Giovanni to reduce your hand size, but the downside is you could accidentally waste a Giovanni because you thought you had something that could use it.
In the full TCG, damage increasing effects have been around since Base Set. The most similar and recent Trainers to Giovanni are Leon (SW – Vivid Voltage 154/185, 182/185, 195/185; SW – Crown Zenith 134/159), but hasn’t been Standard legal since April 14, 2023. More recent Supporters either only increase damage against Pokémon V or Pokémon ex, or only for Pokémon of one Type but also have additional or alternate effects. Sounds like Giovanni would be a little weak in the full TCG, but not by as much as I expected.
Since I’ve been doing it, let’s also look at Giovanni (Gym Challenge 018/132, 104/132). He functions like an Item card due to predating Supporters. His effect requires you select a Pokémon you have in play with “Giovanni” in their name (such things existed in the full TCG at that time). The selected Pokémon can be Evolved multiple times until the end of the turn, and that effect carries over to the Pokémon into which it evolved. It was a very competitive, albeit specialized card, but only worked so well due to specific combos available with that cardpool.
Adapting that Giovanni to Pocket would have been a horrible idea! As I bit off more than I can chew, I’ll simplify. Effects that let you cheat the usual Evolution rules are often potent, and more than one has found its way onto the Banned List for the full TCG. Either the developers would have to preemptively nerf any Evolutions compatible with this hypothetical Giovanni Supporter, or we’d have a broken mess sooner or later.
Ratings: 4/5
Giovanni almost claimed the top spot for this mini-countdown. Not every competitive deck runs two copies, and some have to skip it entirely. This is due to space restrictions, or having one of the few main attackers that can already OHKO everything in the metagame. The vast majority of decks will work in a copy or two, to score OHKOs or 2HKOs they would have just barely missed. It is so straightforward, I chose to focus on potential ruling questions and comparisons with full TCG cards, to avoid a painfully short review.
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