Gordie – Evolving Skies
Date Reviewed: October 17, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 1.75
Expanded: 1.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
With out countdown of the Top 7 Cards of Celebrations concluded, we’re back to looking at some slightly less-new cards. Today it is Gordie (SW – Evolving Skies 149/203, 201/203, 223/203). This Trainer-Supporter lets you look at the top seven cards of your deck, reveal any number of Energy cards you find there, add the revealed Energy to your hand, and finally shuffle the remaining cards you looked at back into your deck. Gordie does not specify “basic”, so it can fetch basic and/or Special Energy cards with its effect. It also only requires you reveal what you add to your hand to your opponent, so they don’t get to see all seven cards unless you hit seven Energy and decide to add them all to hand. That’s right, decide: the wording of Gordie means you don’t have to take all the Energy you find in your deck, and can even intentionally whiff.
Gordie is that oddball card that is technically search, but which functions more like draw power. That’s because you’re not searching through your entire deck (unless it contains seven or fewer cards), but a portion of it. Pokémon uses 60 card decks, so seven cards is approximately 11.7% of your deck. Except Gordie is one of those 60 cards, as are your Prizes, your Pokémon in play, etc. Under typical circumstances, that seven cards of your deck should be at least seven out of 46 cards (approximately 15.2%) of your deck, and can pretty easily become much more. So seven cards is a decent amount searched through.
Similarly, Gordie can yield vastly different amounts of Energy cards. You can completely whiff, meaning you just burned your Supporter on shuffling your deck. You could manage to hit seven Energy cards, so you can add all of them to your hand! The game’s fluidity means you’ll need to estimate your probable haul based on the current circumstances. For example, late game, your deck might be out of Energy or perhaps you used something like Energy Recycler to shuffle five Energy back into your deck that now consists of 10 total cards. Speaking of Energy Recycler, what your deck is doing with its Energy really matters. Simply put, most decks don’t need Gordie. Gordie is for a deck that needs to amass a large amount of basic Energy in hand at once or which really needs to dig for Special Energy, and which cannot afford to discard or shuffle away the contents of their hand.
As a Supporter, Gordie will have to compete with the likes of Boss’s Orders, Marnie, and Professor’s Research to have a place in your deck. If you just need to improve your odds of getting some Energy (any Energy) into your hand, more draw power is probably the answer. If you just need basic Energy and not copious amounts of it all at once, there’s Energy Search or Eldegoss (SW – Evolving Skies 016/203). Specific types of Energy may also provide alternatives. Gordie is similar to some past cards: Energy Lotto, Interviewer’s Questions, and Holon Lass. Energy Lotto saw some competitive success, because it was Gordie as an Item but only adding one Energy card from those top seven.
I honestly don’t remember how good Interviewer’s Questions was back in the day: I think it was okay, but while I reviewed it back in the day, this was when I was slowly returning to the game after a significant hiatus. She had the same effect as Gordie but looked at the top eight cards of your deck… and at first, she didn’t face anywhere near as significant Supporter competition. Holon Lass saw, if I remember correctly, a tiny bit of competitive success. As a Holon Supporter, the Holon Trainer engine made her better than her effect seemed. She is like Gordie but she
- requires you discard a card from your hand to use.
- is part of the Holon Trainer engine (see Holon Transceiver)
- looks at a number of cards from the top of your deck equal to the total number of Prize cards in play (for both players).
While this means she might view as few as two cards (each player down to one Prize), if you can use it before any Prize cards have been taken, she looks at 12 cards! Between both players, five Prizes have to have been taken in order for her to only see as much as Gordie. Even without the Holon Trainer engine, I think I like her better… not that she’s Expanded-legal.
Gordie seems very specialized, but could plausibly see competitive play in the Standard Format. I don’t think it stands a chance in Expanded. Even if you need a lot of basic Energy in hand at one time, you’ve got Energy Spinner, Professor’s Letter, and Lady to search it from your deck, or Superior Energy Retrieval and/or Fisherman to get it from your discard pile (directly into your hand).
Ratings
- Standard: 2/5
- Expanded: 1/5
Vince
Gordie (SS Evolving Skies 149/203, 201/203, 223/203) is another case of “new card, familiar effect” of a card that I still physically have for more than 10 years, but I’ll get to that part later. He is a Supporter card which lets you look at the top 7 cards of your deck. You can choose as many Energy cards you find there and put them onto your hand. Then shuffle the other cards into your deck. This could be useful as it searched for both Basic and Special Energy cards, but not many decks run a high energy count. I think most decks use between 10 to 15 energies. If you don’t find any energy cards from the top 7 cards of your deck, then you completely whiffed using him while if all seven cards were energy cards, then you can get to put all of them into your hand, thinning your deck by seven cards at the process.
As for why I said this effect is familiar: Interviewer’s Questions (HS Unleashed 77/95, Call of Legends 79/95) is why. Her effect is almost the same as Gordie, except she has a larger range, letting you look at the top 8 cards of your deck. You could still fail to nab an energy card despite the large range. This card has been reviewed just once (June 3, 2010), and while the reviews seemed to show that she had some potential, this was before some of the best Supporter cards were later released. Professor Juniper is the most reliable Supporter; she could get you seven cards (regardless of what type of card) while Interviewer’s Questions only gives you a chance to find energy cards. Because of that, Interviewer’s Question quickly faded to obscurity. For the duration of May 2010 to March 2011, it was pretty decent to use.
The same fate will happen to Gordie, and he debuted after Professor’s Research and Marnie are already in the format. However, all hope is not lost, though. Since Professor’s Research and Marnie retain their regulation marks, it may not stick around next season, and Gordie might be used a bit more freely due to the removal of competition. Until then, this is something one should keep in mind for the next season when certain cards gets rotated out.
Ratings:
Standard: 1.5
Expanded: 1.5
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