Grafaiai – Shining Revelry
Date Reviewed: April1, 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 fifth best card of Shining Revelry is Grafaiai (A2b 051, 076)! It’s a Darkness-Type, Stage 1 Pokémon that evolves from Shroodle. Grafaiai has 90 HP, (R) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Poison Coating”, and the attack “Bite”. Once during your turn, Poison Coating lets you flip a coin; if “heads”, the opponent’s Active is Poisoned. Bite costs (D)(D), and lets Grafaiai do 40 damage to your opponent’s Active. Grafaiai is available at the ♦♦♦ and ★ rarities.
There are no card effects, beneficial or detrimental, that specifically target (D) Pokémon. There closest we come are some potent (D) Pokémon, with the biggest being Darkrai ex (A2 110, 187, 202; P-A 042). Weavile ex (A2b 099, 186, 201) has been making a comeback since, and Paldean Clodsire ex (A2b 048, 085, 093) is trying to establish itself. We’re back to having some competitive, (D) Weak Pokémon: Giratina (A2 078, 167), Giratina ex (A2b 035, 083, 096), Mew (A1a 032, 077, 083, 086), Mewtwo ex (A1 129, 262, 282, 286; P-A 050), and Rotom (A2 035).
Stage 1 Pokémon are the not-so-sweet-spot between Basic and Stage 2 Pokémon. Shroodle (A2b 050), a Basic (D) Pokémon with 60 HP, (F) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and the attack “Gnaw” for (D), doing 20 damage. It’s not the worst thing to evolve from, but it’s mostly filler. You’ll need to run, field, then wait a turn to evolve from Shroodle if you want to reach Grafaiai. Aerodactyl ex (A1a 046, 078, 084) can still prevent your Active Shroodle from evolving.
Grafaiai has 90 HP, enough to survive a hit somewhat reliably early game, but an increasingly probable OHKO as time goes on. Against the typical snipe, spread, or bonus Bench-hit damage, it should last at least two turns. (F) Weakness throws the above out the window; Turn 1 and 2 might still be safe, but beyond that, the Type is good at stacking damage bonuses (plural) on low Energy attacks for a OHKO. The Retreat Cost of (C) is good; X Speed (P-A 002) or Leaf (A1a 068, 082) can zero it out, while actually paying a single Energy is often doable.
We’re here for Grafaiai’s Ability, but let’s just get its attack out of the way first. If you must attack with Grafaiai, Bite is not entirely without merit. At best, it hits half as hard as something focused on attacking should hit. Grafaiai is not an attacker, however. Thus, we get to use the less demanding standard of many low cost, supporting attacks, where 40-for-two is maybe a little low. I’d rather it was 30 for (D), because I just don’t want to commit this much Energy to a Bench-sitter.
Yeah, Grafaiai is about it’s Ability, Poison Coating. This Ability can be used whether Grafaiai is your Active or on your Bench. It can be activated anytime after you draw your card for the turn1, but before you select an attack or use any other effect that ends your turn upon resolving.2 To clarify, each instance of Poison Coating is a once-during-your-turn effect. If you have two of them in play, you can choose to use both. If your opponent’s Active is already Poisoned, each new instance of Poison replaces the previous.
Why is this on the list? Probably personal bias, but let me at least explain my thinking. The bad news, you’re going to be sacrificing two to four slots in your deck, at least one space on your Bench, and you’ll have to setup a Stage 1 Evolution before it can be accessed but… you get an unreliable, but reusable source of pseudo-bonus damage. Not only for attackers, either; you can still make use of Poison Coating while hiding behind something like a Druddigon (A1a 056).
As long as the opponent’s Active can be Poisoned, but isn’t already, you’re a coin flip away from +10 damage per Pokémon Checkup until your opponent is KO’d or can shake the Poison. A coin flip for a “free” Giovanni (A1 223, 270)… and unless you really care about using Bite (Why?), you don’t have to care about the Energy Type the deck runs. At worst Grafaiai misses out on any Type support the deck otherwise incorporates.
When we do focus on a deck that really incorporates Grafaiai, what does it look like? We now have four Pokémon with an attack named “Venoshock”, which scores extra damage when used against a Poisoned Pokémon. Paldean Clodsire ex, Muk (A1 175), Salandit (A1a 015, 071), and Scolipede (A1a 055) all have some version of it, with their own “pros” and “cons”. Arbok (A1 165), Galvantula (A1a 029), Houndoom (A2a 012, 076), and Staraptor (A2 134, 176) all have an attack that prevents the Defending Pokémon from retreating, which also tends to pair nicely with Poison.
Why isnt’ Grafaiai higher on the list, then? To begin with, coin flips are coin flips. Even if the odds are in your favor, they’re never guaranteed. While Lum Berry (A2 149) is hardly used, yesterday’s Pokémon Center Lady (A2b 070, 089) is showing up in a decent amount of decks. The big concern, though, is the Special Condition immune Arceus ex (A2a 071, 086, 095, 096). It’s decks aren’t performing as well post-Shining Revelry, but they’re still around 13-15% of the current metagame.
Then there’s the alternative use of the same amount of deck space. As someone who played the full Pokémon TCG for so long, I forget that reusing somethings doesn’t mean that much added usage. Four slots for the Grafaiai line is enough to run two each of Giovanni and Red (A2b 071, 090). Sure, they eat up a Supporter use each time, cannot be combined with each other, and need a damaging attack to boost but… that’s often no more or less demanding than running Grafaiai.
All hope is not lost for Grafaiai. It can do exactly what I said above, and there have been at least kind of functional decks using such tricks. This might be the end of Weezing (A1 117, 243) usage, however. Even with access to Koga (A1 222, 269), and reliably being able to Poison the opponent’s Active while it (Weezing) is itself Active, it’s hard to recommend that over the relative simplicity that is Grafaiai. It’s real competition is probably Shaymin (A2 022, 159) and/or Shaymin (A2a 069, 081); useful, Bench-sitting support Pokémon.
Rating: 3/5
I was quite taken by Grafaiai initially, and it does have potential. If Arceus ex usage continues to decline, Grafaiai – and the decks utilizing it – have a real chance… but I don’t know if that will happen. We have some “buyer’s remorse” here, or perhaps I should say “reviewer’s remorse”, for having rated it this high. I’m not sure what I would have picked instead, however. You’ll notice most of the list thus far as been three-out-of-five cards.
Guess it was an appropriate pick, given the date.
1If you’re deck is out of cards, then after you would have drawn a card for the turn.
2See the Ability on Giratina ex.
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