Great Potion – Unified Minds Pokemon Review

Otaku

Great Potion (SM – Unified Minds 198/236) is a Trainer-Item that heals 50 damage from your Active Pokémon-GX.  Unless you’re dealing with effects that require a specific amount of damage in play or a particular Pokémon, healing is about buying an extra turn (or more) of not being KO’d for your Pokémon.  Lower HP scores typically make healing less effective, simply because you can’t heal something that has already been OHKO’d.  More HP is usually better, as less healing might still buy you a turn, and simply surviving multiple turns naturally gives you longer to use relevant healing.  However, it still comes down to hitting (avoiding?) key numbers; if a Pokémon just barely survived with 10 HP left, and your opponent is doing 160+ damage per attack, healing 150 won’t change anything, let alone healing 50.

Great Potion would obviously be a better version of Potion if it worked on anything, but it can’t be used on your Bench, and can only be used on Pokémon-GX.  The former isn’t too bad of a restriction, though it can still goof you up, whether due to a simple misplay or because you had to Bench something injured and before using a draw effect, only then getting Great Potion into hand.  The GX-exclusivity hurts; while Pokémon-EX are becoming less and less relevant in Expanded, the new multi-Prize Pokémon are Pokémon-V.  Great Potion will leave Standard alongside the last of our Pokémon-GX, so it shouldn’t literally become useless, but as Pokémon-V take center Stage, Pokémon-GX will become less and less relevant, and thus his healing will become less and less effective.

For now, though, Great Potion is great deal in the right Standard Format decs.  Most are built around Pokémon-GX, and where the HP versus the damage is such that even an offensively minded deck might sneak in a Great Potion so that the big, bad attacker they built can last another turn, thus getting in another attack.  Decks focused on tanking hits have other options, but likely have room and can still benefit from Great Potion.  Until we hit Expanded.  There, besides other generic healing from Trainers, the various combinations of Type-specific healing, non-Trainer healing, damage reduction, and bounce should usually outclass it.  Sometimes, that can even happen in Standard, as well.  For the Limited Format, if you also pulled a Pokémon-GX worth using, run both, and if you didn’t, run neither.

Ratings

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: 3/5

It is a shame we didn’t look at Great Potion sooner.  I can’t speak for the others, but I pretty quickly dismissed it when I first saw it, because I thought only working on Pokémon-GX but not even healing twice that of a normal Potion meant it would be similarly niche.  With Pokémon-V set to replace Pokémon-GX, Great Potion isn’t likely to ever become better, but instead to slowly fade away.  At least we did catch it before its time was completely done.  Enjoy it while you can, at least, if it lends itself to your deck.