Indeedee V – Sword & Shield Pokemon Review

Vince

Indeedee V is a card which can serve as a supporter and an attacker. It’s Watch Over ability states that you can heal 20 damage from your Active Pokémon. If you have 4 Indeedee in play, then you heal a total of 80 damage from your Active Pokémon. If being a Psychic type bench sitter is enough, then you can surely improve the damage output of Espeon & Deoxys-GX’s Psychic Club attack (or Mew & Mewtwo-GX copying that attack), in which it can do 130 damage just based on those 4 Indeedee-V in play.

It’s Psychic attack actually has very good scaling damage, doing 10 damage plus sixty more for each energy attached to the Defending Pokémon. Pokémon that loads up lots of energy will be in serious trouble, whether it be a fully charged Lapras V-Max firing their G-Max Pump attack or a TAG TEAM GX Pokémon that just used their GX attack with excess energies. However, as this attack costs PCC, and there’s no equivalent of Double Colorless Energy, then it’ll take a while to fuel up this attack unless you also run Malamar’s Psychic Recharge, and this card plus Mysterious Treasure is going to leave rotation soon.

It’s got useful qualities that can fit in pure Psychic deck builds.

Otaku

Indeedly doodly, today we look at Indeedee V (Sword & Shield 091/202, 192/202)!  Based on the art, this is the female of the species, not that it matters for gameplay purposes.  As a Pokémon V, Indeedee V gives us an extra Prize when KO’d and has to deal with counters already.   [P] Typing is good for exploiting Weakness and its Type-support in both Standard and Expanded.  Anti-[P] effects are a joke, but mind the Resistance common to pre-Sword & Shield [D] or [M] Pokémon.

Basic Pokémon have Stage support that outweighs Stage-based counters, plus they’re the fastest and the easiest to run. 180 HP should survive a hit more than not, but the margin isn’t huge.  [D] Weakness is good not because it is safe (it isn’t!), but because pre-Sword & Shield Psychics like Mewtwo & Mew-GX are usually [P] Weak (unlike Indeedee V).  [F] Resistance is appreciated, but not overly useful right now.  A Retreat Cost of [CC] isn’t really good or bad; low enough to pay but high enough you’d prefer not to.

Indeedee V has the Ability “Watch Over” and the attack “Psychic”.  The former lets you heal 20 from your Active Pokémon once during your turn; the latter costs [PCC] and does 10 damage base plus another 60 per Energy attached to the opposing Active.  It doesn’t say so in the wording, but you can use multiple instances of Watch over in a single turn, and you do have to use it prior to attacking or doing anything else that ends your turn.

Healing 20 isn’t much, but it is still enough it can shift how many turns it takes to score a KO in some match-ups, which is what matters.  Psychic (the attack) is pricey.  Almost too pricey.  Its nice that the mostly [C] attack cost can splash into other decks, but even with Energy acceleration for your Pokémon, your target had better be [P] Weak with low HP or a of of Energy attached!  Good thing Mewtwo & Mew-GX – high HP but [P] Weak, loaded with Energy, and worth three Prizes when KO’d – is so prominent in the metagame.  In some decks, just the Ability might earn a slot for Indeedee V; in others, both the attack and Ability matter.

I can’t give you much in the way of criteria for what decks should and shouldn’t include Indeedee V.  Higher HP scores are likely, but sometimes even small Pokémon can gain an extra turn through healing.  You may also need a certain amount of damage to trigger or avoid triggering an effect.  What I can tell you is that it has showed up in a few decks; 6th and 8th Champions League in Aichi, Japan and and 1st at the Regional Championship in Perth, Australia.

The decks that ran Indeedee V only ran a single copy.  Both decks from Aichi were Mewtwo & Mew-GX builds, backed by Malamar (SM – Forbidden Light 51/131, SM – Black Star Promos SM117, and Shiny Vault SV18/SV94).  You can get the lists here.  Perth’s winner was also a Mewtwo & Mew-GX deck, but the Standard Format version of a take I’m more used to seeing in Expanded.  Again, LimitlessTCG provides the deck, and some added details if you poke around.

Indeedee V is a must run in the Limited Format.  Everything about the card is better here, save for the Weakness and Retreat Cost.  She’s good on the Bench healing your attackers, or healing herself with her as the attacker!  This is because your opponent’s HP scores and damage output are likely to be lower, while their Energy costs are likely to be as high or higher than in Constructed.  Even if you have extreme luck and pull another good Basic to build a Mulligan deck around, just try to run them together.

Ratings

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 4/5

Indeedee V is one of those cards that is easy to overlook.  I didn’t think much of her when I first saw her, but then the early results out of Japan had me expecting maybe a little too much.  She was my 16th-place pick, but for the site’s master list, she would have been 24th-place.  I think the early-to-mid-20’s sounds about right.  Time will tell if Indeedee V TecH becomes common, or if we have massive wall or tank decks Benching her in multiples!