Iono – Shining Revelry
Date Reviewed: March 30, 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 seventh best card of Shining Revelry is Iono (A2b 069, 088)! She’s a Trainer Supporter that forces each player to shuffle their hand into their deck, then draw until you have the same number of cards with which you began. Iono is available as both a ♦♦ rare and a ★★ rare.
In Pocket, there have been zero card effects that apply to all Trainers. There are some that apply to all Supporters though: Gengar (A1 122), Gengar ex (A1 123, 261, 277), and Psyduck (A1 057). Gengar ex has an Ability that prevents your opponent from using Supporters while it is Active; Gengar and Psyduck each have single Energy, low damage attacks that prevent your opponent from using a Supporter during their next turn. Pocket has no “Supporter” support.
You’re only allowed to use a single Supporter during your turn, which is the “cost” to using them. Until your next turn, any other Supporters in your hand become dead cards after using one. In exchange, they are approximately twice as potent as the equivalent Item card. See Leaf (A1a 068, 082) versus X Speed (P-A 002) for the simplest example. All cards are competing for space in your deck; with Supporters, the competition is greater than for Items, which have no similar restriction to them.
Iono’s effect may seem perfectly balanced; the same thing is being done to both players, right? In actuality, the person using Iono, besides the generic cost of having run her in the first place, is giving up a Supporter for the turn. As Iono is no longer part of your hand the moment you use her, she’d also be seen as a “-1” in terms of resources. For example; if you have a three card hand before using Iono, you’ll shuffle and draw two cards, because your hand dropped to two the moment you used her.
In exchange for that “-1”, and your Supporter usage for the turn, you control when Iono gets played, and even “if”. Remember, you don’t have to use every card in your deck if you don’t want to, though running something you never use is a waste of space. The other thing, that can be the same and yet not equal is the quality of the cards drawn.
You can influence the quality of your draw through how you build your deck, and even some of the plays you make during that match. The same goes for your opponent; their deck, how it’s built, and how they play it will affect what they can draw. Unlike your opponent, as you control the timing, you can look for tells (or combo other cards) to know, or at least improve the odds, of forcing your opponent to shuffle away something “good”.
Your opponent does not have the same capacity with you, unless they’re also running Iono, and use their own copy. Instead, whether because they used a card effect to see your hand, or are just hazarding a guess you’re running Iono, your opponent can adjust how they play to take Iono into account. Like you, they can intentionally burn cards to reduce the risk of re-drawing them, or hold onto them in the hope they draw something better.
I do not know if you can play Iono if one or both players have no cards left in their deck. If you can use it when both your decks are empty, that’s the only time when you know that ultimately, the only change is you reducing your handsize by one Iono, and using up your Supporter for the turn. Otherwise, there’s always the chance either player will draw better or worse cards.
We do not have many draw, search, or hand disruption cards in the Pokémon TCG Pocket. When we narrow it down to Trainers, we’ve got even less. Professor’s Research (P-A 007) is still the only draw Supporter in the game, other than Iono’s mix of draw and disruption. Does this make Iono a new staple? Maybe, but I don’t think she’s good enough to actually seal the deal. She is worth running in certain decks.
If you’re desperate to have shuffle/draw you can use on yourself, she’s the only Trainer-based option. If you want to disrupt your opponent’s hand, you do have two other choices to consider: Red Card (P-A 006) and Mars (A2 155, 195). Both force your opponent to shuffle their hand into their deck, like Iono. Red Card always has them draw three cards1; Mars has your opponent draw three cards less however many points they’ve taken this game.1
Since I have the time today, I looked to see if there was an “Iono” card in the full TCG. Iono (SVI – Paldea Evolved 185/193, 254/193, 269/193; SVI – Paldean Fates 080/091, 237/091; SVP Black Star Promos 124) is also a Trainer-Supporter. She forces both players to bottom deck their hands into their respective decks. She then has each player draw a card off the top of their deck, for each of their remaining Prize Cards.2
Rating: 3/5
Iono is not a new deck staple, but she’s a good card. Almost an Honorable Mention instead of part of the Top 7 proper, but that’s not really a knock against her or the Honorable Mentions. Shining Revelry is a smaller set, and allowing more “normal” cards to shine is not a bad thing. Sooner or later, we’ll see if she’s actually a little above, below or still on par with the Honorable Mentions… or if one of them should have been #7 instead.
1If your opponent’s hand plus remaining deck have fewer cards combined than the total they need to draw, your opponent draws as many as they can.
2In the full TCG, instead of earning points for KOs, players take Prize Cards. During setup, ensuring each player puts their opening Active into play, the next six cards of their deck are set aside as their Prize Cards.
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉 Click here to read our Pokémon Card of the Day Archive. We have reviewed nearly 5000 Pokémon cards over the last 25 + years!
