Milo – Rebel Clash Pokemon Review

Otaku

Milo (SSH – Rebel Clash 161/192, 190/192, 201/192) is a Trainer-Supporter which lets you discard up to two cards from your hand.  Then, for each card you just discarded via this Milo’s effect, you draw two cards.  This seems pretty bad; Hop lets you draw three cards without having to discard anything (or deal with any other requirements).  You have to discard two cards from hand just to draw one more card than Hop, and to draw one less still required discarding a card.

The straight “Draw 3 cards.” supporters have been underpowered for years: Hop’s just this generation’s version of the same Supporter.  If we ever get a deck that needs all the tricks to discard from hand it can get but cannot rely on Professor’s Research (or needs another discarding draw Supporter on top of it), Milo has a small chance of seeing some competitive play.  Milo isn’t all bad, after all.  Unlike Sophocles, you can control how much you discard and how much you draw, though the former dictates the latter.  That still makes Milo a better Sophocles.

The problem is that it needed to be a better – or at least as good as – Roxie.  She also lets you discard up to two cards, but she draws three per, not two.  Her main issue is she can only discard Pokémon and they cannot be Pokémon-EX or Pokémon-GX (Pokémon V weren’t around when she was printed).  Koffing (SM – Cosmic Eclipse 76/236, 243/236) and Weezing (SM – Cosmic Eclipse 77/236) still give Roxie a powerful combo, thanks to their “Blow-Away Bomb” Ability.

In Expanded, Exeggcute (BW – Plasma Freeze 4/116; BW – Plasma Blast 102/101) and its “Propagation” Ability have you covered for painless discards.  Not that Roxie is seeing much (if any) competitive play in either Format at the moment.  In the Limited Format, Milo finally has a place to shine, largely because you aren’t likely to have as many copies (if any copies) of enough better draw Supporters.  Decks here are only 40 cards (instead of the usual 60), but you still want quite a few Supporters, and the smaller deck size means the same number of cards drawn digs deeper into your deck.  As long as you don’t deck out, that’s a good thing.

Ratings

Standard: 2/5

Expanded: 2/5

Limited: 4/5

I’m being a bit charitable with these scores, since Milo – like Hop before him – is functional in decks, just far, far from the optimal play.  I can’t even say Milo is all that great as a learning card when compared to Hop.  I guess if you’re just barely in that place where you’re ready for something more complicated than Hop but not ready to tackle Roxie or Professor’s Research, Milo may be the next step.  Which makes it somewhat odd that Milo isn’t in either of the SSH – Rebel Clash Theme Decks.  Similarly strange is, had we done a larger countdown, Milo would have taken 23rd-place.  Though maybe I’m just missing what Milo really offers, as he didn’t make my list.