Miltank – Crimson Invasion Pokemon Throwback Thursday

Vince

This Throwback Thursday’s Card goes to Miltank from Sun & Moon Crimson Invasion. The review crew took a look once and the reception seems negative, but she has been showing up in certain decks as of late. I fiddled around with google search regarding “decks using Miltank CIN” (well, not exactly, but you get the idea), and so far, it has been seen in ReshiZard decks, so I guess that’s something.

What really matters the most about this card is the ability and the retreat cost. Her ability, Moomoo Malt, states that as long as she is in the Active, whenever you attach an energy card from your hand to one of your Pokemon, heal 90 damage from that Pokémon. This isn’t a once-per-turn deal, so if you were to attach multiple energies from your hand to your Pokemon, you would be healing massive amount of damage per attachment, which is ridiculous. Say that if you were to attach three energies to meet whatever three Energy attack cost, you’ve just healed 270 total damage!!! I totally underestimated Miltank’s potential! Decks that provide multiple energy attachments include both Metal & Lightning Magnetic Circuit Magnezone and Secret Spring Gardevoir-GX.

I do have a problem, still. Her retreat cost is CC, so unless you have any way to reduce the retreat cost to zero, you will have to use at least two switching cards to bring Miltank to the Active on first use, and bring her back to the Bench via second use. Not to say that’s impossible, but you can only do so much, and eventually you will run out of switch related cards. A 2-0-2 Solgaleo with Ultra Road can mitigate and save resources, but that invites even more problems such as ability denial and deck space. So far, Standard may not have many option regarding maneuvers. Expanded has more cards that can zero out the retreat cost, but you’ll still have to burn one switch related card AND use up your manual retreat, so I suppose that’s a small gain.

To see her show up in major decks has boosted my opinion of this card. As long as you can accommodate switching maneuvers, then that healing ability will help a lot. Sadly, this card is about to be rotated soon.

Ratings:

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

Otaku

Today’s Throwback is… not much of a Throwback. Miltank (SM – Crimson Invasion 78/111) – along with the rest of that expansion – officially released on September 15, 2017 and we reviewed this Miltank on December 4, 2017. Why give it a re-review now? SM – Crimson Invasion is the “newest” full expansion we’ll lose to rotation on August 15, 2019, so if I wait for it to be a full two years old (let alone, the two-year anniversary of its original review), it’ll be out of the Standard Format. The entire reason I wanted us to re-review it is that it has started popping up in some competitive, successful Standard Format decks, so we can’t afford to wait that long, can we? This Miltank is a 100 HP, [C] Type Basic Pokémon with [F] Weakness, no Resistance, a Retreat Cost of [CC], the Ability “Moomoo Malt”, and the attack “Sitdown Splash”. Moomoo Malt only works while this Miltank is your Active; when you attach an Energy card from your hand to one of your Pokémon, you heal 90 damage from that Pokémon. Sitdown Splash costs [CCC] and requires a coin flip; “tails” means the attack does 60, while “heads” means it does 90. Please also note that this is a single-Prize Pokémon lacking any specialty mechanics.

Hopefully, you can forgive me for not thinking ahead enough with this card. The main thing is I didn’t predict Welder and Tag Team Pokémon, so I think there is room for such forgiveness. Welder is Energy acceleration from hand via a Supporter. This means something that can trigger Moomoo Malt multiple times BUT can’t be used the same turn as Acerola. We also received Mr. Mime (SM – Team Up 66/181), which prevents bounce effects like Acerola and Super Scoop Up from being used on your injured behemoths. Reshiram & Charizard-GX is often backed Eevee & Snorlax-GX, and both have 270 HP (before buffs). Tolerances are still very tight, as these decks don’t appear to be running maxed out Escape Rope, Switch, etc. They’ll max out one option, but not multiple, so you likely have to manually retreat your injured Active, bring up Miltank, re-attach Energy to your former attacker, then use something like Switch to bring the original attacker back into the Active. Plus, the times when you are able to carry over an injured Tag Team for more than one turn, counter spread, etc.

Ratings

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 3.5/5

Miltank and its Moomoo Malt don’t have a tremendous amount of uses, but it is far more than I expected and well worth a re-review. If you’ve got one of the compatible decks, give it a try in Standard. Consider it for Expanded as well: more competition, but it gains Float Stone.  Enjoy it in the Limited Format, but remember Miltank is probably stuck Active until it is KO’d.