N’s Resolve – Cosmic Eclipse Pokemon Review

Vince

We rewinding a bit to look at N’s Resolve from SM Cosmic Eclipse. It’s not often we get the same character, except that the card name is different. Some of the time, though, they put a certain character with its name, followed by a noun. From N to N’s Resolve, Lysandre to Lysandre’s Trump Card, and Lillie to Lillie’s Full Force, there’s endless possibilities of what they can do with an existing character that doesn’t conflict with deck construction as it avoids the 4-per-copy rule; you could have 4 N and 4 N’s Resolve if you wished. While this card doesn’t make both players shuffle their hand into their deck and draw cards equal to their prize cards remaining, he instead supports Dragon Pokémon.

If you’re wondering how he supports Dragon Pokemon, he forces you to discard the top six cards of your deck, and if any of those cards are basic energy cards, attach them to one of your Benched Dragon Pokemon. So if you find, let’s say, three basic energies from those six cards, then you get to attach all three of that basic energy cards to that Pokémon. The best case scenario would be to find sufficient basic energies to go from zero into attacking. The worst case scenario is getting rid of all six (potentially crucial) cards that aren’t basic energy cards, but at least you’ve thin your deck by six cards. Most decks use around ten to fifteen energy cards, so you would be able to find at least one basic energy from those top six cards. There are a few ways to manipulate your deck, like having Magcargo’s Smooth Over to search your deck for a Basic energy and put it on top of your deck. That way, you’re guaranteed at least one basic energy card. Still, that goes a long way to fueling up certain attacks.

So, N’s Resolve seems to be a high risk, medium to low reward even for specific decks, but he is still being used due to lack of other alternative energy acceleration in Standard. For Expanded, we have superior, safer alternatives that can accelerate basic energies. Max Elixir comes to mind as it also looks at the top six cards of your deck, and even though you can only attach one basic energy you find there to your Benched Pokemon (regardless of type), your other cards aren’t discarded. Ether’s range may seem small, but it does accelerate energy if the top card of your deck is a basic energy. So N’s Resolve is going to see less play in that format. N’s Resolve future potential also suffers because based on looking at cards from the Sword & Shield series, not only Fairy types have been retired, so is Dragon types. Future Pokémon cards that were previously Dragon type will either become Colorless (like how Rayquaza cards ocassionally been, or in the case of pure Dragon types like the Haxorus line) or retaining its secondary typing, if any (such as Dragapult being ghost/dragon, it’ll retain the Psychic typing in the TCG). But for now – based on the card pool from Team Up onwards – N’s Resolve will currently specifically support competitive Dragon Pokemon such as Garchomp & Giratina-GX, Ultra Necrozma CEC, and Reshiram & Zekrom-GX.

Speaking about Reshiram & Zekrom-GX, they have a GX attack that has to do with this Supporter card, and is one of the few GX attacks from a Tag Team card that doesn’t need additional energy cards. I don’t know if it’s obvious or not, but N appears on the background of those two legendary Pokémon. Cross Break cost RRLL and does 170 damage to one of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon, and if you’ve played N’s Resolve during your turn, then you get to deal 170 damage to one of your opponent’s other Benched Pokemon. Key word being “other”; you can’t deal 170 damage twice to that same Benched Pokemon, which while unfortunate, can potentially OHKO smaller targets such as 170 HP Pokemon EX/GX/V or the majority of the Pokémon that gives up a single prize. Wishful thinking, if Cross Break does let you deal 170 damage to the same Benched Pokemon twice, that’s a one way ticket to OHKOing any V-Max Pokemon, even Snorlax, Copperjah, and even Eternatus. Reshiram & Zekrom-GX used to be an important archetype because it’s Fabled Firebolts does enough damage to OHKO most of the Tag Team, but with V-Max Pokemon surpassing 270 HP (which was the damage cap of Fabled Firebolts), they now fall short of reaching certain thresholds. Unless I’m missing something (I didn’t utilize Ctrl-F), both Reshiram & Zekrom-GX and N’s Resolve wasn’t reviewed by the crew!

That’s pretty much covers N’s Resolve. He is useful in a select few decks and also has an interaction with a Tag Team Pokemon. And even if N’s Resolve were to remain legal next season (something like 2021-2022), there would be no Dragon Pokemon to support since, I believe, that type has also been retired. In Limited, it would be useful if you also pulled several Dragon Pokemon and the discard cost is almost inconsequential if you were to fill your deck as many Basic energies as you can.

Ratings:

Standard: 2.75/5

Expanded: 2/5

Limited: 4.5/5

Conclusion:

I really wanted to rate it higher in Standard due to the fact that it thins out your deck, but at the same time, it be pretty devastating to dispose cards that you really need it in any part of the match. Even if you did what you can to minimize that risk, you’re still throwing away a good chunk of cards each time you used him. As I said before, he is a card that is very risky and the payout might not be what you’re expecting.

Otaku

Today we’re going to look at N’s Resolve (SM – Cosmic Eclipse 200/236, 232/236), a Trainer-Supporter from the end of the Sun & Moon series.  N’s Resolve discards the top six cards from your deck, and if any of the discard cards are basic Energy, you then attach them to one of your Benched [N] Pokémon.  This means up to six(!) extra Energy attachments in a turn, but the costs/conditions are many:

• Mill yourself for six cards.
• Highly variable
• Only works with basic Energy
• Only works for [N] Pokémon
• Only works with a Benched Pokémon
• All Energy attaches to the same target
• Can’t opt to not attach Energies

Some of those are clearly more of an issue than others, but even the small stuff can hurt.  The big ones are how much you’re losing from your deck, the fact you can whiff big, being support for a potentially defunct type, and not working with Special Energy cards.

Six cards is not a small amount; 10% of your total deck, 13% of your deck after you draw your opening seven, set aside six Prizes, and then draw for the turn.  The percentage will just keep rising, and unless you build and play the deck to keep it with mostly basic Energy, there’s plenty of room to discard the Pokémon, Trainers, or Special Energy you really would rather save for later.  Actually, even if you want to discard such cards, you’re still reducing how much Energy you accelerate.  There are strategies to increase how likely you are to hit basic Energy, but reliably doing so is limited to just controlling the top one or two cards of your deck.

Dragon types haven’t been seen in any Sword & Shield releases… at least, not as the TCG [N] type.  You can find Pokéon which are part Dragon in the video games, but they all are represented using their non-Dragon typing.  Maybe they’re holding back for a sort of “relaunch” of the TCG Dragon type, but it becomes more doubtful with each time it doesn’t happen.  There are plenty of existing [N] types in the cardpool, even restricting ourselves to Standard.  Dragons often have mixed Energy requirements, so working with any basic Energy is good, but you take a huge risk mixing N’s Resolve with the many useful Special Energy that help Dragons out… most notably, Double Dragon Energy!

N’s Resolve has been available to us for about seven months, and players have tried to make it work but… yeah, it just doesn’t seem worth it.  Even when we had some strong [N] Pokémon, N’s Resolve was only sometimes run, and usually as just a single.  While N’s Resolve could give you a massive six extra attachments, it can also whiff.  Plus, the extra attachments all go to the same target, so even when you hit the jackpot, you can’t prep two or three different attackers.  In the Limited Format, you’re more likely to be running on purely basic Energy, and you probably can spare your Supporter for the turn.  However, not only do you need a Dragon type worth attaching to… but even if you used this Turn 2, having drawn no extra cards, you’re now discarding over 20% of your deck!

Ratings

• Standard: 2/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: 1/5

The reward just isn’t worth the risk, unless you only need to attach one or two extra Energy and can afford to discard most anything else in your deck.  N’s Resolve avoids minimal scores across the board because, when it works, it can be amazing… but it can also be disappointing, even then.

aroramage

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