Passimian – Chilling Reigns
Date Reviewed: July 3, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.00
Expanded: 3.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
My apologies to the folks who saw a “WORK IN PROGRESS” Card of the Day. An error on my part resulted in an incomplete review being posted!
As is often the case, time to look at some runners-up! There are Pokémon that made either Vince’s list or my own but did not make the actual site’s countdown. First up is Passimian (SW – Chilling Reign 088/198; SW – Black Star Promos SW115), the card that would have taken 16th-Place if our countdown has been higher. Passimian is a Basic, [F] type, Rapid Strike Pokémon with [P] Weakness, no Resistance, and Retreat Cost [C]. Being a Rapid Strike Pokémon is beneficial, but we need to come back later to understand why.
Passimian has the Ability “Throwing Coach”. Its effect grants +30 damage to the attacks of your Rapid Strike Pokémon that are made against your opponent’s Benched Pokémon-GX and Pokémon V. Throwing Coach also states only a single instance of it can apply at a time. Passimian knows only one attack, “Fling”. For [F], this attack lets you do 20 damage to one of your opponent’s Pokémon. You get to pick which one you hit unless they only have one in play. As is typical, neither Weakness nor Resistance is applied. Well, unless you have something like Wide Lens equipped.
Passimian is on the deep end of “small, support” Pokémon. It provides a strategic boost to offense, and a lot of that boils down to being Rapid Strike support. Technically, it could have been printed as an oddball Pokémon lacking a Battle Style yet helping out Rapid Strike Pokémon, but it should be a little easier to fetch thanks to this designation. Not that searching your deck for a Basic Pokémon is all that hard right now. While hitting the Bench isn’t that common, it does seem to be one of the specializations of Rapid Strike Pokémon. There are eight Rapid Strike Pokémon that can attack your opponent’s Bench in some fashion:
- Blitzle (SW – Chilling Reign 050/198)
- Luxio (SW – Battle Styles 047/163)
- Luxray (SW – Battle Styles 048/163)
- Passimian (SW – Chilling Reign 088/198; SW – Black Star Promos SW115)
- Rapid Strike Urshifu V (SW – Black Star Promos SWSH107)
- Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX
- Zangoose (SW – Chilling Reign 120/198)
- Zeraora V
Additionally, there is the Pokémon Tool Rapid Strike Scroll of Swirls, that lets any Rapid Strike Pokémon with it equipped use an attack for [FCC] that does 30 damage to each of your opponent’s Pokémon. This can be a better option than some of the evolving Pokémon in the above list, but it also means you can’t use Telescopic Lens or Wide Scope to do even more damage.
Of particular note are Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX and Zeraora V. Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX can use its “G-Max Rapid Flow” attack for [FFC] to do 120 damage to two of your opponent’s Pokémon. Passimian’s Throwing Coach lets you up this to 150 against Pokémon-GX and Pokémon V. Telescopic Sight lets you increase this by yet another 30, totally 180. Just one effect or the other lets G-Max Rapid Flow OHKO Dedenne-GX, but both mean Crobat V, Eldegoss V, and Kricketune V all also fall into OHKO range for G-Max Rapid Flow… and you still have 120 (180 against other Pokémon-GX or V) to use on another target. You’re also easily in range of 2HKOing all Pokémon VMAX, at least before other effects. Zeraora V and its “Cross Fist” are in a similar boat.
Passimian is not for every deck, and even in Rapid Strike builds, it is specialized support. Fortunately, one of the Postermon for this set happen to be exactly what Passimian helps, so it almost made the countdown. As is, it was my 11th-Place pick. I’m not sure I can defend placing it that high… at least, not yet. No Spoilers this time; while I was made aware of some tournament results outside of Japan through the one usual method – watching PokéTubers – it wasn’t full deck lists, just the main focus of the deck. I haven’t been able to keep up with all the cards revealed in Japan already, so I don’t know about anything down the road that especially benefits from it. Finally… remember that a Benched Mew (SM – Unbroken Bonds 76/214; SM – Black Star Promos SM215) can spoil all your plans with its Bench Barrier.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 3/5
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 more than 3500 Pokemon cards over the last 17+ years!
