Pokémon Center Lady – Shining Revelry
Date Reviewed: March 31, 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 sixth best card of Shining Revelry is Pokémon Center Lady (A2b 070, 089). She’s a Trainer-Supporter that lets you select one of your Pokémon with damage on them, and/or that is affected by a Special Condition. Heal 30 damage from that Pokémon, and remove all Special Conditions affecting it. Pokémon Center Lady is available at the ♦♦ and ★★ rarities.
Nothing has changed since yesterday’s review of Iono (A2b 069, 088). There aren’t any card effects that apply to all “Trainer cards” or “Trainers” in Pocket. There are three with effects that apply to Supporters: Gengar (A1 122), Gengar ex (A1 123, 261, 277), and Psyduck (A1 057). Gengar and Psyduck have single Energy attacks that prevent your opponent from using a Supporter during their next turn; Gengar ex prevents your opponent from using Supporters while it is Active, via its Ability.
When it comes to Trainers, Item cards have no shared cost or condition to use them across the board, but tend to have weaker effects because of it. Fossil Items being the exception, since they require an open Bench space to be put into play, after which they count as Pokémon until they hit the discard pile. Tools require a Pokémon with that doesn’t already have a Tool be in play, so the Tool can be attached to that Pokémon.
Supporters tend to have the strongest effects, but you may only use one per turn. Until your next turn, all other Supporters that may be in your hand are dead cards. As such, Supporters compete with each other more than non-Fossil Item cards do. My go-to example for how a Supporter compares to the equivalent Item card is Leaf (A1a 068, 082) versus X Speed (P-A 002). The former reduces the Retreat Cost of your in-play, Active Pokémon by (C)(C), while X Speed does the same but only for (C).
Pokémon Center Lady combines healing damage with removing Special Conditions. You get to select which Pokémon you target with Pokémon Center Lady, but it must have at least 10 damage on it, or at least one Special Condition afflicting it, and can have both damage and Special Conditions afflicting it. You then get both effects; healing 30 damage from the selected Pokémon and removing all Special Conditions that are on it (if any). If the Pokémon in question has less than 30 damage, remove all of it.
There’s not a perfect analog to Pokémon Center Lady in Pocket, but we can come close by looking at two cards: Potion (P-A 001) and Lum Berry (A2 149). The former is an Item that heals 20 damage from the selected Pokémon. The latter is a Tool that only checks to see if the Pokémon to which it is attached is afflicted with any Special Conditions; if “yes”, then Lum Berry triggers before the Pokémon Checkup, removing any and all Special Conditions.
Pokémon Center Lady is essentially both of these things, plus healing an extra 10 damage, in an Active capacity like Potion, instead of as a passive equip that waits around until needed, like Lum Berry. The next question to ask is is this needed in competitive play? Yes, though not bad enough to turn Pokémon Center Lady into a lose staple, let alone a true one. Depending on the deck, there are additional options:
If your deck can run entirely or partially on (W) Energy, Irida (A2 072, 087) lets you heal 40 damage from each of your Pokémon with one or more (W) Energy attached. Grass Types have Erika to heal 50 from one of them. If you can spare the Bench space, Butterfree (A1 007; P-A 013) and Shaymin (A2 022, 159) have Abilities that heal all your Pokémon by 20 or 10, respectively. Wigglytuff (A2b 061, 078) has an Ability that can heal your Active by 20. All three are once-per-turn-per-copy Abilities, and their Abilities have different names.
If you can spare your Tool slot, you can equip Giant Cape (A2 147) for +20 HP, which is kind of like healing, but not quite the same. Then there are various Pokémon with attacks that can heal one or more of your Pokémon… but those generally need to be the, or at least a, focus of your deck. For that matter, other than Shaymin, the same goes for the Ability-based healers. When it comes to generic healing, it’s really just Pokémon Center Lady and Potion.
Pokémon Center Lady has a full PTCG counterpart. Pokémon Center Lady (XY – Flashfire 093/106, 105/106; Generations 068/083; SUM – Hidden Fates 64/68; SWSH – Sword & Shield 176/202; SWSH – Vivid Voltage 185/185; Champion’s Path 060/073) is a Trainer-Supporter that… does what it does in Pocket except healing 60 damage instead of 30. Again, this gives you an idea of the different scales of the game. We reviewed it twice back in the day. The first time, baby Mario thought it was decent, but a little below average. The second time, Vince and myself found Pokémon Center Lady to be a little above the three-out-of-five average.
Rating: 3.25/5
As with the re-review of her full TCG counterpart, Pokémon Center Lady is a little above average, which is actually “good” layman’s terms. Her main drawback is the same that plagued Iono and Potion; finding room for her in your deck. Where healing is already important, however, you likely already have Potion. Unless you usually need to use your healing alongside another Supporter, strongly consider replacing one or both copies of Potion with Pokémon Center Lady.
There’s an added consideration as well; due to some of the other cards released in this set, we may be entering an era of increased Special Conditions… but, once again, remember this is my estimation. I did not comb over the deck/tournament results on LimitlessTCG to count how many successful decks included Pokémon Center Lady. Not even I have that much time, and there weren’t any results when I created the countdown list.
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