Peeking Red Card- – #10 – Top 10 Crimson Invasion Cards

aroramage

AND HERE WE GO AGAIN!! Welcome back to another Top 10 List, this time for the new set Crimson Invasion! Complete with crimson…and uh…invading? Something like that. And what better card to kick off our Top 10 List than a Crimson Card!!

…heh, that’d be neat, if Fire wasn’t already a Type somehow. No, we’ve got Peeking Red Card instead. Some people may recall the generic Red Card Item first printed out in the XY set. As a brief refresher, Red Card forced your opponent to shuffle their hand back into their deck and draw 4 new cards. It was pretty useful as a disruption tool of sorts to get rid of something your opponent may have added to their hand or trim down their options from a fresh Sycamore, but it’s generally inferior to N, which could reduce the opponent to as few as 1 card in their hand with the right timing, all while still shuffling back their hand into their deck.

Peeking Red Card adds back a little clause to give the old Red Card effect a different take. As its name would imply, Peeking Red Card lets you take a look at your opponent’s hand, and if you’d like, you can then have your opponent shuffle the cards in their hand back into the deck before drawing out the same number they returned. So if your opponent had, say, 4 cards in hand when you peek, you can have them shuffle their hand back and redraw 4 cards from their deck.

This card has some benefits that Red Card doesn’t. For one thing, it allows you to look at your opponent’s hand, gathering information on what your opponent’s strategy is and how ready they may be to enact the moves to progress that strategy. It can then allow you to disrupt your opponent by shuffling things back into their deck and forcing them to work with a new hand, which can either stall them out or force them to rethink their next turn. Unfortunately, that’s about where Peeking Red Card stops being useful, as it still gives your opponent access to the same amount of cards they had to begin with when you play the card. Ideally, the less cards they have in hand to shuffle back, the better off you’ll be.

Peeking Red Card is a pretty useful tech card for disruption purposes, and I can imagine a few decks will run it in Standard for the ability to gather information and potentially disrupt your opponent. In Expanded, it’s still outclassed by N, but it may have competition in spots with Red Card (which thanks to its Generations print is also legal in Standard for the time being). I think overall Peeking Red will see more play than regular Red, but maybe there are times where you’d plan to give your opponent 4 cards?

Rating

Standard: 3/5 (pretty solid disruption that grants information as well)

Expanded: 3/5 (at the least, you’ve got the option to not toss your opponent’s hand back in case they don’t have anything)

Limited: 4/5 (and if they do, you throw it back and make them draw something new)

Arora Notealus: Peeking Red Card has a little more going for it than the traditional Red Card, and that little bit is what makes it so effective as a disruption tool. As an Item card though, it is vulnerable to powering up Trashalanche, just like the old Red Card, but if your opponent can’t get their Garbodor or their plays together, Peeking Red Card can help you slow them down so you can push your own strategy forward. At the very least, you’ll get a good idea of what’s in your opponent’s hand.

Next Time: The first GX to hit the list is gonna GOBBLE YOU UP!!

21times

Peeking Red Card (Crimson Invasion, 97/111) kicks off our review of the top ten cards from Crimson Invasion.  This item card forces your opponent to reveal his or her hand to you.  After doing so, you then have the option of having them shuffle their cards back into their deck and then drawing the exact same amount of cards.

As you may or may not know, Red Card (Generations, 71/83) remains one of my favorite cards in the game, and I absolutely LOVE the Red Card, Stadium, Delinquent (Breakpoint, 98/122), Tormenting Spray (Burning Shadows, 125/147) combination.  If you can pull this off, and your opponent doesn’t have Oranguru (Sun & Moon, 113/149), Octillery (Breakthrough, 33/162), or Zoroark GX (Shining Legends, 53/72) in play, you can put them into the ultimate top deck mode, leaving them at the absolute mercy of whatever card they draw next turn.  I use this combo frequently in my Sylveon GX (Guardians Rising, 92/145) deck, and I win a little more than half of the time with this strategy.  It’s not a great strategy – I’m completely 100% aware of that – but when it works it provides a quick and easy victory.

Peeking Red Card involves a different approach.  It still will effectively disrupt your opponent if they only have a couple of cards in their hand.  Many times, people play down their hand to only one or two cards left, but one of those remaining cards is a draw card.  In this case, Peeking Red Card will take those cards and throw them back into your opponent’s deck.  Granted it gives your opponent the same number of cards he or she had prior to shuffling, but chances are that their hand won’t get another draw card, espcially if they’ve got a couple of draw Supporters already sitting down in the depths of their discard pile.

Rating

Standard: 2 out of 5

Conclusion

I have used this card multiple times.  It can effectively disrupt your opponent.  It actually complements Red Card in that Red Card works best if your opponent has five or more cards, but Peeking Red Card isn’t useful with that many cards.  It works best if they have three or less cards, and you return the Supporter or whatever other card they needed for their next turn back in their deck and give them back cards that will not immediately help their game.  The problems with Peeking Red Card are that so many decks are carrying Oranguru, Octillery, and Zoroark GX, and it happens with disproportionate frequency that your opponent top decks the draw Supporter or Tapu Lele GX (Guardians Rising, 60/145) they need to get them right back in the match.

Vince

Do you recall Red Card? The one where you force your opponent to shuffle his or her hand and draw 4 cards? Well, we have another card related to red card called Peeking Red Card.

True to its name, it lets you look at your opponent hand. That’s some useful information to be gained as to what your opponent may try to do next turn. If you think his or her hand is a threat, you make them shuffle their hand and draw that many cards. So if your opponent has 5 cards in their hand, they shuffle their hand and draw 5 cards. You don’t have to make them shuffle if you don’t want to.

That’s some disruption against your opponent. But sometimes, shuffling their hand may or may not be a great idea. There’s a chance where the opponent may get a better hand than what they previously have after they performed their shuffle and draw. As an item card, you can play Peeking Red Card again to see their hand.

Overall, this is a nice card to experiment in Standard and Expanded. In Limited, it won’t do much good against +39 decks, since their hand would be full of Basic energy cards.

Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 3/5
Limited: 2/5

Note: With Peeking Red Card, Hand Scope is totally obsolete. I didn’t have this on my top 10, but I can see why this card have potential. This could mess up your opponent’s setup if you’re lucky.

Otaku

Welcome to our countdown of the “Top 10 Cards of SM: Crimson Invasion”, as determined by our Pokémon CotD Crew! If you’re new to our Top 10 lists, the abridged version of the process is that each contributor submits his or her own list; these are compiled to create the site’s master list. Normally reprints are ineligible and you can’t have cards share a slot, but we allow exceptions where we deem it appropriate. There are no specific criteria beyond these; whatever that reviewer thinks is “the best” gets to be on the list.

Taking 10th place is Peeking Red Card, a Trainer-Item that has you look at your opponent’s hand before choosing whether or not to have your opponent shuffle away his or her hand, then draw a new hand of the same amount. If you’re not new to the game, you know that Trainers are going to be a major part of almost all competitive decks; probably half to two-thirds of it. Not a lot of card effects are geared towards all Trainers, however; instead, such effects usually focus on the Trainer subclass. Item cards are often one of the more numerous parts of a deck, given how there are no built-in costs or other restrictions on their usage. Not a lot of supporting effects here, but plenty of counters because of their prominence in deck building.

So, how does the actual effect stack up? Seeing your opponent’s hand is almost always a good thing, but rarely worth a card slot all on its own; who runs Hand Scope? Shuffling away your opponent’s hand only to have them draw the same amount of cards is in a similar boat; it strikes me as a bit more valuable on its own, as you can at least tell whether your opponent has a large or a small hand, and usually should be able to deduce or guess some of the contents. As your opponent draws the same amount shuffled away, being used against a large or a small hand may be equally beneficial; a smaller hand may contain fewer important cards but means a better chance of your opponent drawing dead, or at least poorly. Putting these two effects together while making the second part optional is worthy of being an Item card; see your opponent’s hand, and only make them shuffle it away and redraw if the contents warrant it.

Peeking Red Card should sound very familiar, as it seems to be the successor – or perhaps partner – of the original Red Card. Red Card is also a Trainer-Item, and has a similar effect; your opponent shuffles his or her hand away, then draws four cards. You don’t get to see what he or she has in hand, at least not without using another card to supply the effect. If your opponent’s hand size doesn’t affect how many cards are drawn; it will always be four, a number that is too few to usually be helpful but too many to be especially harmful. Red Card hasn’t had a brilliant history in the competitive scene, but it has had its successes. Early game, or with the right circumstances (your own combos or your opponent’s actions), it can be vicious, but it can pretty easily backfire when your opponent’s hand is small or full of dead cards. Red Card was and isn’t bad, it just isn’t something you’ll include in most decks.

Does Peeking Red Card replace Red Card? Red Card isn’t Standard Format legal, so the answer is clearly “Yes”.. or is it clearly “No” as you cannot replace what isn’t there? In Expanded, the answer is “Some of the time.” In decks that can only make room for one or two cards of disruption, I’m inclined to go with Peeking Red Card over the original Red Card, but I can’t make a case for that as a general rule. What about decks with more advanced combos? The answer remains the same. Whether taking advantage of simple or complex tactics, both will have unique uses and overlapping opportunities. Though there is more competition in Expanded, I am scoring it higher here than in the Standard Format; the larger cardpool comes with more opportunities as well. While Pre-Releases are over, if you’re able to play at a Limited Format event, Peeking Red Card is a great addition to any deck. Here, just seeing your opponent’s hand is valuable. While the smaller 40-card deck means your opponent has better odds of drawing back into what you shuffled away, he or she probably won’t have as many draw or search cards to get out of a slump.

Ratings

Standard: 3.25/5

Expanded: 3.5/5

Limited: 4/5

Conclusion

Peeking Red Card appears to be another valuable – but well balanced – addition to the control/disruption camp in the modern Pokémon TCG. In a less crowded Standard Format of the past, it might have been a staple, but for now, its just one of the many “good” cards you wish you had the deck space for, but often will have to pass up. Still, it is the kind of card you can benefit from in almost all decks, even if it isn’t the optimal play, but that does present some potent possibilities when it is run in a more specialized deck appropriate to it.

Peeking Red Card earned nine voting points, edging out our unrevealed 11th place pick by just two voting points, and failing to tie tomorrow’s 9th place pick by three voting points. Peeking Red Card appeared on only two of six lists, one of which was my own. I had Peeking Red Card as my personal 9th place pick; while I wouldn’t place it much higher than that, I am glad someone else did as it was necessary for Peeking Red Card to sneak into 10th place.