Poké Ball – Promo Series A
Date Reviewed: January 4, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
The second best card from Promo Series A is Poké Ball (005/P-A)! This Trainer-Item searches your deck for a random Basic Pokémon when you use it. The process is automated after you opt to play the card. You don’t see any other cards from your deck, the game itself will randomly pick a Basic, show it to you, then add it to your hand. Lastly, it gives your deck a quick shuffle. In fact, it is one of the few cards that you can use to force your deck to shuffle. Not a big deal, but nice if you don’t like what Pokédex showed you, or Mythical Slab bottom decked something you wish it hadn’t.
For the third time, we have an adaptation of a card from the full Pokémon TCG to the PTCG Pocket. I’ll cover the counterpart to today’s card after I explain why Poké Ball is a staple. Even the low tier deck 18 Trainers runs two copies, and that deck only contains two Basic Pokémon! Is thinning a 20 card deck really that valuable in Pocket? Absolutely. Draw and search power is at a premium, even with such a small deck. Using search things your deck, so you can draw into other cards you wanted faster while still ending up with a Basic in hand. Though not necessarily the exact Basic you wanted.
Pocket has no mulligans. The game is coded so that your opening hand always has at least one Basic Pokémon you can field as your Active. In the full TCG, there’s a chance it won’t happen, which increases the fewer Basic Pokémon you run. If you can’t field at least one, you’ll have to mulligan (try again). Each time this happens, your opponent gets to draw an extra card during setup (but after they put a Pokémon into the Active spot). Bench Out is still a concern; you lose in either version of the TCG when you have no Pokémon in play. Pocket only allows you three spots on your Bench, so you have to be pickier about what you put into play.
The Point System may also contribute to this. To win via Knock Outs, you need to amass three points in Pocket. You get one point when an opponent’s Pokémon is KO’d, or two points if it is a Pokémon ex. The full TCG has an annoying Prize mechanic; during setup, after resolving mulligans, each player sets the top six cards of their deck off to the side, face down and without looking at them. You win if you take all your Prize cards, and you earn one Prize when an opponent’s Pokémon is KO’d (or two for Pokémon ex). Even though, in Pocket, Pokémon don’t hit as hard as quickly and decks are so much smaller, you basically need half as many KOs to win.
In my personal experience, as well as most of the lists I’ve seen, people run between four and seven Pokémon. There are exceptions – again, 18 Trainers – the more you run past four, the more may be dead cards later, or show up too soon or too late. You still evolve Pokémon in the normal fashion in Pocket, and evolving Basic Pokémon are approximately as fragile as in the full TCG; you need evolving Basics to hit the field ASAP! Poké Ball helps with all of this, even if it is random which Basic Pokémon you get from it.
For the sake of completion, let me address Poké Ball (and another Ball) in the full TCG. Poké Ball is almost as old as Potion, dating back to Jungle (second set released, still in 1999) instead of Base Set. Though wording has varied, the stats and effect remain functionally the same. This Poké Ball is still an Item but it requires a coin flip to use and searches your deck for one Pokémon of your choice. Getting the exact Pokémon you need is nice, but “tails fails” means Poké Ball seldom sees competitive success.
Rating: 4/5
Even as a staple, I don’t think I should give Poké Ball a higher score. It is a very good card, maybe even a great card given the cardpool. However, my experience with the full TCG leads me to believe there is a significant gap between what Poké Ball can do, and what other search cards could do without becoming “broken” (unbalanced). If I’m wrong, enjoy a laugh at my expense iN tHe FuTuRe!
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