Pokemon Breeder – Pokemon COTD

aroramage

…okay, she’s like Brock, if Brock was also a cowgirl…man that doesn’t even make sense.

Joining the likes of other draw Supporters, Pokemon Breeder helps draw out 2 cards from your deck, and in addition she’ll even heal up your Active Pokemon by 20 HP. Also if you don’t have any cards in your deck, you can’t play this card…feels like that part’s kinda obvious, considering you can lose by deck-out? I guess that makes it a terrible card in the absolute latest of late games, but otherwise, I don’t think that’s much of a problem.

Drawing 2 is alright; it’s not Sycamore, but it’s pretty neat. The big card I can compare this with is Professor Kukui, who essentially has the same set of effects, except that instead of healing damage, he adds on another 20 damage to your Pokemon’s attacks during the same turn. At that point, it’s a matter of compare and contrast and what matters more – do you want to get a little extra HP back to force your opponent into getting more damage out to secure their KO, or do you want the extra damage to guarantee your own KO? Pokemon Breeder’s the more passive version of Kukui in that sense.

Either way, both Breeder and Kukui will do marginally better once Sycamore rotates out, but I think overall, given the general mindset of the game, most people will prefer running Kukui to Breeder. Shame too – cowgirl Breeder is pretty cute.

Rating

Standard: 2.5/5 (drawing cards and healing damage is good, although admittedly I wish that she healed more)

Expanded: 2.5/5 (if she was healing off 30-40 damage, I think she’d be a good contender to try out in different decks)

Limited: 5/5 (but she is an absolute MUST-have for Limited play)

Arora Notealus: Pokemon Breeder has her own set of advantages and disadvantages compared with Kukui. It’s likely going to depend on what kind of deck you run, what your preference is, and overall if you’re more offensive or defensive. Both will draw 2 cards, so it’ll be a matter of healing or damage – you could even mix the ratios to find the right set-up for your deck!

Next Time: Climb to the top where champions fight!

Otaku

Here is a card that we almost could have covered for Throwback Thursday except we (or at least I) still haven’t gotten a ruling about whether Pokémon Breeder (Shining Legends 63/73, 73/73) released in 2017 is the same as the Pokémon Breeder (Base Set 76/102; Base Set 2 105/130; Legendary Collection 102/110), first officially released in 1999 and last re-released in 2002.  The older version of Pokémon Breeder is functionally the same as the modern version of Rare Candy; a Trainer-Item that has you pick a Basic that could legally Evolve this turn, and Evolve it directly into the corresponding Stage 2 form (skipping the Stage 1).  The new Pokémon Breeder is a Trainer-Supporter that has you draw two cards and heal 20 from your Active Pokémon.  Pokémon Breeder requires you have cards in your deck in order to play it, but doees not require you have damage to heal on your Active; that said, both effects are mandatory, requiring you do as much as you are able. Incredibly unlikely, but it is possible that you would need only part of this card’s effect (or just need to thin your hand) and wish you could draw and/or heal less.

Normally, when a significant change to the text of a card occurs between printings, the latest printing overrides older card text.  Unless the older versions receive errata “correcting” the old text to match the new, the old copies become illegal to use for Organized Play.  However, while the names of these two cards are the same in English, in Japanese, they are different.  No, I haven’t gotten around to learning Japanese: I just compared the Japanese characters in the card names.  Lo and behold, they are different!  Speaking of characters, and actually utilizing translations of the card names, the original Pokémon Breeder card is actually based on the Pokémon Day Care character from the Gen I games, while the new Pokémon Breeder card is based on the Trainer Class that shares the name from Gen III and later titles.

So, how about the actual card effect?  Olympia and Professor Kukui have shown us that drawing just two cards can suffice when it is paired up with a useful effect; unfortunately for Pokémon Breeder, healing 20 damage form your Active isn’t all that great.  Healing requires you survive taking damage and that the amount of turns required for a KO are reduced.  Healing also ends up competing with bounce effects, control/distruption, soaking damage, and improving your offense for keeping your Pokémon alive, and healing hasn’t proven to be one of the more effecient options.  For the Standard and Expanded Formats, I only see this as worth it when learning the game; based on what I have seen and experienced, when learning the game it is better to avoid complex decisions involving discards or shuffling and to prolong the lifespan of your Pokémon.  Still, it is a suboptimal choice and not a useless one for most decks.  Draw and healing is much more valuable in the Limited Format and the Theme Format but I’m not sure if you can even officially organize a Shining Legends Limited Format event, and I know of no Theme Deck that contains Pokémon Breeder.

Ratings

Standard: 1.75/5
Expanded: 1.5/5
Limited: 3.75/5

Vince

Well, this is going to be confusing. There are two cards named Pokémon Breeder, one from Base Set and one from Shining Legends. However, when looking at Bulbapedia, Pokémon Breeder has two separate links, which I think they are two separate cards and not an reprint. The Base Set version operates like modern day Rare Candy. The Shining Legends prints states that you draw 2 cards and heal 20 damage from your Active Pokémon.

So we have another card that has two effects, but is drawing 2 cards and healing 20 damage worth your supporter slot? Probably not. Drawing 2 cards is better than nothing and healing 20 damage can still alter 2HKOs into 3HKOs. But the effects are so small that an alternative to an better effect would be preferred. Professor Sycamore and Max Potion would still outclass Pokémon Breeder despite needing two cards from your deck instead of one.

You won’t be seeing much of Pokémon Breeder, and Limited format didn’t host Shining Legends. But if they do, then Pokémon Breeder does a good job in a less hostile environment………..except that this set also has Sophocles and Lillie for potentially better draw power.

Standard: 1.25/5

Expanded: 1.25/5

Limited: 5/5

Notes: Pokemon Breeder needs to do a little more to be worth using, but then again, maybe those effects are enough to turn things around.

Retro

So we have, what I think is the second worst Supporter in this block. Its too passive and what it sets out to do is severely outclassed by other cards in its category, both as individual and combined cards. 

Pokemon Breeder is one of those “draw 2 cards then do x” which seems to be the trend in the Sun and Moon block. X can refer to anything; it can be for an extra 20 damage like Professor Kukui, it can be to disrupt opponents like Mars from Ultra Prism, it can be for discard 2 and draw 4 (which is techincally like drawing 2 cards) like Sophocles, and other stuff. However, since Pokemon Breeder is practically the reverse of Professor Kukui, what does it do? 

So it heals 20 damage and draws you 2 cards. If there are no cards in your deck, you can’t play this card. What a steaming pile of rubbish! Right, so I can’t use it before I use my Super Rod (XY BKP), Pal Pad (SM ULP), Brock’s Grit (XY Evo) or Rescue Strecher (SM GUR) to refill my deck? I only heal 20 damage when cards like Max Potion and energy transfer/energy accelerator cards are in the format? This is one of the first draw Supporter which can’t even be used under normal circumstances, even when I just need for the 20 heal! 

This card is so bad, I can’t think of anything to say about it. Just hope that Masked Royal doesn’t actually appear or else I’m just gonna write a single sentence about it. Jeez….

Rating: 

Standard: 1.8/5

Expanded: 1.5/5

Limited: 2/5 (better off with just a normal Potion here.)

21times
PokeDeck
Central

Pokemon Breeder (Shining Legends 73) meandered into the meta from the Shining Legends expansion set.  This Supporter allows you to draw two cards and heal 20 damage from your active Pokemon.

Yawn.

Seriously, could they have underpowered this card any more?  I suppose it could have been heal ten damage and draw 1 card.  Honestly, who is going to play this card?  I actually forgot it existed until this review.  I have never seen anyone play it against me.  Really, what a great opportunity to add a decent Supporter to the repertoire.  Even if they had made it draw three cards and heal thirty damage, it would have received some consideration.  It would certainly have surpassed Hau on the chain of Supporters.  In the long run it doesn’t really matter as we’ll be getting Cynthia, and between Cynthia, N, and Sycamore, we’ll have great choices for draw support, so even a thirty thirty Pokemon Breeder would have been ignored.  But still, come on, it’s almost like why are they even wasting their time with these cards?  Give it a little something more to give us at least a little bit of a reason to consider it.

Rating

Standard: 1 out of 5

Conclusion

Again, Pokemon whiffed on an opportunity to give us a potentially cool card and another alternative draw supporter.  In the end, I don’t think it really matters, but it would have been nice to have this card as an option… had it been a little bit stronger in design.