Red – Shining Revelry
Date Reviewed: April 5, 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 best card in Shining Revelry is Red (A2b 071, 090)! This Trainer-Supporter increases the damage your attacks do to the opponent’s Active Pokémon ex by 20, until the end of the turn. Red is available at the ♦♦ and ★★ rarities… and I finally got one via Wonder Pick a few hours before writing this. No, I didn’t have time to playtest.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way:
1) There are no card effects in Pocket that apply to all Trainers.
2) There are three anti-Support cards1…
3) …that have seen little to no competitive success.
4) You only get to use Supporters once, during your turn.
Next, some clarifications about how Red works. I prefer to use direct observation2, but due to a lack of testing time, I’ll have to go by how similar cards work. Take advantage of some Solo battles to confirm or disprove what I’m about to say. Red’s effect doesn’t target any Pokémon, but leaves an effect that lingers on the field, until the end of the turn. This means a Pokémon that enters play after you use Red can still receive it’s damage bonus.
An attack must be capable of doing damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon ex, for Red’s effect to be able to increase the damage done. Assuming all other requirements of Red are met, an attack that has it’d damage reduced to zero (or less) can still receive Red’s damage buff. Attacks that don’t do damage in the first place, or have had their damage set to zero, whether due to an opponent’s card effect or even their own, won’t benefit from Red.
Red provides a solid +20 damage. The value of cards like Potion (P-A 001) and Giant Cape (A2 147), among many others, tells us that 20 is still a significant number in Pocket. Even +10 can do the trick, which is why Giovanni (A1 223, 270) still sees some competitive success, though not as much as it once did. We have a lot more Supporters to fit into our decks than we did when I actually reviewed Giovanni, though the card itself is still rather good.
Don’t just take my word for it. Glancing through recent tournament results, many decks are running one or two copies of Red. Good Red usage seems to be about hitting key numbers, usually for OHKOs. Before other effects3 are considered, 150 damage is enough to OHKO every Basic Pokémon ex. 170 damage OHKOs everything except Blastoise (A1 056, 256), Charizard ex (A1 036, 253, 280, 284), the other Charizard ex (A2b 010, 080, 108), Gyarados ex (A1a 018, 076), Machamp ex (A1 146, 263, 278), and Venusaur (A1 004, 251).
There are decks where +20, or even another +20, aren’t worth running Red. Charizard ex (A1 036, 253, 280, 284) can use its “Crimson Storm” attack to do 200 damage. It takes something like a Gyarados ex, wearing a Giant Cape, and protected with Blue (A1a 067, 081) to barely survive, with 10 HP. The chance of this is not worth including Red in your Charizard ex (A1 036, 253, 280, 284) ex decks. Similarly, a Rampardos (A2 089)/Lucario (A2 092, 170) deck will just rely on the Lucarios for their damage buffs.
Many, if not most, other decks ought to consider running Red. Is it a new staple? Maybe, but if not ,then it falls into the “I need a reason to not run it.” camp of loose staples. Not just “I already have a 20 card deck.”, but “I have a 20 card deck and everything in it is absolutely vital!”. This is the card that leads you to try and get by with only one Leaf (A1a 068, 082), or even Cyrus (A2 150, 190), because you know how valuable that +20 is likely to become.
Rating: 4/5
If Red had released in Genetic Apex, I likely would have scored him a little higher. Even in a metagame where there were more single Prize decks running around, that’s how valuable the +20 becomes when it is time to smack an opponent’s Pokémon ex. Plus, there was less competition for Supporter space in a deck. While Giratina ex (A2b 035, 083, 096) spawned some new decks, or helped reinvent existing ones, Red affects the whole metagame even more, though in a more subtle fashion.
1Gengar (A1 122), Gengar ex (A1 123, 261, 277), and Psyduck (A1 057).
2I don’t yet know of a source for official rulings.
3Various combos can prevent the OHKO from happening.
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