Red & Blue #2 – Top 11 Pokemon Cards in Cosmic Eclipse

Vince

Our runner up card is another Tag Team Supporter card: Red & Blue. I think by looking at the effects, it seems quite fitting for every single player characters who begin their journeys and eventually become champion. Their starters and other Pokémon that they encountered also starts as being small and insignificant, but eventually become very strong when evolved. The core gameplay will never deviate when it comes to the objective of the game.

Anyhow, Red & Blue lets you search your deck for a Pokémon-GX that evolves from one of your Pokemon in play and evolve it, except that you cannot do it on your first turn or the turn you put that Pokémon into play. This is just like Evosoda but in Supporter form and is restricted to GX Pokemon. So while you can put a Stage 1 GX over the basic, or Stage 2 GX over the Stage 1, you cannot skip from a Basic into a Stage 2. Do not think of it as Rare Candy; it doesn’t work that way at all. Also, you may not even evolve Eevee-GX into any of the GX versions Eeveelutions from the effect of Red & Blue, neither Pikachu-GX into Raichu-GX, or neither Onix-GX into hypothetical Steelix-GX because their stage 1 GX cards doesn’t reference “Evolved from Pokémon or Pokémon-GX”. Additionally, you may discard 2 cards from your hand, and you get to search your deck for 2 basic energy cards and attach them to only the Pokémon that just evolved by that effect. While you can potentially thin your deck by three cards, Abilities that are coming into play from your hand won’t activate, though I can think of a few that requires you to play a Pokémon from your hand to evolve it. I suppose Lycanroc-GX TEU won’t be able to use Twilight Eyes to discard an Energy attached to one of your opponent’s Pokemon, and another Lycanroc-GX GRI won’t be able to use Bloodthirsty Eyes to utilize the gusting effect. If that’s the situation you’re dealing with, then you would skip using Red & Blue.

But for the rest of the GX Pokemon that are Stage 1s and Stage 2s? Maybe. It’s just that there are more cards that search for GX Pokemon. Cherish Ball can fetch whatever GX Pokemon you desire, and you can manually evolve them from your hand, and benefit coming into play abilities possessed by those Stage 1/2 GX Pokemon. The discard effect from that extra effect can sometimes vary from deck to deck; some can benefit from the discard pile while others don’t. Attaching 2 basic energy cards is just like attaching a Double Colorless Energy, and basic energies don’t get punished as much than Special Energies. One thing Red & Blue has that others don’t is simply being a Supporter card, as it avoids item lock strategies and could be a good emergency for when you really want that Stage 1 or Stage 2 into play.

This is a good card, and it’s usefulness can vary on a case by case basis. This isn’t one that’s mandatory to have but one shouldn’t forget it either. Perhaps some of the most strategical plays associated with Red & Blue would be to 1) Evolve Type Null to Silvally-GX, attach two energies to it, and swing for 120 damage via Brave Buddies or 2) Evolve Sneasel to Weavile-GX and attach 2 dark energies to it so that it can be moved via Shadow Connection Ability as you see fit. And while Standard doesn’t have some sort of self-regeneration effect, Expanded has Exeggcute PLF’s Propagation Ability that brings itself from the discard pile onto your hand, which makes Red & Blue’s (as well as other Tag Team Supporter cards in this set) discard cost inconsequential, although you may risk starting the game with Exeggcute as well as being donked at turn one as its 30 HP leaves it suspectible to easy knockouts between turns (Hypnotoxic Laser + Virbank City Gym).

Ratings:

• Standard: 3.5/5
• Expanded: 3.25/5
• Limited: 3/5

Conclusion:

Red & Blue provides an alternate route of Evolution for when you cannot play a Pokemon from your hand to evolve it for some reason (I cannot use Archeops from BW Noble Victories as an example as it is banned in Expanded, but that would’ve been a perfect example), or if you don’t have the corresponding Stage 1 or Stage 2 in your hand. They sit comfortably on the second best card of the set with 26 voting points, 4 more than Cynthia & Caitlyn. It only lost out to tommorow’s card by seven points. But then again, a card with 33 voting points had to top all three personal Top 11 lists, so perhaps it wasn’t as close as it looks on paper.

aroramage

Just when you thought it was safe to get out of Kanto, they just pull you right back in. You’d really think they’d give it a rest, just cause they were the first ones and all, I mean what a bunch of Kantonians to think that way, ya know? Next thing you know they’ll be chanting about how great they are and start talking about why it’s bad to build up a wall like their neighbors in Johto did during their meta.

…that…that’s a lot of meta commentary.

Red & Blue is a Tag Team Supporter that lets you search your deck for a Pokemon-GX that evolves from one of your Pokemon, and then you get to evolve that Pokemon. You can also discard 2 other cards when you play it to attach 2 Basic Energy from your deck to that same Pokemon as well. Normal Evolution guidelines apply, so no evolving on the first turn or the turn you put it into play. 

For any deck that runs on a Pokemon-GX like this, that evolves from another Pokemon, this is a HUGE boon to these decks. Part of the reason these GX weren’t amazing all the time was because of their Evolutionary play style – which always seems to come up around evolution-based mechanics in the game, but I digress. If you wanted a Stage 1 GX, you had to draw it out from your deck and play it on the Pokemon that you had already set-up, and if you wanted a Stage 2 GX it was even more complicated since you needed to have either the Stage 1 in play or a Rare Candy in hand with that Stage 2. With Red & Blue, you get a quick and easy means of evolving without the mess of an overloaded hand, and on top of that you get to power it up right away instead of having to wait for a few turns when you use the second effect!

It’s not going to be run in every deck – certainly Tag Team-GX decks won’t run this card – but for any deck that can run this, you should run this, cause these guys are absolutely here to help.

Rating

Standard: 4.5/5 (solid support for the Evolution-GX for sure)

Expanded: 4/5 (more tricks of the trade, but more Supporters and strategies to compete with)

Limited: 3/5 (really depends on you getting one of the few Pokemon-GX that evolve from something in this set)

Arora Notealus: Red & Blue hit the #5 spot on my list, because while I acknowledge they’re a critical part of certain decks, they’re not going to be as widespread as something like Cynthia & Caitlin might be. Granted, the latter might not be popular, and these guys could just top them out in terms of usage, simply because there are so many good Pokemon-GX that have to evolve and just can’t compete with the current game otherwise without this card. It’s hard to say whether or not these guys will have that ultimate impact, but if you’ve got an evolving GX to work with, definitely give them a try and see how you like them!

Next Time: Taking over the #1 spot, it’s…a Pokemon flying solo?

Otaku

Red & Blue secured 2nd-place in our countdown, but you may be wondering how?  This is another of the new TAG TEAM Supporters, so right away I want to remind you of Monday’s 5th-place finisher, Tag Call.  Tag Call helps all TAG TEAM cards because it can fetch any two (Pokémon or Supporter) from your deck and is just an Item card itself.  TAG TEAM Supporters have a two effects, a primary that is required and a secondary that is optional.  You can only skip the primary if you can do (and pay to do) the secondary but could not actually do the primary… and for reasons you’ll see, that exception doesn’t apply here.

Red & Blue’s primary effect is a more restricted Evosoda.  Evosoda is an Item that lets you search your deck for a Pokémon that evolves from one of your Pokémon in play, then you evolve the selected Pokémon into the searched out Pokémon directly from the deck.  It also clearly states you can’t use it the first turn a Pokémon is in play or on your own very first turn at all.  Red & Blue is the same except it can only fetch a Pokémon-GX from your deck into which your selected Pokémon must evolve.

The secondary effect requires you discard two cards from hand and – unlike with the other TAG TEAM cards – can only be used with the primary effect.  The secondary effect lets you search your deck for up to two basic Energy cards and then attach them to the Pokémon-GX you put into play via the primary effect.  Energy acceleration from the hand is one of the better options in the Pokémon TCG (maybe the best!).  Being able to get any Energy from your deck would be better, being able to get any basic Energy is still great.

Red & Blue essentially let you evolve a Pokémon from your deck and not your hand.  This is good when there is an effect preventing you from evolving from your hand but bad if you want to evolve into something with a coming-into-play Ability as most (all?) of those state they have to be played from hand.  They will not let you skip a Stage of Evolution, and is incompatible with the Abilities found on Ditto {*} or Eevee-GX; you have to refer to the “Evolves from…” text, which those Abilities bypass.  This does mean you can play around a bit with the current Fossil mechanic versus the one from the Black & White and XY-eras.

You don’t gain any speed in evolving via Red & Blue but the Standard Format lacks the strong search options we grew used to over the last several Standard Formats and still enjoy in Expanded.  The real deal, of course, is the Energy acceleration, which is actually using the Evolution effect as a built-in limiter; you don’t get a double basic Energy attachment to just anything, only the Pokémon-GX searched out from the first part of the effect e.g. only a Stage 1 or 2 Pokémon-GX.

Red & Blue can provide a much needed boost to decks built around Evolved Pokémon-GX in either Format, though I expect the benefits to be much more important to Standard than Expanded; the latter also has more Energy acceleration options as well.  There are many ways to punish Special Energy in Expanded, but less so basic Energy; that could provide a valuable niche for Red & Blue.  I suppose this card might still be a must-run in the Limited Format but that is because you can use it to search then shuffle your deck, as well as to bluff.  If you actually have a Pokémon-GX you can fetch and put into play, then power up, Red & Blue makes for a powerful play!

Ratings

Standard: 4/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 3.3/5

Most Evolved Pokémon-GX should at least consider Red & Blue; the search might not mean much – could even backfire – but the Energy acceleration is just that useful for Evolved Pokémon-GX past and present.  I had this as my 3rd-place pick but I also spaced off the restriction on first turn usage (both of the game, and of the Pokémon being in play) while arranging my Top 11.  If I’d remembered, I might have ranked it lower.