Revavroom – Scarlet & Violet 142/198
Date Reviewed: May 10, 2023
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3
Expanded: 3
Limited: 5
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
Revavroom (Scarlet & Violet 142/198, SV Promo 008) is our third prerelease promo that we’ll be looking at today. A Stage 1 Metal-type with 140 HP, Fire weakness, Grass resistance, and a retreat cost of two, it has an ability and an attack. Rumbling Engine states that you must discard an Energy card from your hand in order to use this ability; you get to draw cards until you have six cards in your hand. Knock Away costs MCCC for 90 damage, and if you flipped heads, it does another 90 damage. It’s another Pokemon that sits on the Bench because Knock Away is overpriced and underpowered, even with ways to accelerate energies.
So, we have another Pokemon that provides some form of draw power via ability. I was going to mention that Crobat-V was that last Pokemon that provided draw power, but because of my extremely long hiatus, I have missed out a lot on a year’s worth of card pool. Turns out that Bibarel (SWSH Brillant Stars 121/172, SWSH Crown Zenith GG25/GG70) happen to possess an ability called Industrious Incisors, which lets you draw cards until you have five cards in your hand, which is exactly what Octillery (XY BreakThrough 33/162) did on its Abyssal Hand ability! As usual, if you have more cards in your hand than what the ability states (i.e., having more than six cards in your hand), then that ability pretty much does nothing. Revavroom is no exception, even though it tries to help you draw some cards by discarding a basic energy from your hand. If you discarded something from your hand and you’re still left with six cards, you won’t be able to draw any more cards. Even worse, if you don’t have a basic energy to discard, you can’t use that ability. But that’s why players do their best to maximize their payout so that they get to draw more. They include cards that reduce their hand size; Ultra Ball, as an example, is effectively a -3! You discard two cards from your hand to fetch a Pokemon, which would most likely be played on your Bench or to evolve your Pokemon. With that, you could easily replenish your hand and use other Supporters a bit more freely (not named Professor’s Research, though you can double down with insane draw power). As far as discarded energies are concerned, fortunately there’s Energy Retrieval that can help you stock up on energy cards, or other advanced tactics like Dark Patch and Metal Saucer to fuel up certain attacks!
Ultimately, it all comes down to using either Revavroom, Lumineon-V, or Bibarel. I think Bibarel has the edge because you don’t have to discard anything, and it can be put in play via Lugia VSTAR’s Summoning Star ability V-POWER, ignoring lower stages of Bidoof. Ideally, a VSTAR Power that can only be used once-per-game should prioritize other Colorless Pokemon with massive potential, like the tried-and-true Archeops (SWSH Silver Tempest 147/195) that can fuel up Special Energy cards from your deck via Primal Turbo ability. Having both targets like Archeops and Bibarel is a great idea! Lumineon-V fills in the gap Tapu Lele-GX left behind by fetching a Supporter card that you can use, assuming you haven’t already used it. Revavroom doesn’t have any shortcuts like the mentioned Lugia VSTAR or Expanded cards like Archie’s Ace in the Hole or Maxie Hidden Ball Trick, so having a couple copies of Varoom is required. Still, I think Revavroom is a good card, and could fill in the role several previous Pokemon has left out.
Since Revavroom is one of the prerelease promos inside the Build and Battle box, it’s a must run if you have it. The Revavroom group contains 1-1 Revavroom line (so with the promo, it’s 1-2), 3 Tatsugiri, and 2 Dondozo. Tatsugiri’s Mise en Place lets you attach two Water energies from your deck to 1 of your Basic Pokemon, which in this situation, would most likely be attached to Dondozo. Meanwhile, Dondozo is one of the best single prize attackers out there because it can deal lots of damage. For this scenario, though, if you can get 3 Tatsugiri in the discard pile, then Release Rage does 150 damage, enough to severely put a dent against most things in Limited. And Dondozo’s beefy 160 HP lets it stick around for a while!
Ratings:
Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 3/5
Limited: 5/5
Revavroom is another Pokemon that I’m glad I was able to have access to because I’ve been wanting this for quite a long while with such an ability. I used to have Magnezone Prime, Octillery, and Delphox (XY 26/146) but it was either traded away or got lost in the rubble. Sadly, they’re mostly out of print. But as a Stage 1, it saves up deck space significantly, not needing any Rare Candy, and its 140 HP is just what the older cards have! I guess power creep is really showing with every new generation!
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