Sabrina – Genetic Apex
Date Reviewed: January 11, 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 Trainer of Genetic Apex is Sabrina (Genetic Apex 225/228, 272/228)! Sabrina is a Trainer-Supporter that forces your opponent to change out one of their Benched Pokémon with their Active. Your opponent chooses which of their Benched Pokémon become the new Active Pokémon. Anything attached to a Pokémon go with that Pokémon, be it lower Stages, Energy, Pokémon Tools, etc. Yes, I’m struggling to come up with hypothetical ruling questions for this one, but I’m also not a brand new player.
I think of this kind of effect as a “Gusting” effect, because the first time we saw it in Trainer form was Gust of Wind (Base Set 93/102; Base Set 2 120/130). This did what Sabrina does but you get to pick which of your opponent’s Basic Pokémon are forced Active. This card was too good, as it functioned like a modern day Item card! However, it was just the first in a long, long line of cards in the full TCG, with variations on this effect and spanning Pokémon, Trainer, and Energy cards.
What’s more, even recent examples of this from the full TCG outperform Sabrina. This does not make Sabrina bad, but I believe it is important for players coming from the full TCG, past or present, to understand this difference. Sabrina is a great card here, and what has existed in the full TCG for almost 11 years would be too good in Pocket. Cards like Boss’s Orders, Guzma, and Lysandre. If we go a few years further back, we’ll even find Pokémon Circulator (HS – Unleashed 81/95), a Trainer-Item with Sabrina’s effect!
What makes Sabrina good in Pocket (versus the full TCG) is a combination of the differences:
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3 Points Vs 6 Prizes – KOs add up real fast.
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No Mulligan Penalty – Decks can get by with fewer Basics.
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Reduced Bench Size – Less room for non-vital targets.
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No Switch (or similar cards) – Manually retreating can eat up Energy.
Since I’ve been doing it, let us look at Sabrina (Gym Challenge 20/132, 110/132), a Trainer-Item (because Supporters hadn’t been introduced) that let’s you pick a Pokémon with “Sabrina” in its name, and move all its Energy to another Pokémon with “Sabrina” in its name. Adapting that to Pocket is doable, though our hypothetical Sabrina would be a Supporter and work with just two or three Pokémon heavily associated with Sabrina (specified in the effect).
As I have room here, I should mention there multiple Trainer cards named after each of the original eight Kanto Gym Leaders in the full TCG. Some from sets released all the way back in 2000, but also from some cards from around five years ago. Giovanni even gets extra coverage as Trainers with “Boss” in their name depict him… though newer ones have alternate art featuring other “enemy Team” boss characters. It also seems like some of the Gym Leaders swapped effects with each other.
Ratings: 4.25/5
Many decks will run two Sabrina. Of those that don’t, most will run one. There are some known decks that don’t run it but they they either have a Pokémon with an Ability that can mess with the opponent’s Bench, an attacker that can hit the opponent’s Bench, or their main strategy just leaves no room for Sabrina. Some of which have proven competitive.
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