Super Rod – Top 10 Pokemon Cards Lost to Rotation #10

aroramage

Another year, another time for cards to get Rotated out of Standard. Sometimes, the cards we lose are of great significance and impact, and other times they don’t seem like much. But sometimes they’re the cards that weren’t always used but that we see all the time that will ultimately be missed the most.

Vince

It’s that time again, where we look at the top 10 cards lost to rotation! The expansions that will be axed include

-the rest of the XY Promos

-XY BreakThrough

-XY BreakPoint

-Generations

-XY Fates Collide

-XY Steam Siege

-XY Evolutions

Yup, lots of cards are going to leave Standard, and I even had my personal list of 35 cards that I think will be missed. Spoilers, but this top 10 does not contain EX, Mega Evolutions, or Break Evolutions, since they did not make the top 10. Since the highest placement for an EX is 15th place, It’ll probably be in runner-ups. Without further ado, lets take another look at those remaining memories!

Super Rod has been with us for quite a long time, releasing all the way back in Neo Genesis up until XY Breakthrough. The Neo Genesis print had a different effect text while the Noble Victories version onwards has their own effect text. The old effect was to flip a coin. If heads, put an Evolution card from your discard pile into your hand, and if tails, you put a Basic Pokemon from the discard pile into your hand. I think this would be pretty unreliable if they kept that old effect. The Noble Victories effect is to put 3 of any combination of Pokémon and/or basic energy cards from the discard pile onto your deck.

There were other recovery cards that can give Super Rod competition because they provide a higher quantity of Pokémon or Basic energy cards. From what I remember 2011 onwards:

-Flower Shop Lady recovers 3 Pokemon and 3 Basic Energy cards

-Energy Returner recovers 4 Basic Energy cards

-Sacred Ash recovers 5 Pokemon

-Energy Recycler recovers 5 Basic Energy cards.

-Brock’s Grit recovers six of any combination of Pokémon and Basic Energy cards.

Some cards recover more cards than Super Rod, but they only support one category or the other, and some cards use up your Supporter for the turn. Super Rod comes close to being flexible than any other cards and can be used as many times as you like.

With Super Rod gone from Standard, decks will need to run one of each items to recover such cards. Energy Recycler and Rescue Stretcher seems like an appropriate replacement. As for Expanded, Super Rod will continue to see play, but is nowhere as important as it once was….

…because of some shortcomings. Honestly, I have not thought about it until I read 21times review. When you use Super Rod, you are reducing your chances of getting the cards that you want when it comes to topdecking. The Supporter that you’ve could’ve got gets overwhelmed with Pokemon and Energy cards. Not to mention that it’s not likely that you’ll get those cards immediately.

It seems that getting cards from the discard pile onto your hand is far superior than putting cards in the deck so that you can actually get to use them if situation recalls. That’s not to say Super Rod is bad, but competition of cards that does a similar thing or better tends to overshadow the older cards.

Legacy format still scores high because I don’t see another card in the card pool between HGSS me BW that does a similar thing…….maybe outside of Recycle…

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 3/5

Legacy: 4/5

Conclusion: Previous Super Rod reviews are here: https://www.pojo.com/COTD/2011/Dec/15.shtml and https://www.pojo.com/COTD/2015/Dec/9.shtml

21times
PokeDeck
Central

Super Rod (BKT 149) returned to the format in the Breakthrough expansion set on November 4th, 2015.  It had only a short hiatus from the meta, however, as it was Standard legal until the September rotation that year, so we were only without it for about a month. 

It’s had a good run, though, and was the eighth most popular Item played between May 19th and June 30th (data from decklists I compiled here).  Many people liked carrying this card because it gave you options.  The more options you have, the more chances you have to find a path to victory.

To me, though, this was always the card that I loved to see people play.  Most of the time when my opponent played this card, I knew I had the match in hand.  “Why?” you ask.  Simple: because Super Rod lets you put three cards back into your deck.  Chances are you’re playing this towards the end of the game – sometimes it got played early and that’s ok, but most of the time people play it late when you only have a relatively small number of cards left in your deck.  And that’s the problem right there.

“Why is that a problem?” you ask again.  “You only have a low number of cards left in your deck.  That should make it easy to get them out.”  Unfortunately, this is where the theorymon falls short.  It’s the hardest to get cards out of your deck when you only have a limited number of cards remaining.

Super Rod adds three non draw support cards to your deck.  Chances are – at the end of the game – most of your draw support and ball Item cards are in the discard pile.  If you have, say ten cards left in your deck, and two of them are Supporters, you have a 20% chance of top decking a Supporter.  After playing Super Rod, however, that percentage goes down to 15% – from 1 in 5 to 1 in 7.

All you did by playing Super Rod was decrease your chances of getting a draw support card, essentially meaning you’ve moved those cards from one inaccessible pile  to another.  Think about it: we almost always (except for Tord in one match this weekend where he actually had zero cards in his deck and actually used Oranguru’s Resource Management to prevent himself from decking out) have cards left in our deck at the end of a game.  This means that just because you move cards from the discard pile to your deck doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get them back out.  You need to use other cards – ball Item cards or draw support cards to access them… cards you probably don’t have available to you late in the game.

By thinking you’re saving a card slot in your deck by playing Super Rod, you’re actually reducing your decks liquidity at a time when you need it to flow the most.  Now, there are exceptions, if you’re trying to prevent yourself from decking out or have a ball Item card in hand, or if you’re putting Tapu Lele GX back into the deck.  However, more times than not, when you play Super Rod, you made it just a little bit easier for your opponent to beat you.

Rating

Standard: 1.5 out of 5

Conclusion

Rescue Stretcher and Energy Retrieval put those same cards back in your hand.  They give you the resources you desperately need exactly when you need them.  Rescue Stretcher even gives you the option of putting three Pokemon back into your deck instead of taking just one Pokemon.  Both of these cards are significantly superior to Super Rod.  Rescue Stretcher is actually the seventh most common Item, and Energy Retrieval just doesn’t see a whole lot of play because there are so many Pokemon that can pull energy back out of the discard pile.

Otaku

Welcome to another Pojo countdown! This time, we look at what the review crew thought were the most important losses the Standard Format will be feeling after September 1, 2018.

We begin with Super Rod (Neo Genesis 103/111; BW – Noble Victories 95/101, Dragon Vault 20/20; XY – BREAKthrough 149/162), which has a long but slightly confusing history. This Trainer-Item allows you to shuffle three total Pokémon and/or basic Energy cards from your discard pile into your deck. The original released all the way back in Neo Genesis but with a very different effect; the modern effect began with its BW – Noble Victories release though an erratum was issued so I believe you can use the original version, playing it with the modern version’s effect. The card’s modern effect isn’t entirely new, either; similar cards have existed since Nightly Garbage Run (Team Rocket 77/102). I think I value cards like Super Rod because I remember playing in formats and metagames that didn’t have such a thing; like I said, Nightly Garbage Run was the first card like this which means we didn’t have such a thing before the fifth set of the game! We had other cards that could get stuff back from the discard pile but they required coin flips, had more restrictions on what could be reclaimed, or had other drawbacks. Remember, Energy Retrieval originally required you to discard a card from hand to use it…

Getting back to Super Rod, you recycle Pokémon and/or basic Energy from your discard pile because you either specifically need those cards or you just need to pad out your deck (such as to avoid decking out). If you need those cards, you probably need them in hand, which is why cards like Rescue Stretcher and Puzzle of Time show up more often to handle this sort of thing. Rescue Stretcher can shuffle three Pokémon from your discard pile to your deck or it can add one to hand; it doesn’t do anything about basic Energy cards, however. Puzzle of Time adds any two cards from your discard pile to your hand, but you’ve got to simultaneously play two copies of Puzzle of Time to do that. If you only need basic Energy, then Energy Retrieval (with its modern effect) lets you simply add two basic Energy from your discard pile to your hand. With the pacing of the game, you can see how this sort of instant reward so often crowds out Super Rod. For that matter, not all decks are going to worry about recycling Pokémon or basic Energy, so those decks don’t need Super Rod, either.

Would Super Rod be better if it gave you the same option of three to the deck or one to the hand that Rescue Stretcher offers for Pokémon and the soon-to-be-reprinted Energy Recycle System offers for basic Energy? Sure, but then those two cards would have no real reason to exist. We’re losing Brock’s Grit at the same time we lose Super Rod and Puzzle of Time, so it looks like we’ll soon have to dedicate more space to recycling or just prioritize either Pokémon or basic Energy. We’re also losing some current, key Special Energy cards (well, mostly just Strong Energy) and the tricks to easily recycle Special Energy, so we may be in for a basic Energy dominated format. We’re losing N and Professor Sycamore, and I believe that will lead to heavier reliance on Ability-based draw effects, even more so than at the present time. Throw in the Magcargo with the “Smooth Over” Ability that allows you to pick a card from your deck and place it on top, and I’m thinking most decks are going to have reusable draw/search… which all chips away at the advantage running Rescue Stretcher with Energy Recycle System would have. The real reason Super Rod might not make much of a difference would be if lacking a huge source of discard and draw like Professor Sycamore just leads to a format where we aren’t running any recycling effect regularly.

For those wondering, Super Rod took 10th place by amassing 66 voting points, which it gained by appearing on each individual list the three contributing reviewers submitted. For my own list, which ended up being a Top 35, it managed 13th place. A 10th place finish might be a bit high, but it is a good, general card.

Ratings

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 3.5/5

Legacy: 3.25/5