Sylveon-V & Sylveon VMAX – Eevee Heroes
Date Reviewed: May 22, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: See Below
Expanded: See Below
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
Sylveon V – Psychic – HP200
Basic Pokemon (Rapid Strike)
Ability: Dream Gift
Once during your turn, you may search you deck for 1 Item card and put it into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck. If you use this Ability, your turn ends.
[C][C] Magical Shot: 60 damage.
When your Pokemon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.
Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1
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We wrap up the Sylveon week with….wait! What is that? An unreleased card, and there’s no English print of that either?! Yup, we’re reviewing a Japanese card which might eventually get an English print in several months. Think of this as a card preview. The card we’re looking at is Sylveon-V from Japanese’s Eevee Heroes expansion that might – not sure – be in the expansion equivalent of Sword & Shield Evolving Skies, though we may have to wait and see if they actually contain those.
Being a Pokémon-V means that it gives up 2 prizes when it is knocked out, and may benefit or be excluded from certain card effects. Being a Basic is the best stage because you can put it onto play without having to wait for a turn or two to move up to the next stage. Which speaking of stages, six of the eight Eeveelutions got their VMAX counterparts, but Leafeon and Sylveon have yet to have them. Being a Rapid Strike card also helps as it can retreat for free if Tower of Waters are in play (Sylveon-V has a single retreat cost), and it can be searchable via Octillery’s Rapid Strike Search. 200 HP might seem to be pretty low; Pokémon-V have between 160 to 280, because the highest printed HP of a Pokémon-V is 280 due to Wailord-V existing. Being a Psychic type seems unusual for Sylveon, but that’s because Fairy types have been discontinued and such types transition to be Psychic types, though they’re still weak to Metal, which is still not good (though Zacian-V still OHKOs Sylveon-V even if it has no weakness). It’s attack, called, Magical Shot, costs CC for 60 damage with no other effects. It’s pretty clear that you’re not using Sylveon-V to attack. But in case of emergencies, a single Rapid Strike Energy alone covers the attack cost with ease. Its ability, Dream Gift, lets you search your deck for one item card and put it onto your hand. If you use this ability, however, your turn ends. This could be useful because you’re able to use that item card on your next turn. Even Pokémon Tools count as being item cards! The worst thing that can happen is that you whiff on searching for a certain item card because that card is prized.
With this ability, Sylveon-V seems to be splashable in any deck. Ideally, your deck would contain 4 of those Sylveon-V for the purpose of being an opener in hopes of starting the game with it. However, there are other new (like Leafeon-V, as its ability also ends their turn) and existing cards that have certain features that also ends their turn. Something like Snorlax from Vivid Voltage; its Gormandize ability does the same thing that Stadium card called Tropical Beach does, making your hand size contain 7 cards. Similar situation with Talonflame, whose Fast Flight nets their hand size to six cards, and that attack can be used even if you went first. Or even Zacian-V, which can let you look at the top 3 cards and attach any Metal energies you find there to it, and put the other cards into your hand. Or the new Leafeon-V, whose ability lets you attack a grass energy from your deck to one of your Pokémon? Those effects from other Pokémon seems far superior than Sylveon’s measly item card. While those competition dwarf Sylveon in terms of quantity, there’s a massive difference between “card quantity” and “card quality”. Sylveon-V (and Leafeon-V to some extent) leans on being “card quality” because it fetches you a specific card that you could play on your next turn. The others like Zacian-V and Snorlax lean on being “card quantity”; they’ll get you a certain amount of cards, but they’re random. You may whiff on having seven useless cards – the cards you drew via ability – that you’re not able to play in certain situations. That possibility is what makes Sylveon-V slightly useful than other Pokémon under those circumstances. There’s one thing some Pokémon with turn-ending abilities have in common: their hand could be disrupted by Marnie, N, Judge, and much more, so it forces them to have a smaller draw yield than the amount they just drew.
Speaking about item cards, there is a Pokémon Tool that specifies Sylveon-V: Ribbon Badge, also from Eevee Heroes. This is a Pokémon Tool that only works for Sylveon-V despite being able to attach it to any Pokémon. When Sylveon-V is Knocked Out by damage from your opponent’s attacks, your opponent takes 1 fewer prize card. This could be useful in prolonging the match, given that since Sylveon-V is worth two prizes, Ribbon Badge makes it so that your opponent only takes one prize card instead. Alternatively, as a Rapid Strike Pokémon, it can equip with Rapid Strike Scroll of Swirls to gain an additional attack Sylveon-V can use. Matchless Maelstrom costs FCC and does 30 damage to each of your opponent’s Pokemon. This attack might be arguably better than Magical Shot unless your opponent has Mew’s Bench Barrier or doesn’t have many Pokémon in play. There’s a lot you can do with Sylveon-V, whether it be just an opener for the first couple turns fetching your item cards, or you can double as an attacker. Or, you can even fetch for an Evolution Incense so that you can use that item card next turn to fetch for a Sylveon VMAX or a Espeon VMAX and evolve their respective Eeveelutions (Espeon VMAX is also a Psychic type, so it may be run alongside Sylveon).
Yes, recently, Pokebeach revealed the entire Eevee Heroes set, and indeed there are all eight of the Eeveelutions with both the V and VMAX counterparts. We won’t be going through all of them, but I will cover just Sylveon VMAX for this review. When we get to the actual set that contains those Eeveelutions, then we might eventually look through them. Anyhow, Sylveon VMAX is also a Rapid Strike card that gives up three prizes. It is a Psychic type with 310 HP, Metal Weakness, and a retreat cost of CC (which can be shaved off via Tower of Waters, letting it retreat for free). Cherish Touch costs a single Psychic Energy and it lets you attach an Energy card from your hand to one of your Pokemon, and then you heal 120 damage from that Pokemon. Not sure of the wording regarding energy cards, but I assume you can attach Special Energy cards as well, and Rapid Strike Energy definitely fits the bill for Sylveon VMAX, so that it can lead to it’s next attack. Max Harmony costs CCC (Triple Acceleration Energy can fulfill it) for 70 damage, plus 30 more damage for each type of Pokemon on your Bench. I’ve seen this kind of wording before on Xerneas from XY Breakthrough with it’s Rainbow Force attack, so this will get reworded to: This attack does 30 more damage for each different type of Pokemon on your Bench. Sylveon VMAX still gets to benefit from Rapid Strike Scroll of Swirls for additional attack option or Ribbon Badge for giving up one fewer prize card. For Expanded, with Dimension Valley, Max Harmony costs just CC, enough for Double Colorless Energy to easily fulfill the attack cost.
Sylveon VMAX might be able to form itself into a deck. Unfortunately, while frantically searching for Rainbow Force Xerneas deck at Limitless, I did not find any of them that placed well at tournaments. At least there’s an older review of Xerneas XY Breakthrough (Pojo’s Pokemon Card of the Day – Card Reviews) to give you an idea what they thought about it. Otaku did mention that it did place well at City Championships around late 2015-2016, with the best finish being runner up. The Charizard Lounge used to provide database of decks used, but they shut down two years ago. Kinda wished I get to see how the deck was being constructed. Back to Sylveon VMAX, to make the most of Max Harmony, you can put as much as five different types of Pokemon on the Bench to deal 150 extra damage, so 220. For Expanded, with Sky Field and eight different Pokemon types, you can deal 240 extra damage, so 310. And it’s just an Muscle Band and possibly Galarian Zizzagoon away to OHKO anything in the game for the Expanded format. You won’t be able to OHKO anything in Standard outside of Weakness, but it’s still enough to OHKO Zacian-V (which could also OHKO you back with Brave Blade if given the opportunity). As for Pokemon with different types, you’ve got awesome Pokemon that can fit into any deck due to good general usage such as Crobat-V, Dedenne-GX (soon to rotate from Standard, though), Jirachi (either the Team Up or Vivid Voltage version), and maybe others that I can’t think of at the moment. Shaymin-EX from XY Roaring Skies might supplement Max Harmony, but that card is banned from Expanded.
Ratings:
Sylveon-V
Standard: N/A (would be 4/5)
Expanded: N/A (would be 4/5)
Sylveon VMAX
Standard: N/A (would be 3/5)
Expanded: N/A (would be 3/5)
Sylveon-V has a lot of things going for it than I’ve imagined, and it might be one of those cards that see sporadic play. Dream Gift is no slouch in either formats! While Standard has their own card pool of item cards, Expanded has even some powerful ones like Max Elixir, VS Seeker, and even the vaunted Battle Compressor that Sylveon-V can fetch! Not only that, it can also be a stepping stone to evolve into Sylveon VMAX, who also has some potential due to past history, but it’s going to take some time until Max Harmony gets some traction. Just like Xerneas XY BreakThrough, it is dependent on everything used alongside it, otherwise Sylveon VMAX is underwhelming.
Would Sylveon-V be in my personal top X cards of the set? Maybe. It depends on what other cards are included in a future English set. There are other V counterparts of Eeveelutions that could be worth consideration to be in the list such as Espeon VMAX, Glaceon VMAX (a bulkier Zamazenta-V due to ability), maybe Leafeon-V, definitely Umbreon VMAX (its ability is “Gust of Wind”!!!). I can see Sylveon-V and Umbreon VMAX being on number one and two respectively. And I’m not being biased on my hypothetical top X personal list; some of the Eeveelutions like Sylveon, Glaceon, Espeon, and Umbreon does have some serious potential!
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