COTD – 15th June 2011 – Revive BW
Card of the Day today is Revive from the Black and White set. This card is an interesting one since it allows you to choose one of your Basic Pokemon from the discard pile and place them onto your bench.
As mentioned in the Junk Arm COTD, the HGSS-On format really doesn’t have a lot of cards that provide us with recovery, but this is one of them. This card is obviously very close to the card which everyone will miss, Pokemon Rescue from Platinum, but this one just doesn’t cut it for me. You do get to recover one of your Basic Pokemon, but that means the rest of the line must be in the deck somewhere to use it.
In the past we were able to recover the Stage 1 and 2 of a lost Pokemon fairly easily, but the only way to do that now is Flower Shop Lady UD, which isn’t as easy to search out as Supporters once were. This means that the only way to effectively recover full lines of Pokemon will be to use Revive to put the Basic form onto your bench and use Flower Shop Lady the same turn to get the rest back. The problem we have then is trying to get the rest of the lines out effectively before it’s too late.
In the past we were able to recover the Stage 1 and 2 of a lost Pokemon fairly easily, but the only way to do that now is Flower Shop Lady UD, which isn’t as easy to search out as Supporters once were. This means that the only way to effectively recover full lines of Pokemon will be to use Revive to put the Basic form onto your bench and use Flower Shop Lady the same turn to get the rest back. The problem we have then is trying to get the rest of the lines out effectively before it’s too late.
This is my main gripe with the card, it just isn’t worth trying. Before we had enough resources to keep recovery going strong, but I feel that it is actually easier to search fresh Pokemon from the deck rather than trying to scramble together a form of recovery.
That being said, this card could work in small numbers in decks that utilise the new full art Legends, Reshiram and Zekrom. Since these are both very bulky basics, Revive gives you a way to return it to the field straight away to get it returning KOs as soon as possible.
However, even in decks running mainly Basics, this card won’t be played in any higher number than 2 in each deck simply because the only Pokemon worth recovering are Reshiram and Zekrom, which you will probably be running 4 of anyway.
Overall, a very promising card that just doesn’t live up to its predecessors making it a very underwhelming replacement for this format. With the huge importance of consistency over tech in this format, I really don’t see much need for it in many decks and for this I’m only going to give it a 5/10. I really want to give it a higher rating than this because it has potential, but just doesn’t cut it for me. What do you think?
Thanks for reading, make sure you comment below your thoughts!
