COTD – 6th September 2011 – Great Ball

Hey everybody and welcome to today’s Card of the Day which comes from our Emerging Powers set and it’s going to be Great Ball.

At first glance we have a trainer card that has been reprinted and errata’d from older sets. The original allowed you to search your deck for a Basic Pokemon and put it into your hand and now they’ve changed it, surely it can’t still be good? Let’s have a look.

So what they’ve changed it to is looking at your top 7 cards of your deck and choosing a Pokemon you find there to place into your hand. The significant change is that this isn’t going to be a definitive search anymore which kind of ruins its playability a fair bit, but with the old ruling, this card would be pretty powerful considering the huge Basics we have at the moment (yeah I’m looking at you Reshiram and Zekrom!). What is good is that you can pluck ANY Pokemon from the top 7, not just a Basic, which means you can be grabbing those crucial Stage 1 and 2s from the deck without having to throw another one in with something like Pokemon Communication.

However, with all that said and done, this card is going to have a tough time taking Communication from the top of the Pokemon search trainers list. Pokemon Communication will never fail, unless you choose it too of course, and will also be able to search out any other Pokemon of your choice, rather than having to rely on luck.

There isn’t really a whole lot we can talk about this card since its effect is pretty average compared to the other forms of searching Pokemon we have at the moment. If you already run 4 Communication and a couple of Junk Arm and you really want more search of your Pokemon, then this card may be an option with that reuse availability, but other than that it really isn’t going to be seen it too many decks. Luck is something you want to keep at a minimum when building a deck and this card will only add to this aspect.

Overall, the card can be a source of extra search for your Pokemon, but it feels just a little too luck based for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, it can be really nice when it works, but that isn’t as often as you’d like in the competitive environment. I’m going to give it a rather average 5/10. You either love it or hate it..

Artwork: Here we are presented with another trainer card, but this one does show a little bit of creative promise. Instead of plucking some stock art and placing it on a background, they actually gave the ball some form of movement and actually made the card look intriguing, even though it’s just a ball. The 3D effects look really nice and I think the colours really make this one stand out a little bit more. Other than that, it is just a ball, but the artist has done what they can with it. I’m giving it a solid 5.5/10.

Thanks for reading today’s Card of the Day and please vote what you think of the card below with the rating system