Little Pokemon, Big Impact — How Budew Will Change the Game
Hello everyone! Happy New Year, and Happy New Pokemon cards! We’re about to get a brand new set in Prismatic Evolutions, which will bring us back in line with Japan’s pre-rotation format that they had for Champions League Osaka. While the upcoming San Antonio Regional Championships will be in the earlier format, going forward, we’ll have the new cards, which will likely lead to changes regarding the metagame. To that point, the recent results of the Osaka Champions League look drastically different from the non-Japanese events. While there is normally a little disparity between the two due to the slight differences in tournament structure, in this case it’s a bit more striking. Notably, there is no Regidrago VSTAR anywhere to be seen in the Top 16, nor any Raging Bolt ex or Terapagos ex. Instead, there are decks like Archaludon ex, Ceruledge ex, Dragapult ex, and Lugia VSTAR, with the former two standing out notably in contrast to their performance in the non-Japanese Surging Sparks meta.
Given that Regidrago VSTAR has emerged as the clear deck to beat in recent Regional Championships, its absence from the Osaka results is a bit striking. What’s more, this isn’t a one-off event; Regidrago’s results in City League events have also fallen off dramatically, to the point that it wouldn’t even be considered in the top ten archetypes right now in Japan. Japan is one set ahead of us with Terastal Fest ex, but if you look at the Japanese results, it isn’t like there’s any new big archetypes that came out that will shake up the meta. While I could have done this article as a set review for Prismatic Evolutions, the sad reality is that there aren’t a lot of good cards that are coming out in that set. On the plus side, this means that players won’t have to worry as much about the potential difficulty of finding the new cards, but it is a bit of a letdown. While the Eeveelution exs are beautiful, they aren’t all that competitive, with only a few low level results thus far. There are only two cards in the set that I feel confident saying will make any sort of impact going forward in the immediate future. One is Regigigas, which has been a strong addition to Lugia VSTAR decks, but is relatively limited to that archetype, though any deck that has a way to reliably power it up can consider it as a good tech against Dragapult ex or Charizard ex decks. The other card, however, is an absolute gamechanger, and is the reason for such a drastic shift in the meta. As you might have guessed from this article’s title, that card is Budew. It’s been a long time since we had a Budew card in the TCG — the last printing was in Stormfront in 2008 — but believe me, this one has been worth the wait.
Budew is a simple Pokemon, and easy enough to overlook. It has as little HP as possible, and only hits for 10 damage — not exactly enough to be threatening. Despite making those aspects of the card about as weak as can be, the impact of a zero-Energy Item lock attack is nonetheless enough to make Budew a great card. Item lock is traditionally one of the strongest effects in the game, and is particularly useful in today’s Item-heavy metagame. Any deck with Budew ultimately isn’t going to be a dedicated Item lock deck though, as again, it does far too little damage and is much too squishy to pull off that strategy. Budew is well designed for a different purpose though — slowing down your opponent enough to buy an extra turn, so that you can be the first player to set up, and thus win the Prize race. Since its attack takes zero Energy, Budew can fit into literally any deck, and is likewise being seen in a wide variety of archetypes, from Stage 2 decks like Dragapult ex, to aggressive decks like Ceruledge ex or Terapagos ex. In this article, I’ll be taking a look at Budew’s impact on the metagame, what decks you’ll probably see it in, which decks that you should consider playing Budew in yourself, and how Budew specifically will affect many of the format’s top decks.
Why Is Budew So Impactful?
In the current format, there are a few factors that lead to Budew being so good. Had this been another time, Budew may have been far more niche or overlooked, but right now, it is in a position to stand out. One major factor is that while there are quite a wide variety of aggressive, “win the Prize race” style decks, many of them are Evolution decks, and thus do not have a turn one attack to use. Whether they are evolved ex decks or VSTAR decks, the lack of a turn one attack makes going second feel rather wasteful, as while you do get a nice consistency boost from being able to use a Supporter, you can’t put any real pressure on your opponent without an early attack to do so. What’s more, the advantage of getting that first attack in many matchups feels more impactful than ever, partially due to the lower HP of many of these evolving basics, and partially due to how fast many games go nowadays. In more aggressive games, three or four attacks can be all you need to win, so there is little margin for error if you fall behind regardless of the reason.
Given all of that, having a way to slow down your opponent for even a turn can be a huge advantage, and Budew’s Itchy Pollen gives you a way to do so. Many decks nowadays rely on Items. Stage 2 decks need Rare Candy, Regidrago VSTAR decks need Energy Switch, Miraidon ex decks need Electric Generator, and so on. Every deck also uses Items for search and consistency, whether that be ball search, Earthen Vessel, Night Stretcher, or any of the other many powerful Item cards that exist in the current format. So, one turn without Items, especially in the early parts of the game, can mean a turn of not attacking, or more specifically, a turn without attacking in a way that does anything useful. Furthermore, while Budew may be an easy Prize for the opponent to take, it may not actually reduce the number of attacks they need to win. If you use Budew in an ex- or VSTAR-focused deck, and thus your opponent is taking two Prizes with every knockout, they’ll still need three KOs to win in the end. So, many decks don’t actually have to worry all that much about using Budew; if giving up that Prize means that they can get ahead, then it is well worth the trade.
Should My Deck Play Budew?
When it comes to whether or not to include Budew in a given archetype, there are a few criteria that you can look at to see if Budew would be a good fit.
Do You Have a Turn 1 Attack to Use?
The first thing to look at is simple: does this deck already have something that it wants to do on turn one when it goes second, or is it just passing the turn most of the time? When using Itchy Pollen, most of the time it’s going to be on that first turn of the game, but if you’re already going in with the goal of using a different attack, Budew isn’t going to be as helpful. While Budew can in theory bail you out if you miss that turn one attack, my philosophy will typically be to include a card that can improve my turn one attack odds (such as extra consistency), as opposed to a card that I only want to use if things are going wrong. Decks that don’t want to include Budew for this reason include Raging Bolt ex , Miraidon ex, Roaring Moon ex, or pretty much any aggressive Basic attacking deck. After all, why try to delay your opponent to slow them down in the Prize race, when you can just take a Knock Out and get ahead yourself?
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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