Discussion Excellent cards that people did not think would be good

[Timmony_tcg]

Cynthia I guess was a tad bit underrated (I think?) initially if the card went from 2 to 3 dollars to currently 4 or 5. I'll give her a mention since she's going to be the best draw supporter post-rotation and she'll probably jump up in price a little more drastically.

Since Cynthia is a functional reprint of Professor Oak's New Theory, one of the most powerful draw Supporters from the HGSS era, I don't think there was any doubt from the moment it was revealed that it was going to be a great card. The fact that practically every deck since UPR became legal has included at least one copy only solidifies that popularity.

M Audino-EX was really good 2 years ago, but nowadays Night March is gone so it doesn't have any threat it could beat and it can't take a hit from either Buzzwole or any form of Necrozma so her playability is gone.

Even though it won Worlds 2017, I don't know whether to really consider M Audino a "good deck" as much as it was a really great meta call for that particular event. It was played by only a few Japanese players, won the event, and then died as soon as the rest of the world had it on their radars (since the majority of its good matchups rotated going into the next season). It was certainly an archetype that no one saw coming before Worlds, but Japan didn't storm the field like they did with Team Magma, so I don't think I would call M Audino a real game-changer. If anything, the whole thing still feels a bit like a fever dream more than anything else... haha

 

[OppositeAttract]

Cynthia was regarded as the best or second best card to come out of UPR at the time of its release, with its full art being the most valued card by most.
People considerably undervalued Mallow/Lycanroc before Zoroark was popularized and at this point people seem to still be undervaluing Hala moving toward post rotation.
Other cards that have also been undervalued were baby Buzzwole when it was announced for Forbidden Light, and the dusk/dawn promos from that lunch box.

Lastly, many people scoffed at Greninja GX when it was announced and argued it was a terrible card, but a few unique Greninja variations have performed relatively well in both Japan and American regionals.

 

[Attix]

Cynthia was regarded as the best or second best card to come out of UPR at the time of its release, with its full art being the most valued card by most.
People considerably undervalued Mallow/Lycanroc before Zoroark was popularized and at this point people seem to still be undervaluing Hala moving toward post rotation.
Other cards that have also been undervalued were baby Buzzwole when it was announced for Forbidden Light, and the dusk/dawn promos from that lunch box.

Lastly, many people scoffed at Greninja GX when it was announced and argued it was a terrible card, but a few unique Greninja variations have performed relatively well in both Japan and American regionals.

It's no Greninja BREAK, but it certainly is a very annoying deck if played correctly. The only real problem it suffers from is being a Stage 2 deck in a Buzzwole metagame; once rotation takes away some of Buzz's toys (Regirock, Strong Energy, etc.), it might become a bit better.

 

[Douglas Genetti]

I've been thinking about this for a while: what are some examples of cards that were thought to be mediocre at best to just plain bad at worst (or even cards that just flew under the radar) when they were first revealed that went on to be metagame-definers, or at least extremely good techs or rogues?

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