Discussion How good is Puzzle of Time?

[Victor Freitas]

I'm thinking about the actual playability of Puzzle of Time. True, Sableye seems to love it, but I really want to know about how good it is in other decks, such as Standard Night March.

I'm seeing some kind of "consensus" in respect to play 4 and drop the Milotic lines (assuming that is the variant in question). But is it really that consistent to just play the actual Night Marchers without any other support Pokémon while relying on 4 copies of a card that is only useful when you get to play 2 at the same time?

In my case, I am a "long time" Night March player, but I haven't got much time to test it myself because the set won't be legal in my country until April, although I did use a couple hours trying to get a feel of how it plays. The problem is: getting both in your hand at the same time is just unlikely by "normal" means. Also, Night March is the kind of deck that burns through the cards on turn 1, not really "minding" about some discarded resources here and there, but the problem is that Puzzle of Time is very likely to get among that discarded stuff, leaving your mid to late game with only 2 or 3 copies left. That said, I think it's very unlikely to get to make full use of it more than once per game.

The only reliable way to pull it off is by playing Teammates. Sure, that's good, but you are still using your supporter for the turn, while that wasn't always necessary when you had Milotic. Milotic can pull off some great combos that I think PoT just isn't capable of. Milotic seems too much more reliable to me.

Sure, that's only my opinion, which is based on not enough playtesting. Anyway, I just want to know if people are actually playing it consistently, be it in Night March or any other deck, Standard or Expanded.

 

[Serperior]

I'm more inclined to say that Toad decks will like it more than Night March. To pick up Hammers and Team Flare Grunts or whatever they want is huge and they can adjust their selections based on the deck they're up against. They can do all this while locking down the opponent from their own Items, which is really dirty. I haven't done any testing either, but I think with the crazy drawpower that NM already has it might find a niche in some decks. What's cool with Milotic is that you don't immediately need Feebas and Milotic in hand. You play the Feebas and don't have any pressure to dig for the Milotic until the next turn or whenever you need it.

What's really nifty about Puzzle of Time is that you can Teammates for both pieces. If you've burnt valuable resources, you can search your Discard for em with the two pieces from Teammates and it could be effective in that regard. Hex Maniac won't affect you because you're not relying on an Ability and you don't care about Bats (as much) taking free Prizes on lone Feebas. Unlike Milotic, however, you have no way to get back Puzzle of Time from the Discard. Milotic can at least be a target for AZ or Super Scoop Up. I would argue that if you can't win with getting the second effect of Puzzle of Time off once, then you probably deserve to lose from mismanaging resources lol. NM should be playing Town Map, so unless a piece is Prized, (giving you an odd number of Puzzles), you don't have much of an excuse.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Its hard to say for sure but from what I seen, decks that tend to abuse the fact they can draw 50 cards in one turn wont even need it since they tend to just juniper everything away. The card seems to favor slow formats and decks. Not saying you can't ever see at least one, 2 drop but it seem there are better options for you to run.

 

[Victor Freitas]

I'm more inclined to say that Toad decks will like it more than Night March. To pick up Hammers and Team Flare Grunts or whatever they want is huge and they can adjust their selections based on the deck they're up against. They can do all this while locking down the opponent from their own Items, which is really dirty. I haven't done any testing either, but I think with the crazy drawpower that NM already has it might find a niche in some decks. What's cool with Milotic is that you don't immediately need Feebas and Milotic in hand. You play the Feebas and don't have any pressure to dig for the Milotic until the next turn or whenever you need it.

What's really nifty about Puzzle of Time is that you can Teammates for both pieces. If you've burnt valuable resources, you can search your Discard for em with the two pieces from Teammates and it could be effective in that regard. Hex Maniac won't affect you because you're not relying on an Ability and you don't care about Bats (as much) taking free Prizes on lone Feebas. Unlike Milotic, however, you have no way to get back Puzzle of Time from the Discard. Milotic can at least be a target for AZ or Super Scoop Up. I would argue that if you can't win with getting the second effect of Puzzle of Time off once, then you probably deserve to lose from mismanaging resources lol. NM should be playing Town Map, so unless a piece is Prized, (giving you an odd number of Puzzles), you don't have much of an excuse.

You're right, Toad seems to like it. And I agree, those are Milotic's worst problems: ability denial and 30HP Feebas. Bats just don't let you bench Feebas unless you Hex in the same turn. By the way, now that you mentioned Town Map, it may be even good to have a PoT prized, since you can get it out of your prizes one you have another in your hand.

Its hard to say for sure but from what I seen, decks that tend to abuse the fact they can draw 50 cards in one turn wont even need it since they tend to just juniper everything away. The card seems to favor slow formats and decks. Not saying you can't ever see at least one, 2 drop but it seem there are better options for you to run.

Yeah! I mean, Night March cannot afford to simply cut 4 cards for it unless you cut Milotic. But using 4 slots to make use of PoT once in a game (on rare occasions twice) to me just doesn't seem worth it over Milotic. Unless your area is litterally full of bats.