They're nice to display in your binder if you get all 4 pieces.
New 'V-UNION' Trademark Filed for the Pokemon TCG!
- Thread starter Water Pokémon Master
- Start date
This is above and beyond the biggest design flaw of V-Union. These cards are refreshingly unpredictable... you cannot rely on being able to successfully assemble them, forcing you to rely on other cards in the early game, and they give you so many options for how to use them in battle, but however refreshing this change in the predictability of any given game is going to be, one change that is neither refreshing nor unexpected is the problem of space management (both on the bench and in the binder).
EDIT: I feel that more needs to be said on this subject, since I can’t reasonably expect anyone to have read the 70+ comments (actually it’s probably closer to 100) that have been posted on this thread. First, I have seen some people declare that this mechanic is an utter flop because everyone hates it. I would like to edit that statement: there are very POLARIZED opinions on this mechanic. I would like to break everything down logically, or at least try to.
FIRST, we don’t know how these cards will be distributed. Maybe all V-Unions will be promos. Maybe we’ll get special packs where we get all four pieces of a single V-Union in place of some of the other cards in the pack (maybe you pull 4 commons, 2 uncommon, a reverse holo, and four V-Union pieces). Maybe these V-Union are all going to be in the 25th Anniversary packs (don’t know who mentioned that, I’ll give the person who first said that credit as soon as I can find the comment again). Maybe they’ll be extra common. Maybe none of these will occur. We don’t KNOW yet. Second of all, these cards aren’t MEANT to be played by themselves. To create a deck centralized around a V-Union is to reject all sense of rime and reason. You cannot play the same V-Union more than once, you can’t use it as an opening card, you run the risk of prizing a copy. You are obliged to use other Pokémon for the opening of the game. And you CANNOT rely on using these in the late game. These cards will most likely be Aces in other strategies. This is actually the best thing that could happen to the current format. As the format stands today, every game is premeditated. Open up with Pokémon A, advance to project B, use tech C, D or E depending on matchup, claim victory. Games usually last a few turns, and everyone already knows exactly what to do during those turns, and, if necessary, what tech to employ in an unfavorable matchup. And yes, there ARE auto losses in this format. With these cards, nothing is certain. Is your opponent’s Calyrex Shadow Rider deck merely what the name says it is, or does it harbor a Mewtwo V-Union? How will you know if your opponent is preparing to close the game with a Mewtwo V-Union? How can you stop your opponent from reaching this goal in time? Worse, what will you do if you can’t set up YOUR V-Union (if any) in time? There’s also a psychological aspect. We are moving out of a format of Checkers into a format of Chess, where taking your eye off any of your opponent’s zones or Pokémon can prove disastrous, a format where you have to not just outPLAY but outTHINK your opponent. This may not be the end of power creep, but it MAY be the end of the current drought that the official format has been more recently experiencing. My guess is that the introduction of these cards into a real format will create a series of ripples (well, tsunamis is a better word) that will shake the format to its very core as everyone is assessing how these cards affect old decks and if they make any older cards viable. Because, let’s face it, these V-Union may very well fix single prize Pokémon as much as they fix three prize Pokémon. With VMAX decks, you generally want to attack with another VMAX, and it’s the same case with Tag Teams, but with V-Union, you could possibly pair them with just about ANYTHING! They might even have potential in Mad Party for crying out loud! (I mean, you’re using all single-prize attackers and your main deck-building objective is to get Pokémon in the discard pile, so with a built-in discard engine and the ability to use five single-prize Pokémon and a three-prize finisher, it seems like it could be a winning combo! EDIT: neither Twin Energy nor Triple Acceleration Energy (which will have rotated out of standard by then anyways) works with V-Union, so you would need to find some other source of Energy if you wanted to tech a V-Union.)
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Zero. Plus, as if losing Dedenne wasn't enough, Spiritomb coming out in CR just pours salt into that wound.
Another thing that has to be said is that so far we know absolutely nothing about the support around the mechanic, and that makes all the difference. To really get a full picture of how these will impact standard, we have to first see the support as it gets released.
finally EVEN BETTER than the original ones
And there will be a short period of time we can enjoy with Hapu and Dedenne GX.
Doesn't rotation happen as soon as Evolving Skies gets released? And btw, I just realised that from the announcement it's unclear still where exactly are we getting these cards in the West, since we don't tipically have the types of products these are going to be a part of in Japan, right?
Yup I'm talking Japanese release date.
For Western release schedule, rotation should have updated.
But still, various combination can be made.
And best defense I can think of right now is the Spiritomb.
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Spiritomb_(Peerless_Fighters_49)
Any combination of Adventurer's Discovery(from the Gengar & inteleon decks currently from japan), shadow rider calyrex vmax, crobat v and/or cincinno makes finding 4 union pieces easier, as AD can find any 3 vs, so I'm going to be disappointed if I learn that AD gets banned in all formats with battle compressor in expanded when V-Union comes out, as AD doesn't specify which Vs it can find... Watch out for mewtwo v-union!
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I think it will not be that easy.
The biggest issue is you can have only 1 card for each of them, and the only option to "summon" it out is all 4 pcs are in your discard pile. If you get it stuck in prize, or not enough options to discard, it will still be an issue.
Last but not least, the major concern is the HP of the card are not that amazing. In fact they're just like other vmax. In some cases they can be knocked out by 1 hit.
So I think it still need some time to pair with new combos.