Volcanion ex, Iris, Wailord Illustration Rare, and More from “Battle Partners!”

[lilrizky]

Worst part is that the Tera gimmick is already so lame on its own. I just don’t think tcpi did a good job on making Tera mons interesting at all unlike something like the ultra beasts who got to interact with the games mechanics in neat ways. And Tera support cards have been pretty interesting but there’s like 5 and two of them are basically made for terapagos

Im not a competitive player in the games or the cards but I always found the Tera gimmick to be lame. Just went more downhill each one after Mega when they probably should have stuck with mega to begin with.

 

[Professor Brandon]

With that Wailord, I interpret this as the first confirmation that normal ARs (and presumably SARs) will continue into this year.

Previously I thought they might be replaced by S/ARs of owner's pokemon only, but now that we see owner's pokemon are only a limited subsection of the new sets I suppose it makes sense that normal S/ARs would continue.

I suppose I'll have to admit that I can't fit all of the SM/SWSH alternate arts plus the SV S/ARs in one binder...

 

[Bishlarp]

I cannot believe how little they did with the Tera mechanic- this kinda proves to me it’s over for future sets/ next block - so many missed opportunities - they didn’t even print a card of every Tera hat - really a shame

Love what’s coming up here - all looking fun/cool - but can’t believe we are already done with the “true Scarlet and Violet” sets

Yeah, this feels a lot like when they did Amazing Rares- we were all excited for the concept and what theu could mean, theu were underwhelming, and then they pivot to something cooler. It sucks.

 

[DEM0N2011]

Pokemon ex rule: When your Pokemon ex is Knocked Out, your opponent takes your life.

Wait what -

 

[Fields.]

I think in the VGC it's one of the cooler mechanics that reward good team building, and I think a lot of the top players share that feeling, it may not be as flashy as megas or anything like that, but I still think it's one of the best ones for competitive play. Sucks in the TCG tho

It's just another mechanic that makes strong pokemon stronger with no drawback.

 

[EnhancedReality]

The Magmortar is okay. It's a good replacement for Pyroar (since it rotated), and maybe if you're playing Incineroar ex, you could run a couple of copies. Other than that though, it's not a very good card.

The Wailord seems fun to play as a rogue deck, maybe with Baxcalibur or smth. You're already hitting 210 damage on a single prizer with the minimum cost, plus 50 is a good multiplier. Probably not seeing any competitive play though.

Idk where N's Liepard at though... maybe it snuck out of the article.

The Corviknight is interesting. Both attacks are semi-decent, if you add the damage modifiers and whatnot. But it is a single prize stage 2, so it would be kind of hard to incorporate it into a "Hop's Box" sort of thing.

Now that I remembered Magearna, it would be good with Wailord. Since you're attaching a lot of energy from your hand to Wailord, it basically heals it every turn, so if you can incorporate it as a retreat pivot sort of thing, healing your Wailord and then putting it into the active. It would be good with Rescue Board too.

Now I'm going to go through the trainer cards super fast. We got Super Potion again, probably one of the worst healing cards ever printed. Hop's bag is a nice setup, looks like we won't have to play Artazon. We need an SIR for that Iris, but not a super great card. N's castle seems okay, but we need more Lillie's cards revealed... hopefully there's finally going to be a good Ribombee.

Holy sh*t that took a while to write.