Today’s Card of the Day is Celebi Prime from Triumphant. It’s a Basic, 60 HP Grass-type. Being Grass isn’t too bad at the moment, but a Fire weakness is bad with Emboar being released so soon. Having 60 HP is never a good thing. A retreat cost of one is better than anything higher than one.
Celebi’s Poke-Power, “Forest Breath”, allows you to attach one Grass energy from your hand to one of your Pokemon, as long as Celebi is your active Pokemon. That’s… really not that great. It could make for a decent starter in a Grass deck, but there are probably better candidates out there.
Its only attack, “Time Circle”, for an awkward GPC, does 30 damage. Don’t stop reading! It also prevents all damage done to Celebi by your opponent’s Stage 1 or Stage 2 Pokemon next turn. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Umbreon UD‘s Moonlight Fang, although much more expensive.
There’s a few reasons why this is a really good effect. First of all, Pokemon SP are going to lose popularity or perhaps be rotated altogether, so the majority of decks will use Stage 1 or Stage 2 Pokemon. Second, since it’s not “The defending Pokemon”, your opponent won’t be able to switch twice to bypass the effect. They’ll have to use a basic to deal any significant amount of damage, and most basics – at least, HGSS-on basics – don’t do much damage.
Unfortunately, the attack doesn’t protect you from Pokemon LEGEND’s attacks, and there are still a few hard-hitting basics that will be prominent even in a HGSS-on format (Absol Prime, Mew Prime, Reshiram, Zekrom).
It could have potential in any deck that has an unfavorable matchup against Stage-1 or Stage-2 decks, although requiring 2 different types of energy hurts it. It’d be a hilarious tech in Machamp, forcing your opponents to make really tough decisions about what to use to attack.
Other than that, there’s not much to be said about Celebi Prime. The Umbreon-style Timetravel Pokemon’s inadequate Poke-Power and cost-ineffective attack earns it a 1.5/5.
