‘Sup, guys! Since pretty much all of the COTDs recently have been reviewing Pokemon, I thought I’d mix it up and review a Trainer – Max Potion from Emerging Powers. Max Potion is a very interesting card, and I believe it has potential to make a splash in our HS-EPO format. Let’s get right to it!
Max Potion’s text reads thus: “Heal all damage from 1 of your Pokemon. Then, discard all Energy attached to that Pokemon.” Now, this effect is similar to that of Blissey Prime‘s Poke-Power, Blissful Nurse, except that Blissey heals all of your Pokemon with any damage on them, and you discard all energy from the Pokemon that you heal.
In the right deck, played at the right time, Max Potion can turn any card that can’t get OHKO’d (usually, that means it has over 120 HP) into a tank. Think of the rogue Steelix Prime decks from last year. They ran Trainers like Life Herb, which healed 60 damage if you were lucky. Removing ALL damage from one of your Pokemon – essentially starting fresh – in theory, that’s amazing!
Now, you also have to “start fresh” in terms of energy. Of course, this is less than optimal when you’re playing with a card that requires a lot of energy to be useful (think Gothitelle). However, we have a card in our format that partners with Max Potion very well, and it’s been played a lot recently. That card is Reuniclus from Black and White.
Reuniclus’ Ability lets you move damage around on your field as much as you like each turn. That means that if your Active Pokemon is close to being knocked out, but you don’t want to get rid of the energy that’s on it, you can “Damage Swap” all the damage to an undamaged Benched Pokemon that doesn’t have energy attached to it. Obviously, Reuniclus has some weaknesses. These include: its low 90 HP – with Pokemon Catcher in the format, it can be dragged up for an easy prize; its basic form, Solosis, is a terrible starter with only 30 HP; and it’s a Stage 2, meaning that you’ll spend a lot of time and resources trying to set Reuniclus up. However, I think Reuniclus combos with Max Potion very well.
Max Potion’s biggest weakness, besides the discarding of energy, is Trainer-lock. We now have two cards in the format – Vileplume UD and the new Gothitelle from Emerging Powers. When facing one of these, any deck that relies on Max Potion will crumble. Of course, both Vileplume and Gothitelle are slow Stage 2′s, meaning that they can be shut down if you out-speed them and/or KO their Oddishes, Glooms, Gothitas and Gothoritas before they evolve. Still, the late-game “tanking” aspect is usually lost.
Max Potion is worth a try in several decks in our metagame. Here’s a brief look at its impact on four of the current top tier decks:
- Gothitelle: Gothitelle works really well with Reuniclus and Max Potion by moving the damage around to other high HP Pokemon, such as Zekrom. While Gothitelle is a slow deck, once it’s set up, it can be tough to KO.
- Reshiram Variants: Reshiram is constantly discarding energy with Blue Flare, making the energy loss from using Max potion minimal.
- MegaZone: Max Potion works really well in MegaZone, since both of its attackers will not have much energy on them – Yanmega doesn’t need energy to attack, and Magnezone is constantly throwing energy into the Lost Zone with Lost Burn.
- ZPS: Some think that Zekrom is helped by Max Potion since it’s constantly damaging itself, and it can power back up with Pachirisu and Shaymin; others argue that it relies too much on keeping energy out to ensure quick knockouts. I personally think Max Potion helps ZPS more than it hurts it.
So, that’s my analysis of Max Potion and its uses in our metagame. I hope you all enjoyed my review. Expect another COTD by Saturday (if not sooner)!
