Trainer Potion 94 102 Price
Danny Hosford
Potion (Black & White)
Hello Pojo readers, wlecome to a special event! Today, we are doing a 2 for 1 deal where you get 2 CotD reviews for the price of 1! That's right, there have been two uploads today (the other card is Great Ball) so prepare yourself for a great moment in Pojo history!
Now that I'm finished the introduction and built up your expectations, I'm going to leave you hanging and skip the review...
Psyche!
Now that I'm finished having a laugh at your expense (while you are sitting there, shaking your head and wondering how people like me are alllowed out in public) I'll get down to business.
Potion is an Item card that is as old as the game itself. Released as 94/102 in the original release of the Poke'mon TCG (the infamous Base Set). Alongside Switch, Potion has always been available and has never been rotated out of the Modified (or the earlier Constructed) format. Despite this incredible longevity, Potion has never been used in a tournament viable deck with any success. I don't think we have ever reviewed it either, so today is a 'first ever' on two counts.
Potion's effect is simplicity itself: remove 2 damage counters from one of your Poke'mon. Due to the fact that this amount was, at most, half of the damage that most attackers would deal in a single hit, noone ever considered devoting precious deck space to such a weak card (unless your collection was small). With the release of new sets after Base Set, the average damage yield continued to climb and the number of competing cards (either more powerful healing cards or other Trainer cards that were more useful in general) also increased. Although Potion has been reprinted roughly once a year (as well as being included in pretty much every theme deck ever made) the circumstances have never improved. But now we can rejoice, for the faithful (those of us with enough Potions to build a deck containing nothing else, simply for giggles) have been rewarded at long last!
Unlike the other cards this week, Potion has been reprinted rather than given an erratum (but this is only due to the proud tradition of reprinting Potion so it still fits in with this week's theme) which changes the effect to healing 30 damage rather than 2 damage counters. 'Healing damage' and 'removing damage counters' mean the same thing as far as the rules are concerned, so the big change is that Potion is now a whopping 50% more powerful!
This is a major game changer, because the current average damage for a main attacker is... north of 100 damage, which according to my previous argument means that Potions is still damned near useless because we still have an abundance of more effective cards and a shortage of deck space. Dang it!
Still, all is not lost. If you only consider the healing cards available to us at the moment, Potions is the most powerful of the cards which are completely reliable and don't have a drawback. Both Life Herb and Moo Moo Milk can heal more damage but are subject to coin flips, while Blissey Prime is liable to discard many of your important energy. If you want healing, then running 4 Potionwith a maxed-out line of Junk Arm as well is the best option, finally giving the unloved bottle a home.
Oh wait, we have Serperior BW for that. Foiled again!
While Potion remans an exceptionally terrible card, the power boost is long overdue and shows that behind it all, the powers-that-be who rule Poke'mon still care deeply about their creations. Every last one of them.
*sigh*
Yes, that includes Base Set Gastly and Watchog BW.
To all of you who made it to the end of this review, thankyou for tolerating my sense of humour. However, I must warn you that there is no antidote for my terrible jokes so you can expect your monitor to shatter in the next few minutes...
Maybe this warning should have been written up at the beginning of this article?
Modified: 1 (noone with a collection bigger than a single theme deck has ever used Potion in even a semi-competitive environment. I doubt that will ever change)
Limited: 3 (it's an Item, and it heals you. You can probably find a use for this card at the prerelease)
Combos with: Papier Mache. Or you can wallpaper a room with them. Or even use them to line your compst heap. Maybe you can send me a Potion with your hate mail to heal some of the electronic beatdowns I will shortly receive from my dark masters?