Pokemon Scarlet & Violet: Cards to Keep an Eye On

Hello again Flipside readers, you are joined by BurtsPTCG one again! Now with Scarlet & Violet finally just releasing I wanted to turn your attention to some of the cards which have not been getting ton of limelight. I think these cards are still worthy of some discussion and maybe even worth throwing some in your binder 'cause I think they will actually be played at some point in the future!

So lets get started with Slowbro! This Slowbro has an ability which lets you move a damage counter from your Pokemon to this Pokemon as often as you like. This on face value doesn't seem too crazy as it only has 100 HP, but when you think about it a 100 heal from your attacker is pretty beefy! But where this card excites me is when you have multiple of these out! For example if you have 3 of these Slowbro out you can heal 300 damage from your attacker of choice! 

Not many Pokemon can even hit 300 damage! And if you're playing against a two hit deck then you can effectively just remove their last attack! Crazy stuff! 

But it doesn't stop there though, when you consider if your attacker is a basic Pokemon you can then move up to 400 damage onto your Slowbros and then use Cheryls to remove it all from play! Making the Slowbros able to do it all over again! 

Honestly this could get a little bit silly to be honest, thank god Scoop Up Net rotates cause this has the potential to get out of hand if not!

In a similar vein Penny is the next card I would like to look at. Penny allows you to return a basic Pokemon and all cards attached to it back into your hand. We have seen how absolutely terrifying this can be in a tanking/stall archetype allowing you to remove damage from play then promote a fresh wall ready to soak up damage again! 

This is fairly obvious and probably doesn't need a ton of explaining, however I am more interested in the cards uses as a Scoop Up Net. This can allow you to use Hawlucha twice for example, or use Hawulcha once and then returning it to your hand to save on bench space. 

Or even use Radiant Greninja twice or Comfeys. This sounds pretty good and is definitely something I will be testing out along with keeping an eye for any huge HP basic Pokemon that will open the doors to stalling archetypes once again.

Something that could go into a stalling archetype is Spidops EX. This card increases your opponent's retreat cost by one for each copy in play. We have seen this type of effect be successful with Team Up Absol and more recently Galar Mine. This can make it extremely difficult for your opponent to get cards out of the active, draining them of precious resources turn by turn potentially leading to a victory for you!

As much hype as Revavroom got initially, it has seemed to have died off a bit which is a shame and I'm certain there will be some killer deck for it! It allows you to discard an energy from your hand to then draw up to 6 cards in your hand. This allows for discard synergy as well as doubling up as a draw engine! Crazy stuff! If anything like Training Court gets released or a deck that adores energy in the discard pile I could see this doing some massive damage so I would definitely throw a couple in the binder right now!

My last card I want to look at is Koriaidon EX. Its ability Dino Cry allows you to attach two fighting energies to your basic fighting types, but it ends your turn. This allows you to be super aggressive on turn two! But unfortunately it only hits for 220 itself, and while Great Tusk seems like an amazing partner as it hits for 250, they are both weak to psychic which is dreadful while Gardevoir and Mew have a place in the format! So if we ever get a basic fighting type with grass weakness we could be onto a winner here!

Let me know what you think though! Are there any cards I have missed that might be good at some point and deserve some love?!