Hi there. More new cards have been revealed from the upcoming Japanese Pokemon set Ninja Spinner. The cards have been revealed in Japan's Champions League tournament in Fukuoka on Feb 21 and Feb 22.
The main featured cards are Mega Floette ex, Cobalion ex and Gourgeist ex.
Phantump as an attacker is not great. What makes up for is that its ability is good. If you have Trevenant in your hand then you can evolve this Phantump into Trevenant outside your first turn. The drawback is placing 2 damage counters on this Pokemon.
Trevenant is the evolved form of Phantump. The Cursed Roots first attack requires 1 Psychic Energy to deal 30 damage. The attack also prevents the opponent from manually attaching Energy from their hand to the Defending Pokemon on the next opponent turn. Note that the opponent can still attach Energy from the hand to a Benched Pokemon.
The Overpain attack requires 2 Energy to deal 60 base damage plus 10 more damage for each damage counter on all the opponent's Pokemon. This attack can be pretty deadly if the opponent has a lot of damaged Pokemon or a lot of damage counters on them. A good compatible card is the Risky Ruins stadium card.
Pumpkaboo is a Basic 60 HP Psychic Pokemon needed to evolve into Gourgeist ex.
Gourgeist ex is the Stage 1 evolution of Pumpkaboo. This has 270HP, a two retreat cost and Dark weakness. Horror Rondo requires 1 Psychic Energy to deal 30 base damage plus 50 more damage for each your Benched Pokemon with damage counters on them. As you have a maximum of 5 Benched Pokemon (without Area Zero Underdepths), the max damage this Gourgeist ex can do 280 (30 + 50 x 5).
Ghost Touch is the second attack. It does 140 damage and you discard a random card from the opponent's hand. Hand discard can be pretty powerful if you get lucky.
Xerneas is a bulky Basic Pokemon. I don't see this seeing much play as the Geostorm attack requires 3 Psychic Energy which is expensive. The attack is too resource intensive to deal big damage.
Cobalion ex is a Metal Basic beastick attacker. This Pokemon ex has 210 HP, a two retreat cost and Fire weakness.
The Metal Road ability activates once during your turn when this moves from the Bench to the Active Spot. You may move any amount of Metal Energy from your Pokemon in play to this Pokemon.
Its only attack is Power Tackle from 2 Metal Energy and 1 Colourless Energy. This does 200 damage with the drawback of Cobalion ex not being to attack during your next turn (unless it moves to the Bench). Two hundred damage is okay as it can hit Meowth ex but not Fezandipiti ex nor Latias ex.
Phillipe is a good Supporter card for Metal Pokemon. You attach up to 2 Basic Metal Energy from the discard pile to 1 of your Metal Pokemon.
As I type this, Metal Pokemon (outside of Gholdengo ex decks) are not great. Maybe Phillipe helps Metal Pokemon decks be a bit more competitive. Let's see.
It looks like in the new format, we have Special Energy for each type. The Magnet Metal Energy provide 1 Metal Energy to any Pokemon. If this special Energy card is attached to a Metal Pokemon then that Metal Pokemon has a zero retreat cost.
Metal Pokemon tend to have high retreat costs so a zero retreat cost from having the Magnet Metal Energy is beneficial.
Here is Mega Floette ex. This Psychic Basic Mega Pokemon has 250 HP, a one retreat cost and Metal weakness.
The first attack is not great. It heals 30 damage from every Pokemon in play (both you and opponent).
Eternity Bloom is the second attack. This requires 3 Psychic Energy to deal 200 damage. You search your deck for up to 4 Basic Psychic Energy cards and attach them to your Benched Pokemon in any way you like. (Then shuffle deck)
As an attacker Mega Floette ex is kind of underwhelming.
Prism Tower is a Stadium card where both you and the opponent have access to it. Once during each player's turn, that player may discard 2 cards from their hand in order to draw 1 card. From a card advantage perspective, this is not very good. In the Pokemon TCG, card advantage is not really a big thing compared to something like Yugioh. With Prism Tower you could discard 2 cards you don't want from your hand to draw 1 card and then reset the hand with something like Lillie's Determination.
As a standalone Stadium card, I think this is not a good stadium. However, some decks may benefit from having certain cards in the discard pile.
Ange Floette is another Stadium card. This one is unique as you can only play this Stadium card if Prism Tower is in play. You can also play Ange Floette if Prism Tower was played this turn.
With this stadium in play, Mega Floette ex gains 150 HP. The maximum HP of Mega Floette ex goes from 250 HP to 400 HP. Four hundred HP is unheard of for any evolved Pokemon or even a Basic Pokemon ex. For even more HP, add a Hero's Cape ACE SPEC to get 500 HP.
There is one big flaw to Stadium cards in general. You can bump/remove an existing stadium card with a different Stadium card. In addition, there are a few cards that specialize in removing stadium cards. These are Blowtorch, Chien-Pao and the not so-used Ting-Lu with the first attack.
Thank you for reading.
