Hi there. I share my thoughts about the Ruffian Supporter card reveal and the Metagross evolution line from the upcoming Japanese Battle Partners set. Battle Partners releases in Japan on January 24 with the international/English cards to be released in the Journey Together set in March 2025.
This entire Metagross evolution line is Psychic type instead of Metal type.
Beldum is a 60 HP Basic Psychic Pokemon with one retreat cost. Both the attacks are not great. Beldum is needed to evolve into Metang or to Metagross with Rare Candy.
The new Metang is a 100HP Stage 1 Psychic Pokemon with two retreat cost. It has two attacks that are somewhat useable. For one Psychic energy Psypunch does 30 damage. The second attack requires two Psychic energy to do 50 damage. A bit of a generic attacker. For now the Metal Metang from Temporal Forces provides good utility. It has Metal Energy acceleration from the Deck to any Pokemon you like.
Metagross is a Stage 2 Psychic Pokemon that evolves from Metang. It can also evolve from Beldum with the use of Rare Candy. The first attack requires one Psychic Energy to do 60 damage. Joint Beam is the second attack. It requires two Psychic Energy for a base damage of 130. With Joint Beam you can do 150 more damage if you have Beldum and Metang on your Bench. This results in 280 damage which knocks out pretty much any Basic Pokemon and most Stage 1 Pokemon ex.
For the Joint Beam 280 damage requirement getting Beldum on your Bench is not too difficult. Having a Metang on the Bench as well is not that easy. In terms of deck building most decks run 4 copies of the Basic Pokemon, sometimes 1 copy of the Stage 1 Pokemon and 3 copies of the Stage 2 Pokemon. I like the Joint Beam attack from Metagross but I think the requirement is a bit difficult to meet. This Metagross evolution line looks cool but it may not be played that much.
The word ruffian refers to a bully or someone who is violent towards other people. This Ruffian card removes a Tool and a Special Energy attached to 1 of your opponent's Pokemon.
Pokemon Tools are quite common for defensive effects, increased damage affects, evolution, devolution or for lower energy costs for attacks. Being able to remove tools like ACE SPEC tools like Hero's Cape is quite powerful with Ruffian.
Being able to remove a Special Energy from a Pokemon is sort of powerful. There is the item card Enhanced Hammer in the format which is seldom used.
Removing a Tool and Special Energy attached to one Pokemon is quite powerful. I just wonder how common this scenario shows up. This Ruffian card may see play more in control decks. If the metagame gets crazy where powerful strategies consist of a Special Energy and a Pokemon tool card on an attack then Ruffian would be used more as a counter stratgey.
The item card Lost Vaccuum is being removed from the F, G, H Regulation format soon. It is unknown as of January 2025 if there is a reprint of Lost Vaccuum for the I regulation format. The Ruffian supporter card would serve as a soft replacement for removing tools. The big disadvantage is using the single Supporter card spot for the turn.
Ruffian targets one of your opponent's Pokemon while the supporter Giacomo is more powerful for removing Special Energies from the opponent's side and the Jamming Tower stadium negates the effects of Pokemon Tool cards.
Giacomo discards one Special Energy from each of your opponent's Pokemon. If the opponent gets greedy with playing many Special Energy cards, Giacomo can remove Special Energy from more than 1 Pokemon. Giacomo has more removal potential compared to Ruffian.
Jamming Tower is a Stadium card that makes it such that Pokemon Tools in play (both sides) have no effect. In many cases it is easier and better to play Jamming Tower to negate effects instead of removing the Tools.
As Jamming Tower is a stadium card you can play a draw cards supporter like Professor's Research instead of Ruffian. Jamming Tower does affect your own side though. Your deck with Jamming Tower would not run Tools.
Ruffian is not an awful card. It is just there are better alternatives for removing Special Energy and removing Tools. I would prefer Jamming Tower to negate Tool effects instead of removal. Enhanced Hammer for removing one Special Energy. Maybe in a year Ruffian would be more playable.
Thank you for reading.
