Discussion Card Battle Ep.4: Rare Candy VS Evosoda VS Wally VS Forest of Giant Plants

[The Poke Tactics]

Hello,guys! This is my Fourth CARD BATTLE thread.
I clearly that my CARD BATTLE will inform you the difference of the featured cards, so you'll know how to used them in battle. For today,we will talked about the evolution accelerators: The Rare Candy,Wally,Forest of Giant Plants, and the Evosoda. Again,what's the difference between these four cards?

Rare Candy - lets you evolve the Basic Pokemon into Stage 2 Pokemon by skipping the evolution process (directly evolved the basic Pokemon,if you have the stage 2 card,which is matched on the said basic in your hand.) This will consume your use of evolving that particular Pokemon.

Evosoda - lets you search an evolution and directly evolve to the chosen Pokemon in play. Again,This will consume your use of evolving that particular Pokemon.

Wally- a supporter card which has the same function of the soda but it is only for non-EX Pokemon. This can be use even the chosen Pokemon is first time placed in play or being evolved.

Forest of the Giant Plants- a stadium card that as same as Wally but it is only for Grass-type Pokemon.

Again,What do you think is your best among these four mentioned?

Share your opinions with us.

 

[dwarfstar]

Broken Vine-Space (er, Forest of Giant Plants) has the most overall utility of these four by a significant margin. Rare Candy is mostly useless because the only Stage 2 cards that really see a significant amount of play are Crobat PHF, Vileplume AOR, and Blastoise, all of which want to get out on the field by different means. Vileplume COULD use Rare Candy to get out, but FGP is preferable because of how incredibly common item-lock effects are; Crobat wants to evolve from Golbat for the extra damage, and Blastoise is just run through Archie. Wally is as uncommon as it is because there are so many better Supporters available - it's not a bad card, but there just isn't enough free deck space in most rigs, and most of the decks that rely on getting evolved mons out on the first turn already have other ways to do so. Evosoda is workable because it doesn't use up your Supporter slot for the turn, but it is vulnerable to item-lock, and most decks run enough Ultra Balls or Level Balls that they can generally get the job done that way (and Ultra Ball is actually preferable in a lot of decks so you can draw more cards with Shaymin-EX), so it's not great. Better than the other two, but not great. Contrast these with FGP, which is key to several different modern deck archetypes - Vespiquen variants, anything running Vileplume, any Sceptile-EX decks built for Standard (Expanded should be split between FGP and Virbank), those weird Latios-EX/Forretress decks I've been seeing from time to time, and probably one or two more I'm forgetting - and was the driving force that broke Shiftry NXD and got it banned from Expanded. It's no contest.

 

[MarshalBry]

Rare Candy would be a far better card if it was like the old prints where it let you evolve a Basic to a Stage 1 on the turn it was played. I can see the text for that being really big though, considering it's been re-worded since to not allow evolution with it on the turn something was played.

Regardless, I have to say Evosoda as it's generally a pretty easy one to slip into your deck (I don't run any Grass decks at the moment, though it's a nice niche thing for stuff like Sceptile EX/Ariados decks) and it also doesn't take up your Supporter slot like Wally does which I like for stuff like Sycamore and Birch's mostly early-game where it matters.

 

[The Poke Tactics]

Rare Candy would be a far better card if it was like the old prints where it let you evolve a Basic to a Stage 1 on the turn it was played. I can see the text for that being really big though, considering it's been re-worded since to not allow evolution with it on the turn something was played.

Regardless, I have to say Evosoda as it's generally a pretty easy one to slip into your deck (I don't run any Grass decks at the moment, though it's a nice niche thing for stuff like Sceptile EX/Ariados decks) and it also doesn't take up your Supporter slot like Wally does which I like for stuff like Sycamore and Birch's mostly early-game where it matters.

Yeah! Rare Candy was my best card because my first impression on that card,along with a basic and stage 2 (Swampert), I say to myself,this skips the evolution process. But then,it was useful for the decks of Swampert,Rhyperior,and any Stage 2's with awesome attacks and abilities.
In speaking of Sycamore,the Profs will be my next CARD BATTLE thread in the future.

 

[Ivy_Profen]

Being that I use grass. Forest of giant plants is the best. Otherwise I would say rare candy. Though with skyla out of the format. It'd alot harder to get both cards in hand.

 

[Fouda]

Honestly I would say Wally gives you the best bang for your buck because you can use it to evolve first turn or on a Pokemon played that turn. That can speed up a lot of decks especially those running Intimidating Mane Pyroar (immune to effects from attacks,including damage, from all basic Pokemon). If you can get that out turn one you're way ahead of the game and have shut down many decks. Just my opinion though!

 

[pokedan24]

What Dwarfstar said. FGP, while limited to grass types is the only card that lets you get multiple evolutions in one turn.

Evosoda is crap because it doesn't let you evolve instantly. It's just a watered down search card.

Wally is fantastic with Trevenant. It can get it out T1. It can also help stage 2 decks if you get out the stage 1. Being a supporter, it can be reused with VS seeker, but can only be played once a turn.

Rare Candy is a must for any stage 2 decks that can't take advantage of the above.

 

[Mora]

I do want to point out that Evosoda does have the benefit of getting around Archeops in Expanded. So does Wally, but Evosoda is a much easier inclusion.

 

[Otaku]

Thank you to all,guys. We're aiming more replies coming from all of you,because this topic is interesting.
Don't afraid to share,guys.

All right.

So far The Poke Tactics, you have been quite willing to listen to what I hope are bits of constructive criticism; I like these discussions, but sometimes cards are being compared that are a bit too dissimilar. In this case, it is merely the scope involved. FYI, I linked The Poke Tactics to a thread on another message board where I have been doing something similar with things from an RPG I enjoy (GURPS) where I have run into the same problem; several interrelated things but when they are all together, it spans too much for as meaningful of comparisons.

So to start off, one of these things is not like the other: Evosoda is not Evolution acceleration but Evolution search! Both a benefit and a drawback is that it Evolves from the deck; this means it gets around Ancient Power but of course all those lovely "When played from hand..." effects don't trigger. The big thing to understand is that it is an Item and other Item based search cards have different restrictions and/or costs involved. Everything else covered today is "Evolution Acceleration", though one other is also a search card.

Speaking of which, yes Wally is good to compare to Evosoda. The effects are almost the same except Wally cannot target Pokémon-EX but is able to be used on a card that isn't ready to "naturally" Evolve. It is also a Supporter and not an Item. There are pros and cons to either; one Supporter use per turn, being a VS Seeker target, etc.

Rare Candy and Forest of Giant Plants are all about Evolution acceleration. Rare Candy allows you to skip a Stage as well, not merely Evolve faster. It can no longer be used on the first turn a Pokémon has been in play, and while some people lament this "nerfing" it was actually really important. Shock of shocks; when you take effects that are "balanced" based on it taking two turns and two other specific cards for said something to get into play, speeding that up makes it less balanced. -_-

Forest of Giant Plants allows any Grass-Type in play to immediately Evolve. As a Stadium it has a similar "you can only play one per turn" restriction as a Supporter, but it gets to stay in play and the only limit to how many timers in a turn you may use its how many times in a turn you are capable of Evolving something in play. Before Lysandre's Trump Card was banned, you could have hypothetically Evolved an infinite amount of times... at least until time was called. As I was pointing out with Forest of Giant Plants, this did end up breaking a card: Shiftry (BW: Next Destinies 72/99).

Even though Forest of Giant Plants does adds a card to the needed count (instead of replacing one like Rare Candy), does not search anything out (like Evosoda and Wally) and only works when Evolving from Grass-Types, it clearly has the most power. The others might fit into more decks, but we have to weigh power in a specific deck versus general (or at least less specific) power. I don't think the net power of Wally, Evosoda or Rare Candy in the decks that make good use of it can outdo the power of Forest of Giant Plants in the decks that make good use of it, even though there are probably more of the former than of the latter.

 

[Texan Pokemon]

Rare Candy in my opinion is better than forest of giant plants if the stage 2 has the evolution ancient trait because you can therefore rare candy on the first turn the basic is in play. (I checked this ruling with a judge at regionals.) If the stage 2 doesn't have evolution ancient trait than rare candy is forest of giant plants is better.

Next, evosoda is just a waste of what could be a level or ultra ball, and Wally is a waste of your supporter.

In conclusion forest of giant plants is the overall best of the 4 cards because of the lack of use from evosoda and Wally as well as rare candy being half decent without an evolution ancient trait.

 

[Mora]

Rare Candy in my opinion is better than forest of giant plants if the stage 2 has the evolution ancient trait because you can therefore rare candy on the first turn the basic is in play. (I checked this ruling with a judge at regionals.) If the stage 2 doesn't have evolution ancient trait than rare candy is forest of giant plants is better.

Next, evosoda is just a waste of what could be a level or ultra ball, and Wally is a waste of your supporter.

In conclusion forest of giant plants is the overall best of the 4 cards because of the lack of use from evosoda and Wally as well as rare candy being half decent without an evolution ancient trait.

You actually can't use Rare Candy on a Pokemon with Delta Evolution on the turn it's put into play. Even though it has the Ancient Trait, Rare Candy specifically states that you can't play the card itself on the first turn or on a Pokemon that was put into play this turn. Similarly, you can't use Rare Candy on a Grass Pokemon with Forest of Giant Plants in play, etc.

 

[Yo-yos]

Easy rare candy from hand, evosoda from deck but lets you search for megas, wally confines to stage pokemon only, and forest is grass pokemon only.

Answer. archies, korrina, level ball and ultra ball, manually evolve pokemon, none of the above is as consistent as the 4 cards I stated.

 

[Otaku]

Rare Candy in my opinion is better than forest of giant plants if the stage 2 has the evolution ancient trait because you can therefore rare candy on the first turn the basic is in play. (I checked this ruling with a judge at regionals.) If the stage 2 doesn't have evolution ancient trait than rare candy is forest of giant plants is better.

@Mora already pointed this out, but the judge got the ruling wrong. For future reference, always verify rulings. Judges are trying to do their job, but expecting them to always have the correct ruling is a bit like assuming the legal system is infallible. You need to read up on these: I recommend PokéGym due to their Ask The Rules Team forum which has not only seasoned judging staff but are allowed to regularly submit questions to the higher ups at Pokémon for rulings. They have a rules compendium where they take official rulings and record them, organize them and keep them labeled so you know when and where the ruling came from. Just be careful because they keep older versions of said compendium as a historical reference or for people that wish to play the game under older rules (sometimes rulings change).

Also... Delta Evolution is a separate "thing"; it is an additional form of Evolution acceleration. I don't know if anything with it can even use Forest of Giant Plants. Yes, a built in means of bypassing the restrictions on Evolution are preferred to additional cards.