Milotic from “Future Flash”

By: JustInBasil · Posted Posted onOct 14, 2023 at 3:05 AM · 17 Comments

Feebass and Miltotic have been revealed from the Japanese sets Ancient Roar and Future Flash, which release in Japan on October 27th. We expect most cards from these sets to be incorporated into Paradox Rift, our November set.

Feebass – Water – HP30
Basic Pokémon

[W] Drawup Power: Search your deck for an Energy card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.

Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat:  1

Milotic – Water – HP120
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Lifeboat
When you play this Pokémon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokémon during your turn, you may use this Ability. Each player puts a Basic Pokémon from their discard pile onto their Bench. (Your opponent chooses first.)

[W][C] Hypno Splash: 60 damage. Your opponent’s Active Pokémon is now Asleep.

Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 2

View thread (17 replies)
It's a little worse since your opponent chooses the Pokemon, but against single-Prize decks with a deck full of Greninja food, it could have its uses, especially since it lets you get your own Greninja back.
 
I love this ability. It allows for unique and never seen before gameplay options. Depth of consequens thinking will be increased, in order to avoid this ability losing you the game, or getting the maximum value out of this card. Having to bench a 30 HP Feebas and wait a turn in order to get acces to the ability, allows for preventative counterplay by the opponent.

HOWEVER, the attack sucks. It does so little amount of damage that you can´t even use milotic to hit for weakness, and it can´t even take out Sableye. Asleep is just a more luck based and annoying verison of paralysation. It allows none to 0 options to attack with.
The card also has 0 bulk. It can´t even survive a Sableye. The concept of Sableye should not allow the user to OHKO supporting Pokémon, especially not Milotic.

Both the attack and bulk are very inaccurate representation of how Milotic functions in the video games and VGC. Milotic is more or less a bulky Pokémon that can deal a moderate amount of damage. But the value in it´s attack are strong secondary effects. (Like Scald.)

The card isn´t adjusted for the power creep we have seen every year since 2019.

Will the card see play? Probably at some point, maybe with Iron Hands, but in a very 1 dimensional way with the Ability when the card should be able to do more in my opinion. Here are 2 examples of how I would have designed the card:

1697286194241.png

This card would allow you to utilise the attack with weakness against Radiant Charizard and Delphox V. Ad a damage modifier, and you can OHKO Entei V and the upcoming Armarouge ex. The effect text would be matchup dependent, but strong. It would be super strong against ~20% of the metagame and usefull against another ~40% and bad against ~40% of the metagame. Instead of being just Super Strong against ~20% of the metagame and bad against ~80% of the metagame. Which is the stats for the real Milotic.
This card would be a strong consideratin for Lost box, miraidon and Lost Goodra and a interesting tech for Baxcalibur, Meowscarada, palkia, arceus and Lost zard.


1697286213709.png

This would take up less of a role as tech card and more as a strategy inclusion. (example being Keldeo EX and Sableye in 2013 Darkrai, Medicham in Rapid strike or Tyranitar V in Single strike Lugia.

This card would be a strong card in more tanky decks with a damage cap. It would have a more defined role in the game and be more consistently played.

Decks that could like to use it would be Arceus, Gardevoir, Charizard ex, goodra and Lugia.


To get back to the point from the begining. The Miltic we are getting has a really cool Ability but the card is 1 dimensional, when it could be a way more interesting card that is adjusted to power creep and functions more like how Milotic functions in the games.
 
Da idiot said:
I love this ability. It allows for unique and never seen before gameplay options. Depth of consequens thinking will be increased, in order to avoid this ability losing you the game, or getting the maximum value out of this card. Having to bench a 30 HP Feebas and wait a turn in order to get acces to the ability, allows for preventative counterplay by the opponent.

HOWEVER, the attack sucks. It does so little amount of damage that you can´t even use milotic to hit for weakness, and it can´t even take out Sableye. Asleep is just a more luck based and annoying verison of paralysation. It allows none to 0 options to attack with.
The card also has 0 bulk. It can´t even survive a Sableye. The concept of Sableye should not allow the user to OHKO supporting Pokémon, especially not Milotic.

Both the attack and bulk are very inaccurate representation of how Milotic functions in the video games and VGC. Milotic is more or less a bulky Pokémon that can deal a moderate amount of damage. But the value in it´s attack are strong secondary effects. (Like Scald.)

The card isn´t adjusted for the power creep we have seen every year since 2019.

Will the card see play? Probably at some point, maybe with Iron Hands, but in a very 1 dimensional way with the Ability when the card should be able to do more in my opinion. Here are 2 examples of how I would have designed the card:

View attachment 18245

This card would allow you to utilise the attack with weakness against Radiant Charizard and Delphox V. Ad a damage modifier, and you can OHKO Entei V and the upcoming Armarouge ex. The effect text would be matchup dependent, but strong. It would be super strong against ~20% of the metagame and usefull against another ~40% and bad against ~40% of the metagame. Instead of being just Super Strong against ~20% of the metagame and bad against ~80% of the metagame. Which is the stats for the real Milotic.
This card would be a strong consideratin for Lost box, miraidon and Lost Goodra and a interesting tech for Baxcalibur, Meowscarada, palkia, arceus and Lost zard.


View attachment 18246

This would take up less of a role as tech card and more as a strategy inclusion. (example being Keldeo EX and Sableye in 2013 Darkrai, Medicham in Rapid strike or Tyranitar V in Single strike Lugia.

This card would be a strong card in more tanky decks with a damage cap. It would have a more defined role in the game and be more consistently played.

Decks that could like to use it would be Arceus, Gardevoir, Charizard ex, goodra and Lugia.


To get back to the point from the begining. The Miltic we are getting has a really cool Ability but the card is 1 dimensional, when it could be a way more interesting card that is adjusted to power creep and functions more like how Milotic functions in the games.
Click to expand...
Things like Good ability, bad attack is intended since the card is designed to be a bench sitter. Also, in the world where Iron Hands can be a problem to deal with, I don't think a single-prized mon with 1-time ability could make a change. Heck, until Early 2024, we still have Echoing Horn. So why do you play 2 cards and can give up a prize when you can use a Trainer card. Also, the ability can be used once since despite AZ being reprinted, there are better ways to use AZ and we still don't have Scoop Up Net ATM.

When I say AZ, I mean Professor Turo's Insights, since the card is 1:1 AZ.
 
F4nt45m said:
You cannot OHKO the Armarouge without 60 boosted damage, which I am fairly certain is impossible for water types.
Click to expand...
Entei V is just a 1-of thing and Armorouge is just a decent card, not a meta deck. Fire still suffers the same date as Fighting, having no Decent energy acceleration. The only thing Fire types have for energy acceleration is a Stage 2 Tera Dark and a Stadium that which is decent but very slow, and to Armorouge's case, it'll turn off it's ability via Magma Basin since the effect only works at full HP.
 
I don't think any deck is going to waste two deck slots and a bench slot to get this effect. I'm already not too big on Echoing Horn being basically an uninteractive tool to grab free prizes in specific decks - this is more interactive, but not good.
 
Stay on topic, guys. We all have different experience levels and at the end of the day we're all nerds playing a children's card game. Cool your jets and play nice, please.
 
Gust/Prize Sniping:
Until Echoing Horn goes away, there is almost no reason to run this card and risk the space, additional need to evolve stuff, and the opponent getting to pick the card they bring back.

After Echoing Horn goes away, you still need a deck to justify running this evolution line and play so hyper-aggressively towards Milotic's support. We still don't have the full picture as to what prize sniping options we would have after rotation, and this is important since both Escape Rope and Cross Switcher rotate alongside Echoing Horn, at least from what we know. That just leaves you with:

1. Banking on the opponent not having enough of a bench up so that Iron Bundle can gust
2. Playing Boss as the gusting card and hoping you had enough resources to not need your supporter for anything else.
3. Playing another staged pokemon line to then gust stuff

We really need a better idea of what gusting options will be available when this card has a unique role after rotation. Until rotation, there's no reason to run it. After rotation, there needs to be enough to justify playing it effectively.

Bench Sniping:
This is easier to set up and get a good play going than Prize Sniping with it, but you gotta go through the motions of the game and figure out just how often bringing back an opponent's pokemon will sway the prize trade. The opponent getting to pick might also backfire here too, as that means the opponent can discard a pokemon to big to take an effective bench snipe on. You also bring back one of your own pokemon too, but if you are not getting mileage out of bringing back the opponent's pokemon, it's probably better just to run trainer cards that can get back the pokemon you are attempting to bench snipe with.

You need a lot of things to come together to get the value out of Milotic that you can't replace with other cards individually.
 
I like this, its not incredible but...

In glc this decent, their are a few good milotics in glc so it does have some opportunity cost BUT its a cool bait and with guzma/tonnes of spread.

Another cool thing is cube, this card is an amazing tool which COULD maybe be in mid-high power which isn't very common nowadays.
 
PMJ said:
It's a little worse since your opponent chooses the Pokemon, but against single-Prize decks with a deck full of Greninja food, it could have its uses, especially since it lets you get your own Greninja back.
Click to expand...
Decks with lots of greninja food will always have manaphy. You can't preemptively knockout manaphy early because they can just bring back their manaphy. Best use of this card is against 2 prizes decks to pull additional liabilities into play.
 
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angooseburger said:
Decks with lots of greninja food will always have manaphy. You can't preemptively knockout manaphy early because they can just bring back their manaphy. Best use of this card is against 2 prizes decks to pull additional liabilities into play.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's a good point. Makes sense that even if you manage to eliminate it pre-Greninja, they'd just bring it back when given the chance.
 
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