Sunkern, Sunflora from “Mask of Change”

The Sunflora evolution line was just revealed from SV6 Mask of Change! The set will release in Japan on April 26th. It should combine with March’s Crimson Haze to form our Twilight Masquerade set in May.

Sunkern – Grass – HP40
Basic Pokémon

[G] Bullet Seed: 10x damage. Flip 4 coins. This attack does 10 damage for each heads.

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


Sunflora – Grass – HP10
Stage 1 – Evolves from Sunkern

[G] Sunshine Return: 60x damage. This attack does 60 damage for each [R] Energy attached to all of your opponent’s Pokémon.

[G][C] Mega Drain: 50 damage. Heal 30 damage from this Pokémon.

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

one deck doesn't fall under "enough hard counters" as that thing is the worst thing in the format currently. It singlehandedly destroyed the enjoyment of the game for a lot of players. Every time someone comes with a Zart deck I think "wow, you are so creative". That thing should be going through hell so no one even wants to play it anymore.
 
I kinda wish that Sunflora could escape the curse of being forever packfiller.

So we've seen 13 of the likely 16 Grass cards from this set (we still need numbers 1-3 Meganium Copium!!). How are we feeling so far?

I think Festival might end up being an viable rogue deck, but I'm really shaky on the Ogrepon cards. The ability is good, but the damage and bulk don't look too promising.
 
Maybe there'll be a weird stage 2 mon with an ability that turn all energies attached to your opponent's pokemons into Fire. That will make this card even weirder. ??

Edit: On second thought, that ability might be a bit broken. Should probably have extra conditions for it to work, like having a specific tool card attached. (similar to the eeveelutions back in VIV with memory capsule). ?
 
On the one hand Sunflora is a nice Charizard counter that doesn’t lose too much with the Prize trade due to it being a one-Prizer and having an Energy cost of 1 Grass Energy for its first attack (the one you’d mainly use to counter Charizard ex). But on the other you have to evolve from a 40 HP Basic Pokémon and hope your opponent overdoes it on Energy or charges up another attacker.
one deck doesn't fall under "enough hard counters" as that thing is the worst thing in the format currently. It singlehandedly destroyed the enjoyment of the game for a lot of players. Every time someone comes with a Zart deck I think "wow, you are so creative". That thing should be going through hell so no one even wants to play it anymore.
If you ask me the real issue with the current state of the TCG isn’t Charizard ex, it’s Energy acceleration. Every tournament-viable deck in the game’s current Standard format has one form or another and Pokémon Card Lab seems to be extremely allergic to printing anything that can hard-counter it. We have Gengar ex but that only affects Energy attachments from the hand, there’s not much else outside of some situational one-use Trainers and Supporters.
 
If you ask me the real issue with the current state of the TCG isn’t Charizard ex, it’s Energy acceleration. Every tournament-viable deck in the game’s current Standard format has one form or another and Pokémon Card Lab seems to be extremely allergic to printing anything that can hard-counter it. We have Gengar ex but that only affects Energy attachments from the hand, there’s not much else outside of some situational one-use Trainers and Supporters.
Since the game's inception decks have basically always needed either energy acceleration or very efficient attacks relative to the energies in format with that balance maintained by ease of access to the energy and how difficult the accelerator is to set up or get taken out (Pre-errata Pokemon Catcher/Gust of Wind vs Boss's Orders). We're definitely on one side of that, mostly cause of the special energy in format but shutting down a lot of this with some kind of hard counter would likely bring games to a crawl that just end in time.
 
I kinda wish that Sunflora could escape the curse of being forever packfiller.

So we've seen 13 of the likely 16 Grass cards from this set (we still need numbers 1-3 Meganium Copium!!). How are we feeling so far?

I think Festival might end up being an viable rogue deck, but I'm really shaky on the Ogrepon cards. The ability is good, but the damage and bulk don't look too promising.
Festival might be just as good as United Wings, Night March, etc it could have some niche play but i dont see it doing super good considering dipplin is the best attacker for it and the other ones just seem kinda bad dipplins max damage is 160 with festival up which is typically the amount of damage those "20 more damage for each pokemon with (attack name) in ur discard pile" do. As for Ogerpon it could be good if the format slows down a bit and we get a card like Xatu but for all energy
 
Festival might be just as good as United Wings, Night March, etc it could have some niche play but i dont see it doing super good considering dipplin is the best attacker for it and the other ones just seem kinda bad dipplins max damage is 160 with festival up which is typically the amount of damage those "20 more damage for each pokemon with (attack name) in ur discard pile" do. As for Ogerpon it could be good if the format slows down a bit and we get a card like Xatu but for all energy
Dipplin's full damage is 200 without modifiers, isn't it? (20 per each of your bench Pokemon, and attacks twice if the stadium is in play)

Realistically, once you've got Thwackey set up, you should be searching enough cards per turn that you can use Kieran as your Supporter and attach a Vitality Band to be hitting 280 (100 +10 +30 twice), up to a max of 360 with Maximum Belt (100 +50 +30 twice). Not bad numbers for a purely single prize deck.

I think the biggest hurdle for the deck is gonna be that you'll need a new Dipplin ready to bring up each turn because it is a fragile little apple. But with Buddy Poffins and Bug Catcher's Set for the initial setup, and Super Rods plus Lana's Assistance to recover the KOed apples, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to keep the engine rolling once you're set up.
 
Dipplin's full damage is 200 without modifiers, isn't it? (20 per each of your bench Pokemon, and attacks twice if the stadium is in play)

Realistically, once you've got Thwackey set up, you should be searching enough cards per turn that you can use Kieran as your Supporter and attach a Vitality Band to be hitting 280 (100 +10 +30 twice), up to a max of 360 with Maximum Belt (100 +50 +30 twice). Not bad numbers for a purely single prize deck.

I think the biggest hurdle for the deck is gonna be that you'll need a new Dipplin ready to bring up each turn because it is a fragile little apple. But with Buddy Poffins and Bug Catcher's Set for the initial setup, and Super Rods plus Lana's Assistance to recover the KOed apples, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to keep the engine rolling once you're set up.
not gonna lie I don't know how i forgot u could have 5 on you're bench... also i see what you're saying Kieran and Vitality could be super good for that deck i also believe that its just hard to get a new Dipplin up cause something like Sableye, Dragapult ex, other spread pokemon could be a super bad match up for the deck