'Eruption Walker' Japan's Mini-Set for April!

dmein89

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Yes you can, you just need to go second.

The point was above post about Kabu being useful going first. Where he is useless just like lillie. Lillie you at least get 6 cards if you don't meet the requirement. Kabu only give you 4. But again, he does let you shuffle which could be useful if you're stuck with a dead hand. But then, why not just play cynthia and get 6 or Professors research and get 7?
 

snoopy369

Aspiring Trainer
Advanced Member
Member
The point was above post about Kabu being useful going first. Where he is useless just like lillie. Lillie you at least get 6 cards if you don't meet the requirement. Kabu only give you 4. But again, he does let you shuffle which could be useful if you're stuck with a dead hand. But then, why not just play cynthia and get 6 or Professors research and get 7?

No, that was the entire point of my post! Lillie is only drawing 6 going first, while Kabu can still draw 8 on turn two. Again, only if you didn't have 2 Pokémon in your setup hand, but that's the point - it is a supporter that reduces the likelihood of a totally bad setup.
 

Yaginku

H-on Will Save Pokemon
Member
I think the one potential argument here is that _first turn_, it's fairly common to only have one Pokémon out. It's one more out to a quicker start than Professor's Research or Cynthia would give you. While it won't be a good play on "good" starts, it would be a card that reduced the odds of total bombs.
After the first turn it's basically completely useless, because it's a self-Judge. So how many games do you expect to have a terrible start BUT with a Kabu in hand, versus every other game where he's dead weight on your hand?
Lillie is miles better, even after the severe nerf she took. You get to draw up to 8 on your first turn, plus she's still a draw up to 6 later. And obviously it doesn't even match with Professor's Research, which lets you look at the next 7 cards, anytime.
 

snoopy369

Aspiring Trainer
Advanced Member
Member
After the first turn it's basically completely useless, because it's a self-Judge. So how many games do you expect to have a terrible start BUT with a Kabu in hand, versus every other game where he's dead weight on your hand?
Lillie is miles better, even after the severe nerf she took. You get to draw up to 8 on your first turn, plus she's still a draw up to 6 later. And obviously it doesn't even match with Professor's Research, which lets you look at the next 7 cards, anytime.

I'm not sure you're wrong, but I feel like this is in the "test" category, not the "obvious no" category. Anything that increases the "floor" will be significantly helpful in matches where you're playing a weaker opponent but get bad luck - early day one matches for good players for example - and it's at least worth checking that this isn't actually useful. That isn't to say I think it is - I'm probably sounding more confident in this than I am, because the earlier posts were so negative; I think it's probably not useful, but it's not *definitely* not useful. It wouldn't be the first card to be discarded as useless in theorymon but determined actually useful when testing happened.
 

Mcsonic00

Less Filler Cards Please
Member
I think Kabu will 95% of the time only work in VMax decks that uses Scoop Up Nets to pick up 1 prize basics with useful abilities when they come into play so that you can manipulate your bench size; as long as you don't need another Pokemon to help you charge up your VMax, that is. I think Kabu may be able to work with Dragapult VMax, Inteleon VMax, Cinderace VMax, and even something like the Crabominable with Fight Alone if you are feeling that. What do you people think about this strategy?
 
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Yaginku

H-on Will Save Pokemon
Member
I'm not sure you're wrong, but I feel like this is in the "test" category, not the "obvious no" category.
There are many cards that are "good on paper", which are pretty obviously terrible, but still worth testing - however, even in this category, Kabu is definitely a very bad card.
Usually these "bad cards with potential" have one thing in common - if you arrange a nearly impossible scenario, they will put you miles in front, possibly winning the game. However, with Kabu, he doesn't even have that - you have absolutely no control over his one good scenario, because it happens before you get to play the game. Instead of things going impossibly well for you, he requires that things go terribly bad for you. And, worst of all, after you hopelessly miss your opportunity, he becomes a dead card that doesn't do much at all for the rest of the game.
In the one scenario he's good, Professor's Research or Cynthia are marginally worse - but in 99% of other scenarios, he's hopelessly bad, while the other cards are pretty great. He doesn't really "save" you more than Prof/Cynthia into Quick Ball into Dedenne would.
 

Oddish22

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Due to saving money in the current situation I have stopped buying Pokémon cards :(.
I like the Max Butterfree and Heatran finally has an interesting artwork - it is one of the most-boring mythical/legendary Pokémon to me.
Also, if Fletchinder is burning the forest, that is interesting.
 

Mcsonic00

Less Filler Cards Please
Member
fight alone crabominable:
*coughs
We're getting Twin Energy too, so we can use 4 Twin + 4 Triple to charge him up in 1 attachment. ;] Thing is, we need an item like Captivating Poke Puff again so that we can force our opponent to bench Pokemon without having to use Mawhile GX who would make Kabu not work.
 

dmein89

Aspiring Trainer
Member
No, that was the entire point of my post! Lillie is only drawing 6 going first, while Kabu can still draw 8 on turn two. Again, only if you didn't have 2 Pokémon in your setup hand, but that's the point - it is a supporter that reduces the likelihood of a totally bad setup.

Lillie draws 8 on your first turn.
 

Wechselbalg

brb
Member
Since you can't search for it, you'd have to play 4 in order to get the full effect on T1 and even then it's not guaranteed that you open with it. I'm not even sure why it's up for debate whether this is good or bad.
 

Otaku

The wise fool?
Member
May as well weigh in:

Kabu is designed for "gimmick" decks where you're only going to have one Pokémon in play that is incredibly hard to KO. I'd rather build my deck to avoid having just one opening Basic or to avoid having just one Basic prior to using a Supporter on Turn 2 (Player 2's 1st Turn), than jump through hoops to get a shuffle and draw for eight off a card that is usually going to be a shuffle and draw for four... with the "good" draw only happening when I'm in bad shape an the bad draw happening all the times I'm not.

Yes, by the time Kabu releases and becomes tournament legal, we'll be close to or already past rotation. We'll still have Professor's Research and Marnie, plus a couple different options for recycling Supporters, and at least one good form of (limited) Supporter Search. We won't be so desperate that Kabu will be a good play. Yes, Lillie wasn't that great at first, then became great... and then took a hit due to the Sword & Shield T1 rule change. There's also a big difference between "Run a deck that can efficiently eat through its own hand to lower its card count, optimizing both "Draw until you have 6 cards" and "Draw until you have 8 cards" outcomes versus leaving yourself vulnerable to Bench Out to shuffle and draw for six. Lillie rewards what is generally a good deck flow, Kabu a weak field.

If we get to the point that decks regularly have room for a copy of Kabu and a trick to reliably get it into their hands on their first turn... okay. Otherwise... no.
 

Scoop

Literally a sheep
Member
Nice, shiny Rillaboom! Best starter this gen, easy. As much as I absolutely hate Cinderace and dislike Inteleon, I WISH they'd give the other two shiny cards to complete the trio in future sets, even though they're promoting more competitively-focused single prize Pokemon for these, or prerelease promos or whatever it may be. As a collector it sucks when they do one part of the group and leave the rest out (even though they have, multiple times and it's likely not going to change.)

Edited the post to get my point across better, because it made it seem like I was expecting something out of Pokemon rather than just pointing out something that would be cool.
 
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