Regionals are underway in several parts of the United States. Intense battles for Champion Points are being fought and many decks are being put to the test to reach the top. The decks that may ultimately win will be the ones that have the most interesting techs to counter the big decks that have a firm grasp on the metagame. This week we are going to feature a card that received a lot of talk when the XY TCG set was release and could see some big play in the next year. Make sure to grab a soda as we take a look at EvoSoda.
EvoSoda is an item card that allows the player to search their deck for a Pokemon that evolves from the Pokemon that it is being used on. It can’t be used on the first turn or used twice on a Pokemon that has evolved during the same turn. EvoSoda provides a quick and easy way to get Pokemon to evolve if you do not have the evolution in your hand.
This card got a lot of talk when it was first revealed. Players were discussing about how it would replace Rare Candy in any deck as it provides a search and evolution function. That sounds pretty powerful as Rare Candy requires that you have the evolution in your hand. It was then that players began to read the card and realize what it really does. It only evolves the Pokemon into the next stage and doesn’t allow you bypass the Stage 1 and go into Stage 2 like Rare Candy does. That is one of the limitations of the EvoSoda.
The other limitation of the card is that you need the Basic stage of the Pokemon on the field. If you don’t then you can’t use EvoSoda during your next turn. That means you still need to set down the Pokemon so it either has to be in your hand or search it out using Ball support. Even then, if you want to evolve the Pokemon to a Stage 2 then you still need to wait another turn to use EvoSoda again or search out the Stage 2. At this point, why use EvoSoda when you can just use Ultra Ball and Rare Candy to go right into the Stage 2. Running three Rare Candy will be more beneficial then finding a balance between Rare Candy and EvoSoda because you are most likely running Ultra Ball in your deck.
Why run EvoSoda then? The reason why will depend on which type of Pokemon you are planning to evolve into. If you are running a deck that relies on Stage 1 Pokemon then you may want to consider running a few EvoSoda. Decks like Accelgor–Trevenant may appreciate another way to quickly bring out their star players. A EvoSoda-Ball combo may help bring out these two cards out faster. Decks running Aromatisse may also want to consider it as this may be the only evolution Fairy Decks play.
Other decks that may want to consider running EvoSoda will be ones that use Mega Evolution Pokemon. Mega Evolution is a form of evolution which falls under wording of EvoSoda. It will still end your turn once the Mega Pokemon hits the field but EvoSoda can be used to easy search your deck and evolve your Pokemon to Mega.
The main problem that is keeping EvoSoda from being widely played is that there are other much more valuable cards to take up deck space. You have cards such as Level Ball, Heavy Ball and Ultra Ball which serves multiple purposes that EvoSoda can’t. These three Balls make up the Ball Search engine that the game has rely upon since the format change to Next Destinies-on. As long as it meets the requirements of the card, these Balls can help put Pokemon on the bench. Later, the Ball search cards can then be used next turn to evolve the Pokemon you set on the bench.
EvoSoda may see a raise in popularity once Level Ball and Heavy Ball are rotated out of the format. People may experiment to see if it is worth using as a replacement for the Balls that were rotated out. EvoSoda is a free to use card similar to Level and Heavy Ball. Sometime it may be too costly to discard two cards to use Ultra Ball which is what keeps Level Ball and Heavy Ball in use.
Will people accept this soda once the free part of the Ball engine disappear? The future is rather fuzzy for EvoSoda as there are other cards such as Pokemon Fan Club will be coming out soon. EvoSoda can make evolving your Pokemon easier so it is worth looking into once things change in the format. So make sure to raise those sodas as you give your Pokemon a boost in power.
Good luck to those take part in Regionals this weekend!
