I used to play Deluge Blastoise with Healing Scarf with my friends back in middle school, in a super low power format where most of us had very limited cards, it was actually really nice!
I used Healing Scarf with a Cramorant VMax deck. I rarely used it as most games ended before I got Healing Scarf set up but it was great seeing an attack that almost wiped out my Cramorant VMax get healed entirely while attaching every energy used for the coin flip anxiety I would make my opponent sit through.
Energy Link could've been interesting in B&W (particularly Next Destinies+ when EXs were reintroduced) since alongside Max Potion it could've potentially emulated a successful strategy at the time (one that won US Nationals in 2012) used by Klinklang and Hydreigon that let you move your Metal or Dark energy respectively around freely (Venusaur from Base Set had this effect with grass). It probably still wouldn't have been that good due to Tool Scrapper being released in Dragons Exalted, a mere two sets after EXs came back, but being able to fully heal your EXs without use of a stage 2 + specific energy or consistently manipulate your energy on Mewtwo EXs without needing Shaymin could've seen some use perhaps, although Shaymin was probably better regardless since it let you reorganize your whole board. It likely would've been best in Big Basic decks that emerged slightly later with cards like Landorus EX and Cobalion EX (at least until Muscle Band was released in XY). Interestingly enough, apparently the original concept for the Expanded format was to use cards from DP onwards, at least in Japan.
Imagine if Star Piece existed in the Mega Pokemon format. Plenty of damage to the bench around during that era, so you'd be able to play your Megas during the opponent's turn and completely bypass the turn skip mechanic using a generic tool instead of the individual spirit link tools. Heck with something like Seismitoad EX you could get a kill and damage two of your own benched Pokemon to Mega them on the same turn.
Oran absolutely doesn't deserve to be on this list - it's seen a handful of play in the EX block primarily around bulky attackers like Armaldo ex or in decks like Regirock ex where Quagsire Delta can recycle used Oran berries
I wish the Pointer and Defuser added unto the equipped's attack rather than being an attack in it of themselves. I wonder what the thematics of those are event meant to be. Is the Pocket Monster itself using the laser pointer/tank?
good buff to Sitrus Berry would be to make its healing 40, since then it wouldn't be outclassed by Potion. currently, Sitrus Berry is like a weaker Potion
Healing Scarf seems like the sort of thing that sits there useless for years and then some weird combo pops up that lets you keep returning energies to your hand and re-attaching them and suddenly it's a full heal every turn.
It still is way too conditional to be particularly useful, let alone worth your tool/deck slot. Also a lot of the time crucial prizes are Pokemon which can be recovered from the discard with relative ease.
Even then, that assumes that your opponent prized something important. Furthermore, even if your opponent can't play those cards on their next turn, they will still need that many less KOs to win the game, and chances are that if they were able to set up and take a knockout on one of your Pokemon, they probably are doing well enough as is
There actually are 2 important differences between deluge and rain dance that anyone playing a deck from that time period should be aware of: 1) Firstly, rain dance can only be used to attach your water energies to a water type Pokemon, while deluge doesn't have this restriction and can be used on any Pokemon. This arguably makes deluge better, since it can be played in decks other than ones that are purely water type centric, assuming you can accommodate for it. 2) Rain dance has the clause of not working if Blastoise is affected by a special condition (specifically asleep, confused, or paralyzed), therefore keeping it on your bench will let you not have to worry about it being canceled out. This is because your benched Pokemon cannot be affected by special conditions, and will have any they had received removed when they are switched out of the active spot. It's also worth noting that they seem to like reprinting cards with this ability a lot, as there was a Frosmoth that was in the first Sword and Shield set with ice dance, which is the same ability as rain dance (minus the special condition canceling it out), except on a stage 1 Pokemon. More recently, there's now a Baxcalibur, which has the super cold ability that's the same as deluge (meaning that it can be used to power up any Pokemon that can use water energy), and it can even be set up relatively easily by using Irida to search it out alongside a rare candy on the turn your Frigibax can first evolve on
Healing Scarf, if printed today, would see play in roaring moon ex decks IF you could attach more than one tool to a pokemon at once, getting damage off of your RMEX to use gouging again is not a bad thing but you already want to equip the tablet so
Even then it's still useless in Roaring Moon because it only works attached from hand, which Dark Patch and Sada don't count for, and even if they did you still need to survive the next turn with very little HP. It's also outclassed by Emergency Jelly which immediately heals you for 120 HP if you ever drop below 30 HP, which Gouging lowers your HP to perfectly
@@LordBeau If you like the concept give emergency jelly more of a try, the healing is very difficult for your opponent to respond to and it can push you out of revenge KO ranges in ways that ancient booster energy can't
I’d say any water-type mega pokemon’s spirit link card would be the most useless card of all time considering you could just battle compress the mega water pokemon into the graveyard and then AAitH it directly onto your bench without having to worry about devolution spray taking you down a notch
Scroll of the Fanged Dragon did see some very minimal play in Arceus/Duraludon V-MAX decks as a way to break though the normal damage cap of Duraludon's attack. You already fulfilled most of the energy requirements setting up the standard Duraludon, Arceus always plays DTE to fulfill the final energy cost for the tool attack, and Karen's Conviction boosted the damage to one-shot numbers to close the game out with a big V-Max knockout. Aside from that, though, yeah you pretty much never saw it used.
Note on lum berry: There have been decks throughout the history of the Pokémon TCG that abused specifically paralysis condition paired with some kind of item or supporter lock to stop things like switch or guzma/bird keeper and setup an infinite lock. Think of Accelgor + gothitelle or raichu + stoutland. That being said, lum berry is a very bad option in both of these cases. The card is simply not good. As you said the switch is simply better, and in the gothitelle case, a lum berry wouldn't be better than a switch at breaking the lock. If you wanted to prepare for that matchup, you would've been much more likely to win with something like a Vrizion EX tech, a card that was already good, or an espeon, a bad card but that at least consitently broke the lock unlike lum berry.
Fun fact: If Star Piece got reprinted, it would be excellent in Zoroark VSTAR decks, to the point where it would make them kinda broken. With Gapejaw bog and damage pump, the deck would have no problem putting damage counters on a benched Zoroark V, and then star piece just lets it evolve instantly and deliver a powerful attack on turn 1 going 2nd, even granting instant access to Phantom Star.
The saddest thing is that a lot of these are bad bc they are bad and wouldn't see play any time, but Star Piece would actually be quite good if reprinted, finding a home in gardevoir ex decks or other decks that self damage or move counters around like Radiant Alakazam. Poor things not bad, it's just in a bad format for it.
You also have to consider with modern reprints that power creep scaling generally applies, i.e. the damage counter requirement would likely be much higher to be proportional which would decrease its viability. I think Pokemon in general has been pretty weary of evolution breaking mechanics outside of Rare Candy since they've had such extreme results with cards like Forest of Giant Plants and Broken Time Space.
With all this knowledge of the game, dex logs could play like a pro, oorrrr play super gimmicky strategies like he does in master duel Edit: Top 10 best tool cards of all time.
