Fennel's Full Force

When special sets release, they seem to usually be printed with one major intent - be a collectible set that people enjoy opening. There are a ton of examples of sets with alternate art cards and limited new cards, focusing on reprints. Ascended Heroes comes to mind, alongside the shiny sets such as Paldean Fates, Shining Fates, and Hidden Fates. This isn't to say no new cards are added - 151 brought us Mew ex, and Prismatic Evolutions brought us the entire archetype of Flareon/Eevee box. On the other hand, Shrouded Fable flipped the entire idea on it's head - it became a highly disliked set by collectors, and praised by those who played the game (I'm not acknowledging Cursed Blast for the sake of this introduction to the topic).

Black Bolt and White Flare towed a really strong middle ground - there were plenty of playable cards introduced (or re-introduced) to the metagame, and collectors really enjoyed the art of the insane amount of illustration rares. Energy cards like Prism Energy and Ignition Energy are absolutely vital to many decks, and some reprints like Tool Scrapper and Dynamotor Eelektrik might make a huge impact on the meta. However, when it comes to Supporter cards, these dual sets seem to be lacking any real substance outside of Hilda - who usually sees enough play to make up for the low Supporter count. That said, one of the forgotten Black Bolt Supporters deserves a second glance.

Upon the reveal of Fennel, I thought this was not just bulk, but an absolute waste of a Supporter slot. There were a ton of Unovans who haven't seen a card to themselves, let alone a full art - sorry, Drayden. At least your grandson got 2 special illustration rares, and the girl who replaced you as Gym Leader also got a special illustration rare.

Unfortunately for fans of Fennel, you're living in a Dream World if you think this is a meta relevant card. There are (somehow) 6 lists who have brought this card to the second phase of a Regional/Special Event, and only one since the rotation of G block. Fennel has only really been used for a similar reason to the item of Picnic Basket for SVI - to slow down decks like Munkidori/Froslass. Fennel doesn't have the drawback of healing your opponent, but sometimes that was a bad thing - Picnic Basket healed you at the same time it slowed down your opponents usage of Adrena-Brain. A card that used to be a joke and waste of an ACE SPEC slot, Poké Vital A, has seen a tremendous amount of use compared to Fennel, and that's in part to the Supporter only healing 40 HP. This sort of damage would be nothing for a deck that had a single Munkidori and a single Froslass on bench - they'll just take you out again.

With decks like Marnie's Grimmsnarl far outside meta relevance, and cards like Jumbo Ice Cream that do Fennel's job better, what card getting printed will it take to see any use for this card, even in decks that rely on stall and healing?

Apparently, we might need two cards to make it worth playing. Delta Reign appears to be introducing new 'double stadium' cards, where similarly to the LEGEND cards of the HeartGold SoulSilver era, you must play both halves at once. In comparison to other stadium cards, these effects seem overwhelmingly powerful. All healing cards getting a 2x boost makes Jumbo Ice Cream, Jacinthe, and Poké Vital A absurdly strong - and it might be incredible for Fennel. There are a ton of decks around like Slowking (Trifrost) and Dragapult (Phantom Dive) that allow for large chunks of damage to be placed on your Benched Pokémon ex, making them easy pickings for a combo knockout later in the game. Fennel will be healing a whopping 80 damage from every single one of your Pokémon - that's a Jumbo Ice Cream so 'jumbo' that the whole bench can share.

I'm not sure that this even gives Fennel the edge over other healing options, mainly due to how ridiculous this 'double stadium' mechanic seems to be. Regardless, a spread heal of 80 to your own board against decks that do a lot of disruption or spread damage might end up seeing some niche use after all.

Shorter post today, but I thought with the new stadium reveal and the super long list from last post, a smaller upload was in order. And even if Fennel doesn't see play after all, it could be worse. It could be Clemont's Quick Wit.