The Final Trainers of Darkness Ablaze

With Darkness Ablaze now out and available to buy, it seems that it is fitting to finish of my review of the set with just the supporters, stadiums and special energies that remain. After this I will start doing some deck profiles so please look forward to that, without further ado let’s start.

Now on to the Supporters of the set

Bird Keeper

Switch your Active Pokemon with 1 of your Benched Pokemon. If you do, draw 3 cards.

Though this card may seem quite weak at first glance you need to remember that welder has a similar effect drawing cards, though other effect may be different switching is often a highly sought-after effect on a card thus this card is already seeing play. Even if you aren’t attaching energy the draw 3 cards engine can still sustain enough decks If the added effect is useful enough which with this card, I believe it is in a few situations.

Kabu

Shuffle your hand into your deck and draw 4 cards. If you only have 1 Pokemon in play, draw 8 cards instead.

No unfortunately Kabu is poor card and is unlikely to see any play as only having 1 Pokemon in play is risky strategy for any deck as introduces the possibility of being donked and giving your opponent an easy win against you. I won’t deny though the effect of getting an 8-card hand is very good but the method to achieve this lets it down. The effect with multiple Pokemon is bad and you might as well play a Marnie for an extra card and forcing your opponent to 4 card hand.

Piers

Search your deck for an Energy card and a [D] Pokemon, reveal them, and put them into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.

The key thing about Piers is in the wording that the energy card search for doesn’t have to be basic this allows you to get special energy as well as a dark Pokemon which means that you can get Crobat V which most decks will already be playing this will be very useful for a lot of decks especially those with limited energy or multiple different types of energy including special energy.

Pokemon Breeder’s Nurturing

Choose up to 2 of your Pokemon in play. For each of those Pokemon, search your deck for a card that evolves from that Pokemon and put it onto that Pokemon to evolve it. Then, shuffle your deck. You can’t use this card during your first turn or on a Pokemon that was put into play this turn.

I can’t say that this will be the best card to play but I can see it having uses in decks which require multiple stage 1’s or stage 2’s. Though it does use your supporter for the turn and can’t be used on cards played that turn and these major flaws may keep the card from seeing any play.

Rose

Attach up to 2 basic Energy cards from your discard pile to 1 of your Pokemon VMAX. If you attached any Energy cards in this way, discard your hand.

This may be the best supporter in the set, this helps VMAX’s so much however the drawback is quite bad if we don’t have precautions in place after you use Rose. But we do have Silvally GX draw in standard which we can use to get 5 card hand which will enable us to draw out of difficult situations. The 2-energy acceleration will help some of the unused VMAX’s to see play as there expensive energy costs can be met.  

Now the Stadiums we are gaining

Glimwood Tangle

Once during each player’s turn, after that player flips any coins for an attack, they may ignore all results of those coin flips and begin flipping those coins again.

This is a welcome stadium for any deck or card which requires a coin flip to succeed for the possibility for a KO to be achieved. This is already seeing play in the rogue deck Blissey flips though as flipping cards are rarely printed this card will only see play rarely as well.

Rose Tower

Once during each player’s turn, that player may draw cards until they have 3 cards in their hand.

This card was made to be used with the supporter Rose as a way of drawing cards after using Rose but can also be used counter certain types of stall. Do keep in mind that it can be used players so by playing it you may be inadvertently aiding your opponent in winning.

Spikemuth

Whenever a player’s Active Pokemon moves to the Bench during their turn, put 2 damage counters on that Pokemon.

Spikemuth is an odd stadium and may see play but only in decks which force your opponent to switch or decks such as Spiritomb where you want to put damage counters on yourself. If put it in other decks it may backfire and damage you when you don’t want to, plus Scoop Up Nets get around this effect both of which need to be consider when using this in a deck.  

And finally, the three special Energies

Heat Fire Energy

The [R] Pokemon this card is attached to gets +20 HP.

Unfortunately with the fact that welder can’t use this type of energy it will see little to no play in the majority fire decks however it may see play in some if the fire energy count is high enough already for consistent welder turns as it does increase the survivability of the Pokémon this energy is attached to.

Hiding Dark Energy

The  [D] Pokemon this card is attached to has no Retreat Cost.

Free retreat is good on any Pokémon and this energy can make any dark Pokémon have free retreat this can help out Pokemon such as Spiritomb so it can utilize the new Spikemuth stadium and the new Hoopa as it requires a switch out to actually attack.

Powerful Colourless Energy

The attacks of the [C] Pokemon this card is attached to do 20 more damage to your opponent’s Active Pokemon (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Powerful Colourless Energy can be used help increase the damage output on colourless Pokémon however don’t have too many good colourless Pokémon which can utilise this energy effectively. This is as we often put colourless Pokémon in other decks rather than building decks around them which is what you would have to do for this type of energy and then you would only have 4 Powerful Colourless Energy to use.