Here’s my insanely hot take: Pokemon is too scared to ban cards so they print hard counters instead which make the game worse. They printed Budew because decks were going too fast instead of banning problematic cards. If you don’t believe me, here’s a few examples from recent history - Path for mew VMAX - Drapion for mew VMAX - Spiritomb for mew VMAX - klefki for lost box..?? - Jirachi for sableye specifically - Iron Hands for the little dork decks - Budew (presumably for drago/item heavy decks) - Pecharunt promo for ??? Cleffa or something why did they feel the need to print this - the new psyduck for dusknoir ???? And some throwbacks: - Oricorio AND Karen for night march (those were just mean) - Trashalanche for any deck that played items (all of them) - Sudowoodo for mega ray - Hex for, Idk they made abilities too good?? - Stardust Jirachi for DCE - I swear they printed this one magearna just to counter rainbow road and it wasn’t even that good - That Tapu Fini that one shots ultra beasts for a colorless The most infuriating part is I feel like they’re completely aware of this. I think that because Radiant Greninja, Manaphy, AND CANCELING COLOGNE were all printed in the SAME SET. So, the broken card, the counter, and the counter to the counter. Making badly designed cards is both subjective and unavoidable when making a card game, but Pokemon should actually ban cards instead of releasing these 1 card counters that every deck needs to play. Because yeah, some of them end up being really good