Sableye is one of the Pokémon with the greatest legacies with regard to Pokémon TCG gameplay. The Sableye card from fourth-generation set Intense Fight in the Destroyed Sky was so broken that many Pokémon TCG players threatened to boycott the 2011 Pokémon TCG World Championships unless Sableye would be rotated out of the format before the tournament (it was).

At the end of 2011, fifth-generation set Dark Rush [BW4] brought with it a new Sableye card. This card made use of Sableye’s Junk Hunt attack to potentially create an infinite resource loop, making setups outrageously simple. To the surprise of almost no one, the Dark Rush [BW4] Sableye card was eventually banned from tournament play for being overpowered to a point at which it harmed the metagame.

With Gen 8 set Lost Abyss [S11], the Dark/Ghost-type is back again—and it’s once again a powerhouse when inserted into any deck that makes use of the Lost Zone. For just one Psychic Energy card, Sableye gets access to its Lost Mine attack as long as the player has 10 or more cards in the Lost Zone. Since Lost Zone-based decks are specifically designed to keep the Lost Zone full, this shouldn’t be a problem at all—especially from the mid-game into the late-game.

Lost Mine allows the player to place 12 damage counters across the opponent’s Pokémon as desired. This opens up countless possibilities. Lost Mine can be used to pick up cheap KO’s on the opponent’s Benched Pokémon. It can also be used to spread damage across Pokémon, setting up a potentially game-changing KO on the player’s next turn.

Even the threat posed after the use of Lost Mine might bait the opponent into making plays that further strengthen the player’s own position. Thanks to this, Sableye has remained a staple of decks utilizing the Lost Zone ever since its introduction.

In English, this card is card 070/196 in the Lost Origin set.

A Sableye (Lost Abyss [S11] 044/100) card isn’t excessively rare and thus not all that expensive—one goes for 470 JPY (~US$3).

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