Introduction

Boost Shake, an underappreciated brew of potential.
Boost Shake was one of the most anticipated cards from Evolving Skies, due to its unique yet potentially oppressive effect. But instead, this refreshment was ridiculed and denied of its capabilities. What makes this drink so undesirable, and what could we do about this mix? This is my first article on pokemoncard.io as Therarely, and I invite you to my inspection of this failed flask.

The Fastest Flask

Boost Shake allows the player to immediately evolve a Pokemon. This item can bypass the restriction of instantly evolving a freshly placed Pokemon, closely resembling the now rotated Dusk Stone. This card also tutors the evolution straight from the deck, rationing your resources from hand! For these effects to accelerate a Pokemon to its stronger version instantaneously, the cost is to end your turn immediately right after.

Boost Shake is bad. As ridiculous as the strength of this effect is, Trainers have determined that concluding your turn involuntary will lead to major gaps in the pace of games. In the current state of games, every turn should ideally end with an attack on the opposing Pokemon, no matter how weak. To pass up on a chance to weaken the opponent is blasphemy, even if it means prioritising developing your future turns. Boost Shake also loses value towards the later stages of the game, as it would be easier to manually evolve Pokemon by that point. The current (SWSH - EVOS) format does not place extreme importance on the value of evolutions as well, so it is not a priority to accelerate evolutions.
Therefore, it would be easy to conclude that Boost Shake is completely obselete, but I will wholeheartedly disagree. This card has untapped potential, and I personally dislike wasted potential. This drink may taste bad, but here's how to savor the taste to your benefits.

How do I drink this...?

As the cost of immediately ending your turn is a risk way too heavy to take, the ideal timing to use this card is obviously during the first turn of the game. Even using this card on your second turn onwards is a major risk, so slurp it quickly! Because of this, I believe if this card were to make an appearance in any deck, it should be played at 4 copies, or none at all. Being able to activate this item on your first turn will definitely grant a huge tempo boost, and potentially avoid any chances of an opposing donk! Otherwise, in the later stages of the game where this drink has expired, you can simply discard it as fodder for other useful cards like Quick Ball and Cinccino's Make Do.

To bring out the full flavor of this drink, the chosen Pokemon should evolve into an impressive Stage 1 strong enough to stand for itself. Thankfully, Boost Shake also affects Pokemon V and GXs, allowing you to develop these two/three prizers immediately. The evolved Pokemon should either be able to tank potential donks, or employ unfair effects to deny your opponent from developing their following turns.

I believe this refreshment is not so terrible after all, but what other Pokemon out there agrees with the flavor of expedited evolutions?

Cheers to Growing Up

There are honestly too few targets in the Standard Format. However, few does not mean none, and here are my recommendations for the best customers!

Standard

Galarian Weezing has the most oppressive ability in current Standard format as of now. Neutralizing Gas immediately locks all opposing effects regardless of who or what they are. This overwhelming ability is only restricted by the fact it is an evolution Pokemon, meaning it needs to wait a turn to present its obnoxious self. Although Koffing has the move Ascension to accelerate its evolution process, it is likely that the opponent is able to develop their desired board state before hand. So let me introduce my favorite card Boost Shake!

Imagine beginning the first turn of the game with a starting Koffing and Boost Shake in your hand. You can instantaneously develop a Galarian Weezing, and proceed to watch your opponent deal with it. Chances are, they will not be able to do anything, or their plays will be extremely limited! Galarian Weezing can then proceed to slowly chip away Hit Points, while you can spend your other turns using other Boost Shakes to develop your eventual win conditions. This may seem like such a dream-like scenario, but the reality of facing an opposing Galarian Weezing on your first turn of the game is more likely then you would expect. And it will be the definite factor in concluding games early.

Galarian Weezing is a great card to play in Eternatus decks as well, so even if Koffing misses its daily protein, you could promote an Eternatus V into Vmax instead.

Altaria also wields an annoying effect Miraculous Charm, which completely denies all opposing Pokemon Vs and GXs from ever scratching it. Against the common format of multiple Pokemon Vs used as the main attacker, directly accelerating the evolution of Altaria can further encourage the opponent to reconsider his choices. Many decks are unprepared to deal with Pokemon similar to Altaria, and could potentially concede a game out of unpreparedness.

There are many other good Stage 1s, but I believe these two are the top of my lists when it comes to using Boost Shake. Of course, this does not mean they are the only willing receptors, and I invite you to explore further on the list of impressive Stage 1s!

Expanded

The list of unfair evolutions greatly increases when it comes to the Expanded format. This list may not cover all of them, but I will list notable one downs.

Honchkrow-GX, along with Donk are the few decks willing to go first in the Expanded format. In exchange of not using Supporters during their first turns, the starting Murkrow has access to multiple ways to tutor Dusk Stone out of the deck to immediately evolve into Honchkrow-GX. This annoying avian possess the all mighty ability Ruler of the Night, which restricts the opponent from the essence of Expanded - Stadiums, Tools and Special Energy. Boost Shake will provide even more consistency to establishing this feathered fatality, and Honchkrow-GX will stand its claws against everything else in the Expanded Format.

Trevenant possess a similar ability to Honchkrow-GX, except that it only prevents Item cards. Item cards are essential to every single deck in any format, and denying this aspect will severly limit the opponent from developing a proper countermeasure against Trevenant. Once this lock has firmly established dominance against the opponent, you may tap into Trevenant BREAK to whittle down every Pokemon your opponent has displayed, into eventual oblivion. Using Boost Shake will definitely help accelerate such a game plan. 

Everyone in Expanded knows this bad boy. From the moment it was released up until now, Garbodor has been such an oppressive card due to its Garbotoxin ability, which blanks every other ability on the board. This is almost similar to Galarian Weezing, except that you need not stay in the Active Position. Being able to pull off an instant evolution on this Garbodor may be harder, as it also requires a Tool to be effective, but resolving a potential blanket negation will definitely lower your opponent's chances of winning by a mile.

The expanded format is full of impressive stage 1s. This small list merely touches the tip of the iceberg, and many other ridiculous Stage 1s exist beyond this. In fact, Honchkrow-GX's existence was one of the biggest reasons of hype for the Boost Shake. So mix it up, and explore beyond!

My thoughts and Conclusion

Who knew there was so many strong Stage 1s waiting for Boost Shake to come and shake them up? Boost Shake may seem disadvantagous at first, but if you are able to develop an effective evolution, that Pokemon will definitely reward your sacrifice with its newly developed abilities. Do not sleep on this drink, sip on it!

As a side note, you can read this article on another POV about this card here.
- Therarely