I think reprinting catcher is a great decision. It's a card that is overpriced and it's an entry barrier for players who want to enter the game. This should alleviate that problem.
No energy switch :/
No, even if there was not a single bench sitter in the game, and everything was a 180 HP basic, Catcher is still an auto 4-of in EVERY deck. It's that good of a card.Not necessarily - we don't need to print more overpowered bench sitters. If they stop printing them then people won't run Catcher as much and it'll become a middle of the line TSS like Ultra Ball.
However, if they keep printing Blastoises and Klingklangs then we do need cards like Catcher.
Well this will make it easier to make decks that people suggest.
Though that earlier thing about energy acceleration for Stage 1/2 might be a bad idea with that new fossil that lets you play those as basics...
If evolutions are played as basic Pokémon, then they are basic Pokémon. Or at least they used to be, back when cards that directly placed evolutions on your bench used to specify that. At the moment, I'm not sure if e.g. Shedinja can use prism and eviolite if benched by cast-off shell. Older versions of cast-off shell specify that Shedinja would be played as a basic Pokémon, but in the latest version it isn't. If the principles haven't changed in that regard, they would be basics.
But regardless of that, Life-Plosion takes so much setup I think it would be really difficult to break that concept even if you tried. The point of that deck is to get a toolbox without the evolution lines cluttering it up. And getting access to eviolite, skyarrow bridge and prism is a huge advantage as well.
We've had plenty of "overpowered" bench sitters before. Claydol GE, Pidgeot FRLG, Dusknoir DP and Nidoqueen RR to name a few. We didn't have Catcher back then and we did fine. In fact, many folks hold the opinion that the formats with these other "overpowered" bench sitters were some of the most fun and skill based.