We have two things: Pikachu as a highly collectible card for being one of the most famous in the franchise (above Charizard with ease) and for the art, which in addition to being secret, involves some Pokmon that marked this generation in the Sword/Shield block such as Inteleon, Zacian, Hisuian Zoroark, Crobat, Urshifu, Shadow Rider Calyrex, which, curiously, were cards that played well or were essential at some point in these almost 5 years of block
Luckily, tokens are a strong part of Magic 's past, so although populate is parasitic it was at least parasitic with a lot of already-existing cards
If you want to remove a single creature, its not terrible at three mana, and later in the game, it can rout only the most troublesome creatures while leaving the rest of the board alone
Fireglass Mentor's ability cares whether an opponent lost life this turn, not how their life total changed
As mentioned earlier, Amazon often has Pokmon cards listed below MSRP and they run a lot of discounts and sales
The card advantage on it is so mediocre that it ranks cleanly below Sword of Hearth and Home on tier lists