Pick up Pokemon Strategy Guides at 

Ness' Card of the Day

Boy, can tails hurt with this card. Not only does it then do absolutely nothing for you, it ends your turn. Before playing Tickling Machine, it is always necessary to make sure you are ready to end your turn. (not leaving out a weak basic, don't have something important to do this turn etc.) Repeated tails really hurt, and make it difficult to keep your deck significantly above your opponent's! (This is where Gambler and their card drawing should help you.)

The One-Card Trapper

An overlooked, but risky idea, is to play a Tickling Machine on your opponent when he has one basic out that you are confident you can knock out next turn. For example, you have a Jigglypuff. He has a Magmar. You put an energy on Jigglypuff and Tickling Machine his 9 card hand. He might have had a nice plan, but next turn, if he can't draw another basic, or an Oak (which would really hurt since your opponent wouldn't have to discard anything), you can then leave them with no options, knowing what's coming. (Next turn Wiggly, colorless, full bench, PlusPower, boom). This is normally something that can be done first turn. Very risky, I'd say if you have the cards you need to take out the basic next turn you'll have about a 30% of winning the game because of that. They can stop you with another basic Pok�mon, although, if they do get another basic, it's not like you can't recover. An Oak can be hard to recover from though as they have a large hand after they end their turn.

Hold Your Opponent a Turn

Here's an example of "holding your opponent a turn." He has one card in his deck, and you know he has a few Nightly Garbage Runs in his hand to save himself. Tickling puts them away. He CANNOT get those cards during his turn no matter what. He would have been better off Nighltying earlier. You just outsmarted your opponent.

Here's another example, with one card in his deck and your Pok�mon being full of damage you know your opponent can win the game with a Gust of Wind and Energy. He has a one card hand, and a one card deck. You Tickling Machine to get rid of either one of those, since he needed both, you end up winning.

It's not really that good to do in this case of a situation, since it won't end up doing much, but if you're scared of the Wiggly next turn with the Oak and don't have much defense, go for it. it can buy a turn with heads, but that's assuming they don't draw an Oak. (It's normally safe to assume they won't, though.)

Risky Defense Removal

You get a Blastoise out, powered up. A huge risk, but with heads your opponent pretty much loses a turn to fight against Blastoise, especially if he has little energy attached to Pok�mon. It pretty much would just slow him down. I don't think this would really ever be a good idea to do, though, but as Chad said, it could be effective in the right situation.

Will it be Good at the STS?

I would be in definite favor of no. Stalls don't work well in time limits, which is actually the number one reason not to play it. Sad that time limit makes you not want to play a stall, but oh well. But then again, it isn't always for stalls, you can get a first turn win with it, right? I doubt it, people will seldomly leave one basic out since most decks will have 15+ basic.

My Rating (1- Almost completely useless, 5- Useable, 10-Totally broken)
The Imposter Professor Oak combo isn't bad, and the "trapper" quality idea is something that won't happen often, but can once in a while. It's still a coin flip though, and a very risky one. It gets an average rating of 5.0.