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Draw Support: 101
GymLeaderPhil
February 24, 2003

This article is designed for the novice player in mind. Older veterans to the game will probably not see much use out of it, but sometimes I think everyone needs something to focus on when constructing and playing Pokemon.

Drawing is a very important aspect of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Every turn you must draw one card, but that is not the limit to the ways to pull cards from the deck. There are a variety of cards from Professor Oak to Bill's Teleporter that help you gain an advantage in the game early on or late.

Drawing power will get your deck set-up. When I say "set-up", I mean all your heavy hitters out and enough support to start causing your opponent to either attack or hurry and set-up as well to counter your deck. For instance, you have Machop active with several other supporting Pokemon on the bench. You take your card per turn and find a Gambler. You flip the coin to see if you draw one card or eight. Heads! You draw eight cards from the top of your deck and low and behold you manage to find a Pokemon Breeder and a Machamp, along with energies and healing trainers to support Machop (soon to be Machamp). While on your opponent's side of the table, they have a lonely weak thirty hit point Magikarp active with a Lapras on the bench. You are clearly in the situation where you have the upper-hand since your opponent has only two cards in their hand and no clear way to beat your Machamp.

Simply put being "set-up" is the situation where you are either exceeding or countering your opponent's deck with your cards. Lack of Energies, in-play Pokemon, and trainers will cause your opponent to gain the upper hand. Why? They have more options than you do. The only way to remedy this problem is a good draw engine so that you too can have more possibilities up your sleeve and on the table.

Let me get a bit more technical in my definition: You start off the game with 49 cards in a constructed deck if your opponent did not mulligan and if you placed six prize cards aside. So, lets say you are looking to find a Pokemon Tool to attach to one of your Pokemon: Water Cube 01. You have put in four Water Cube 01 to your deck. So the likely hood that you draw a Water Cube from your deck is about 1 out of 12. If you had three Water Cubes it would be about 1 out of 16. The likely hood that you would draw two Water Cubes out of 49 cards is 1 for every 24 cards. Odds are greatly against you if you only have one Water Cube since you probably will waste 49 turns looking for one. That is only if it is not in one of your prizes...

How do you improve your odds of finding the card you need? Draw Power. The more cards you have in your hand, the more options you have for this turn and later ones. If you manage to draw more cards than your opponent, you have an advantage over him with options.

Drawing the most cards is not the most important thing to do in Pokemon. You must understand when to hold onto a Mary or Professor Elm for a situation when you need it. If you have your bench full, fully powered active, and enough cards in your hand to make a quick profit on eBay, I would consider not playing a draw card. Additionally the number of cards remaining in your deck determines if you or your opponent wins. Playing a Bill with only two cards left in your deck is not a smart move because come next turn, you will no longer be able to draw a card, making your opponent the winner. Don't abuse draw cards UNLESS you are trying to set-up or counter your opponent with something you KNOW you have yet to have drawn/discarded.

Here are recommended drawing cards for Constructed Unlimited and Current Modified:

Unlimited: Professor Oak, Cleffa, Copycat, Professor Elm

Modified: Professor Elm, Cleffa, Copycat, Bill's Teleporter, Bill, Professor Oak's Research

Officer Phil sez: "Trainer Cards/Pokemon that draw cards are a privilege to have, don't abuse them!" 

Thanks for reading, see you next time here at Pojo.com!
-GymLeaderPhil
blingbling@pojo.com

 

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