Hallo! Nobody knows me, but I used to play with many good players such as
Scott at his usual tournament place. I have some good ideas, and I've decided
to start doing some strategies. Some of them might seem a little whack and
some might seem stupid, but I think that some of these ideas are overlooked.
Some are overlooked and still stupid, but at least you can have the knowledge
of an alternative to the normal boring winning deck. Anyway, I'd like to kick
it all off with a review of Blaine's Arcanine (BA) in the Gym Challenge
series. When I first looked at this card, all I could say to myself was
"WOW!" I saw it as a Japanese card. I couldn't read the extra stuff, but 120
damage will kill anything! (not counting cards with pokemon powers or
trainers or stuff like that) When I opened my 3rd pack of Gym Challenge, I
got BA. I had been dying to see what the side effects were for doing what I
found out was Firestorm. 3 Fire damage was pretty disappointing. Especially
when Base Charizard can do 100 with any 4 energy and only have to discard 2
energy. Plus, Base Charizard has 120 HP apposed to BA 90. Plus, Base
Charizard has a resistance, and BA doesn't. Well, it took me about a week
after putting BA in my "Stupid Cards" Box that I looked at the card a 2nd
time. I'm sure glad I did. I never even looked at the first attack! 40 damage
isn't too bad, neither is 90 HP. Alright, all this build up brings me to this
point when I found the real strategy. Here's how play should go with "the
perfect hand":

    1. Evolve Blaine's Growlithe to BA
    2. Attach 1 Fire energy to BA
    3. End turn
    4. (Your turn) Attach DCE to BA
    5. End turn with Heat Tackle
    6. (Your turn) Attach 1 Fire energy to BA
    7. Repeat step 5
    8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until 4 fire energy have been attached to BA
    9. Once 4 Fire energy are attached to BA, use Firestorm
    10. Repeat steps 6-9 until BA has fainted

Well, you can use your best judgment with retreating at appropriate times and
all that, but that's the basic idea. Well, sorry if it was long, but I'll try
to do some more strategies without the long story. E-mail me for any
questions about cards, my strategy or any preferences on future cards to find
strategies for! :-) Peace out!

BinacaFreak
BinacaFreak2001@aol.com