Hi there. It's the first time I'm writing
a Pokemon TCG tip. We all know how Lass and Cleffa form a powerful
combo, and can win you the game if you get the flip and play them first
turn. However, I was a little skeptical about the actual probability of
getting a Lass and a Cleffa first turn to actually do the combo. Of
course, for the combo to work, you also need an energy card to attach to
Cleffa. So I tried to work out the probability of getting a Lass, Cleffa
and energy card at the start of the game. Here are the results. The
numbers of the three tables below indicate the following: if the number for a
deck with 8 energies, 2 Lass and 2 Cleffa is 36 (refer to table below), then one
initial hand out of 36 will contain at least one cleffa, one lass and one energy
card.
With 8 Energies in the deck:
# L a s
s
#
1 2 3 4
C .----------------
l 1| 157 76 49
35
e 2| 76 36 23
17
f 3| 49 23 15
11
f 4| 35 17
11 8
a
With 14 energies in the deck:
# L a s
s
#
1 2 3 4
C .----------------
l 1| 110 53 34
25
e 2| 53 26 16
12
f 3| 34 16
11 8
f 4| 25 12
8 6
a
With 20 energies in the deck:
# L a s
s
#
1 2 3 4
C .----------------
l 1| 95 45 29
21
e 2| 45 22 14
10
f 3| 29 14
9 6
f 4| 21 10
6 5
a
Let's consider a deck with 3 Lass, 3 Cleffas and 14
energies. Then out of every 11 initial hands, 1 of them contains a Lass, a
Cleffa and an energy... not bad at all, considering that we didn't account for
cards such as Computer Search, Professor Oak, etc. that will enhance the odds
even further. From the above tables we note that the amount of energy
cards in the deck is of very great importance for the success of the first turn
Lass/Eeeeeeek combo... much more important than I imagined. Also, I
reaffirmed what we all know: that many single cards in a deck are bad.
Looking at the tables above, if the deck has a single Cleffa and/or a single
Lass, the odds are very unfavourable, even if you have 20 energies in the
deck.
Hope this study was of some help to all of
you.
Alexander Farrugia