On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Craig  S. Wright wrote:

> Brian got a weird question that might turn out to be a loophole in
> pokemon. I was playing my son bryan and before we played he garunteed me
> that he would win. I have a classic haymaker with eggsecute and
> eggsecutor for those big punches when you need them. Anyway we started
> to play and he was right he beat me quick and this is how. All he had in
> his deck were energies and when he drew his cards of course he had no
> basic pokemon so i got to draw two cards and so on untill i had no cards
> left, the rules state if you run out of cards you lose.(this is why i
> always have an imposter proff oak so when the game gets down i pull him
> out and make my opponent draw the last of his cards for the win) Could
> this possibly be a loophole in the game because all the rules state is
> that you SHOULD have some basic pokemon in your deck not that you have
> to. With these tourneys getting huge and prize amounts are getting
> bigger yes this is very cheap way to win but is this legal strategy?
> Thanks again for all the great info you have given me and my son, we
> have a tourney to play on Oct. 2 and i am going to send him with a
> classic haymaker plus the eggs brothers i will e-mail you after the
> tourney and let you know how we did C-YA        CDUB25  :-)(-:
> 


Hi!

Having a deck with 60 energy cards IS legal.
However, the "draw 2 bonus cards" when your opponent
mulligans is _optional_.  The rules state that you
_MAY_ draw 2 bonus cards when your opponent mulligans
(but you are not required to). In this instance,
a tournament judge would have to give the win to
Bryan's opponent when they decided to stop drawing bonus
cards and the game could never start because Bryan
doesn't have a Basic Pokemon to play.

However, there is a real-world pokemon deck similar to
this called "Cheap Mewtwo".  It consists of 59 Psychic Energy
and 1 Mewtwo.  Your goal: use Barrier EVERY TURN so your
opponent CAN'T touch you, and you will eventually deck
him to win.  This deck is perfectly legal and very annoying
to play against.  However, as long as you have a Super-Energy
Removal in your deck, you should be able to beat it.

Lastly, (and this is REQUIRED by the rules):
Make sure your opponent SHOWS HIS MULLIGAN hand to you
before they re-shuffle.  If they are holding 6 Psychic energy,
just decline to draw your 2 bonus cards.  You don't need
to speed them on their way to victory! 

Brian Brokaw