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Team Rocket’s Trickery
Hand disruption is very definitely a bad guy thing
in Pokémon TCG. Think of Cyrus’s Initiative, Team
Galactic’s Mars, Team Galactic’s Wager . . .
Today’s card is the latest offering in that style
from the Team Rocket that appears in the Heart Gold Soul
Silver games. Is it just me, or are Petrel and Archer a
tiny bit pathetic and small time compared to the likes
of Giovanni and Cyrus?
Anyway, on to the card.
Team Rocket’s Trickery allows you to draw two cards
from your deck, then your opponent discards a card from
their hand. Now, any player who has advanced beyond the
theme deck stage knows that drawing two is just not good
enough for a Supporter (which is why no-one uses Mom’s
Kindness). Heck, even drawing THREE doesn’t get
Professor Oak’s Visit any play. So the question is, does
the discard make TRT (as I’m going to call it) worth
playing?
In short – no. See the trouble is that your opponent
gets to choose what card they dump, so it will
almost always be something they don’t need (or at the
very least it will be the card they can most do
without). Even worse, if you are playing against
something like Steelix or Gyarados that likes to
discard, then you could even end up helping your
opponent! The old Team Galactic’s Mars at least made the
discard random and even that didn’t get it much table
time (and this was back when Absol SW discard openings
ruled), so I have no idea why anyone would use this.
You could argue that it has a place in a hand
disruption deck, but to be honest, wouldn’t you just use
Cyrus’s Initiative or Judge as a Supporter, or even
Weavile UD? If you have already used those cards to
blitz your opponent’s hand to oblivion, then TRT is
going to make little or no difference to them and costs
you a Supporter use that could have been better spent.
TRT doesn’t really cut it as a draw Supporter or as
a hand disruption tool. We have so many better ways of
doing both.
Rating
Modified: 1.75 (choose your Supporters more wisely)
Unlimited: 4.25 (the discard will never hurt
them, but the draw is golden for you)
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