Dear PoJo:

Please post this in the Strategies section. This is
partly a response to D. Buchanan's article (8/27).

I was going to wait a little while longer to write
this, but the recent article by Mr. Buchanan provoked
me to type this up...

First of all, the issue which he has so kindly brought
to light: the recent concept of no-energy stall decks.
Well, let's be honest with ourselves for a moment:
Stall decks may be legal, and they may work, but they
are CHEAP, just like the Mulligan Mewtwo was in its
heyday. It's interesting that whenever there's a deck
or deck genre that's almost impossible to beat,
thereby sucking the fun out of the game for everybody
except people who play it, the inventors/users of the
deck feel compelled to write in and talk trash,
telling everybody how wonderful their deck is and how
nothing will work against it. A while back we had
somebody named Kyle who wrote in to defend the
Mullie-Mewtwo (6/15, "People Trying to Subdue the
MulliMew"). His strategy was basically to insult
anybody who disagreed with him, a tactic which Mr.
Buchanan has expertly adapted to his own purposes.

The bottom line is, what good comes from playing these
decks? Well, at game's end (assuming the stall deck
won) you have a disappointed player who has gotten NO
satisfaction out of the game...not even the enjoyment
that comes from having an exciting, close battle. On
the other hand, you have a person who has gotten a
cheap victory out of an even cheaper deck. I suppose
it turned out all right for that person, since winning
is obviously the be-all and end-all of the game for
him...

Now that I've vented my distress at Mr. Buchanan, on
to a couple of other debates I thought I'd offer my
$.02 on...

Firstly, the debate over Hitmonchan. He may not be a
bad Pokemon, but some people are acting like he's
God's gift to Pokemon players, and that's just not
true. At a recent tournament (informal) I was playing
a kid who had a Hitmonchan. At the beginning of the
game, Hitmonchan squared off against my Vulpix.
Suffice it to say I nearly managed to knock out Hitmo
with Confuse Ray before the poor guy could draw a
Switch to retreat his badly confused Pokemon. 

I'm not trying to put him down, I'm just saying he
shouldn't be on the pedestal that some people want to
put him on. I admit to a biased viewpoint, but I still
think some people are going a bit too crazy over him
(same with Electabuzz, Farfetch'd, etc.) I don't
personally like Haymakers either, but at least they
aren't cheap outlets for people who can't win the
normal way...

Lastly, holos. Some people say holos suck, others say
they rule. I'd like to remind both camps of a basic
truth: A CARD IS A CARD. A card's attacks, HP, etc.
will be the same no matter how bright and shiny it is.
Right now, I have only two holos in my deck (both
Ninetales) but I would have them whether or not that
card was a holo. Holos do *not* make the game. Case in
point: At the informal tourney previously mentioned, I
fought a last-round battle against a guy that I had
heard about all evening. His deck was crammed with
holos: 3 Zapdos, 3 Poliwrath, and 2 Blastoise. Playing
a mostly-fire deck, I was a bit nervous, to say the
least. Well, his deck didn't live up to the hype. He
couldn't seem to get any evolved forms or Zapdos out.
After my Arcanine toasted his Poliwags and Squirtles,
it was over.

Hope this article is interesting to some people--I
know it's done wonders for my blood pressure :)

Fan mail, hate mail, and mail-order vulpixes may be
sent to:

PernSpike
pernspike@yahoo.com