Note: This is for the Pokemon Trading Card Game Strategies Section to post up please. Greetings fellow Deck Builders, my name is Michael Brown (aka The Impossible Man). I would like to talk to you all about an analysis I have done with Status Effects: Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, and Confusion. Its true powers are remarkable. I am sure the Elite are aware of it. So here is what I came up with. Status Effects has a kind of inner ability not many people realize. In a way, Pokemon like Weedle and Caterpie can be most powerful if the coin flip is in your favor. It is very easy to laugh at someone who pits Weedle against Blastoise or Abra against Hitmonchan. I cringe a lot when facing them now because of what I realized they can do to my active Pokemon. Plus they all share one thing in common which you will see when I break them down to a science. I shall go one by one with each effect. Then I will show you my Cleaner and the benefits of the Status Effects. First Poison: Now we all know that Poison does 10 damage to your Opponents Defending Pokemon during each players turn. But did you know that in order for your opponent to remove Poison he must retreat his Pokemon. To do this he must discard Energy cards to do so. What you basically did there was an Energy Removal onto itself. In a way your Opponent could either let his Pokemon suffer or lose 1 to 3 Energy cards (4 if Snorlax) to remove it. Another bonus would be if your opponent uses Switch to remove Poison. Which is an advantage because now he lost a crucial card he may need later on. In a way your opponent can suffer a lot with this effect. Either his Pokemon goes KO or he sack a needed card. Poison is very flawed, there are a dozen ways to get out of it and your opponent can recover very fast. I still recommend poison because of the fact that if the Defending Pokemon is Poisoned and only needs one hit to be KO. You can actually save Energy (especially with Fire Pokemon) and let Poison finish it off. Second Sleep: This Effect has one true flaw and that is the Coin flip at the end of each players turn. If your opponent loses the coin flip he loses an attack and has to go through the whole process similar to Poison. Only thing is, is that you force your opponent to waste a Trainer to get rid of it. If he can't get rid of Sleep then wakes up after his turn then you have suceeded in stopping an attack. I would not recommend using Sleep inducing Pokemon unless you are a Gambler. Sleep has no gaurantees. Third Paralysis: Now here is an Effect that is garanteed. Your opponent loses an attack if he can't find a way to rid of it. Very similiar results as Sleep only without the coin flip. Unfortunately Pokemon break out of it after the end of your Opponents turn. It does good as a stall attack because you can give yourself proper time to make up for lost ground or any form of recovery. I recommend this attack because it can be frustrating to your opponent. And Finally Confusion: (My favorite) This is the mother of all Effects. It can screw your opponent in ways like no other. First off when Confused and your opponent wants to attack he must flip a coin. Sadly it is win-lose with it. He either gets the attack through or suffers 20 damage. The lose side of the flip is that if the Confused Pokemon has a weakness to itself, (namely Psychics) they could do 40 Damage to themselves. Aerodactyl has an exception because it can resist itself (Resistant to Fighting). Now on to Retreating. It is something that I should not say but will say it anyway. When your opponent retreats when Confused it is Win-Win on your part. How? When your opponent attempts retreat, which is rare when Confused, you basically just did an Energy Removal on your opponent. An Energy Removal? Yes an Energy Removal. But wouldn't the Effect go away if the coin flip is heads. It would of course but I would get the last laugh due to the fact that you sacked 1 to 3 Energy cards just to remove the Effect. No matter the Results of the flip you still Energy Removed your opponents Pokemon. All without the use of the Trainer cards. I definately recommend Confusion inducing Pokemon because of this. OK did you see the Similarity. No. Well here it is: If you are Poisoned, Confused, Paralyzed, or Asleep. Your instinct would be to use your Trainers to get rid of it or Retreat to get rid of it. You would basically give your Opponent the pleasure of not facing certain Trainers. Also you could in fact lose a chuck of cards on your Active Pokemon like Evolutions and Energy Because you used Scoop Up or Something else. Plus, with exception of Poison, three of those effects shut off Pokemon Powers which will result in bad decisions. Here is my deck the Cleaner to help explain all of this. I will post up this deck and explain to you how effects can screw many decks. The Cleaner Grass/Fire 12 Fire Energy 12 Grass Energy 3 Double Colorless 4 Tangela (Main Pokemon) 4 Koffing (Main Pokemon) 3 Tauros (Support) 3 Growlithe (Main Pokemon) 2 Arcanine (The Cleaner) 4 Bill 2 Prof. Oak 4 Energy Removal 2 Energy Retreival 3 Gust of Wind 2 Plus Powers Koffing and Tangela are the heavy hitters in this deck using Poison, Confusion and Paralysis. The strategy is to use them and make your opponent waste Trainers and Energy to recover and KO Koffing & Tangela while Growlithe sits in the Bench and waits to become Arcanine. Tauros's purpose is to provide a little Extra power through its Stomp attack. After Koffing and Tangela do their jobs in exposing Trainers like Super Energy Removal and Gust of Wind, they should also have taken out a couple of Pokemon in the Process. Midway through the game thats when you unleash Arcanine and all the Energy it needs without fear of Removals, Gust of Winds, and other Trainers that could hurt Arcanine and Clean up my Oppponents bench with Arcanine. This is the current Deck format. When Fossil Arrives Sept 28 Tauros will be removed and Ditto, Fossil Magmar, and Mr.Fuji(Trainer) will be added in to add more depth and Speed to the Cleaner. Well this is the Secret Power of the Cleaner. Here is the impact of using Koffing and Confusion since it is the most threatening Pokemon in the Cleaner. Koffing the most underestimated Pokemon in the game has a win-win coin flip. Against Raindance(for Example) you Gust of Wind Blastoise and Koffing is Active. You use Foul Gas on Blastoise and Confuse it. Now Balstoise is useless because his Power is Shut off. Here is the scenario. Your opponents Blastoise, he decides to retreat so he sacks three energy. The flip fails now he has to go three turns building it up to do it again. By then you have done some damage by retreating Koffing and used a Heavy Hitter like Arcanine to KO it. If the flips is in his favor he still lost three energy even though Raindance can recover quick but probably not quick enough (in theory). Now another way with a Confused Blastoise is to foolishly use Scoop Up. This is a crazy way to go because now you lose a lot of cards and wasted time building up Blastoise. OK let us assume these were used for Blastoise: Squirtle(goes back to your hand), Wartortle(goes to discard), Blastoise(goes to discard), 5 Energy Cards used on Blastoise(goes to discard), Comp. Search plus the 2 card Discard to use it to get Blastoise and Scoop Up. All of it now was for nothing So in total you lose 11 cards from one Confused Pokemon because you used Scoop Up. Now you will have a hard time recovering from it. Whew that was a lot to say. This is just one scenario. There are many other Scenarios. Paralysis, Sleep, Poison, and Confusion have Trainer wasting properties(using Switch & Scoop Up). Poison and Confusion have Energy Removal Properties. Evolving gets you out of the Jam instantly, but again you still would be exposed to Status Effecting Pokemon if your Evolved Pokemon can't KO it immediately. The simple solution is Switch, but many trainers have a hard time fitting it in while others can fit it perfectly. A lot can happen when Effects occur. That is the unpredictability to Pokemon TCG. So here is my research of the True Power of Status Effects. Those familiar with my Cleaner deck now know its real and true power as well. My best advice is to never underestimate Pokemon and their Status Effects. You never know when Blastoise, Venusaur, or Charizard (to name a few) will suffer at the hands of Abra or Weedle. Michael Brown The Impossible Man fuego90702@aol.com