V-Man riled me up some when he dissed on my main man Mankey!  Mankey, along
with Kabuto, the Char family, Ponyta/Rapidash, Base Set Pikachu, Voltorb,
Movie Promo Electabuzz, Drowzee, and last and definitely least, Magikrap,
are all very special Pokémon in one exceptional way:  they are all
non-Colorless Pokémon with at least one 100% colorless attack.  Some of them
might not be the prettiest girls at the dance, but they can still c00k under
the right circumstances.

If you're building a mono-color deck, you probably worry about running up
against a deck that has significant resistance to your deck's color.  If you
have room in your deck for some of the above "splash" pokémon, put 'em in.
Even Magikrap has his uses.  Suppose you're going up against that madman
Spyke, and his favorite deck (four Vulpix, four Ninetails, four Bill, four
Oak, four SER, four ER, four GOW, four Switch, four CompSearch,four
SuperPotion, and fourteen Fire Energy, ha ha ho ha).  You win the coin toss,
thanks to your two-headed Geodude coin.  The Bulbasaurs in your all-Grass
deck start to sweat sap at the sight of a Vulpix facing off with them.  You
draw Magikarp and put him in the active position, then put a Grass Energy on
Magikarp and use Tackle.  Vulpix is down to 30 HP,  Spyke puts a Fire Energy
on Vulpix, Bills three times, Oaks once, still manages not to draw any
Energy Removal cards, Oaks again, same result, then growls "Your turn."
You build up your bench a little, then you tackle again for 20, and Vulpix
is down to 10 HP.  Spyke shakes his fist at the heavens and cries: "Why oh
why did I Oak away those two Ninetails? "  Then he draws, gets another
Vulpix, lays a Fire Energy down on his active Vulpix, and does Confuse Ray
for 10.  He flips heads (remember, we're using the Geodude two-headed coin
here), so the Karp is Konfused.  You draw, get a Venusaur, and then you flip
to see if Magikarp can attack.  Thank heavens for that two-headed Geodude
coin!  After you Tackle away that Vulpix, Spyke brings out another one,
stomps a new mudhole in your backside, and you vow to never again anger
Spyke and his firy foxes of doom.  But as you recover in your gelpacks in
the burn ward of your local Pokémon Center, you comfort yourself with your
memories of using a Magikarp to get a prize from Spyke.

And you could never have done it without using "splash" pokémon in your
mono-colored deck!  Thanks to splash pokémon, you are the greatest hero this
world has ever known!  And that's no exaggeration!

-Alison
mailto:fries@hog.net