Well, PoJo fans and fanatics, it's time once again for
that pit of filth and depravity known as Spike's Shed
to be updated. Because of all
the...erm..."interesting" mail that I recieve, I've
started a new semi-regular feature called "I Get
Letters." Besides having a good laugh at the inferior
language skills of some of my detractors, I also use
this as a forum for any announcements I have to make.

First of all, this week's sole letter! I was afraid
for a while that I was going to have to do this
without any letters and call it something else (I have
gotten a few good pieces of mail, but they're mostly
gushing fan letters, and I don't want to seem like a
self-absorbed jerk. Though it's probably too late) but
at the last moment, the idiot corps came through with
a person who was willing to demonstrate his complete
dearth of knowledge regarding strategy. Vulpix, would
you roll the clip?

***

Spike:

I have seen the guidelines for your Garage and I
don't like them. Basicly what you're saying is, "Oh,
you have a bad trainer in your deck and you don't have
any professor oaks, I am not posting your deck."
Well, It is your opinion whether they suck or rock. I
myself think that Professor Oak is worth less than
dirt. No, better yet, dirt mixed with garbage mixed
with my school's lunch meat. Sure, you get 7 cards,
but YOU DISCARD YOUR ENTIRE HAND! So, you're getting
a new hand. What's the big whoop?? If you need the
right cards, use Computer search, which has less
discarding. Also, Professor Crap, er, Oak, makes you
run out of cards and lose! Sure, now I REALLY wanna
put it in my deck!!!(sarcasm) So, don't discard a
deck because it uses trainers you do not like. You
should be helping, not trashing.
Oh, and if your little Vulpix comments how 'bad'
my opinions are, keep in mind that Vulpix is one of my
favorite Pokémon.

***

Woohoo! People who trash Oak are always among the most
fun to respond to. This guy makes two major points,
which I will translate as follows:

1) "Oak is bad because you have to discard your hand!"

Well, dude, if you had what you needed in your hand,
then you wouldn't be Oaking, would you? Would you
rather sit around for several turns trying to find
uses for a couple of Potions and energies, or would
you rather just get seven new cards and get the hell
on with the game?

2) "Oak is bad because it makes you deck yourself!"

Woo! That's bad, all right! Decking is bad! Tell you
what, while we're on the subject, let's drop Bill and
Kangaskhan, okay? Those are big no-nos. In fact, even
Computer Search is deadly, because you are effectively
taking a card out of your deck--which brings you one
step closer to decking!!! Hopefully, in a future set,
they will release a Gym card that allows you to skip
your draw phase. Then you can be immune to losing in
this manner!

Okay...I think I've gone through this thoroughly
enough. A couple more points. First of all, Computer
Search is no good by itself. Half the time, I am using
it to grab (drum roll) an Oak. It is just almost
impossible to go off successfully in this game drawing
one card at a time like that. Another thing is his
comment about me trashing decks, which I will get to
later on.

And by the way, Vulpix is pleased that you like him.
But Vulpix is sad. Why is Vulpix sad? He is sad
because, without Oaks, he is never going to get the
energy he needs to evolve and kick some butt. He is
never going to get some of his strong friends like
Magmar and Kangaskhan to back him up. Instead, he is
going to be knocked out by a Scyther on his second
turn. This makes Vulpix very sad.

*sniff*

Now then...

For my next rant of the day, I'm going to attempt to
clarify some of my deck garage rules. Perhaps I should
start by explaining the procedure that I go through
when I get a deck. Here, in order, are the questions I
ask myself when I see a new deck for the first time.

1) "Is it bashable?" In other words, is it so
unspeakably hideous, so without redeeming value, as to
have no possible worth except as entertainment for
others? These go in a separate folder.

2) "Is it trashable?" Is it too good to be bashed, but
still not worth spending any of my precious time on
this earth trying to help a guy who isn't trying at
all? These get deleted. Period.

3) "Is it on a time limit?" Once I have determined
that the deck will get fixed with me, in one form or
another, I check to see whether or not the person
needs their deck fixed by a certain time. For example,
they might have a tournament in a couple of days. I
try to put these on a special stack to be fixed first,
but I can only do this because there are so few of
them. So don't abuse this.

4) "Am I going to post it?" I generally try to post
decks that stand out in some way: whether it be a new
strategy, a well-written description, or whatever. Of
course, I don't always manage to do this--sometimes,
with a deadline approaching, I just grab a deck or
two. Sorry.

If a deck doesn't get sorted into some other category
along the line, it just sits around until I can fix
it. Right now, turnaround time is pretty long because
of school and such. As of this writing, I have decks
from last Tuesday that I have not responded to yet.
Hopefully I'll get some of those done soon.

One last thing--I'm still getting a few decks that I
have to trash, usually because of bad evolution
families. This is such an easy thing to get right that
I see no reason to respond to decks that don't even
bother with this. I don't normally trash for lack of
trainers per se, but a complete disregard for common
sense (usually indicated by lots of singles) in this
department is still trashbait. And no, I don't trash
for lack of Oaks--IF the person tells me why they
don't want them, and if the deck is otherwise good.
I've had a few decks like this.

SPIKE'S RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

It would have been so cool in Gold and Silver if there
had been a Pokemon shaped like a giant ferret. You
could have caught these ferrets in the wild, and at
Level 20 they would evolve into even bigger ferrets.
They could learn attacks like Wrap and Slam. Wouldn't
that have been cool?

I'm going to go now. Hope you enjoy this update. If
there's anything I forgot to tell you about, I'll
remember it for next week.

-Spike

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