So I was hesitant to post this for review (giving away secrets and such) but I figure if it works decently it'll be well known by battle roads in the fall anyway, so I might as well get opinions on it now.
As nats is over, and neither my son nor I are playing in worlds, I figured it was time to start looking at the 2010-2011 season and start prepping decks. Obviously, everyone's struggling for what the next draw engine is going to look like after claydol is rotated.
In cataloging the extent of cards we have and pairing out the ones that have been rotated, I happened to run across the Bronzong SF card who's PokePower seemed interesting to me...even more so once I realized that it's a stage 1 (so basically as easy/hard to get out as claydol was) and acts as an every turn Roseanne's Research (Energy Wise at least...can't pull creatures).
Couple this with Engineer's Adjustments (Discard 1 energy, Draw 4...possibly the best supporter draw card we have after rotation) and you have what I'm seeing as the makings for a reasonable draw engine.
Benefits:
----------------
* Cycler Allows to pull 2 energies a turn out of the deck: This allows one energy attachment while the other goes to the discard pile.
* Cycler allows you to drop a card back to the deck. One of the best things about Claydol was the ability to dump trainers/supporters back to the deck to get around Gengar SF's Poltergeist Attack...more on this in a second.
* Energy to the Discard is typically a "good" thing for several decks, many of which have the ability to pull energy from the discard pile to provide "extra attachments" every turn.
A Note on Draw in 2011: Draw in 2011 seems to take one of three forms:
1) Shuffle your hand and hope you get what you need or
2) Load your hand with a mass of cards.
3) Hand Draw to a specific amount of cards.
If you use the first form of draw engine you're relying upon luck to get you something you want...take it from a guy who played four BTS in a Jumpluff deck, copycat's an opponent's 19 card hand at turn 8 and can't get a single BTS out of it...this doesn't always work.
If you use the second form of draw, however, Gengar SF Players smile largely and say "Poltergeist for 2000000 damage..."
The third type of draw (Volkners, Uxie, etc.) seems reliant upon you being able to USE your cards...the first time you get a dead draw (a bunch of stuff in your hand you have no use for) your draw engine comes to a close very quickly (thus I don't think anyone will be successful with a Uxie draw engine without playing PONT, Judge or CopyCat...my opinion, open to rebuttals here).
Detriments
------------------
* Same as with Claydol: Unless you happen to be playing a psychic deck (And really, neither of Bronzong SF's attacks are all that bad, particularly if you happen to be playing Judge), this is mostly just a bench sitter.
* While it does have 90 HP instead of 80 (it's not a single turn knock by the umpteen gillion bench attackers released that are built to kill Claydol), it's still a dead bench sitter with a Poke Power...so all the standard knockout snipes apply.
* 3 Retreat cost...as if Claydol's 2 wasn't bad enough, this one has 3. You'd better be playing plenty of warps and switches and warp energies, or expect to be wasting significant energy on retreats.
* Low Energy/High attack costs need not apply. Either low energy decks (like Jumpluff) or high attack cost decks (Tyranitar) probably can't make much use of this engine unless you've got a large amount of space in the deck available for energy recovery.
One last item of note on this engine is the number of cards that will need to be in deck to make it work:
1-1 Bronzong SF (2)
4 Engineer's Adjustments (4)
4 Energy Cards (4)
So the MINIMUM number of cards needed for the engine in a deck is 10...and for these 10 cards you get 16 cards out of the deck...not sure if this ratio is better than/worse than any others out there.
To get through most of your deck I would suspect you'd need:
1-1 Bronzong SF (2)
4 Engineer's Adjustments (4)
4 VS Seeker (4)
4 Energy Cards (4)
2 Fisherman (2)
16 Cards for a total of 32 Draw...given the one supporter a turn and one card per turn these 8 rounds of Engineer's really gets you through 40 of your 60 cards. 7 cards at the start + 6 prizes = 13 Cards + 40 through draw = 53 of your 60 cards will be drawn if you can start this chain quickly.
So: Opinions? What am I missing? What's wrong with this engine? Where does it work and where doesn't it? Any drawbacks/benefits I seem to have missed?
Any advice/critique anyone has would be most appreciated.
--Illydth
As nats is over, and neither my son nor I are playing in worlds, I figured it was time to start looking at the 2010-2011 season and start prepping decks. Obviously, everyone's struggling for what the next draw engine is going to look like after claydol is rotated.
In cataloging the extent of cards we have and pairing out the ones that have been rotated, I happened to run across the Bronzong SF card who's PokePower seemed interesting to me...even more so once I realized that it's a stage 1 (so basically as easy/hard to get out as claydol was) and acts as an every turn Roseanne's Research (Energy Wise at least...can't pull creatures).
Couple this with Engineer's Adjustments (Discard 1 energy, Draw 4...possibly the best supporter draw card we have after rotation) and you have what I'm seeing as the makings for a reasonable draw engine.
Benefits:
----------------
* Cycler Allows to pull 2 energies a turn out of the deck: This allows one energy attachment while the other goes to the discard pile.
* Cycler allows you to drop a card back to the deck. One of the best things about Claydol was the ability to dump trainers/supporters back to the deck to get around Gengar SF's Poltergeist Attack...more on this in a second.
* Energy to the Discard is typically a "good" thing for several decks, many of which have the ability to pull energy from the discard pile to provide "extra attachments" every turn.
A Note on Draw in 2011: Draw in 2011 seems to take one of three forms:
1) Shuffle your hand and hope you get what you need or
2) Load your hand with a mass of cards.
3) Hand Draw to a specific amount of cards.
If you use the first form of draw engine you're relying upon luck to get you something you want...take it from a guy who played four BTS in a Jumpluff deck, copycat's an opponent's 19 card hand at turn 8 and can't get a single BTS out of it...this doesn't always work.
If you use the second form of draw, however, Gengar SF Players smile largely and say "Poltergeist for 2000000 damage..."
The third type of draw (Volkners, Uxie, etc.) seems reliant upon you being able to USE your cards...the first time you get a dead draw (a bunch of stuff in your hand you have no use for) your draw engine comes to a close very quickly (thus I don't think anyone will be successful with a Uxie draw engine without playing PONT, Judge or CopyCat...my opinion, open to rebuttals here).
Detriments
------------------
* Same as with Claydol: Unless you happen to be playing a psychic deck (And really, neither of Bronzong SF's attacks are all that bad, particularly if you happen to be playing Judge), this is mostly just a bench sitter.
* While it does have 90 HP instead of 80 (it's not a single turn knock by the umpteen gillion bench attackers released that are built to kill Claydol), it's still a dead bench sitter with a Poke Power...so all the standard knockout snipes apply.
* 3 Retreat cost...as if Claydol's 2 wasn't bad enough, this one has 3. You'd better be playing plenty of warps and switches and warp energies, or expect to be wasting significant energy on retreats.
* Low Energy/High attack costs need not apply. Either low energy decks (like Jumpluff) or high attack cost decks (Tyranitar) probably can't make much use of this engine unless you've got a large amount of space in the deck available for energy recovery.
One last item of note on this engine is the number of cards that will need to be in deck to make it work:
1-1 Bronzong SF (2)
4 Engineer's Adjustments (4)
4 Energy Cards (4)
So the MINIMUM number of cards needed for the engine in a deck is 10...and for these 10 cards you get 16 cards out of the deck...not sure if this ratio is better than/worse than any others out there.
To get through most of your deck I would suspect you'd need:
1-1 Bronzong SF (2)
4 Engineer's Adjustments (4)
4 VS Seeker (4)
4 Energy Cards (4)
2 Fisherman (2)
16 Cards for a total of 32 Draw...given the one supporter a turn and one card per turn these 8 rounds of Engineer's really gets you through 40 of your 60 cards. 7 cards at the start + 6 prizes = 13 Cards + 40 through draw = 53 of your 60 cards will be drawn if you can start this chain quickly.
So: Opinions? What am I missing? What's wrong with this engine? Where does it work and where doesn't it? Any drawbacks/benefits I seem to have missed?
Any advice/critique anyone has would be most appreciated.
--Illydth
