Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

2011-08-19 EP Bianca 090

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waynegg

waynegg

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[gal=52203]2011-08-19 EP Bianca 090[/gal]​
 
My 1st Grade style evaluation of Bianca

I think she is a very nice and friendly.

She waves hello to me and gives me cards when I do not have them.

She returns to visit me at least 4 times during games I play.

I think Bianca is pretty and I think she is a nice lady.

____ Real answer _______ LOLz

I was simply thrilled to see this card. It's like my good friend Claydol has returned to me!
If they reprint VS Seeker, I'll be simply elated!

There's no downside to the card. You do not discard, your opponent doesn't get anything from you using the card, and you don't have to shuffle your hand back into your deck.

I love this card.

Could you imagine this card in a deck that already has draw? Like Magnezone Prime or Fire Deck w/ Ninetales??

This card will definately be a staple.

10/10 in ANY format.
 
I honestly don't like this card. why bother with getting a couple cards while you can just get a fresh new 6 with PONT. I do get that if you have something important you want to keep. But i just don't like how you have to be constantly reducing your hand size.

4/10
 
In limited, this card is a perfect 10/10!

However, in constructed you're better off with Oak's New Theory if you want a new hand of 6 and Cheren or Sage if you want straight draw. Once N comes out, this card might become worth using, but not until then.
 
I would give this card a 6/10 in Modified, because in most situtations that you would use that card, Professor Oak's New Theory would do a better job. The only reason I would consider running this is if you run Vileplume and you needed to run PONT AND Bianca.
 
Ah, Bianca, Bianca. Just like in the video games, you try to do your best, but still manage to fail miserably. In a world where you could easily play or remove every card from your hand before using Bianca, it would be an amazing card. As it stands, however, that will almost certainly not be the case, aside for removing things via Junk Arm. Even then, Volkner's Philosophy just tied the discard in optionally with the draw, making Bianca an inferior version of this out of format card. Whether it be multiple Energy cards clogging up your hand, evolutions you can't get into play, or Basic Pokemon with a full Bench, Professor Oak's New Theory (shuffle hand in, draw 6) or Professor Juniper (discard hand, draw 7) will tend to do the job better. Bianca punishes you with a smaller draw for a larger hand; Oak lets you draw a new hand while preserving your other cards, in case you still wanted them, and Juniper lets you get rid of the cards (if they were "clogging up" your hand) to draw one more. I'd mention Copycat, but I think that's starting to go off too far on a tangent, when we're talking about static numbers of drawing. Bianca is only useful if you wanted to hang onto your cards, but starting at a hand size of four (three cards plus Bianca), Cheren (draw three cards) will do the same job, or better, than Bianca.

I don't do quantitative card ratings, but you can see where it fits into my opinion of hand-refreshing cards.

Rogue Archetype said:
My 1st Grade style evaluation of Bianca

I think she is a very nice and friendly.

She waves hello to me and gives me cards when I do not have them.

She returns to visit me at least 4 times during games I play.

I think Bianca is pretty and I think she is a nice lady.

____ Real answer _______ LOLz

I was simply thrilled to see this card. It's like my good friend Claydol has returned to me!
If they reprint VS Seeker, I'll be simply elated!

There's no downside to the card. You do not discard, your opponent doesn't get anything from you using the card, and you don't have to shuffle your hand back into your deck.

I love this card.

Could you imagine this card in a deck that already has draw? Like Magnezone Prime or Fire Deck w/ Ninetales??

This card will definately be a staple.

10/10 in ANY format.
Click to expand...
So when do you get to the real answer? Bianca is more like your good friend Claydol coming back to you, except it just crashes at your pad, never pays any rent, and lets the place end up looking like a mess. Claydol at least put cards you didn't need from your hand on the underside of your deck, which let you get rid of inopportune things while preventing you from immediately redrawing them, and was usable once per Claydol per turn.
 
The only time I see this being useful, is if you have a rare candy and not the stage two or vice versa. But in almost every instance, a sages training or cheren will be better.
Posted with Mobile style...
 
Can anybody say Professor Birch? It's the same card, but new character. Anyway, card is an alternative to Oak, and a decent one at that. It's good If you have a small, but decent hand, but oak is better when you have a bad hand. It come down to preference, bt I give it an 8/10.
 
I prefer Cheren as that card will ALWAYS be useful.

Bianca will usually help too, but there will be times when you will wish it was a Cheren or PONT . . . such as when you are Trainer Locked and are holding 12 Trainers.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with 4th Grade R_A on this one. Bianca in the anime is very, very annoying.

6/10
 
Good card.
PONT (at times, Copycat) is a bit better.
This card has the best effect when the hand is down to 0-3. While PONT refreshes the whole hand with 6 new cards.
But, I have found the problem of using PONT will shuffle useful card into my deck. Bianca can let you keep those useful cards and get more cards to use.

I say......9/10

At least there is some good cards in this set...

Don't be surprised when they make remakes. Next they'll make new Dark Pokemon (not the type).




(If only it said "up to 6 card" for Yanmega)
 
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Some folks really don't remember Birch. Professor Birch wasn't played when it was legal because to often if you had Birch in your hand, you wish you had a different draw supportor in your hand. The net draw would be too often 0,1, or 2.

I doubt that Bianca will be played since there are better alternatives. As mentioned PONT, Copy Cat, N, Sage, Juniper, all are better. The new Draw 3 Supporter is really the 9/10 out of this set.

5/10 Modifed is my ranking for Bianca
10/10 Limited/Pre-Release/Draft because any Draw Supporter will be in my deck.
 
Bianca is a Trainer-Supporter that allows you to draw until you have six cards in hand. She "costs" you your Supporter use for the turn, but is immune to most of the Trainer locking cards currently Modified legal. This card has two advantages over many other draw supporters (though usually these advantages won't apply at the same time). First you don't have to shuffle your hand away, so if you have part of a combo in hand, you can try to build on it. Second you could draw upwards of six cards.

The negatives of this card are the flip-sides of the positives. If you have dead cards in hand, you're not getting rid of them and they'll reduce the effectiveness of Bianca. You have to draw until you get to six, so you could deck out or end up with a larger hand than you really wanted. After all, the bigger your hand is the harder it will be to make good use of a second Bianca next turn. Most importantly there are just many times when your hand is going to be big enough that this ends up giving you only as much or less draw than a Cheren would.

We saw this same effect before in Professor Birch, and he was just a card that didn't see much play. By its nature, a combo heavy deck will want a larger and larger hand. An extremely large combo (say Zekrom, Pachirisu, Shaymin, and two Lightning Energy) will be frustrated by the fact that the closer you are to completing the combo, the less cards you'll be able to draw and the less likely you will be to accomplish your goal. All the other major draw cards are preferable because they either provide greater reliability or a bigger payout for building combos.

Bianca has a place in the game but its definitely a niche. Maybe you have a simple but important combo and your deck otherwise is very fast. Professor Oak's New Theory and Professor Juniper would then disrupt your own attempts and securing the combo and Bianca (since I said the deck is very fast) would regularly match or exceed the three cards Cheren would snag for you. As you can see this is a small niche, but it does exist.

In Unlimited there is no good reason to use this: decks have so many old-school draw/search Trainers that it seems unlikely this would be the best fit. The dominant decks go off first turn (so only one Supporter would be of use anyway) and I am guessing that Seeker would be that Supporter to make sure the opponent has as few Pokemon in play as possible. Even if trying to support building to a combo... well its building to a combo, and Professor Oak's New Theory is probably your best bet. Slow decks actually still follow suit.

In Limited play Bianca is a must run... but be aware she might also be a dead draw. Draw power is just so precious that she is still a must run even though the nature of Limited play will result in many matches where she shows up at the wrong time and is only marginally useful.

Ratings

Unlimited: 1.5/10

Modified: 6/10

Limited: 10/10

Summary
Despite might lukewarm review, I am happy to see this style of draw return to the game because it really does benefit some specific decks and play styles, though I do wish they had included an optional way of reducing your hand size into the effect.
 
I really like this card in speed Zekrom cause it seems like right after you get the turn one your hand is so small.
very situatonal though
 
its a worse version of volkners, and volkers could at least have a usage in gyarados to discard karps under trainer lock. 4/10, simply because almost all draw is superior.
 
I like this card because it simply allows you to draw straight from your deck instead of shuffle, so Pokedex/Research Record with this is just amazing grabbing whatever you need for your next move.

8/10
 
The main reason this card won't be good is trainer lock. with high Junk Arm engines everywhere, it could be a pretty conssitant draw supporter to draw 3-4 cards with no backlash in speedier decks. But with the option of Vileplume and now Goth too, Bianca really has no deck that she shines in. 5/10.
 
I feel many are missing the Greatness of this card OVER PONT.

PONT shuffles in and grabs 6. No problem. But what if you have 2-3 cards in hand you need. With Junk Arm, getting down hand size is not so difficult and with as many Trainer Engines being used right now, Bianca gives a better service to its user. Also, straight draw has always been the best counter to disruption draw (Judge = Admin) and (Bianca = Steven's Advice... kinda). Bianca will give other options ot thin decks faster without shuffling things back in.

Honestly, 9/10 based on the str8 draw vs the disruption engine everyone is currently using.

Fish
 
Fish, your missing many points people are making though. Yes, you don't throw your hand away. But how often do you have that rare candy, and only 2 other cards in your hand? because that's the amount of cards you need to run this over cheren/sages.
 
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