Today we look at
Hooligans - Jim and Cas. I'll be honest, I wish there was more to their team because for some odd reason, the one with the beard looks more than a bit Monkeywrench.
Stats
Hooligans - Jim and Cas is a Trainer, specifically a Supporter. Supporters are vital to nearly all decks (and all serious decks I am aware of) in Modified, as they are the primary source of reliable and/or sizable draw, search, and recursion, as well as several specialty effects. They have been blocked by certain effects in the past, but I didn't think anything stopped them in the current format. There is a bit of Support, though the one's worth mention are
Pokegear 3.0,
Random Receiver, and
Xtransceiver. All can help search them out (and only Supporters), though
Random Receiver is probably the preferred option.
Effect
Hooligans - Jim and Cas is one of the few pieces of Trainer-based hand disruption available in Modified; you must flip a coin, and if you get heads your opponent has to shuffle three cards you randomly pick back into his/her deck. If you get tails... the card does nothing.
Discarding cards from your opponent's hands is pretty potent, even if those cards are shuffled back into the deck and not sent to the discard pile or Lost Zone. Still, you're giving up using a draw or search effect yourself, and most give a return of two or three cards... using
Hooligans - Jim and Cas is in many ways like robbing yourself of two or three cards. In the world of investment this would be known as an "opportunity" cost; what you gave up to get what you actually received.
So you're giving up adding cards to your hand (or any other potent Supporter effect) for a 50%
chance of randomly costing your opponent three cards from hand. Three cards they may not even have needed or even wanted in hand (though unlikely).
Usage
This card appears to be the Modified update of
The Rocket's Trap. The latter was one of three cards (the others being
Imposter Oak's Revenge and
Rocket's Sneak Attack) that were the basis of Trapper decks that were dominant for a time in the pre-Modified days of the game.
While the effects are identical (though worded differently),
The Rocket's Trap existed long before Supporters; thus it was a plain Trainer.
The Rocket's Trap could be used repeatedly; either by playing multiple copies or by recycling one copy with
Item Finder. This was also a format with copious draw Trainers (and again, before "Supporters" were invented), and the single greatest search Trainer ever,
Computer Search (also a "plain" Trainer). In conjunction with
Imposter Oak's Revenge and
Rocket's Sneak Attack you were almost guaranteed to strip an opponent's
opening hand to nothing when the deck worked.
Hooligans - Jim and Cas have one partner to work with them first turn;
Murkrow (
HS: Undaunted 58/90). It's a :dark:-Type 60 HP Basic Pokemon with :lightning: Weakness, :fighting: Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of :colorless:. In short, a probable OHKO. For
dark
it hits for 10 damage and gives you a coin toss; "heads" and you get to randomly shuffle away a card from your opponent's hand. While you might manage to take out four cards first turn, that would require two "heads"; unlikely.
After the first turn, you'll have more Pokemon options, but the rub here is that you'll almost always be wanting your Supporters to set those Pokemon up. The only Pokemon I can think of that really works with
Hooligans - Jim and Cas also is a problem for it.
Smeargle (
HS: Undaunted 8/90,
Call of Legends 21/95) can be used to try and get multiple uses out of Supporters in your opponent's hand... which in turn can free up your own Supporter use for
Hooligans - Jim and Cas. Of course you're also providing your opponent the chance to do you one better and hit your own
Hooligans - Jim and Cas with their own
Smeargle.
With what we've got right now, I wouldn't use it in actual control decks; you need to focus on building your own stuff to make shuffling away you're opponent's cards actually matter anyway. There isn't a combo to completely scrap your opponent's hand in one turn, so without more support they have too good a chance of rebuilding... at least too good for a Supporter that only works half the time.
You'd need to build a deck around it, one that gave you extra draw power but allowed you to also influence your opponent's draws, and then still have a solid attacker. Such a deck is possible, but again, 50% chance of Supporter fail. :frown:
Future releases may help this card, but this is actually a concern as well. You see, this is a very potent effect, hence being a "tails fails" Supporter. Potent effects like this that can be accessed with minimal deck slots (so Basic, Trainer, or Energy), and no build cost save opportunity costs (so inexpensive attack or else Ability, Trainer, or Energy) shouldn't be based on coin flips. Why? When they work, they give a huge advantage to the person using them, and when they fail they are worthless. Wait, doesn't that balance things out?
Maybe if you want the game to be about who is better at flipping coins. It isn't fun to win because you happened to flip "heads" on a coin like this, or at least it isn't for me in a "serious" event. It isn't even satisfying to win because your opponent ran this and got "tails" at a bad time. These kinds of cards either end up being so good people run them anyway, because even factoring in flipping tails half the time the advantage is huge, or the cards end up as set filler because they perform so poorly.
However as long as they exist, there is the threat someone will figure out a combo that does make them useful. It'd be pretty scary for
Hooligans - Jim and Cas to exist in a format with
Porygon2 (
DP: Great Encounters 49/106), for example.
This card has almost no potential in Unlimited. When I say almost I mean "almost". If using an effect that blocks cards other than Supporters, obviously it would get through. Considering you'd still only get one shot, I'd rather find a better combo for it. Except there is no "better" combo. All the cards I can think of that would use it well are better suited for other combos. Nothing good enough to earn it any points.
In Limited, yes you should take run it; you are unlikely to have another Supporter to run anyway, and while still likely to fail, a single card is worth a 50% shot at costing your opponent three cards in hand... especially in a format where it is unlikely they can drop a Supporter to replenish said hand.
Ratings
Unlimited: 1/10
Modified: 3/10
Limited: 10/10
Summary
If we are lucky, this card is filler. If we are unlucky, it's the first part of a painful combo. Just like with
Hooligan's - Jim and Cas, I don't like those odds.
