PokéGear3.0
is a normal Trainer of the “top seven”
variety.
That is to say, like many other
Trainers before it, its effect has you
look at the top seven cards of your
deck.
In its case, it lets you snag a
Supporter from the top seven cards of
your deck, then shuffle the remaining
six cards back into your deck.
Seven cards is a lot for a
Pokémon deck: even using this on your
first turn with a “standard” set up,
your 60 card deck is already short 14
cards: your seven card opening hand, six
prizes, and single card draw for the
turn.
You’re picking from over 15% of
your remaining deck, barring extenuating
circumstances.
The longer the game goes on, the
better the odds you have of hitting the
Supporter you want most.
There are three things that make this
strategy less than optimal:
1)
It can fail to grab any Supporter, let
alone the desired one.
2)
The current Supporter pool is deep but
not wide.
3)
The current Pokémon pool.
Point number one is pretty
straightforward: while the odds are good
you’ll get at least one of your
Supporters, it isn’t guaranteed.
In order for it to be guaranteed,
they’d have had to saddle the card with
an actual cost to play.
They could have made the gambling
aspect more pronounced by making it
depend on a coin toss, but I much prefer
this: in a deck tuned for it,
PokéGear3.0 will rarely fail to get
a Supporter.
More pressing is what we have
currently for Supporters.
If you need to make sure you open
with a draw Supporter… we have plenty
you can run.
Search is only slightly less
prominent.
If we had more “other” cards,
with useful non-building effects like
the classic
Pokémon Nurse,
PokéGear3.0 would be better.
Right now your deck basically has
to be at the point where running more
Supporters would be a waste and you run
PokéGear3.0 because it thins your
deck by a card and gets yet another
Supporter to your hand.
The third point may be the biggest
reasons for
PokéGear3.0 not seeing play: many
Pokémon clash with its use.
We have
Claydol from Great Encounters with
Cosmic Draw: a non-attack, non-Supporter
based form
of reusable draw power gives you a
better way of getting Supporters into
your hand while still saving your
Supporter use for the turn.
If your deck actually does need a
specific Supporter, we have
Staraptor FB Lv.X.
Since it is the leveled up form
of a Basic, a two-two line of it would
use the same amount of room as maxing
out on
PokéGear3.0.
Lastly a quick search found 10
Pokémon that can prevent play of
Trainers.
Fortunately most rely on attacks,
but they still exist and some even have
whole decks built around them.
Overall, I think
PokéGear3.0 is a good card but it
won’t see a lot of play right now.
It functions perfectly well, but
there are better alternatives currently
available.
I will point out that its value
in Limited events is high.
As long as you have at least one
Supporter, you probably will use it.
After all, Supporters are even
more potent in this format, so even
getting to that lone one can be game
breaking.
If you have at least two, it’s a
must.
With the 40 card deck thinned by
12 cards (7 card opening hand, 4 prizes,
and one opening draw), your worst odds
are going to be one in four!
To my knowledge, there is only one other
PokéGear card in English: makes me
wonder if we missed a middle form
amongst some of the few Japanese
exclusive cards of the TCG’s past, or if
they just skipped any intermediary
forms.
Ratings
Modified:
3/5
Limited:
4/5
