Stats
Bianca
is a Trainer-Supporter: she "costs" you
your Supporter use for the turn, but is
immune to most of the Trainer locking
cards currently
Modified legal.
The Supporter “support” cards
used in Unlimited
are geared towards first turn win
combos that don’t lend themselves to
Bianca usage, while we have almost
no such supporting cards currently in
Modified.
Fortunately cards that punish
Supporter usage are all but useless in
Unlimited and just as rare as the
Supporter support in Modified.
Effect
Bianca
has a very simple effect: when you play
her, you draw until you have six cards
in hand.
Based on past cards you won’t be
able to play it unless you can draw at
least one card, but I can’t find the
ruling for that so feel free to double
check with a judge.
This is an adequate effect:
properly run you’ll probably snag three
cards with the potential of up to six.
I can’t really call the card good
because as I’ll explain in the Usage
section, it only belongs in select decks
or to people with a specific playing
style.
I won’t call it bad because it
does what it is supposed to: it just
could do that job better. If you can’t
afford returning cards from hand to deck
or discarding them, this is your only
“big” draw card.
Usage
This card does have use, and to better
explain it let me examine the history of
this style of effect.
While not seen frequently, this
isn’t the first time this effect has
been seen on a Supporter, let alone in
the game.
I found four cards besides
Bianca all had the same effect,
though there are slight wording
variations:
1)
Dialga (DP: Majestic Dawn
4/100) and its Time Shift attack for
(M).
2)
Magnezone (HS: Triumphant
96/102) and its Magnetic Draw Poké-Power.
3)
Porygon2 (EX: Delta Species
25/113) and its Back-Up Poké-Power.
4)
Professor Birch (EX:
Ruby/Sapphire 89/109, EX: Emerald
82/106, and EX: Power Keepers
80/108), who is identical to
Bianca in stats and effect but with
minor wording differences in English.
There is an attack in the TCG named
Return (which does not work anything
like the video game attack of the same
name) that also includes the effect of
Bianca, plus does damage.
The cards with that attack (and
their specifics for it) are:
1)
Blissey (Platinum 22/127),
also doing 20 for (CC).
2)
Dunsparce (HS: Unleashed
29/95), also doing 10 for (C).
3)
Lickilicky
[C] (DP: Rising Rivals
30/147), also doing 40 for (CCC).
4)
Nidoqueen (HS: Triumphant
28/102), also doing 30 for (C).
Then there are just some similar draw
cards with additional effects and
sometimes slightly different draw
amounts:
1)
Claydol (DP: Great
Encoutners
15/106) has Cosmic Draw; a Poké-Power
that allows its player (once per turn
before that player’s attack) to bottom
deck two cards from said player’s hand,
then proceed to draw until said player
had six cards in hand.
It couldn’t be used if
Claydol was affected by a Special
Condition.
2)
Snorlax LV.X (Rising Rivals
111/111) has Big Appetite; a Poké-Power
that allows its player (once per turn
before that player’s attack) to draw
until you have six cards in hand but
only while
Snorlax LV.X is Active and then
Snorlax LV.X is afflicted with
Sleep, plus Big Appetite doesn’t work
while
Snorlax Lv.X is affected by a
Special Condition.
3)
Volkner’s
Philosophy (Rising Rivals
98/111) is a Supporter that requires you
discard a card from your hand before
drawing until you have six cards in
hand, and specifically states you can’t
play it if you can’t draw any cards.
So why list all of these?
First, as even a new reader has
figured out by now, I tend like to be
thorough to the point of being a little
obsessive, hence my screen name.
Second, examining how these cards
performed gives you an idea of the
strength’s and weaknesses of
Bianca.
The cards that saw (or are
seeing) serious play are
Magnezone Prime,
Porygon2,
Claydol, and
Volkner’s
Philosophy.
The reason for this is simple:
this effect clashes with other draw
power: the better the rest of your deck
is at keeping your hand well stocked,
the less use you have for cards like
Bianca.
Magnezone Prime is also a great
attacker.
Claydol allowed you to send up to
two cards currently unneeded to the
bottom of your deck, so unless you had
the six cards you thought were best, you
could at least attempt to improve the
overall quality of your hand, and since
it was optional this meant you always
could improve the quantity if you had a
one or zero card hand.
Volkner’s
Philosophy is similarly flexible:
you can optionally discard one card, a
“cost” that can often be used to fuel
combos, plus you can again try to
improve the quality of your hand in
addition to quality (though outside of
combos the cost is steeper than with
Claydol).
I saved
Porygon2 for last because it was the
first time I saw this effect played
competitively, and the technique that
made it so useful can be applied with
all other listed cards: it was used in
decks that could spam the opponent with
Trainers.
This simple but true fact is less
impressive but still matters to
Supporters or “once-per-turn” effects,
but becomes stellar on effects that can
be used multiple times in one turn:
skilled builds would rip through their
decks incredibly fast, using Trainer
after Trainer for sometimes minute gain
that builds into impressive momentum.
Claydol improved on this formula,
while
Magnezone Prime is simply a solid
Pokémon overall with a good attack and
stats as well as a lack of competition;
unlike
Porygon2 or
Claydol it isn’t a universal or even
frequent component of decks, though the
decks that use it are fairly widely
played.
Bianca
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:
Bianca use conflicts with itself.
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.
Few decks won’t want to draw a lot of
cards.
The most combo heavy decks want
as large a hand-size as possible. An
extremely large combo like 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 it’s
definitely narrow. 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.
This is a great card for players
who just can’t handle determining what
to discard or shuffle back in.
As you can see these are small
niche uses, but exist.
In Unlimited there is no good reason to
use this: when playing brutal,
competitive Unlimited decks the
Supporter you’ll be spamming is
Seeker (if you need to use a
Supporter at all) and in a more laid
back setting, besides still wanting to
consider
Seeker you’ll probably want to
utilize something with a more unique
effect than raw draw power since
Unlimited has access to the very best
draw and search power from the earliest
days of the game.
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 even though the nature of Limited
play will result in many matches where
she shows up too late to be useful (or
doesn’t show up at all) or when your
hand is already full, even when she is
just snagging two or three cards she’s
amazing.
Ratings
Unlimited: 1/5
Modified: 2.75/5
Limited: 5/5
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, like
Claydol.
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