Maintenance + Prof. Oak

I used to think Maintenance was the absolute worst
trainer card: "Shuffle 2 of the other cards from your
hand into your deck in order to draw a card."
I couldn't understand why anyone would want to use
Maintenance, when you could use Bill and draw 2
cards without giving up anything from your hand.

But my opinion of Maintenance has changed, and I
have 1 Maintenance card in my current deck. 

Maintenance is a with two uses:
a.  Draw a card.
b.  Shuffle 2 cards from your hand into the deck.
    (Consider this a use, not a cost.)

The first use, "draw a card", is very inefficient compared
to a card like Bill. 

But the second use can be a lifesaver,
particularly when used in combination with Prof. Oak.
If you want to play Prof. Oak but there are cards in your hand that
you don't want to discard, and you also have Computer Search (or
Item Finder, if Maintenance was already played), then you can use that
card to get Maintenance, play Maintenance to return 2 cards to your
deck, and then play Prof. Oak.  This is particularly useful if you
have 2 Prof. Oak in your hand at the same time, as it gives you a way
to return one to the deck before playing the other one.  Or suppose
you have a 2nd stage evolution card in your hand, without the first 2 stages.
In order to play Prof. Oak, you would have to discard the 2nd stage
card; but Maintenance gives you a way to return the card to the deck. 
Or suppose you have 2 Double Colorless Energy cards in your hand,
and don't want to discard them?  There are many, many times when we want
to keep cards, but using Prof. Oak is more important, so they would go
into the discard pile.  Maintenance + Prof. Oak gives us a way to save them.

Maintenance + Prof. Oak is much better than Gambler, because Gambler
will only give you 1 card, 50% of the time.  Prof. Oak always gives
you 7 cards, and when used with Maintenance, you get to put your hand's
2 best cards back into the deck before using Prof. Oak. 
Of course there are times when the Maintenance + Prof. Oak combination
will backfire, because the card you draw after using Maintenance will
be one that you really don't want to discard.  But the odds are
against this happening, and the card you draw might be one that you
can play immediately (Energy Removal, etc.) so you won't lose it when
you play Prof. Oak.  Even if the card you draw from Maintenance is a big
sacrifice, you still have managed to save 2 other valuable cards that
would have been discarded.  So the Maintenance + Prof. Oak combination
should only be used for cards that you urgently want to keep.

This combination might or might not work for you.  But if you play a deck
with 4 Prof. Oak, 4 Computer Search, and 4 Item Finder, you will probably
find it very useful on many occasions to also have 1 Maintenance in your deck.

Bruce Long
bruce@asu.edu