Dear Pojo,
i recently bought a few packs of Team Rocket expansion
cards, and immediately noticed the power of several of
their trainer cards, especially when used in tandem
with other cards. Therefore, I thought it would be
helpful to send in my ideas. Hope they work out!
The three cards that really caught my eye were goop
gas, rocket's sneak attack, and impostor oak's
revenge.
goop gas: all pokemon powers stop working until your
opponent's next turn
rocket's sneak attack (possibly the best card in the
entire rocket set!): look at your opponent's hand,
shuffle one of their trainers back into their deck
I.O.R. discard a card, then force opponent to shuffle
their card back and draw four new ones.
the latter two cards are particularly dangerous when
used together. The sneak attack card, ostensibly, is
valuable because it allows you to essentially
neutralize an opponents trainer card. However, the
real value lies in the ability to look at your
opponent's hand. Here, now, is the true metagame
weapon everyone has needed. No surprises, no evolves
when you least expect it, and no super energy removals
when you desperately need your energy. Simply look at
your opponent's hand, make your trainer card removal,
and you get to know your opponent's strategy, because
you know their hand. If their hand is powerful, use
your IOR to force them to shuffle it in. if it isn't,
save it. Either way, knowing the opponent's hand
without the relative danger of having a weak omastar
as your active is a BIG plus. The third card, goop gas
attack, is useful in a particular sort of deck: the
aerodactyl deck. It is now possible to build decks
with aerodactyl and evolving pokemon, because you can
shut 'dactyls power down briefly. further, with the
other two cards (sneak attack and IOR), you can
eliminate the chance that your opponent will evolve
when you take off aero's power. Thus, using all four
together, you have a deck which allows you to halt
opponent's evolving while maintaining your own, allows
you to see your opponents hand and severely diminish
their trainer potential, and can destroy the
opponent's hand. Granted, this will not aid a stall
deck, but this is not a problem: just add as your
other pokemon a high-damage dealer (try any sort of
Charizard variety with nightly garbage run to retrieve
that energy and you should be good to go). Remember,
Rocket sneak attack will change the game, no doubt
about it!
-Lil frog.