Hi kiddies! Squall the VIII here, and I’m just reporting my first
experience with the greatest unknown aspect of competitive Pokemon play, the
only DCI sanctioned Limited version of Pokemon, Booster Draft. Well, first,
in Pokemon, booster draft is where the tournament organizer gives 5 booster
packs to each player(for a fee), and then all of the players sit in a
circle. Then, everyone opens a booster pack, picks a card that the want for
a deck or for themselves, then passes the rest of the cards to the person
sitting next to them. This repeats until all of the packs are gone. Then the
players are given time to “de-construct” their decks, meaning they take the
cards they use for their deck and energy lent by the tournament organizer.
In this format, there is no “4-card limit”, meaning if you draft 16 Super
Energy Removals, you can have all 16 in your deck. All other aspects of the
rule are still implied in the game. Now onto the strategy!

At the Draft I played in, each of us drafted three Base Set 2 and two
Jungle boosters. I quickly thought to myself, “commons are abundant, duh!”
So I decided to try not to base my deckbuilding strategy on rares. Now, I
thought to myself, “Hmmm, I wish we were drafting Fossil, Magmar would be
good. But since there are no fossil, think about Jungle and Base Set.” The
first thing that popped into my mind was Farfetch’d and Persian. Persian is
actually quite a strong Pokemon, but sees little Constructed use. Also,
Meowth’s ability to draw cards is invaluable, even if it only is a chance.
And since there was a chance that Persian or Meowth were able to be in every
booster pack was quite enticing(plus they were colorless), so I decided that
these would be my staple Pokemon. Also, Fighting and Grass were quite
abundant in Base Set and Jungle, so I decided that would probably be they
way to go. Also Grass’ specialty is side effects (although somewhat pricey
attacks) and Fighting had dirt-cheap attacks, so they had a little synergy
going. So then I thought about good Grass pokemon, and Paras, Tangela, and
Gloom popped into my head(even though Gloom was unusually scarce). And with
Fighting, cheap attacks meant Machop, Cubone, and Mankey’s Peep could come
in handy so I’d know what to expect from my Prizes, my opponent, and my
deck. This extra edge helped tremendously, allowing me to set up tactics
before the cards came into being. I already was sure about Meowth and
Persian for colorless, but decided to draft all of the Lickitung I could,
while drafting Tauros and Mini-Scyther, erm, Farfetch’d for backup. While
the draft went on I tried to remember what I had already drafted and what
was gone when the packs got around to me. This helped greatly, thwarting my
opponent’s only chance at Electabuzz. I also tried to get at least one of
each of the strong trainers, like Prof. Oak, S.E.R. and E.R., Gust of Wind,
PlusPower, Bill, and Super Potion and Maintenance surprisingly helped
greatly. Maintenance helped because it allowed me to put trainers back into
my deck that I might foolishly play to early, or it helped me with a strange
type of card advantage. Super Potion, which may see little use in
Constructed as many players correctly deem it “too little too late”. But in
Limited, being able to keep your heavy hitter alive is a great asset, even
if it does set you back one energy.

Well, drafting Meowth and Persian was quite effective, and the other
colorless Pokemon helped too. Licktung was great too, and the tactic I found
most feared was confusing the defending Pokemon, and watch them either
having to discard their energy when they failed at retreating, or dealing 20
damage to themselves when the attacked. I was not able to Draft many Glooms,
so I excluded them from my deck. Tangela worked great, being able to Poison
and Paralyze was very helpful. I drafted a pair of Machops, some Cubones and
Marowaks, and 4 Mankeys and 1 Primeape. These all turned out to be helpful,
especially Mankey, Tangela, and Machops. All of the trainers that I
mentioned earlier helped. NOTE-IF YOU CAN DRAFT A S.E.R., DO SO, AS THEY ARE
POSSIBLY THE STRONGEST CARD IN LIMITED FORMAT.

In conclusion to this article, I want to state that the strategies for the
Pokemon may not work with your Booster Draft. These are only observations of
the Booster Draft I participated in(even though the strategy for the
Trainers remains intact no matter where you go). Also, Drafting as many
rares as you can is probably the stupidest thing you can do. I let 6 holos
go by because I had no need for them in my deck. I have fun playing the game
for the strategy, not collecting holos. Also, try to find out ahead of time
what Boosters you will be drafting, so you will have time to think about
what you might see and draft. Keep in mind, now’s the time to go back to
those days of playing 4-2 ratios and using pokemon you probably wouldn’t use
in Constructed. Also, if you’re local Card Store doesn’t hold any Booster
Drafts, try to get them to hold one, they are really fun, and a nice way to
get away from all of those Haymakers and Raindances. That’s all for now,
bye!

Send all comments, questions, and hatemail(?) to me, Squall the VIII at
squall_leonhart_09@hotmail.com . Expect a large article about The Almighty
Muk deck at Pojo.com by me soon. Bye!

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