>
>From: Sam Yurick <devilinsearchofacause@yahoo.com>
>Subject: An article that might be worth featuring

>
>Proposition 15, Wigglytuff, Haymker, and the Wasteful
>Corporate Pokemon Machine
>By Sam Y.
>Send Comments to: Devilinsearchofacause@yahoo.com
>   First off, I do not hate pokemon.  I love the card
>game but I think it's wrong that any
>aspect of it should be altered.  Wotc has recently
>brought up something called proposition
>15 and proposition 2.  Proposition 15 prevents any
>more than 15 trainer cards from being
>used in a deck.  Proposition 2 isn't as bad, it states
>that no more than 2 trainer cards may
>be played by a single player in 1 turn.  Both of these
>propositions badly alter the current
>style of play.  The pokemon tcg is, no doubt, heavily
>into archetypes.  The fact that most
>of the field at the sts was either Wigglytuff,
>Haymaker, or Raindance proves this.
>However, this is not necessarily a bad thing that
>requires that the game be neutered so that
>everyone plays like a 9 year old.  It is more so an
>invitation to a classic deul that deepens
>with every expansion set.  Lets look at the history.
>
>Part 1:Haymaker as of Base 1
>   The basic haymaker archetype had been around since
>the beginning.  It centers on
>winning in the opening phase of the game, to
>accomplish this is uses big basic pokemon,
>or bbps as I'll call them.  This saves it the trouble
>of evolving which takes up extra cards
>and time.  The Deck also uses ER and SER at this point
>in case the opponent brings out
>something larger like an Arcanine or a Blastoise.
>It's major players also have low cost
>attacks, meaning Hitmonchan and Electabuzz, Chansey
>also makes an appearance to Deal
>with higher hp monsters, Finally; Farfetche'd
>protected Electabuzz from fighting monsters
>.
>
>Part 2:Jungle Expansion
>   3 forces were released with Jungle; Wigglytuff, Mr.
>Mime, and Scyther.  Scyther quickly
>reduced hitmonchan's effectiveness as haymaker players
>began using between 2 and four
>of the colorless bug.  Meanwhile, Mr. Mime brought
>stall to it's full glory and all but shut
>down raindance between June and October of 99'.
>Wigglytuff then became a new
>archetype  that could dish 60 damage on turn 2.  So,
>interestingly enough, while jungle
>made hitmonchan useless in one way; he became a vital
>utility against Wigglytuff at the
>same time.  So Haymaker added Scyther and Wiggly came
>into being.
>
>Part 3:The new developments on Jungle
>    In the early days of the game most people
>positively cringed when they pulled Lass from
>a pack.  But Wigglytuff made it useful in that once
>Wiggly sets up shop, Lass strips away
>any ERs or SERs that your opponent might be holding,
>thus Wigglytuff stays in action
>longer.  This, in turn, makes hitmonchan more useful.
>
>Part 4: Fossil Expansion
>    Everybody Gained something here.  Ditto became
>Haymker's budding solution to
>Wiggly.  Several new bbps entered the scene, giving
>Wiggly new options for his backup
>squadron.  2 of the new bbps, Articuno and Lapras,
>brought raindance back into the game
>against mime by giving the option of confusion.  Even
>more bbps(The legendary birds) and
>some really broken new evolutions (Aerodactyl, The
>Ghosts) had fighting resistance.  In
>light of this; Hitmonchan went missing in action from
>all but a few decks that still needed
>him to deal with the Wiggly wonder.  Meanwhile,
>Electabuzz gained favor since he could
>stand and deliver against raindance with his mighty
>thunderpunch and thundershock.
>Finally, Ditto began popping up as a solution against
>Wigglytuff and anything else that
>stood in Haymaker's way.
>
>Part 5:Base 2 wastes our time
>   In an  act of sheer greed wotc stopped jungle and
>base 1 in their tracks.  They replaced
>these sets with base 2 which was the same thing except
>for Scyther and Wiggly were now
>harder to find in packs.  The foil print changed to
>but that doesn't impact the game any.
>There was still a gaping, six month period where there
>were no new cards.
>
>Part 6:Team Rocket Changes Things
>   Team rocket finally came out and although it gave us
>no new pokemon it did give us 3
>cards that changed haymker and Wiggly. The first of
>these was Challenge!  This card
>allows for a quickly filled bench, and it deepens the
>deul amazingly.  The Next Card was
>rocket sneak attack, a card that allows haymaker to
>strip away a Lass that could wreck it's
>plans to SER Wiggly, or that could be used by Wiggly
>to strip away that SER.  Finally we
>have rainbow energy, This card; more than any other;
>Made Scyther a weapon in any
>deck.  The ability to have swords dance without having
>to keep grass energy on hand is
>wonderful and it allowed haymker to quickly dispatch
>jiggly.
>
>Part 7:The STS
>   Wizards decided to do sort of a pokemon championship
>called the Super Trainer
>Showdown or, STS.  The field was totally dominated by
>Wiggly and Haymker.  THis was,
>of course, a classic battle between 2 incredible
>forces.  The Wiggly would use challenge!
>The haymaker would accept.  Both would find their bext
>solutions for the other and the
>battle would begin.  Both used upwards of 25 trainer
>cards in each deck, in the end this
>meant that we were to see an amazing deul, even after
>all the fuss about Dark
>Vileplume(Something hitmonchan became perfectly suited
>to stop, albeit by accident.)
>
>Part 8:Proposition 15
>   Last night I found something called proposition 15.
>This basically states that only 15
>trainers may be played in any given deck in a dci
>tournament.  This is completely bogus;
>trainers are the core of the game as we know it; so
>what if there are currently fewer than
>15 viable pokemon? That isn't a sign that everybody
>needs to make a beedrill and
>venomoth deck, it's a sign that wizards needs to make
>less garbage.  They have the
>audacity to charge between $3.50 and $7.00 for a pack
>of eleven cards and still yet, 9 of
>those cards will often never be used.  Then when we do
>find something good in one of
>their shoddy boosters, they want to rule it unplayable
>just so that their greed-driven
>promotional machine can ramble on.  It isn't our fault
>that there are only 15 really playable
>pokemon, It's Wizards of the Coast's fault for not
>making everything playable.  Then, of
>the 20 really playable trainer cards, all of which
>work best in multiples, they want to
>reduce us to 15 in a deck!  The bottom line is this:
>Wizards doesn't want to see the game
>played fairly, if they wanted that then they'd make
>some better cards.  What they want is a
>glut of  bad evolution decks that focus on getting
>everyone to buy packs until they get
>Charizard.  I encourage everyone to simply quit dci if
>they decide to set proposition 15 or
>proposition 2 into motion.  There's no real cause in
>staying in if they're not going to let us
>play the best decks available with the small amount of
>stuff they've sold us that isn't trash.