When you stop and think about it, we put a lot of Pokémon in our decks that
we don't even think about using to attack.  These cards usually have
interesting powers that help us out during gameplay, but have little or no
attack capability.  These are referred to as utility Pokémon since they
aren't used as offensive or defensive weapons.  They simply do some trick
that gives you an advantage or the upper hand in a game (or they try to, at
least).  Using these cards can be good, bad, or a mixture of both.  Here's a
look at some of the strategies behind utility Pokémon and whether or not they
really get results:

Tentacool-- Who would dream of using this piece of toilet paper if it wasn't
for his power, Cowardice?  You can combo this card with Base Set Alakazam,
swapping damage over to Tentacool, recalling the little jellyfish to your
hand, replaying him to the table and repeating once a turn.  Sounds cool,
right?  Well, its pretty risky since you'll have to deal with a 30 HP
weakling or two on the bench all the time, just waiting to be gusted out and
killed by just about anything your opponent happens to be playing.  This also
won't net you much of an advantage, being as you can only swap and clear 20
damage a turn off of Tentacool.  Chansey+Scoop Up will always have better
results.  Plus, what if your opening hand consists of one basic and that is
Tentacool?  Now you've just screwed yourself royally.  Not worth playing as a
utility card (or as anything else for that matter).

Slowpoke (Fossil)-- Here's a cool one.  Using Slowpoke's scavenge to retrieve
valuable trainers, particularly ER and SER can stall your opponent, get you
more cards, or do just about anything written on a trainer card you've
already used.  When fossil first hit the scene, this guy was a fairly common
sight but right now, Slowpoke usage has died down.  If your deck relies on
lots of removal or card drawing/searching, Slowpoke is a great card to have. 
He's like a reusable itemfinder or another stalling weapon for Psychic decks
using Energy Removal.  Its just too bad he can't do damage. Very underrated,
in my opinion.  Verdict: Definitely a good utility Pokémon.

Gastly (Fossil)-- A great stepping stone to Fossil Haunter and Gengar, but is
he a great a utility Pokémon, too?  Gastly does get some play in decks that
don't use his evolutions but do use his energy conversion attack.  Gastly is
pretty low on HP and it doesn't help that he'll do 10 damage to himself when
he uses conversion.  He can be easily replaced by energy retrieval, too.  But
if your deck is energy intensive and you'll need to get back 4-6 energies
(and, of course, only if you're running Psychic) Gastly can be a good
addition to your deck.  The free retreat lets him escape to the bench after
retrieving to let a heavy hitter step up, so he could be useful.  Can be bad
or good, depending on the deck you play him in.

Muk-- Often splashed off color in haymakers and such to neutralize Pokémon
powers.  Since Grimer can hold his own with a colorless attack and 50 HP,
there's no reason why he can't be there just for the power, sitting on the
bench.  A good utility Pokémon if Raindances or Damage Swaps are really
getting on your nerves.  Can be splashed or used in a grass deck since his
attack is also pretty solid.  Just make sure you don't have any powers in
your deck.

Aerodactyl-- Fossil is weak, Scyther takes him down in one shot, and his HP
is pretty low.  On the other hand, the power is a great addition to a
Haymaker plus resistance to fighting and an all colorless attack.  As long as
you're prepared for Gust of Wind and you have ways of getting him out early
before Mysterious Fossil bites the dust then he's good for stopping
evolutions.  Once this card hits the table, you'll make anyone who runs
evolutions cry, whether you're attacking with it or not.

Electrode (Base)-- Don't use him just for the power.  Bring him out, attack,
and then use the power just before he ends up in the discard.  Not a good
idea to knock him out right away and power up somebody bad like Zapdos.  Good
Pokémon that is wasted in a utility role since the cards he usually powers up
are bad to begin with.

Dodrio-- This is one of those "just-in-case" cards.  If you're reatreat costs
are that high, nothing can help you.  He's just too weak to waste deck space
on.  Its much easier to use Switch/Scoop if you're retreat costs are a big
problem.  Any card with retreat greater than 3 probably isn't worth playing
anyway and most of the monsters with 3 retreat are solid enough to be left
active for a while.  Lowering retreat costs by one (its really hard to get
two of these out at a time) won't give you much of an advantage over your
opponent.

Kangaskhan-- The king of the utility Pokémon.  Even if you don't want to use
Comet Punch (but you easily could since its colorless), you can just throw
Kanga out there and he'll buy you time and cards.  Fetch combined with high
HP make him a great starter/staller/card-drawer while you pump up your bench.

Snorlax/Dark Gloom/Drowsee (Rocket) Combo--  Tell me how this is supposed to
work?  Its a deck/strategy that is completely composed of utility Pokémon. 
What are you supposed to attack with?  In order for utility cards to work,
something needs to utilize them.  Snorlax is just terrible, even with the
power, since he just sits there and gets knocked out since all he can do is
30 for 4 energy.  Even if you put to sleep/confuse the opponent, you have no
attacks to speak of in your deck!  Bad combo, bad deck, end of story.

Dark Golduck-- That Third Eye attack looks nice doesn't it?  Draw three cards
and only discard one energy.  I've found this card to be very hard to play as
a card drawer.  When you use Third Eye, you lose an energy and lose a turn of
powering up Dark Golduck for Super Psy.  His low HP also makes it hard to
keep him alive.  I've had a lot of trouble getting this duck to deliver as a
drawing machine.  I find his best role is as a secondary attacker in Psychic
decks, since he avoids resistance.  If you can find a way for him to work
efficiently as a card drawer, then he would be a great utility in any deck
running Psy energy.

Dark Kadabra-- Boo.  You can come up with better.  Some mentally challenged
players use this guy to get a new card from their decks.  The power doesn't
create good card advantage since you have to discard something from your hand
only to draw one card.  Use Bill and gain two cards instead of an even trade
or even better yet, discard your hand and get a new 7 cards with Oak.  Plus
50 HP is horrible for a Stage 1.

Dark Slowbro-- I'm not sure I could see putting such a weak card in a deck as
a utility.  But nevertheless, he could be used to get back basics if you run
a low count.  Could be cool to use Slowpoke first to establish yourself in
the early game and then evolve to Dark Slowbro later to bring back lost
basics.  Wow, an entire utility evolution family!

Dark Vileplume-- A utility Pokémon that works well included in a deck with a
low trainer count and also becomes the corner stone of a low trainer beatdown
style deck.  Almost all the good decks out there rely on trainers.  If you
can figure out how to live without them yourself, this card will shut many
opponents down completely.

Dark Dugtrio-- A novelty power.  That's what Sinkhole is.  Running this weak
card gives you a chance, just a chance, to deal 20 damage to the opponent
when he or she retreats.  Its not going to bother your opponent much
(especially if it doesn't work) and they'll make up for this "advantage" you
have by beating down on your weak Dark Dugtrios with their good attacking
cards.  On the whole, not worth the effort of playing this thing as a
utility, or as anything for that matter.

Rattatta (Rocket)-- Here Comes The Rockets is bad.  Therefore, a card that
utilizes it is also bad.  Usually, without the Ultra Rare trainer, this card
just sends something useful from the top of your deck to your prizes.  With
the Ultra Rare trainer, your opponent knows whats coming plus knows he or she
has an easy KO by gusting out Rocket Rattatta and killing it with just about
any card they can think of.  This card is just not worth it.  Don't bother
trying this combo where you reveal your prizes and then zap them to your deck
with Ratatta.

Dark Dragonair--  Okay.  If you run a lot of evolutions, it helps you get
them out quicker.  But it, too, is an evolution which means you've got to get
it out first, which can be hard if you're deck is packed with evolutions. 
Still, it makes playing with multiple evolutions possible.  More importantly,
it makes winning games while playing with multiple evolutions possible.  A
weak card though, with no attack potential so be careful.

Dark Dragonite-- See dark Slowbro.

Porygon (any one)-- Changing weakness/resistance or your opponent and Porygon
respectively can be a real help.  Porygon, while classically a weak card, is
still a great way of either stalling by changing his own resistance, or
making your deck faster by giving your opponent a weakness to a type you run.
 Porygon is definitely worth a look and deserves to be given a chance.  The
Rocket one is most interesting since you can change you're opponent's
weakness and then retreat for free to bring in one of your colored Pokémon
that was on the bench.

If you use the right utility Pokémon in the right decks, you'll have a much
easier time winning games.  If you do the opposite and use the wrong ones in
the wrong decks, you'll just make things harder on yourself.  So use utility
Pokémon carefully and conservatively and you might get some good results out
of them. 
-Jim T.
<A HREF="mailto:mrrk9@aol.com">MrRK9@aol.com</A>