Discussion Tierno VS Professor Birch's Observations

poke4trade

poke4trade

Raising Ash
Member
Ok...I know that Professor Birches is a far superior card. I get it. I've noticed that judge is being used more and more as a one off, or not at all. I've even seen the use for red card deteriorate in past weeks. This is allowing for bigger hand sizes to be played, but everybody is still opting for burtches. I'm wondering the reasoning behind opting out of the bigger hand size and risking the tail flip.

Lately, drawing three, and opting for massive hand sizes are helping win games with far lesser decks, against top tier decks, just because of the options coming off the hand size.

Just wondering if I am missing something?
 
Professor Birch (or Shauna) are typically used over Tierno for a few reasons. Firstly, they give room for some Shaymin-EX setup, which Tierno doesn't really in theory. Secondly, you are guaranteed to see more cards than Tierno (4/7/5 vs 3), which is also theoretically better. Thirdly, Prof. Birch and Shauna provides an escape from a hand you would n0ot want to discard through something like Professor Sycamore, which you probably should be running three to four copies due to how good they are.
 
I seen a couple dudes online use Tierno in hand spam decks alongside crap like Lucky Helmet and Simi-apes. Probably the only deck you would want to use Tierno in.
 
I think the OP brought up some things to think about. Having a large hand could potentially be far more superior than shuffling your hand around continuously. Obviously decks would need to be constructed a bit differently, but it's not something to completely disregard.
 
I think Tierno is honestly an underrated card, and it's a pretty nice one-of or two-of in decks just as an additional option if you want to keep your hand (for instance you have evolutions you can't use yet, or you want to hang on to a Lysandre or VS Seeker that could potentially win you the game in the future).
 
I feel like people are asking the wrong question.

The question is not "Is Tierno any good?" or "Could Tierno's effect be useful?". It's "Is Tierno good enough that you would drop another supporter in its favour, or use Tierno instead of another tech card"? For most decks, the answer seems to be "no".
 
Those are all pretty much the same question tbh, there are very few situations in which I would consider Tierno over just about any other card.
 
I personally would only consider using Tierno in decks that use Metagross AOR AT or Gourgeist (Gourgantic Ability)
 
bbninjas said:
Professor Birch (or Shauna) are typically used over Tierno for a few reasons. Firstly, they give room for some Shaymin-EX setup, which Tierno doesn't really in theory. Secondly, you are guaranteed to see more cards than Tierno (4/7/5 vs 3), which is also theoretically better. Thirdly, Prof. Birch and Shauna provides an escape from a hand you would n0ot want to discard through something like Professor Sycamore, which you probably should be running three to four copies due to how good they are.
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For your second point, one thing I'd add is that with Tierno, the cards you are drawing are guaranteed new cards, while when you play Birch, you might wind up with some of the same cards in your hand. It puts cards back into the deck, so if you're trying to dig for something in particular, that's one scenario where straight draw would be slightly better than shuffle-draw, if you can't thin your hand before you play it.

PMJ said:
I seen a couple dudes online use Tierno in hand spam decks alongside crap like Lucky Helmet and Simi-apes. Probably the only deck you would want to use Tierno in.
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I've considered it in Vileplume decks, just because there aren't too many good alternatives. You can't play VS Seeker, and your hand tends to get clogged up, so Shaymin doesn't really do anything once you're set up. Cheren saw play for a similar reason back when we had it with Professor Juniper and N, and that was it.
 
I use 4 Tierno in my deck. I don't play a single copy of Juniper or related cards because I cant afford to lose a whole hand. Tierno just makes a good hand better or keeps options around you dont want to shuffle. I do think more decks should use it more, even more so with Octillery since you get to have access to a lot of card. IMO, you can't really compare these cards together since some people use both. Its really up to the deck.
 
I can see Tierno having some usage in a Stage 2 deck, where you have either the Stage 2 or Rare Candy in your hand and need to add the other in order to evolve. But even then, running Skyla would probably be better.
 
Tierno + Octillery isn't that bad an idea, actually.
 
I mainly use him in my latios/milotic deck -- full disclosure I've never really liked Tierno. I was struggling with draw support because birch was random. After about 8 games, I noticed my opponents were not shuffling my hand sizes. I tossed tierno in because, well, I always had four or seven cards in my hand when I birtched for more, Ultra ball, VS seeker, and Energies. I birtched on higher hands sizes because there was stuff I still wanted to use but I was usually a card off. I took out birtch and added Tierno.

My hypothesis was because the deck is getting thinned out between unknowns/shaymins/acro bikes/battle compressors and Trainer Mails, Tierno might hit a bit more as draw support. With high hand sizes, I just noticed that I started to have 10 playable cards in my hand versus 4 or 7. Because of the options, I started to win a bit. Yveltal/Zorak, Manetric/Regicen--> I even picked up a game with Night March.

What I noticed was that I was out drawing my competitors and discarding out less needed Trainers. Where they either were limiting their hands size by their own will, or discarding out much needed resources for late game. I admit, I only run two of them, and I'm still on the fence that is why I appreciate this in depth conversation. Right now, I'm thinking of adding it to a Zorark/MewTwo build for a city my kiddo is going to participate in this weekend, but I'm afraid to jack with the deck. Jack with deck...hahahaha...Honestly, I'm not that cool.
 
poke4trade said:
I mainly use him in my latios/milotic deck -- full disclosure I've never really liked Tierno. I was struggling with draw support because birch was random. After about 8 games, I noticed my opponents were not shuffling my hand sizes. I tossed tierno in because, well, I always had four or seven cards in my hand when I birtched for more, Ultra ball, VS seeker, and Energies. I birtched on higher hands sizes because there was stuff I still wanted to use but I was usually a card off. I took out birtch and added Tierno.

My hypothesis was because the deck is getting thinned out between unknowns/shaymins/acro bikes/battle compressors and Trainer Mails, Tierno might hit a bit more as draw support. With high hand sizes, I just noticed that I started to have 10 playable cards in my hand versus 4 or 7. Because of the options, I started to win a bit. Yveltal/Zorak, Manetric/Regicen--> I even picked up a game with Night March.

What I noticed was that I was out drawing my competitors and discarding out less needed Trainers. Where they either were limiting their hands size by their own will, or discarding out much needed resources for late game. I admit, I only run two of them, and I'm still on the fence that is why I appreciate this in depth conversation. Right now, I'm thinking of adding it to a Zorark/MewTwo build for a city my kiddo is going to participate in this weekend, but I'm afraid to jack with the deck. Jack with deck...hahahaha...Honestly, I'm not that cool.
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This was the reason I took Junipers out of my deck. I was discarding way too many important cards. Since I'm playing around with Octillery and I can play my hands rather quickly, I didn't see the need for such an aggressive draw card. I still play 2 copies of birch because its still a decent draw card but I have noticed that large hand sizes are the way to go with all the draw support out there.
 
crystal_pidgeot said:
This was the reason I took Junipers out of my deck. I was discarding way too many important cards. Since I'm playing around with Octillery and I can play my hands rather quickly, I didn't see the need for such an aggressive draw card. I still play 2 copies of birch because its still a decent draw card but I have noticed that large hand sizes are the way to go with all the draw support out there.
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Ya, this is sort of my theory, that there is so much draw support out there and very few ways to downsize hands in standard, or for the next few months that is, that out drawing your opponent puts you in a better position. Because so many of us relied on the N in the past and now birch for the future, are the trainers caught in a perpetual cycle of a formatted way for draw support. Better yet, is pokemon leading us to the water, but we're not drinking?

City's are suppose to tell us these answers, but gosh, there so many times when I see a trainer try to make a risk play on their draw support before a tournament, and then just give into the 4/4 line of birch and sycamore to be successful. Just thoughts.
 
I think the main draw of Juniper and friends is that in tournaments you can't really afford to take your time. There aren't really any decks out there like that anymore; everything is designed to just kill things as fast as possible.
 
That is true but one game in a tournament, I had to discard 4 max potions because my opponent setup to fast, which was his first turn. I just hate discarding important cards.
 
If Tierno were buffed to draw 4 cards, would more people use it? At that point though I'd say it catches out Birch's as you're drawing 4 new cards (as opposed to 4 or 7 cards that could be the same).
 
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