Acro Bike

[bbninjas]

I think the release of the Acro Bike has some potential.

Spoiler

You essentially are removing two cards from your deck (one less than the flip skates, and .5 more in average), one going into your hand, while the other being discarded. Do people think this item could see use in decks, and be successful? Should it be a staple, or replacement for roller skates/bike?

 

[Ironman131]

I am not sure how I feel about this card yet. I like the extra draw support and thinning out the deck could also be helpfull but at the same time I dont like the randomness and the fact that you only get one card. Im not sure what deck the acro bikes would be good, maybe a siesmitoad garbador deck so you are still getting the draw that a benched slurpuff would give as well as shutting down abilities. I also think this card is a good replacment for roller skates I dont think it will replace bike though.

 

[Vom]

This is great with Ancient Swampert, essentially giving you any card you want.
However, that's pretty much everything this card has going for it imo xD

 

[VergeX]

I would say four of it in every deck is a good idea.

 

[Blah]

^ I said that too when it came out, but there's a couple things to consider against that argument.

Would you run a 56 card deck if you could? Or the better question: why do you play a 60 card deck? Right now, you have to play a 60 card deck because the rules mandate it, but if you could play any number of cards in a deck, what would be the optimal number and why? In Magic and other similar TCG's, the fewer cards the better (to an extent, of course) because it makes a deck more consistent. But in Magic, you won't see all of the cards in your deck due to the lack of heavy draw, whereas in Pokémon "resource management" is actually a concept that needs to be taken into account because you could actually run out of a card that you need. I've asked the question of whether an item that said "draw a card" on it would see a lot of play, because all essentially that item would do is allow you to run a smaller deck. I still don't know the right answer.

But Acro Bike is even better than draw a card--it gives you more options. However, it also potentially forces you to burn a valuable resource--probably not a big deal considering Juniper is played as a 4-of in every deck, but something to consider nonetheless. So the question really comes down to whether your resources are more valuable than your consistency. It's probably something that needs to be tested in each deck to understand whether it works in that deck. The other, obvious major issue with Acro Bike is Seismitoad--which complicates things because all of a sudden it's now a dead card in certain matchups.

 

[Gengar master]

This card is similar to an older card Pokedex Handy910s
"Look at the top 2 cards of your deck, choose 1 of them, and put it in your hand. Put the other card on the bottom of your deck."

Most decks used to run 2/3 of these. Faster decks used even 4 of these.

Decks I think could benefit from 3/4 copies of this card
Night March (Helps with the fast set up)
Mega Manectric Variants (Get energy in discard)
Yveltal EX (Get dark energy in discard to accelerate with Yveltal XY)
Primal Kyogre EX (if you discard energy, that can later be retrieved with Energy Retrieval)

Decks that I think would be hurt by this card
VirGen (Don't want to risk discarding more energy than you need)
Fairy (Same as above and could discard a crucial tech that you still need less at that moment of the game but could really help lair on)

Wasn't sure on all of the decks but mainly speed decks that get damage out quickly could benefit from this card using 3/4 copies.

 

[thood]

This card is really good. Like OP said, it essentially lets you mill through your deck faster by burning through 2 cards. I can see this being used to great effect in Yveltal decks as a replacement to Bicycle/Skates.

 

[My Little Keldeo]

It's funny how I hyped this card up so much before Primal Clash was released. I thought it would become a staple to every deck because the effect was so nice. And then I actually started playing with it, and I'm rather unimpressed. The odds of drawing just the card you need from the top two cards of you deck aren't high (obviously it varies based on how many of said card you run and how many cards are left in your deck). Normally, I don't desperately need either card, but it's sometimes helpful. However... there's also those dreaded times when I really want both of the cards being shown to me... and I'm forced to discard one.

Still, it's probably going to become a staple in Cancer decks, since you can recycle anything you discard via LTC, and Night March could also use it cleverly. I'm not riding this card off entirely, but I think there's a good deal of decks that it shouldn't be run in.

 

[thood]

The odds of drawing just the card you need from the top two cards of you deck aren't high (obviously it varies based on how many of said card you run and how many cards are left in your deck).

I agree with this. I think that this card will work great in decks that run 3-4 of most cards. Not to mention, unlike Bicycle, Acro Bike isn't a dead card in the early game. Milling through a guaranteed 2 cards is pretty good for an item card.

 

[CruelBear]

I've tried a few games with it in a Bronzong deck, and the potential of discarding energy seemed to help quite a bit. I haven't (yet) had a time I've used it and keeping both cards in my deck would have been more beneficial than drawing one of them. I'm not saying it's always good for every deck, but it certainly has its uses, particularly in decks that like discarding certain cards.

 

[Talkingcat]

^ I said that too when it came out, but there's a couple things to consider against that argument.

Would you run a 56 card deck if you could? Or the better question: why do you play a 60 card deck?

This is the question.

I watched a video recently, a guy was saying a lot of players would play a card if it was just "draw one card" for just this reason- it would give you a 56 or 58 card deck.

It seems to come back to the issue of techs vs consistency. Which is partly a matter of deck and playstyle. Some decks just have a powerful and quite versatile strategy and will benefit most from consistency. VirGen and a few of the new mega-based decks spring to mind. Some decks are baeed on versatility and having different answers for different situations, eg fairy, Donphan, probably many fighting decks just because of Korinna.

 

[CruelBear]

^ I said that too when it came out, but there's a couple things to consider against that argument.

Would you run a 56 card deck if you could? Or the better question: why do you play a 60 card deck?

This is the question.

I watched a video recently, a guy was saying a lot of players would play a card if it was just "draw one card" for just this reason- it would give you a 56 or 58 card deck.

The problem I have with that, is I hardly ever saw Pokedrawer+ when that was legal. Sure, a few decks/players used it, but I wouldn't say "a lot of players" did. It even had a nice effect if you had two of them at the same time. However, it was also around a period of heavy trainer lock as well, and with trainer lock in the format, having 4 dead cards that, even if they weren't dead were just empty spaces in the deck, is a liability. How much, depends on how the rest of your deck handles trainer lock. And then yes, the 60 card limit is the other issue. Like I said before, Acro Bike certainly has its place. It just isn't for every deck.