Discussion Card-Drawing "Engine" (Expanded Deck Format)

TuxedoBlack

TuxedoBlack

Old School Player
Member
Assuming you only use cards from the expanded deck format, what does your "typical" card-drawing "engine" consist of? I usually use:

2 Colress - to take advantage of "large" bench sizes
4 N - disruption
4 Professor Sycamore - typically strongest card-drawing Supporter​

If I also supplement the above Trainer list with 1-2 Shaymin EX, I will reduce the N count by 1. Note: I do prefer Shaymin EX vs. Jirachi EX because of Shaymin EX's attack.

Thoughts?
 
Serpens said:
Replace Sycamore with Juniper. Add 3-4 Seekers and 1-2 Skyla, for additional consistency.
Click to expand...
Why would you need to replace Sycamore with Juniper? They do the exact same thing. In response to the original post, if you're using Shaymin-EX, any Ultra Ball, Pokemon Fan Club, Hoopa-EX,etc. that can get Shaymin-EX out of the deck can count towards draw support. Also, I run at least 2/3 Battle Compressor/VS. Seeker (my exact count depends on the deck) in almost all of my decks.
 
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I tend to lean towards juniper in expanded because I have more of them and I need my sycamore for my standard decks.
 
I would go for 4 Sycamore, 4 N, 1 Colress and 1 other in a deck with no Shaymin. I don't use 2 Colress because it is a bad card to start with. Especially with 4 VS seeker, you can usually get it if you need it later. For the other, I used to play Shauna just because it is usually okay at any time in the game. But if you have Shaymin EX and Hoopa EX, Pokemon Fan Club can be very good. If you are playing some sort of Bronzong deck, for example, the Fan Club could get you a Bronzor and a Hoopa, which could then become a Shaymin, and two attacking EXs.

For most decks I'd hardly ever play this engine, though, because most decks do have Shaymin. I find you can go down to 8 draw supporters with 2 Shaymin, 6-7 with 3 Shaymin and 4-5 with 4 Shaymin. This assumes that you are running a full count of ultraballs and maybe some extra consistency cards.

The tricky question for me is how to cut the supporter line. I know the majority cut Sycamore last- so if you want 6 draw suppporters it will be 4 Sycamore and 2 N. Personally, I don't like this that much. You are moving from a situation where 40% of your draw support was Sycamore to a situation where 60, 70 or 80% is Sycamore. It means that when you are trying to maintain your draw, the chance of it being Sycamore is much higher, and the chances of having to dump good stuff is higher. Sycamore is the most powerful draw support, for sure, but I am not convinced you need it quite so often when you have Shaymin, Hoopa and the item-based consistency cards we have now. So I look for a more balanced split, e.g. if it was going to be 6 draw supporters I would play 3 Sycamore, 3 N (rather than 4/2 in favour of Sycamore). I know this is a minority opinion, but there it is.
 
Talkingcat said:
I would go for 4 Sycamore, 4 N, 1 Colress and 1 other in a deck with no Shaymin. I don't use 2 Colress because it is a bad card to start with. Especially with 4 VS seeker, you can usually get it if you need it later. For the other, I used to play Shauna just because it is usually okay at any time in the game. But if you have Shaymin EX and Hoopa EX, Pokemon Fan Club can be very good. If you are playing some sort of Bronzong deck, for example, the Fan Club could get you a Bronzor and a Hoopa, which could then become a Shaymin, and two attacking EXs.

For most decks I'd hardly ever play this engine, though, because most decks do have Shaymin. I find you can go down to 8 draw supporters with 2 Shaymin, 6-7 with 3 Shaymin and 4-5 with 4 Shaymin. This assumes that you are running a full count of ultraballs and maybe some extra consistency cards.

The tricky question for me is how to cut the supporter line. I know the majority cut Sycamore last- so if you want 6 draw suppporters it will be 4 Sycamore and 2 N. Personally, I don't like this that much. You are moving from a situation where 40% of your draw support was Sycamore to a situation where 60, 70 or 80% is Sycamore. It means that when you are trying to maintain your draw, the chance of it being Sycamore is much higher, and the chances of having to dump good stuff is higher. Sycamore is the most powerful draw support, for sure, but I am not convinced you need it quite so often when you have Shaymin, Hoopa and the item-based consistency cards we have now. So I look for a more balanced split, e.g. if it was going to be 6 draw supporters I would play 3 Sycamore, 3 N (rather than 4/2 in favour of Sycamore). I know this is a minority opinion, but there it is.
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I agree with most of your points, especially trying to find the "right" balance between card-drawing Supporters, VS Seekers, and card-drawing "techs" (e.g., Scorching Earth, Unown, Empoleon (Diving Draw), Delphox (Mystical Fire), Jirachi, etc.)

The only reason why I may still play 4 Professor Sycamore in all my decks (regardless of the Shaymin EX count) is that I "hope" to have 1 I can use T1. It's also nice to discard 1 good solid card-draw Supporter early game in order to possibly VS Seeker it later in the game when needed.
 
imo expanded is all about speed, so turn 1, decks like night march, yveltal, archeops and jacobstoise (I say it as if the j is silent so it sounds like your saying gibberish), playing a turn by turn item based engine just doesn't seem like the play due to decks like toad and trevenant everything and the current speed based latter, this Is what I would call the turn 1 draw engine

2 N
2 sycamore
1 lysandre
1 additional supporter (you can afford to run 1-1 sycamore - N but I think it's just better to have 2 for the long haul, the 6th supporter should off set, for instance I run a speed based spooky sect with the same amount of supporters here, with a preferred speed based item list for turn 1 emerald slash or G-booster, it's very viable)

Staple
3-4 trainers mail (deck thinning, hand extension
2-4 battle compressor (energy, supporters, deck thinning
4 Vs seeker (recycle
4 ultra ball (search, deck thinning
2 shaymin (speed draw power = deck thinning
(before you add optional draw options that's a 15-17 card based draw engine before supporters that isn't just a draw engine)
optional
2-4 acro bike (depends on the draw engine not everything benefits from acro bike
3-4 roller skates (teir 2 draw cards
1 dowsing or computer search (considering it's search specs it could add 1 card for draw power)
optional(2)
2-4 bicycle
2-3 hypnotoxic lasers (the idea of deck thinning is to play a card to eliminate dead draw to increase draw power into something useful for the ohko or ko)
1-2 virbank
 
Yo-yos said:
imo expanded is all about speed, so turn 1, decks like night march, yveltal, archeops and jacobstoise (I say it as if the j is silent so it sounds like your saying gibberish), playing a turn by turn item based engine just doesn't seem like the play due to decks like toad and trevenant everything and the current speed based latter, this Is what I would call the turn 1 draw engine

2 N
2 sycamore
1 lysandre
1 additional supporter (you can afford to run 1-1 sycamore - N but I think it's just better to have 2 for the long haul, the 6th supporter should off set, for instance I run a speed based spooky sect with the same amount of supporters here, with a preferred speed based item list for turn 1 emerald slash or G-booster, it's very viable)

Staple
3-4 trainers mail (deck thinning, hand extension
2-4 battle compressor (energy, supporters, deck thinning
4 Vs seeker (recycle
4 ultra ball (search, deck thinning
2 shaymin (speed draw power = deck thinning
(before you add optional draw options that's a 15-17 card based draw engine before supporters that isn't just a draw engine)
optional
2-4 acro bike (depends on the draw engine not everything benefits from acro bike
3-4 roller skates (teir 2 draw cards
1 dowsing or computer search (considering it's search specs it could add 1 card for draw power)
optional(2)
2-4 bicycle
2-3 hypnotoxic lasers (the idea of deck thinning is to play a card to eliminate dead draw to increase draw power into something useful for the ohko or ko)
1-2 virbank
Click to expand...

Did you forget about Giratina-EX/Seismitoad ?
 
This is my draw engine for my Vespiquen Flareon PLF deck that used to be really good until I did something to it that made it die.
4 Acro bike
4 trainer's mail
4 battle compressor
3 shaymin EX

I forget the exact supporter count but I think it was 3 juniper 1-3 N ( I have to look this up) and some amount of another card.
 
Mute2@ there is no way to get around being elitist sounding for this though it is not my intention, why think about a deck that loses turn 1 speed and lost to decks last weekend based on the engine I mentioned.
 
With Night March and Blastoise being so prominent, Ghetsis and Hex Maniac are going to sneak into Supporter lines for sure. I've dropped to 3 Juniper and 2 N while playing Battle Compressor, Ultra Ball, and at least two Shaymin.
 
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