Discussion Lass's Special

[21times]

Hey Beach Bums,

I have been testing a card that I think we all missed out on over the past few months: Lass's Special. This card, a supporter, allows you to draw an amount of cards equal to the number of BASIC pokemon on your opponent's bench. I think most of us poo-pooed this; however, in this era of big basics, I now wish I'd been playing this card since the start of the new rotation.

In the 57 times I played this card (yeah I know the sample size is a little small, but I'll explain later), I averaged almost 4 cards a shot (3.93). Here's the distribution of how many times I got a particular amount of cards:

1 card: 1 time
2 cards: 10 times
3 cards: 11 times
4 cards: 18 times
5 cards: 9 times
6 cards: 3 times
7 cards: 5 times

So you can see that there is quite a bit of variance in the amount of cards you might get. In some games, however, the draw support is insane! There was one game where I drew 21 cards in 3 consecutive turns of using Lass's Special. I had so many cards in my hand that I had to hover over each one individually to see what cards I actually had in my hand. Against decks like Volcanion, Mega Ray, and even Gardevoir, Lass's Special has been an unbelievably powerful card. Plus, you do not have to put cards in your hand back into your deck - it's a straight draw X amount of cards. This is invaluable if you're playing evolution decks where you might not want to play Sycamore or N and throw away or reshuffle evolution pokemon or spirit links or rare candy.

However, as I'm sure you're thinking, the down side is that if you're playing a deck that has multiple evolution pokemon, Lass's special can become pretty much a dead card. And in light of the imminent onset of all of the GX evolution pokemon that we're all salivating over, I think I'm going to shelve Lass's Special for awhile. Still, I think we all missed a tremendous opportunity over the past couple of months when there were so many big basic pokemon attackers (Volcanion, Turbo Darkrai, Yveltal, Jolteon, Glaceon, Regice, Xerneas, Snorlax) and so many big basics they relied on sitting on their bench (Shaymin, Hoopa, Dragonite, Magearna, Manaphy).

 

[mirdo]

The competetive scene is in a weird state.
Because everybody and their grandmothers hates Coinflips, inconsistency and something not beeing ideal. So if you even dare to play a diffrent draw support then Sycamore and N you are probably one of the worst players ever.
But im not here to rant.

Problem with Lass's special is that it's kinda inconsistent. And situational. And you have to consider. People call Hau / Tierno one of or even the worst supporter in the game. Because you just pull 3. So Lass has the similar issue that it's usually only 3 or 4 a draw. Sometimes even lower.

I personally wouldn't condemn you for playing it. Heck i even like the card its not a bad Idea to play with for example Mewtwo, Volcanion and similar beeing popular.
But like i said. Very situational

 

[21times]

Definitely agree mirdo. It is very inconsistent, you can see how much of a disaster it is in a match I played against Discount Pokemon Decks the other night. Normally, Lass's is a great card to play in Greninja, but it was just a horrible choice against Serperior. And like I said, I'm sure there are going to be a TON of evolution pokemon running around PTCGO over the next few weeks... I'm thinking about pulling out Glaceon, I think I can probably make some hay with that card.

 

[Otaku]

I have been testing a card that I think we all missed out on over the past few months: Lass's Special.

Often I find the Daily Challenge in the PTCGO easier to grind out in Theme Deck mode, and a few of them contain Lass's Special. So I too have been using it over the last few months, albeit on and off as the card I poo-pooed... hasn't impressed me yet. 21times, your data is welcome, but I think you miss that 4 card draw? Not good in the current metagame for most decks. I think the real issue is that a lot of player's have a faulty, binary approach to rating cards. Either it is "good" or "bad". Even when they add more options, it ends up being "Great", "Very Good", "Good"... then still jumps straight to "bad".

People call Hau / Tierno one of or even the worst supporter in the game. Because you just pull 3. So Lass has the similar issue that it's usually only 3 or 4 a draw. Sometimes even lower.

I know you are quoting "people" in a general sense, mirdo, but that is what I am talking about. Cedric Juniper or Professor Oak's Hint are probably the worst Supporter in the modern Pokémon TCG. They fail as general cards, they fail as specialized cards, they just fail. Cheren and Tierno are underwhelming; if Cheren provides a straight four card draw it might have been worth it. By the time of Tierno, I am not sure if even four cards with no drawback would have sufficed. Hau gets a bad rap not because of being underwhelming, but for the-powers-that-be giving us the same card that didn't cut it twice before! -_- S'why I praise something like Gym Badge from a design standpoint. Not because of the coin flips (that isn't good), but because they realized they could just create a generic card with the same effect and name, but change the art in each, instead of spamming eight different cards with the same effect. Either we get Cheren/Tierno/Hau or we get Professor Juniper/Professor Sycamore... the former is only useful for players still learning (who can't handle more complicated draw) and the latter is so good it requires a special rule to prevent players from running them both together. XD

Bringing it back home, Lass's Special is specialzied draw. If it had released prior to when it did, it probably would have seen competitive play. Instead it released when we were worried about Vespiquen and Greninja BREAK and some other Evolutions as much or more than mono-Basic decks. Standard was not Basic dominated at first; it took Volcanion-EX decks some time to establish themselves, didn't it? I seem to remember M Mewtwo-EX/Garbodor being the deck everyone expected to dominated Standard post-rotation.

 

[21times]

You make a good point (as always) Otaku. The older I get, the more grey area there seems to be in life... and not just on my head.