Neo Genesis: Bill’s Teleporter

Alright, since yesterday’s article was devoted to a strategy that was odd and would probably never work I figure I owe everyone an article devoted to a strategy that is odd and DOES work.  So today we’re gonna look at Bill’s Teleporter, and it’s important role in Hand Building Strategy.

Now as you probably know, Professor Oak, Elm, Computer Search, and Item Finder are all cards that let you access cards in your deck while placing a static limit on the handsize.  For Oak and Elm the limit is seven.  For Computer Search and Item Finder you’re going to be drawing one, and probably using it to gain access to seven in total via Oak and Elm.  But still, the magic number is seven.  And usually you’ll be discarding the cards from your hand to get these new cards into your hand, thus leaving yourself open to decking and robbing yourself of options.  It’s fast, good, easy, and it defines this game as being the number-one best strategy to win.  But there IS another way…

If you read my article on Chaos Gym (I hope somebody read it…) you might’ve noticed that I mentioned my suspiciously psychic pal Nova.  Well, Nova runs a pretty darn good Clefable deck that regularly provides good competition to everyone we meet and wins enough games to mark him as a pretty well-known player in our area.  A shock came to me last weekend though…

“So waddaya got in the deck right now?”

“Uhhh… 4 Elm, 4 Erika, 4 Bill, Bill’s Telly…coupla’ Comp Search and Item Finder.”

“How many Oaks?”

“None…”

I blinked so much I think I might have feinted.  None?  I mean, yeah, I beat Nova pretty reliably, but he puts up a pretty excellent fight.  NO OAKS?  How could this be?  I knew that Hand-Building was good, but…it could work with no fallback Oaks?  

So because of this revelation I thought I had to share it with everyone who’d lend me an ear.  Hand-Building is the practice of drawing cards from the deck WITHOUT a static limit (like the seven cards from Oak) or a discard cost.  It uses Erika, Bill, Bill’s Teleporter, and sometimes even Blaine’s Quizzes to build a massive hand advantage.  As long as the opponent isn’t playing IOR and you aren’t horribly unlucky it can work in a really overpowering way.  It’s a little weak now, but with a few upcoming sets it’ll become quite viable.  Anyway, since Bill’s Telly is sort of important to this, let’s get to the reading…
 

Bill's Teleporter: Trainer

Flip a coin.  If heads, draw 4 cards.

A pretty simple card, but assuming an even fifty/fifty split this thing is basically like another Bill in your deck.  Or if you’re lucky it’s like four Bills on steroids.  Yes, it sucks when you get a bunch of tails, but it’s recoverable, and when you get a string of heads you are FLYING.  I’ve seen Nova smirk like the wee bastage that he is on the second turn as he counts up his freakin’ twenty-five or thirty card hand, and then proceeds to ER and SER me at every turn.  Oooooh Nova…  *shakes his fist*
 

So, complementary cards to Bill’s Telly and the entire Hand-Building way of life are:

Bill:  It’s a free card advantage of one.  Normally I despise the use of Bill, but in this type of deck it’s obviously justified.  Until something better comes around this is just the ONLY option.

Erika:  Bill plus one.  This gives a card advantage of two for every use, and is highly useful.  However, it DOES give your opponent two cards which I’ve seen cost Hand-Builders games in the past.  However, just chain it with…

Impostor Oak’s Revenge:  Woo!  If you do a full run of four Erikas (which you’ll be doing quite reliably in the first few turns of a game) you’re going to want to get rid of that twelve-card advantage you just gave your opponent in exchange for your nine…
So IOR him and buy yourself AT LEAST a total of a seven card advantage.  Works like a charm, and it’s sooo nice to get the opponent’s hopes up.

Duplica:  This card, from New Dimension, will make Hand Building fully viable in Standard when it gets released.  Duplica is a Support Trainer, meaning you can only play Duplica once per turn (you may continue to use other trainers normally during that turn).  She allows you to shuffle all the cards in your hand back into your deck and draw a new hand of the same number of cards: Sabrina’s Gaze, except good.  This card’ll make a strong showing in A LOT of decks, and will replace the bulk of the Elms in Hand Building.
 

Now unfortunately this strategy can be hurt by two cards quite badly…  And I mean HURT.

Impostor Oaks’ Revenge:  It’s a double-edged sword.  If YOU use it to keep the opponent down you’re in good shape.  But if you use all your Bills, Erikas, and Bill’s Teleporters and get IORd next turn you’re pretty screwed unless you’ve got a Trash Exchange and a healthy supply of luck.

Chaos Gym:  If this gets dropped late in the game, once you have nearly everything in your hand anyway, you’re in pretty good shape.  But if this gets dropped on the first or second turn, suddenly half of your card-drawing is going towards building nothing but your OPPONENT’s hand, which well, “sucks”.  Defaulting three gyms instead of the standard two can help this though.

So there we go.  A nice little short article on Bill’s Telly and the deck type that it fuels.  I’ll probably be doing another article, maybe a bit more in-depth, on the topic of hand-building once Card-E comes out.  That’ll change the standard trainer base for most decks in a few small ways…

-Gloom

Note to Modified Players:  I tried this in Modified.  It didn’t work.  Inundation of Cleffa kills it.