Pokemon
Masters
Elite
Force
Your Active Pok�mon may do most of the work when it comes to Knocking Out your opponent's Pok�mon, but your Bench Pok�mon are more important. Why, you ask? There are several reasons. First, if your Bench is empty, you'll lose the battle as soon as your Active Pok�mon gets Knocked Out! Second, the Bench is a safer place to get your next Active Pok�mon ready for battle. Not only can you Evolve Pok�mon and attach Energy cards to Benched Pok�mon in relative safety, but most Pok�mon Powers work just as well from the Bench as from the Arena, so you can put Pok�mon in your deck that you never intend to battle with and just leave them on the Bench. Third, and most importantly, your Benched Pok�mon give you options during a battle -- if you're prepared to use them. One Knock and You're Out I'm sure you all realize that once your last Pok�mon gets Knocked Out, you lose. That means that if you find only 1 Basic Pok�mon at the beginning of the game and it gets Knocked Out before you put another Pok�mon on your Bench, you lose, even though your opponent Knocked Out only 1 of your Pok�mon! I know most of you know this rule, and yet, I see deck after deck in my Deck Check articles that have too few Basic Pok�mon. You need to put several Pok�mon onto your Bench within the first 2 turns of the game, or you risk losing the battle before you even get started. I suggest at least 12 Basic and Baby Pok�mon in any deck (at least until you get the hang of building your own decks). There are some ways around this. If you have a deck that needs to evolve several Pok�mon quickly, you can use Trainer cards that search your deck for Evolution Pok�mon in place of other Pok�mon cards. But you still need enough Basic Pok�mon to get your deck going (and to have somewhere to put your Stage 1 Pok�mon when you do find them).Cards like Pok�mon Trader and The Boss's Way can help you get the Pok�mon you need out of your deck and into your hand where you need them. One of my favorite searching Trainer cards is Pok�mon Breeder Fields from the Neo Revelation set. Once you have several Pok�mon in play, you can play the Breeder Fields to try to evolve each and every one of them by searching your deck for the correct Evolution card for each. I usually don't like coin-flip cards, but when you can flip 3 or 4 or 5 coins at a time, you're bound to come up a winner at least a couple times. And that's more power on your Bench and in the Arena. Power Up in Safety The other reason to get Pok�mon onto your Bench is that it's better to power up your Pok�mon (attach Energy cards and Evolve them) when they are on the Bench. Sure, there are attacks that can do damage to Benched Pok�mon, but unless you come up against a deck that's designed to attack only the Bench, your Pok�mon will get less damaged on the Bench than they will in the Arena. And, if you need to get your Blastoise ready to dish out major damage with its Water Gun attack, you'll need time -- time you won't get if Squirtle and Wartortle are taking a beating as your Active Pokemon. The trick here is to have decent Basic Pok�mon in your deck that can take a beating (and maybe even do a little damage, as well). Make Chansey or Hitmonchan or Electabuzz your Active Pok�mon for a few turns while you attach Energy to the Pok�mon you really want out there. Then, when you're ready, drop that final Evolution card and use Switch to get out your big hitter. Of course, your opponent might see what's coming, and if he or she does, you might find your big hitter turned into a sitting duck by a Gust of Wind before you're ready. So, again, you need more Pok�mon on your Bench to disguise your intentions (or give you more options, which we'll discuss in a bit). If you are attaching Energy to several different Pok�mon and dropping a lot of Stage 1 Pok�mon onto the Bench, your opponent won't know which Pok�mon to use Gust of Wind upon and put into the Active Slot. The other important point about the safety of the Bench is that many of the most useful Pok�mon Powers, including Alakazam's Damage Swap Power, can be used when the Pok�mon is on the Bench. If you want to build a deck around swapping damage counters around on your Pok�mon and then using Scoop Up to get rid of most of those damage counters, you need to keep Alakazam on your Bench along with some big Pok�mon like Chansey (which you also can use as your Active Pok�mon until Alakazam is ready). The same is true for Feraligatr. Even before you're ready to attack with its Riptide attack, you can use its Downpour Power from the Bench to fill up your discard pile with Water Energy (just make sure you save enough to power up Riptide). Many winning decks rely on Pok�mon Powers used from the Bench to win battles, so watch what Pok�mon your opponent plays on his or her Bench to see what you might have to face once that Pok�mon evolves. Choices, Choices Perhaps the most important reason to keep your Bench mostly full is that the more Pok�mon you have sitting on the sidelines ready to go into battle, the more choices you have when something bad happens (or when you have an opportunity to do something really good). For example, let's say you're playing a Fire and Lightning deck and your Charmeleon is about to get Knocked Out by your opponent's Hitmonchan. If all you have left on your Bench is a Pikachu, you're in big trouble. Hitmonchan will Knock Out Pikachu with one punch the turn after your Charmeleon gets Knocked Out because Lightning Pok�mon have a Weakness to Fighting Pok�mon. Now, look at what happens when you have more choices. If you have a Magmar and a Farfetch'd ready to battle along with that Pikachu, you won't have to send Pikachu up to be mowed down. You have choices. In fact, Farfetch'd can stand up to Hitmonchan for a long time because it has a Resistance to Fighting Pok�mon. Better, yet, don't wait until Charmeleon gets Knocked Out to make the change. With cards like Switch, Scoop Up, and Super Scoop Up, you can get Charmeleon out of the way and put a Pok�mon into the Arena that matches up better with Hitmonchan. I especially like Super Scoop Up from the Neo Genesis set because you don't lose all of the Evolution and Energy cards that are attached to the Pok�mon you pick back up. That will make it much easier to rebuild (on the Bench, of course). To give yourself these kinds of choices, you need to fill up your Bench (at least most of the way), make good Resistance and Weakness match ups (which we discussed last time), and be able to move your Pok�mon around easily. You can make these switches easily either by using Pok�mon-switching Trainer cards like the ones I talked about above or by using Pok�mon that have no Retreat Cost. When you retreat a Pok�mon that has no Retreat cost, it's like using a free Switch card. A combination of Pok�mon with no Retreat Cost and switching Trainer cards will give you a deck that most players will find difficult to beat because you can always get your Active Pok�mon out of the way before they get Knocked Out. Then, all you need is Potions, Berries, or Alakazam and Chansey on your Bench to heal up and get them ready for battle again. How Full Is Too Full? That last item I want to discuss this week is the last spot on your Bench. In sports, the last spot on the Bench is usually saved for the worst player. In the Pok�mon trading card game (TCG), you always want to save the fifth and final spot on the Bench for your very best Pok�mon. The reason is simple. If you fill up your whole Bench, you have no more room to add Pok�mon later. If you then find your best Pok�mon, you can't play it until your Active Pok�mon gets Knocked Out or you use a Scoop Up Trainer card to remove one of your other Pok�mon. Either of these actions is a waste of your time and Pok�mon. Think about it. If your Chansey is doing a great job of taking damage for you and you have Charmeleon and Charizard in your hand, you don't want to waste Chansey just so you can play a Charmander once you find it. And if you use Scoop Up to remove a Benched Pok�mon to make room for Charmander, you can't use that Scoop Up on Chansey later on when you really need it. It's like I said before: You want to have as many choices as you can, and leaving a spot open gives you more choices than putting a Pikachu on your Bench when you already have 2 out there all powered up and ready to fight.
