After getting over my habit of using Professor Sycamore too often, I got around to thinking: how fast can a player run through their deck? This is a purely hypothetical question, of course.
So, in the best case scenario (most ideal draws each turn), what is the minimum number of turns it would take for someone to run through their entire deck?
NOTE: Infinite coin flips would make this not very fun (1 Gyarados-EX (BKP) with all water energies is the first thing that comes to mind), so I'm limiting this to cards that have a limited number of flips (no cards that say "flip until you get tails").
In order to do this, we need to look at cards that can get other cards out of our deck. Cards like Battle Compressor (PHF) are perfect for getting rid of cards you don't need. Cards that let you discard other cards from your hand can be sort of useful, some examples being Acro Bike (PRC) and Ultra Ball. Remember: We don't need to get all of our cards in our discard pile, we just need to get them out of our deck. Cards like Professor's Letter and Roller Skates will get you many cards out of your deck at a time.
Pokemon:
(4) Unown AOR
(4) Oranguru (SUM)
(4) Rayquaza-EX (DRG)
(4) Shaymin-EX (ROS)
Trainers:
(4) Professor Sycamore (STS)
(4) Acro Bike (PRC)
(4) Trainer's Mail (ROS)
(4) Battle Compressor (PHF)
(1) Scorched Earth (PRC)
(4) Puzzle of Time (BKP)
(4) Ultra Ball (SUM)
(4) Roller Skates (XY)
(4) Professor's Letter (XY)
(1) Master Ball (ACE SPEC)
Energy:
(11) Fire Energy
I'm using Rayquaza-EX's Celestial Roar attack to discard cards from the deck, so only using this I would deck out in 12 turns by drawing a card and discarding 3 each turn (47/4≈12). Assuming that no Professor Sycamores are prized, we will have four turns of removing 11 cards each turn from the deck (draw card, Prof. Sycamore, Celestial Roar) for a total of 44 cards removed in four turns. This leaves 3 cards in our deck, which could easily be discarded by playing a Battle Compressor during any of the previous turns, but the game only ends the turn after you deck out, so our draw/Sycamore/Roar combo would *only* make us deck out after 5 turns. Note that this is only taking into account Professor Sycamore and a single Battle Compressor. Let's do some more math, taking into account all of our item cards:
**Battle Compressor (3 cards each for 12 total)
**Acro Bike (2 cards each for 8 total)
**Professor's Letter (2 energy cards each for 8 total)
**Roller Skates (3 cards each, 12 total)
**Ultra + Master Ball (1 card each for 5 total, as long as a Pokemon is in the deck)
**Scorched Earth is in play (2 cards per Fire/Fighting energy discarded).
**Puzzle of Time (total of 4 cards from the discard pile, use them to retrieve each Battle Compressor for 12 more cards discarded)
This gives us 59 cards of draw/discard support, meaning that by only playing our item cards, we can run through our deck in one turn. If we wanted to be more realistic and do this with perfect coin flips, we could get rid of Roller Skates and we would still have 47 cards of draw support. If some of our more useful cards got prized, we could still deck out through clever use of Oranguru and Shaymin-EX, as well as Rayquaza-EX's Celestial Roar, not to mention that this is without using any Sycamores.
Once again, the condition for losing a game is by being unable to draw a card at the beginning of your turn. Using the method I outlined above, the earliest a player can lose by decking out is Turn 2.
So, in the best case scenario (most ideal draws each turn), what is the minimum number of turns it would take for someone to run through their entire deck?
NOTE: Infinite coin flips would make this not very fun (1 Gyarados-EX (BKP) with all water energies is the first thing that comes to mind), so I'm limiting this to cards that have a limited number of flips (no cards that say "flip until you get tails").
In order to do this, we need to look at cards that can get other cards out of our deck. Cards like Battle Compressor (PHF) are perfect for getting rid of cards you don't need. Cards that let you discard other cards from your hand can be sort of useful, some examples being Acro Bike (PRC) and Ultra Ball. Remember: We don't need to get all of our cards in our discard pile, we just need to get them out of our deck. Cards like Professor's Letter and Roller Skates will get you many cards out of your deck at a time.
Pokemon:
(4) Unown AOR
(4) Oranguru (SUM)
(4) Rayquaza-EX (DRG)
(4) Shaymin-EX (ROS)
Trainers:
(4) Professor Sycamore (STS)
(4) Acro Bike (PRC)
(4) Trainer's Mail (ROS)
(4) Battle Compressor (PHF)
(1) Scorched Earth (PRC)
(4) Puzzle of Time (BKP)
(4) Ultra Ball (SUM)
(4) Roller Skates (XY)
(4) Professor's Letter (XY)
(1) Master Ball (ACE SPEC)
Energy:
(11) Fire Energy
I'm using Rayquaza-EX's Celestial Roar attack to discard cards from the deck, so only using this I would deck out in 12 turns by drawing a card and discarding 3 each turn (47/4≈12). Assuming that no Professor Sycamores are prized, we will have four turns of removing 11 cards each turn from the deck (draw card, Prof. Sycamore, Celestial Roar) for a total of 44 cards removed in four turns. This leaves 3 cards in our deck, which could easily be discarded by playing a Battle Compressor during any of the previous turns, but the game only ends the turn after you deck out, so our draw/Sycamore/Roar combo would *only* make us deck out after 5 turns. Note that this is only taking into account Professor Sycamore and a single Battle Compressor. Let's do some more math, taking into account all of our item cards:
**Battle Compressor (3 cards each for 12 total)
**Acro Bike (2 cards each for 8 total)
**Professor's Letter (2 energy cards each for 8 total)
**Roller Skates (3 cards each, 12 total)
**Ultra + Master Ball (1 card each for 5 total, as long as a Pokemon is in the deck)
**Scorched Earth is in play (2 cards per Fire/Fighting energy discarded).
**Puzzle of Time (total of 4 cards from the discard pile, use them to retrieve each Battle Compressor for 12 more cards discarded)
This gives us 59 cards of draw/discard support, meaning that by only playing our item cards, we can run through our deck in one turn. If we wanted to be more realistic and do this with perfect coin flips, we could get rid of Roller Skates and we would still have 47 cards of draw support. If some of our more useful cards got prized, we could still deck out through clever use of Oranguru and Shaymin-EX, as well as Rayquaza-EX's Celestial Roar, not to mention that this is without using any Sycamores.
Once again, the condition for losing a game is by being unable to draw a card at the beginning of your turn. Using the method I outlined above, the earliest a player can lose by decking out is Turn 2.
