COTD – 21st July 2011 – Professor Juniper

Today I’ve chosen the second Professor featured as a Card of the Day, Professor Juniper from the Black and White Base Set.

Professor Juniper has a simple, yet very useable effect, discard your entire hand and draw 7 cards. This immediately reminds a lot of players of the old Professor Oak card from Base Set, which featured in pretty much every single deck back then with its ability to mill through the deck as fast as possible.

Right now, it has been ‘demoted’ to a Supporter, but it is still a very effective way to mill the deck since there isn’t a lot of draw support out there at the moment. It also has great synergy with Junk Arm so that you can discard those trainers early on to get your Pokemon all set out, while still having the option to grab them back for use later on through this method.

You will more than likely see this in Stage 1 Rush decks such as Donphan/Zoroark/Yanmega and other decks that just need to get that initial prize to start the war just that crucial turn ahead. It gives the player that turn 1 attacker and keeps them one step ahead of the opponent, exactly what the deck is designed to do.

Overall, this card gives us the option of including a strong source of draw power in our decks where the format lacks it in the form of Pokemon. It works extremely well in some cases, but not so well in other situations, so it’s a card that you really need to test out and get used to to get the full potential from it. I’ll give Juniper a solid 7.5/10. Not for every deck, but used in the right one and it can give you that boost you need to outspeed your opponent.

Thanks for reading and comment below what you think!