In Memory of the Pokemon TCG(WotC Era)

Oak and maaaybe Base Set Electabuzz were the only cards that really should have been restricted... Magic Jar (from MTG) was banned and it and Oak do practically the same thing.
 
Callum said:
You forgot Promo Mewtwo in the list of game-dominating cards. 40 turn 2 damage was scary.
Click to expand...
Of course, a far more likely scenario would be Jigglypuff absorbing that Psychic attack, then evolving on turn two, slapping down a Double Colorless Energy and Plus Power, and OHKOing Mewtwo.

Mekkah said:
If I may ask as an almost complete novice at the higher stages of TCG playing, why is Farfetch'd up there? Because it has a 50% chance of dealing 30 damage before having to resort to a triple colorless one?
Click to expand...
Hitmonchan was a menace in Base, and Scyther didn't exist. Given the choice between Pidgey, Base Ghastly, and Farfetch'd, most people prefered something that could deal 30 damage on turn two.


The metagame was always broken, and I should know that better than anyone. You see, I didn't play the game. I played the metagame. I started playing competitively right after Jungle, and the first thing I did was garner as many copies of Wigglytuff as possible. Good lord, that thing was broken. Unlike Blastoise, who had to worry about Gust of Wind turning Squirtle into turtle soup, Wigglytuff evolved from something with 60 HP and could attack for 20 damage with a Double Colorless Energy. And, unlike Blastoise, Wigglytuff only had to evolve once. Wigglytuff, at least 75% of the time, could easily be hitting for 60 damage on turn two.

The only deck I played at that point did everything in its power to make sure that Wigglytuff was doing just that. I played four copies of Bill, Oak, and Computer Search, and as many copies of Item Finder as I could fine (which ended up totaling three at the end of Gym 2).

Fewer things in TCG history have been cheaper than Pokemon's trapper deck. Imposter Oak's Revenge reduced the opponent's hand size to four cards. A Rocket's Sneak Attack allowed you to weed out any search or draw cards they might have, and should they happen to have more than one, a Rocket's Sneack Attack would eliminate the rest of their hand. There was NO POSSIBLE WAY to recover from this, outside of topdecking an Oak; Item Finder and Computer Search both required at least three cards in your hand in order to work. I, of course, played a trapper deck.

Neo Genesis really was, literally, a New Beginning. Cleffa became even more of a staple than Oak, and made the trapper obsolete almost instantaneously. Wigglytuff, at this point, was horribly outgunned by Feraligatr and easily walled by Steelix, and it looked like the metagame would see the end of Wigglytuff. It did. In return, it got Sneasel, who was Wigglytuff with coin flips, without the evolution requirement. And, the trap was replaced with Slowking, which allowed you to effectively lock the game for your opponent, because the effects of its power stacked. And, with Murkrow, you could effectively checkmate on turn one. Let me tell you something: People say that there's a myriad of ways to counter Slowking. But Muk is too fragile to be played defensively, Igglybuff takes up too much bench space, Pichu is Murkow bait, and Dark Vileplume was just silly. Show me a counter for Slowking, and I'll show you a way to lose to a Slowking deck. If you knew how Slowking worked, you could turn a benched Chansey or Scyther into a win, and believe me, I knew how Slowking worked. I ditched my Wigglytuff for its dark counterpart and lost the trainer chain for an evolution chain. At this point, everyone at the local card shop hated me with a passion. After that...I pretty much quit the game. But not before blowing $85 on a Neo Genesis booster box and writing several rants about the homosexuality of Tyroge and Focus Band flips in Modified. (For those who don't know, Modified was a contest to see whether Typhlosion could beat Feraligatr using Chaos Gym.)

If the TCG ever really had a "golden age," it was a function of the franchise's popularity and the TCG-naive nublets that came with it. After all, when only about 10% of the population knows what it's doing, playing an evolution-based deck is viable, and a lot more fun than trying to win the game on turn one. But I've always been far too impatient for that.

Pokemon TCG has always been a broken game. But, thanks to Nintendo, now we have mechanics to break the game for us, instead of cards. Kill your parents.
 
Sleep said:
Oak and maaaybe Base Set Electabuzz were the only cards that really should have been restricted... Magic Jar (from MTG) was banned and it and Oak do practically the same thing.
Click to expand...
Hate to nitpick, but the card is Memory Jar. It also worked by getting rid of the opponents current hand, before they could use it, so it was harder to disrupt you, using the hand you just drew, and getting back the old one.It really is a diffrent card.

As for me, I didn't have a problem with the Team Rocket set. My favorite card came out of that (Dark Muk). After that is when I quit.
 
I've been playing the TCG since 1999 (along with the video game) and I can say I still enjoy it greatly. Yeah, Wizards had great cards and did a good job with the game, but they really did screw over the older age group (15+) towards the end. With POP and PUSA running the show, I feel that things have gone by so far very nicely. Decent prizes and stuff, good cards (even the flavor text coming back on the D/P and beyond cards)...
 
I love the GBC game, mainly because the cards are free. (Pay good money for printed pieces of paper? Fuck that.)

Nintondo could actually do really well with some kind of regularly-updated, multiplayer, online TCG system. The mechanics of the card game are actually quite awesome. Who wants to spend money on cards, though?

Anyway, free retreat Scyther was the man back in the day. Fit into any deck, haymaker or otherwise, since it didn't need that grass energy to function. Solid Hitmonchan resist too.
 
Kikuichimonji said:
You see, I didn't play the game. I played the metagame. I started playing competitively right after Jungle, and the first thing I did was garner as many copies of Wigglytuff as possible. Good lord, that thing was broken.
Click to expand...

In other words, as Hitmonchan decreased in popularity due to the domination of Psychics, you put together an anti-Psychic deck that took advantage of less Hitmonchans.

My league had a few anti-psychic decks, but I dealt with them, Electabuzz would keep them down until Gengar could shift around damage and Mr. Mime would wreak havoc on my opponent... and generally, benchloading decks were utterly destroyed by the bench-destruction decks...

Personally, I had always felt Rain Dance decks were disgusting... with the addition of Lapras to stall until you could bring out the rest of your team and the possibility of those 2nd turn Blastoise evolutions (due to the Breeder Cards)... you had the potential of fully loaded Dewgongs and Blastoises so early... and nothing resisted Water... Charizard (the most overhyped card in the game) even feared these decks.
 
The day I got a Charizard card in a booster pack was the day when I made the greatest fire deck ever.

Back then, the cards were probably more fun than the game, then it got kinda silly...I remember the Egyptian Mew card that I got...that was cool...also, I had all 8 badges from the Pokemon Card league at Toys R Us, but only because my friend was a gym leader and gave me extra points each time he beat me...man I sucked...

Having multiple cards of the same Pokemon is fine. If gives you more possibilities. But...uh...wtf @ Pidgeot? ur not zapdos lol

I actually bought the FireRed starter deck at CVS on a whim one night with one my my friends, and it seemed a-ok.
 
Pokézoni said:
In other words, as Hitmonchan decreased in popularity due to the domination of Psychics, you put together an anti-Psychic deck that took advantage of less Hitmonchans.
Click to expand...
Actually, Hitmonchan died because people discovered that they could play evolutions faster with massive trainer support, making Haymaker obsolete. (Haymaker did make a comeback in prop15 c3, but mostly as a counter to the even more popular Wigglytuff.) Anyway, Wigglytuff decks always came with Scyther support, and if Wigglytuff couldn't safely attack for 60 damage on turn two, Scyther certainly could, and the addition of a Plus Power was enough to wipe out Scyther, Electabuzz, and Hitmonchan. Psychic decks have always failed hard, simply because Wigglytuff has always been the best archetype in the game. Psychic types especially sucked with the addition of Murkrow in Sneasel, since you could easily lose the game by playing a Promo Mewtwo to start with.
Pokézoni said:
Personally, I had always felt Rain Dance decks were disgusting... with the addition of Lapras to stall until you could bring out the rest of your team and the possibility of those 2nd turn Blastoise evolutions (due to the Breeder Cards)... you had the potential of fully loaded Dewgongs and Blastoises so early... and nothing resisted Water... Charizard (the most overhyped card in the game) even feared these decks.
Click to expand...
Since when was Charizard ever a playable card? Good lord, I'm beginning to wonder whether you actually played this game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top