AWKWARD ZOMBIE

One of my favorite memories was getting a Meowth tin with booster packs in it for Christmas. I got down to my last Base Set pack and got a Venusaur from it. It was the first fully evolved starter holofoil I got, and I loved the art so much.

To this day I have it in my collection and it's still one of my most favorite cards.

Anyways, time for our next segment of the lessons:

Deckbuilding 101: Deck Strategy



The first thing you need to do when you're building a deck is to find the strategy. This often happens when you find the focal Pokemon card (or cards) that work together and build off from there into your bare bones and skeleton deck lists (those will be covered next time).

A deck strategy could technically be built around any card, but they're often built around cards with unique or interesting mechanics. For instance:



Eelektrik is an interesting card because it can power up benched Pokemon with energy from the discard pile. If you were to build a deck around it, you'd want a deck that gets a lot of energy to the discard pile quickly, so cards like Ultra Ball and Professor Juniper can be even more helpful than usual by having the added effect of strengthening your deck's ability to attach energy. Get multiple Eelektriks on the bench and you have an efficient engine powering up your bench for attack.



Emboar, however, can attach as many Fire Energies as you want in a turn out of your hand to any of your Pokemon. This means your deck would favor having means of getting energy constantly to your hand for attachment to power up all of your Pokemon.

However, neither of these Pokemon can do it alone. After all, you won't be winning a game by just being able to attach energy, you have to pick the right Pokemon to go with them. Eelektrik would be best paired with a Pokemon that only needs lightning energy, or who might need multiple kinds of energy, but mainly needs Electric ones. It can especially be useful to cards that need energy to discard, as that energy is usable next turn by Eelektrik. Emboar needs a Pokemon that can use Fire Energy, and could benefit one that needs a mountain of energy to attack. Being about to get a good amount of energy down in one turn makes for getting an edge on an opponent.

But, each card has drawbacks, and it's important to know the limitations of a deck strategy in order to keep things in perspective. Both cards can only work with a single type of energy card, and dual type decks can mess them up if your second energy is all that's available to you to use at the moment. Eelektriks can also take up bench space that could be used for other Pokemon, and can be easily sniped or switched to the active position where they're sitting ducks. Emboar doesn't fare much better, and unless you're running a lot of energy, if any of that fire energy makes its way to the discard, you can be hurting in the late part of the game after having spent it all early on.

But there's ways to compensate for these things. Both decks run extremely well with early game hitting. If the opponent can't survive, they usually can't exploit the weakness of your strategy. In Eelektrik's case, it's important to have a way to keep them from getting knocked out. Having a card that can revenge kill might be a good incentive for not doing something, especially if it means losing a valuable Pokemon to a just 1 of 2-3 bench sitters. In Emboar's case, it's important to have a means of getting Energy in the discard back into the hand, or at the very least, the deck.

When you know the weaknesses and strengths of your deck strategy, you know what the basic structure of your deck should be. This will lead you to your most basic build of your deck.

But before we get into the actual building, I'd like to take a couple of cards randomly and see what I can discern from their deck strategy from what they have for information.



Lilligant is a stage 1 grass Pokemon. Its first move can do 30 damage for each heads out of 3 coins. For 1 grass energy it's capable of 90 damage. However, it also gets confused when it uses the attack. If your deck is going to focus on this attack, you'll want something to help try to maximize the number of heads and be able to get rid of confusion. For the former problem, you have:



Victini's ability allows you to reflip if you don't like the flips you get for your attack. But keep in mind, it's not a guarantee that you'll get better than what you got the first time. You could even do worse and have to stick with it.

For confusion, you could always retreat out of it for just 1 energy, but giving up energy every turn isn't effective. Plus, if you retreat, unless you're retreating into another Lilligant/attacker, you'll want a way to get Lilligant back out into the Active position to keep fighting. In this case, you'll want something like Switch and maybe Skyarrow Bridge available to make the retreating and healing easier. You could even play Full Heals to get rid of the confusion without having to move your Pokemon around.

However, we can't discount Lilligant's second move. For just an extra colorless energy, Lilligant can do a guaranteed 30 damage and heal up 20 damage from each grass Pokemon on your side. Now, this would be less useful if you're not running a grass deck, so think about putting in some more grass Pokemon to benefit from this just in case.

Multiple Lilligants on the field might work best for this deck, as with Skyarrow Bridge, you could move between them without having to get rid of energy. However, Lilligant should be concerned about Fire Pokemon, as 40 damage from them spells certain death.

These are all things to keep in mind if you build a deck around Lilligant.



The RNG gave me this card, which is interesting because of how it's useful as a tech (we'll get to this) in another strategy we've already talked about.

Thundurus is a wonderful lightning type card with 110 HP. For 1 energy of any kind, it can pull out a lightning energy to be attached to itself. Essentially if you start with this card, it's going to have 3 energies by turn 2 and be ready to attack. Of course this means if you want to power up Thundurus, you're probably best off doing it early and having it power itself. No use taking 3 turns to power it up out of the hand if it can do it itself.

The second move requires 2 lightning energies and a colorless, and does 80 damage. You have to discard a lightning energy though, which can be a problem. You don't want to keep throwing energy away like this, so it's important to get that energy back somehow. Luckily, Thundurus is a perfect match for Eelektrik, as it naturally pulls the energy out of the deck and dumps it into the discard for later use with Eelektrik. It's the cycle of life in a deck.

With a 1 retreat cost, it's not too costly to bite the bullet to get it out of there, though free retreat with Skyarrow Bridge can be nice (if you can overlook the fact that the opponent will benefit from it).

All in all, it's a decent card with possibilities, but since it's useful to Eelektrik, it might be better off as a cog in the deck machine than the focal point of it.



The last card I will review is this. Druddigon is a Colorless Pokemon with 100 HP and 2 retreat. This means it's not searchable with Heavy or Level balls, which means a deck with it in it will likely have to run Ultra Ball to reliably get it out.

Druddigon has a interesting ability that allows you to place 2 damage counters on the opponent's Pokemon when Druddigon is your active Pokemon and it is attacked by the opponent. To maximize on this, you may want to consider running either Rocky Helmet or Eviolite with it:



Rocky Helmet will ensure that they take a nasty 40 damage instead every time they attack you, but Eviolite will give you a natural resistance of 20 damage to all of their moves. You'll have to weigh the risks in the decision, but if you have the room, you could always run both and pick in the situation you're in.

Druddigon's second move is interesting too. For 3 Colorless Energies, you can do 60 damage and prevent your opponent from retreating conventionally. They can still get out using Switch or other methods, but it limits them. If the opponent is burned, confused, or poisoned, you can effectively lock them into that position to reap the rewards.

It's also good for locking cards in place that can't fight back, like bench sitters.

To maximize on this, you might want to run Double Colorless Energy to get Druddigon going faster, and cards like Pokemon Catcher can really help in picking out Pokemon that either can't fight back, or will get hurt badly by Druddigon's ability for doing so.

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So that's the first step to building a deck. There's certainly more but we'll get to it in due time.

pop flyin' Gaming.

-Professor Kamak

It's time for another retrospective! There's so many sets to get through, we really need to do a lot of these segments, so here's the second installment of HoP:

History of Pokemon: Prepare For Trouble, Then Make it Double



Now that that's out of the way...

So, with the first 3 sets made, Japan ran into a bit of a problem. All 151 Pokemon were available as cards, and the second generation wasn't going to arrive for awhile. They could just keep making new Pokemon cards, but there needed to be some kind of hook. What makes THIS Charizard better than my old one? They couldn't make the old cards obsolete either, or else people would stop buying the old ones, or get fed up and swear off the game entirely.

The answer was simple: Change the game.

Team Rocket



Team Rocket was a pretty popular group pretty much everywhere, regardless of their incarnations. There was something about them that was cool, like a cross between a gangster, a punk, and a mafioso/yakuza. Team Rocket was up to no good, and they needed cards that showed that.

Enter, Dark Pokemon.



Dark Pokemon (known as Bad Pokemon in Japan) evolved from the same basic Pokemon as their normal brethren, but were notably different. First, even the highest evolved forms of Dark Pokemon often had terrible HP. None of them broke 80 even as a Stage 2. However, they made up for it in being faster, more powerful, and trickier than the others. They often inflicted status conditions, had tricky card text, or could mess up your opponent's day pretty quickly. Dark Pokemon may have been frail, but they would not go down without a fight. Add to this, tricky Trainer cards and a new type of Energy, Rainbow Energy, and you had a force to be reckoned with.

This set was also notable as it was one of the first sets to be nearly free of a lot of Ken Sugimori's stock art, which flooded early cards, for better or worse. A lot of people found the cards more expressive and neat because they weren't just some same old profile shit in front of a warped background.

However, the set wasn't too terribly well received overseas. Whether Base Set 2 burned a lot of bridges with fans hoping for new cards, Pokemania was dying after a year of rampant success, or because the cards came across as confusing and weird, especially with the art style choices, it didn't stick with a lot of people. Plus the dark color scheme for everything didn't really pop in the card aisles where everything was bright and colorful and shiny.



It doesn't exactly jump out.

However, there is something else notable about this set.



It introduced this card, the very first Secret Rare of Pokemon. For those of you who don't know, secret rare cards are cards in sets that are purposefully made very rare (and usually terrible to the point where you wouldn't want to use them) to make them good collectors items, without tipping collectors to the fact that they exist. How do they do that? Look at Dark Raichu's card number. It's 83/82.

This card went viral, especially since, at the time of it's release, it came out before Japanese fans could even get it in their own language (we'll get to why in a later set). If you thought Charizard was hard to get, this would set you back a pretty penny. The average pull rate of a Dark Raichu was about 1 in every 3 booster boxes, or 1 in 108 packs. I don't believe even in it's highest days of hype that it quite matched Charizard in terms of demand and pricing, but it was the next big card in the game, especially since people treated it as a "take that" to the cute little mascot of the franchise.

This staved off the issue with freshness in the card game for a bit, but they still needed to fill up time until the next generation could be released.

But before we get to the next wave of cards, let's talk about one of the neater sets that was only released in Japan:

Vending Machine Sets



Now, there aren't any official names for these sets, but given how they were distributed, this is what fans call them.



In Japan, vending machines and gashapons (think those machines where you get a toy in a capsule out of them, only tons of them for everything ever) were, and to some extent, still are, big. Around the break between Rocket and the next big sets, Pokemon cards invaded the vending machines.

The idea was simple, you bought sheets of cards, and you didn't know what sheet you'd get. Each sheet had 3 cards on it, and you'd peel them off. Now, sheets weren't entirely random. A sheet could belong to one of 6 areas in the set. You could wind up with a Professor Oak's Lab sheet, or maybe a Safari Zone sheet. Depending on the location you got, you could get one of 3 sheets in that area. For instance, if you got an Oak's Lab 1 sheet, you'd be guaranteed to get Rattata, Squirtle, and Poliwag.

This meant to get a full set of vending machine cards, you'd need to collect 18 different sheets. However, the sheet you got was random, and many card repeated on different sheets, meaning you could easily get extras.

Keeping track of which sheets you got was the best way of knowing what you had and needed, after all, the Japanese cards weren't numbered until much later down the line, making guessing how many cards were in a set and whether you had them all a pain. And don't even get me started on the hundreds of promo cards given out that you had no way of knowing if/when you skipped them.



I know, Bulbasaur.

Anyways, the cards were very high quality compared to the cards you'd get in packs, and were made with glossy card stock instead of the matte. On the plus side, they were very shiny and wonderful to look at, but on the downside, fingerprints were very noticeable.

In total, 3 sets were released within a year, and the third set upped the ante with offering 4 cards, however the 4th card was often a match rule card, giving players ideas on how to make the game more fun (something that would later be used as "gym challenges" in leagues).

There was one special card that people sought after:



Bill's PC wasn't really a playable card, but a promotional card, in this case called a "Pass Card". If you mailed it in with a certain Pokemon card, in this case Kadabra, Haunter, Graveler, Machoke, or Omanyte (for some reason) from the vending machine set, you'd be sent a rare card of their evolution, obtainable nowhere else. This promoted the idea of trade evolutions, and made for a fun campaign that prompted a lot of people to send in to get their cards.

Some of these cards eventually made their way over in the form of promo cards (albeit matte), but the vast majority never saw their way overseas. It's possible that Wizards wanted to release them in some way, but kinda hoped to get to them eventually, possibly using them as filler whenever they needed a card.

In any case, this was one of the first times a good number of cards didn't make it overseas, but it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Once the vending machine craze was over with, it was time to release a real set... or two.

Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge



As the names suggested, these sets centered around Owned Pokemon of notable trainers. Namely, the Gym Leaders of Kanto. Unlike Dark Pokemon, the full line of Pokemon had to have the name of the trainer in them, so if you wanted Blaine's Charizard, you'd have to evolve Blaine's Charmander into Blaine's Charmeleon and then evolve it into Blaine's Charizard.

While actually two distinct sets, these sets often blend together in the minds of most fans due to a few issues.

In Japan, these sets were referred to as Gym Booster 1 and Gym Booster 2. Gym Booster 1 was released in late 1998 (before the game even made it to the US!) and focused on the first 4 gym leaders of Kanto along with "Rocket's Pokemon". Similarly, Gym Booster 2, released 8 months later, focused on the last 4 Gym Leaders of Kanto, with Giovanni replacing most of the need for Rocket Pokemon.

In addition, the sets in Japan were supplemented by theme decks with even more new cards in them. Adding to WotC's problems of finding a way to bring them over. Because of the TCG's late start in the states, Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge were released within 2 months of eachother in the US, and with both having 132 cards, and the set symbols and names being very similar, people often didn't notice it until they got two cards of the same set number and realized they were both different.

Some changes were made to the sets in their journey overseas. First off, because some types of cards were under-represented in one set or the other (very few water types in Gym 2 and few fire types in Gym 1), rather than keeping the split intact, WotC mixed the two sets a bit. This caused a bit of grief for fans who wanted more Pokemon from say, Blaine, but only had a handful of fire Pokemon available. Also, because deck cards were considered fairly rare, WotC stuck them in the Gym Heroes set with wonky rarities. This annoyed a lot of fans, and was fixed before Gym Challenge came out.



You could pay $2 for a pack and end up with this as your rare card in Gym Heroes.

In addition, the sets also contained basic energy for the first time since Base Set 2. This annoyed some people as it reduced the good cards they found in a booster at times.

Because of the high volume of cards and really weird way of doing the sets, they didn't really do too well. In addition, a lot of people found them to be a bit restrictive without letting you use older cards, and the fact that Owned Pokemon often only benefited Owned Pokemon made decks have to decide whether to be Owned or normal (or maybe Dark).

The game was a bit confused, but the art of the cards were glorious, even if we saw the return of more Suigmori art stock. However, almost none of the art was repeated, so even in the second, third, or fourth cards of these Pokemon, the art was unique. Sugimori must have hated drawing Gen 1 Pokemon after this.



A couple of my favorite cards from the sets.

Speaking of Blaine's Moltres, it was also the first card in the game to have an attack costing 5 energies. This card wasn't practical at all.

These sets were also subject to some censorship and removed cards.

Misty's Tears (Possible NSFW) had the art changed as it was deemed to be harmful to children since Misty was depicted as nude.



Though, I guess fans got a suitable replacement.



Sabrina's Gaze was changed due to the art apparently looking like she was giving the viewer the finger.



and finally, with a minor change, Koga's Ninja Trick got rid of the omote manji, which is a buddhist symbol often mistaken for it's mirror image: the Swastika.



Two cards were also removed from Challenge, _________'s Chansey (WotC refused to print this card as they felt people would abuse the 4 per deck rule with it), and Imakuni?'s Doduo (because it was a joke card that would require throwing it around, and based on a Japanese man popular in the time).

Pokemon and fans weren't too pop flyin' with these changes, though Pokemon at least conceded that WotC "probably" knew the western market better than they did. However, this trend of cutting cards was annoying them greatly.

Finally, before wrapping up Gen 1, I'd like to make mention of one other part of the TCG history:

Pokemon TCG GB



This game was admittedly basic, but the fact that a lot of people could finally play it not only with the actual rules, but against someone else (the computer) AND not have to worry about buying cards to play, made this a hot game. It came out of Japan far later than it should have (though localization was apparently hell), as it was the swan song of the first generation of Pokemon cards. It only contained the first 3 sets, and a bunch of promo cards, including some never released in the US, frustrating players who realized these cards were held back from them.

The game follows a basic plot that mirrors the main Pokemon game. You want to be the best, you want to collect Pokemon (cards), and you want to beat 8 gyms (clubs) of various types in order to fight the Elite 4 (Grand Masters), for the Championship (and the Legendary Cards). You even have a Rival who's a bit of a jerk.

However, the story doesn't end with this game, because in Japan, there was a sequel:



Masked troublemakers calling themselves Team Great Rocket appear with new trading cards and wreak havok, and it's up to you to stop them (you can also be a female in this version, and the characters will treat you like if the events of the first game had you play as a female back then too).

Instead of collecting medals to fight the championships, you fight for coins, which give you access deeper into Team Great Rocket's island. Obviously you've got to stop them and their evil Dark Pokemon decks with a children's card game.

The second game improved on the first in many aspects of gameplay, and even the art of the cards looks better on the sequel.

Many fans fondly remember these games, and many hope for sequels to come out. That hope was almost rewarded a couple of years ago when a TCG game was announced for the 3DS, but it was a basic demo that explained how to play the new Black and White cards.

In any case, the fights of Mark and Ronald may not have been seen by a lot of people, but for many fans, they were the spark needed to start getting competitive, and it was a good opportunity to start.

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And with that, Gen 1 was over. It might have been just under 2 years, but for many players, the game had begun and died in that time. Sure, some would stay for the neat cards coming up, but Pokemania was shifting away from cards and merchandise and settling down on the simpler things, like the show or the video game. Plus other distractions like Yugioh would soon be arriving.

Even so, many people remember these times fondly as being wonderful, but turbulence hadn't ceased in the Pokemon game, and with 2001 fast approaching, Wizards was soon going to learn what it was like to lose a powerful franchise.

I hope as this series continues, it will teach you about the trends of the cards. We've got a long way to go, but we'll get there eventually.

pop flyin' Gaming.

-Professor Kamak

Maybe we could set up like a tournament or a league or something using one of the websites that you mentioned?

Oh man, I used to have that old TCG Gameboy game. NOSTALGIA OVERWHELMING

I had that game. Farmed the weirdo constantly.

Ooh. That might be fun, actually. Tournaments, that is.

The official thing works well, but it only gives you two decks to mess around with. I'd be more than willing to spare some of those theme deck codes for you guys tho.

I definitely would like to do this. As a professor, I'm expected to help run tournaments to begin with, so having these would help out with that.

I think we could do PlayTCG for tournaments, but maybe occasionally I might do some PTCGO Drafts when I get code cards.

I'll see what happens.

But before we can get to that, we need to be able to build a decent deck.

Deckbuilding 101: Bare Bones and Skeletons

To help us get in the mood for building, let's listen to some good building music:



I swear this could be in The Sims.

Some of you are aware of some of the terminology surrounding card games, but for those of you that aren't, don't worry! We'll get to it as we go through.

After you've determined your deck strategy, you have to branch out and make a bare bone deck list. This is a list of the cards you will need to make your deck work at a bare minimum. Unlike other lists, the total of cards doesn't have to equal 60 cards, and it's best if it doesn't. You're going to need a lot of other cards to fill it in down the line.

Now, when you make a deck list, it's common courtesy to separate the list into at least 3 parts (Pokemon, Trainers, and Energy), but they can be split even further into 5 parts (Trainers split into Supporter, Stadium, and Items) to be easily read.

As an example, let me show you a fun little deck that's getting a lot of attention right now.

Deck Strategy



Raticate's Super Fang gets the Defending Pokemon down to 10 HP, regardless of how much HP it has. If you manage to poison the Defending Pokemon before you use Super Fang, it will be knocked out between turns. This is where Hypnotoxic Laser comes in. it automatically poisons the opponent. Drop it, then use Super Fang, and you can get rid of anything your opponent throws at you. However, Raticate is pretty frail with 60 HP, and you'll need a way to get energy to them quickly.

Bare Bones Deck List

4-4 Raticate BCR (this means 4 Rattata and 4 Raticate from Boundaries Crossed)

8 Pokemon Cards (4 basics)

4 Hypnotoxic Laser
4 Pokemon Catcher (switches the opponent's active Pokemon with a benched Pokemon of your choice)
4 Level Ball (searches for any Pokemon card with 90 or less total HP)

12 Trainer Cards

4 Double Colorless Energy
X Basic Energy

4+X Energy Cards

24+X Cards total.

This is the bare minimum cards needed to make this deck run. Of course, it couldn't run well without other cards (and wouldn't be legal without 60 cards), so now our goal is to OPTIMIZE its chances of running well. For that, we'll need a few more types of cards, including more basic Pokemon that will fix the problems with this deck.

Starter Pokemon



Hey, that's not a Bulbasaur or a Cyndaquil! What's going on?

Starter Pokemon are Pokemon you're okay with having at the beginning of the game, because they help set the game up. They're not usually very strong, but they're good at what they do. Emolga is a great starter currently because it can fit into almost any deck and can quickly fill out your bench, getting it ready for Pokemon to evolve. Tornadus is also a good Starter because you can use it's Hurricane attack early in the game to power up your bench with Hurricane as you knock back your opponent, and then later on, shift energies off of Pokemon that are no longer needed with energy wheel.

They both have an effect on the early game, and Tornadus can also help out later on. Emolga, however, can be a bit of a liability on the field once it's served its purpose. You can use it as a prize gambit to force your opponent to take it out, but generally, it's better to keep around for the free retreat later. If it's taken out, fine, if not, also fine. Just realize it could be a liability as an easy prize.

Support Pokemon



These are Pokemon that don't necessarily go on the offensive, but use attacks and abilities to strengthen your Pokemon. For this deck, you'd want a card that could help pull things from the discard to reuse. Sableye does this very well, pulling any Item Card you want out, but it needs a Darkness Energy to do it, so it would work best in a deck that can utilize Darkness energy (which luckily Raticate can) It can also be used as an attacker, if need be, to try to confuse the opponent. Durant on the other hand is less picky about the Energy AND what card it pulls out, allowing ANY card from the discard to come back to the top of the deck. However, it only pulls one card out, and it forces you to draw it the next turn unless your deck gets refreshed, so you lose the chance of coming into a new card.

Both are excellent for this deck, but be sure they don't end up giving them up to the opponent in the process of setting up. Just because you can dig cards out of the discard, doesn't mean you should waste time doing so.

There's one more support Pokemon that could help this deck though



Ditto is a bit of an oddball, and at first, you probably think it's pretty useless.

However, it can be used as a Substitute for Rattata.

Rattata normally has only 30 HP, making it one of the most frail Pokemon in the game. Ditto, however, has 70. If you play Ditto on a turn, you can then place Rattata on it the next turn, and it will act like it had always been Rattata. Then, you can evolve it right away into Raticate, keeping it from being vulnerable little Rattata. However, keep in mind, if Ditto has 30 or more damage on it when you lace Rattata on it, Rattata will faint instantly, and your opponent will take a prize. Be careful about what you do. Ditto can be a powerful tool, but it can also backfire.

Supporting Items





This deck needs a lot of support in the way of energy acceleration, and being able to "stack the deck" can be very much in your favor. Pokedex let's you do just that, and if you have an Ether in your hand at the time, you can put the energy at the top and use Ether to instantly attach it without using your attach for the turn. With Sableye or Durant around, you can keep getting Ethers and Pokedexes out of the discard to use. If you run Sableye, you also might want to consider putting Dark Patches in. They'll pull the energy out of the Discard and place them onto Sableye, who can then have them plucked off by Tornadus and put onto the awaiting Raticates, or you can go around Tornadus and use Energy Switch, which is also something that can be pulled out of the discard.

Supporter Engines




Depending on the Pokemon and items you run, it'd be wise to run supporters that can capitalize on them. Skyla is a good supporter almost anytime, and can pull out any trainer, even another supporter. N is good for a hand refresh, and also for disrupting your opponent when they don't have many prizes. Be careful though. While you might need the hand refresh, they might as well. Professor Juniper is also a good card to have, and the drawback of discarding cards might be beneficial if it means getting items and energies to the discard to be used later.

Other Notable Trainers




Ultra Ball can get cards you don't need or need later to the discard while finding Pokemon cards you need at the moment, Random Receiver gives you more chances to hit a Supporter you need, and Aspertia City Gym gives your Raticate a little more space. And Switch is always good to have, even with low retreat Pokemon like these.

In addition, you might need another type of card, one that hasn't been discussed before.

Ace Spec



The Ace Spec Rule states that you may only have 1 Ace Spec card in your deck. This makes it a bit harder to decide, because now you have to choose which would be most practical. With Sableye and Durant, Dowsing Machine is a bit redundant to put in the deck, but it's an option in case you might be in a position where you can't rely on them. Computer Search acts as a cross between an Ultra Ball and Skyla, and can pull out any card you need at the time. The best part is that while these cards are 1-offs in your deck, they count as items. This means Skyla can pull them out, and Sableye can retrieve them.

Now that we weighed our options, it's time to make our next deck list:

Skeleton Deck

A Skeleton deck is the deck in a "perfect" form. Ideally, it should be made to take very little of the meta game into account, and focus on running smoothly. This is the deck where if it was played against helpless Pokemon, it'd cream them no matter what they'd do. It doesn't have to have 60 cards (if you have fewer, that makes it easier to to "finalize" the deck), but having it be 60 means it's playable.

For this deck, I've made a Skeleton based on how I think it could run smoothly:

4-4 Raticate BCR (this means 4 Rattata and 4 Raticate from Boundaries Crossed)
2 Ditto DRX (Dragon's Exalted)
2 Emolga DRX
2 Sableye DEX (Dark Explorers)
1 Tornadus EPO (Emerging Powers)

15 Pokemon Cards

3 Skyla
3 N
2 Professor Juniper

2 Aspertia City Gym

4 Hypnotoxic Laser
2 Pokemon Catcher (switches the opponent's active Pokemon with a benched Pokemon of your choice)
2 Level Ball (searches for any Pokemon card with 90 or less total HP)
3 Ether
2 Pokedex
2 Ultra Ball
2 Dark Patch
2 Random Receiver
1 Computer Search
2 Switch

32 Trainer Cards

4 Double Colorless Energy
9 Darkness Energy

13 Energy Cards

60 Total

As you can see it's tight for space, and not many cards have been maxed out except for the ones that were there originally. Some of the original cards have been reduced in number to make way for the new cards, sacrifices that had to be made to make the deck run smoother.

As it stands now, this deck is "Vanilla" or plain Raticate. Other people might come up with a few other variations on it, but largely this would be considered the skeleton of an average Raticate deck. What will make it unique is the techs you put in, the things to counter other decks that might be out there waiting, the things that make it your deck rather than some random deck copied off a guy on the internet.

And, as it turns out, teching against everything can be pretty hard.

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So I hope you learned a bit about the strategy of making a basic deck. At this level, you're capable of making a deck to fool around with on your own, but there are still more tips to consider, and things to discuss, on the strategy of being prepared for what might be thrown at you.

So go out there and start working on some deck ideas. Look up cards of your favorite Pokemon and look for cards that can support it, or maybe see if a drawback of one card can benefit another. Finding a new strategy is always fun and encouraged, so go make a deck you can be proud of.

pop flyin' Gaming

-Professor Kamak

Oh man. Fantastic thread.
remember the TCG craze when I was young, ended up being banned at school because riots broke out. the older kids ripped card if they lost them to another person et cetera. And I had a 1st edition Blastoise I gave to a girl I liked at the time ;_; What a fool I was...

If anyone needs an opponent in TCGO I'm always open for challenges, name identical to my forum name

Can we talk deck strategy and card tricks and shit like that? it's fun.

I've got this lil' Honchkrow here.



Vengeance does more damage for more dark pokes in my discard right? What I love doing is, in a dire situation, close to losing, opponent's got one prize card left, extreme situation is play Prof. Juniper here.sacrificing any dark pokes in my hand to beef up Honchkrow.

Experiment with your pokes! You never know how well some work with others without trying them out first!

-Team Rocket Grunt Walrus

This bastard, with two energy you can do ridiculous amounts of damage. Almost as annoying as empolen, does 10 damage times all pokemon in play for one energy

If you guys are serious about playing, I suggest we pick a web service to play (paid or unpaid, although as a cheap person I would prefer unpaid) and pick a day to play on regularly/host tournaments, Tuesday maybe? I also suggest that we use a chat client like Skype and make a group convo to make setting up matches easier. I think it could be pretty boss.

I would suggest PlayTCG over PTCGO, unless enough people are on there and playing. Tuesdays might be iffy for me, but I can always do evenings. Mondays and Wednesdays I'm usually free between 10 am and 3 pm, and free again after 6ish. I'll see what's up and what times people would like.

I will say that I might be up to hosting a draft tournament on PTCGO once I get about 48 code cards together. We'd need 8 players for it, and winner would get whatever code cards are left and maybe a nice card from my collection on the site.

But for now, let's reflect on the past. That's right, it's time for HoP.

History of Pokemon: It's a Whole New World



This segment is getting near a time that holds a special place in my heart, because it was the period of time when I was involved in a Pokemon League, and as a 10 year old, that was pretty awesome, even if I didn't really get to make friends with other players due to being shy. As such, it's time I went into more detail about Leagues.

Pokemon League

So, early on, leagues were a bit of a clusterfuck. Any store that wanted to run a league could, and WotC just kinda sent them posters and gear to advertise their leagues, but nothing to really do anything with. Sure, they got exclusive paper playmats to give out to the kids, and maybe a few promo cards, but even then, a lot of the promo cards got released elsewhere as well (some accidentally into sets in first runs... whoops). Beyond that, league owners often didn't care. They were running the league because leagues meant kids coming to their store every week, and if you're running a toy store, packing in the kids and having their parents come in and shop, or teasing the kids with more Pokemon cards hanging overhead, meant hitting the gold mine. So employees could often be put upon to make it work. Some even tried accommodating leagues in stores that really didn't have the room for it (like Walmart store aisles).

In 2000, that changed a bit. With the cards in a bit of a decline, and taking cues from the more organized leagues in Japan, WotC began trying to find stores that would be suitable for leagues, and tantalized trainers with something that would keep them interested and keep the league owners busy.



Badges.

To earn these badges, you had to attend leagues, play matches, help fellow trainers, and a slew of other things. Everything to keep track of this was kept in a Badge Book, which you'd bring to league every week and get stamped for what you did. If you earned enough stamps, you'd earn your badge, and stamps could also be used to get promo cards, this time, exclusive to the leagues.



It was all pretty smart. Each Season (Gym) would last 7 weeks, and that's the time you had to collect the stamps for the badge. Sometimes, to help players, every 3-4 weeks would be a "double" stamp day, and really, stamps were often given at the league owner's discretion to make players pop flyin' without just throwing product at them. WotC also occasionally sent boosters to certain leagues in order to help them run tournaments with prizes on the line.

When the original Kanto series ended in mid 2001, Gen 1 was officially over, but that doesn't mean people weren't already buzzing about the cards in Gen 2...



As many of you may remember, this little piece of Pokemon memorabilia was extremely popular at the time. In Japan, the next 3 sets would have a promotional fold out binder that held 9 cards from the set in it. With how much people were clamoring for Pokemon stuff in the States and Europe, A LOT of these ended up overseas, giving a sneak peek into what the cards were like. They felt and looked better than our cards (something that forced WotC to redo their card layouts).

Finally, halfway through the first year of leagues, the Gen 2 games, and subsequently, the 8th set of cards, interrupted the journey through Kanto, and changed the game forever.

Neo Genesis



Since I know what most people are thinking, I'll post what made this set amazing for so many people.



Lugia was easily one of the top contenders for Gen 2's Charizard, and like the TCG's "Charizard Rule" (Anytime a Charizard card gets printed, regardless of its rarity or playability, it will be worth more than almost any other card of its rarity value), Lugia has had similar results. Since the card came out after the 2000 movie, people were hyped for this card to a large degree. Making Lugia work could be a bit of a pain (much like Charizard) but fans tried their best to get ahold of this card and cram it into a deck somehow. If you had multiple Lugia in your deck, you might as well have become Seto Kaiba.

However, competitively, Neo Genesis offered a lot of new things, including this little beauty.



What you're looking at is the first banned card in the Pokemon TCG.

Let me illustrate why this happened.

Gen 2 introduced Metal and Darkness type Pokemon cards to the TCG, much like how the games added Steel and Dark. A pretty no brainer right there. They also introduced energy cards for these types, BUT not basic ones.



Darkness Energy added a Pluspower to the damage your Pokemon could do, but if your Pokemon wasn't a Darkness type or a Dark Pokemon (Bad Pokemon from Team Rocket), they'd take 10 damage after each turn. Metal energy took 10 damage off the attacks from your opponents, but also took 10 off the damage you dealt if your Pokemon wasn't a Metal type. Because they were Special Energy, you could only have 4 copies in your deck. Naturally, this limited the usability of Darkness and Metal type cards... or so the makers of the TCG thought.

Unfortunately, a lot of Trainer cards, such as Professor Oak, Bill, Master Ball, and Computer Search made it fairly easy to get Sneasel out with 2 Darkness energies and a full bench by turn 2. After all, Trainers weren't separated into items and Supporters. You could use Professor Oak 4 times in your first turn and still be able to use Bill. Because of this, you could do a total of 140 damage (20 x 6 pokemon on your side + 2 x 10 for the Darkness Energy boost). This knocked out ANYTHING, and if the opponent only had 1 Pokemon out, you just creamed them. It was a deck faster than you could even think of preparing for. Sure you had to flip coins, but even if you broke even, 80 damage wasn't anything to Sneasel at.

If this card were around in the current format, it'd still be one of the best (especially with Fliptini), and most broken cards in the format. It may not kill everything in one hit, but man could it screw you.

In addition, Neo Genesis added a new type of Pokemon card to the fold.



Baby Pokemon. Babies were a bit, odd. They were usually much rarer than their evolutions, they had worse attacks in most cases (though some fit into a nice niche), and they had abyssmal HP. The good thing about them was that the opponent had to flip to damage them, which have you some leeway with them. You could evolve them into the Basic Pokemon they were born from, but really, they weren't very popular for that mechanic.



Cleffa was a popular baby Pokemon because it was one of the first really good starters. Finally, you didn't have to rely on Professor Oak to make an appearance, and you didn't have to dump your hand. You could just refresh it with Cleffa.

But, Neo Genesis wasn't safe from bad choices. WotC decided to change the wording on one card from the Japanese version, either mistakenly or because they felt it was too underpowered.



Slowking's ability, Mind Games, originally stipulated that Slowking had to be the Active Pokemon for Mind Games to work, and that the opponent would have to flip a coin to use a Trainer card. With the change in text, trainers were allowed to make the opponent flip for every Slowking they had on the field, upwards of 4. This meant an opponent could have a 1/16 chance of being able to use their trainers. Because of this, the international card was banned in Japan, and eventually became the second banned card internationally by WotC.

But there were also a few other new things in this "Neo" generation. Two subsets of Trainer were introduced, the first time they were anything but plain "Trainer" cards, besides the introduction of Stadium Cards in the Gym series.



These two cards are the only "Goldenrod Game Corner" subset of cards. It's unclear whether they were intended to be the beginning of a more prolific series of Trainer cards, but they ultimately didn't pan out to ever be much. Game Corner cards were never made again in any set.



This card should ring some bells when you see it. It was the first tool card in the TCG, and as we know, those have survived for quite awhile. Tools were pretty handy for a lot of decks out at the time, especially later ones that catered to certain strategies.

All in all, Neo Genesis was a pretty successful set and paved the way for the summer of 2001, when WotC Leagues would enter their Golden Era.

But before that, there was a silly little set that was ready to come out.

Southern Islands



THere were 18 cards in this set, and really, they were easy to get.

They were sold as a set with a matching binder.

In Japan, they were sold as 6 sets of 3, and the reason for this was that the artwork of the cards overlapped







The cards were notable for originally serving in Japan a similar role to what the Neo Genesis File served in the US, namely, to get people hyped about upcoming sets.

The WotC sets were praised for keeping the artwork intact, and even making the cards a bit... prettier by making one out of every 3 cards in the sets reverse holofoil, which was first done just to the release of Southern Islands in the 3rd Movie Entei promo.



But, that Entei has an interesting story surrounding it, which involves the nest Neo set.

Neo Discovery



When Neo Discovery was first released in Japan, it's Set File was centered around the third movie, which had just come out. Rather than having the starters and their evolutions though, this Set File had a few neat Pokemon.

It had a reverse holofoil Pichu to coincide with the Pichu Bros. short, it had an Eevee, Espeon, and Umbreon, to show off the Eeveelutions in the set, it had the Entei we just saw, and it had a card that never made it to the international markets:



A reprint of Base Set Charizard, to mark Charizard's appearance in the movie.

The last three cards in the file were a bit ominous though:



It's like the beginning of one of those creepypastas, isn't it?

Yup. Neo Discovery brought back the "themed set" idea, and this time, it was set in the Ruins of Alph. In the next few sets, every Unown card would be printed, except for Unown J (came with the 3rd movie at retail), and Unown R (was a promo in Japan, never made it internationally). Like Jungle, Fossil, and Team Rocket before it, Neo Discovery had two sets of the same cards, as holofoils and rares, leading to a 75 card set.

This was going to become a thing.

But, never fear, we got a kickass card out of it:



This was perhaps one of the cooler cards out at the time. I mean, who DIDN'T like Tyranitar once they knew he existed? People tried building decks for him, but being a stage 2 card, AND needing 2 Darkness energies with Fighting Type pre-evolutions made things tough for the poor guy. Life was a bit cruel to Tyranitar.

Also of note in this set, in Japan, it was the first set to have it's own Secret Rare Card. And surprisingly enough, that card is already familiar to us.



Funny how things work out that way. It feels like we've come full circle at this point.

-----------------

So with that, Neo Discovery wrapped up the Kanto League with style. Soon, players would be ready to head out into Johto to collect their Zephyr badges, and I would soon be joining them. Gen 2 still had more sets to offer, but for now, the TCG was settling in for a much needed summer break.

If you every played the TCG years ago, you likely played in this era. Have any fond memories of your experiences to share?

Leagues are a wonderful place to play, and they're so much better organized now than they used to be.

For now, I'll leave you with that. Playtesting and teching is next on the agenda for deckbuilding, though I'd like to state that it's not a necessity for building a deck for purely recreational purposes.

pop flyin' Gaming.

-Professor Kamak

I stopped getting cards before any Gen II TCG sets came out.

Alright, how about an evening any time after 7 PM CST? The day of the week will be up to vote, although I think it will depend on our resident professor. I know it won't be quite like a real league, (nothing will bring back my Saturday mornings at Toys'r'us when I was little), but I think it'd be cool.

We could probably start as early as next week if we have a lot of interested people.

I also tried my hand at making a deck, how does it look?