What made Sneasel ridiculous was the fact dice was never used in that era, coins were, usually those paper or plastic ones were rigged, they rarely ever landed on tails. I once had a lugia coin like that, it came out of one of those Neo 1 japanese starter sets, but their was few more like it, one side some how got weighted enough (the side with the art I guess) and could never get the lugia coin to ever land on tails, other ones wasnt quite as bad but they landed on heads so much more than a traditional monetary coin.
I'll resist going for sarcasm and state flat out, if this is what you
believe happened, you need to start questioning your beliefs. This does not match up with my personal experiences, nor the accounts I read from more experienced players online or in magazines. Most players I knew
avoided using coins and used dice whenever possible, especially because there were few restrictions on dice at the time. You may be correct on that Lugia coin, but remember to actually test it scientifically, you're just flipping it and recording the results at least several hundred (preferably several thousand) times in a row. Again, though, it wouldn't surprise me if you were right.
However at tournaments, there were rules about what coins could be used, because some coins from starter decks were indeed improperly balanced.
As for what made
Sneasel from
Neo Genesis ridiculous was just about everything about it at the time. There was no :dark: Weakness to exploit, but there was no Resistance. Being able to use Special Energy
Darkness Energy (the only version of that Energy card available at the time) for extra damage was fantastic, especially for those of us missing
PlusPower (not Modified legal at the time). Back then anything could get the damage bonus from Special Energy
Darkness Energy, but non-:dark: Pokemon had a damage counter placed on them between turns if they had that
Darkness Energy attached.
60 HP was really good for a Basic. 70 HP was the "magic" number, but 60 was still quite hard to OHKO. No Weakness was fantastic, and what I maintain ultimately broke the card: thanks to
Tyrogue from
Neo Discovery, had
Sneasel been appropriately Fighting weak it would have been quite vulnerable. Psychic Pokemon had been quite dominant for a while, and so
sychic: Resistance was fantastic. Remember, this was when "Movie Promo"
Mewtwo was huge (in Unlimited). Going into Modified, the Resistance wasn't regularly required, but handy nonetheless. A free Retreat Cost was fantastic. For one thing, this was both before the one-retreat-per-turn rule was implemented, and second we had
Double Gust in the earliest Modified. So players missing
Gust of Wind not only count on
Sneasel for a painless
Double Gust target, but it meant that
Double Gust often doubled as a
Switch.
All that before we actually got to the attacks. In a format where 20 for a single Colored Energy was good, having Fury Swipes for :colorless: and doing 10 per heads was also good. Base damage outcomes were one-in-eight possible outcomes yielding no damage, three-in-eight yielding 10 damage, three-in-eight yielding 20 damage, and one-in-eight yielding 30 points of damage.
Filling your Bench was
desirable. Having an attack do more damage based on filling your own Bench was in essence a "free" bonus. Beat-Up thus usually was a matter of flipping six coins/rolling six dice. That meant only 1-in-64 outcomes was zero damage! True, that also meant that only 1-in-64 possible outcomes were for 120, and no I won't list all results. the fact that you averaged 60 damage, from a Basic Pokemon for :dark::dark: was phenomenal back then! Even taking into account that you needed a full Bench
and a restricted Energy.
Rainbow Energy was Modified legal at the time, so had
Sneasel been Modified legal, eight was enough. After all, eight was enough facing down S/ER!
Oh, and of course Special Energy
Darkness Energy meant an extra 10 or 20 points of damage onto the above numbers.
Slowking itself was broken, but allowed to remain longer in a crazy bid at balancing out Western Trainer usage. Backing up
Sneasel it would have been almost unbeatable in Modified.
What you say is true, WOTC though was better at promoting and establishing a connection with its people and Japan, something you think PUI would do but has lacked in that department. If you can do better promotion even in local scenes like signs, advertisements, you can make the game grow alot. Its just not there.
WOTC I will agree had terrible tournament structure though. They had worlds in Seattle and another one in 2003 I think, all before WOTC lost the license, I thought those tournaments was quite irrelevant compared to when PUI took over.
As for WotC, in the end they were better at making people
think there was a connection. I still assume that most of the staff we dealt with more or less directly were legit and loved the game, but had to make bad decisions based on bad company policy. One thing is for certain: WotC was BAD about talking with Japan, as WotC either
got it wrong or
misled the Japanese side of the game. Like I said, WotC told those of us outside of Japan that TPC wanted Pokemon to only be a
kids game, not a
family game, and it was their decision, not WotC's, to cancel the 15+. This was exposed as the game shifted over and we quickly got 15+ back.
