Hi! Let me start by saying i am knew to PokeGym. So anyhow me and some friends decided we are going to make decks from the first three sets, base-jungle-fossil. I have looked to the ends of the earth and for my life cant find very good information aside from a few decks that where called haymaker, raindance, potopouri?, and a damage swap deck, and something with wigglytuff.. idk tho. If i could get some lists that would be fantastic.
Old format deck
- Thread starter noahgs
- Start date
Otaku
Active Member
You've actually listed most of the format for that run of sets.
A while ago I tried to raise interest in testing out Base Set through Fossil, specifically without Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal. Why? My independent testing (mostly using the old GBC Pokémon Trading Card Game video game) led me to believe those two cards really constrained decks.
So... if you'd like some deck lists and ideas, I can oblige... to a degree. Most of the functional variety comes from a format without S/ER. With those two, Haymaker was king (Potpourri is a variant of Haymaker), Rain Dance was probably second, and Wigglytuff (usually backed by Fossil Muk) came in third, though in reality there was a lot of flexibility with Haymaker if you didn't take the name seriously and just focused on combining the best "big Basic Pokémon" into decks.
Edit: You'll find mentions of a lot of other decks from back in the day, but we didn't have the infrastructure in terms of strategy websites or tournaments to "prove" decks. Card scarcity was a real limiting factor for a lot of metagames until probably the mid-2000s. So it was possible to build a winning Arcanine or Ninetales deck (both from Base Set)... until someone in your area assembled a significant amount of S/ER. Charizard was insanely popular, and worth it if everyone in your area was running 3-2-1 lines and random singles.
Otaku
Active Member
In that case, you're going to mainly be dealing with Haymaker variants, Rain Dance variants, Do The Wave Variants, and Toxic Gas variants... with some of those overlapping. I'll explain things assuming the original rules are in effect; two cards drawn on a mulligan, failing a Confusion check results in 20 points of damage being done to the attacking Pokémon, etc.
The original Haymaker deck build reportedly debuted with Base Set; some Magic: The Gathering player built it for his son based on Translations of Japanese cards. Again, the story goes that "Special Punch" is known as "Haymaker" on the Japanese card (and a "Haymaker" is a powerful punch in boxing, named as such for literally knocking the hay stuffing out of the practice dummy). So the original build was focused on Base Set Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, and Machop. That's right, little ol' Machop, without any Evolutions.
In fact, that became the definition for Haymaker: an aggressive beatdown deck built around Basic Pokémon with no Evolutions. Hitmonchan remained viable long enough (and a lot didn't know the supposed origin of the deck's name) so the name stuck even without the titular Pokémon. The rest of the deck would be the minimal amount of Energy needed plus Trainers. Here is an example list for Base Set only, and if you are wondering I am starting there as that is where the deck began and it will make a lot of concepts easier to identify and understand:
Pokémon x 12
4 x Electabuzz
4 x Hitmonchan
4 x Machop
Trainers x 34
4 x Bill
4 x Computer Search
4 x Energy Removal
4 x Gust of Wind
4 x Item Finder
4 x PlusPower
4 x Professor Oak
2 x Scoop Up
2 x Super Energy Removal
2 x Switch
Energy x 14
8 x Fighting Energy
6 x Lightning Energy
Strategy: Speed out your Basic attackers, exploiting two of the most common Weaknesses found in the Base Set: Fighting and Lightning. Together you could hit just over 1/3 of the Pokémon in the Base Set for double damage. Fighting Resistance was almost as common as Fighting Weakness, but many of those were Lightning Weak Pokémon. The focus is on using the less expensive attacks; despite the name of the deck, Special Punch (a.k.a. Haymaker) is the attack you'll use the least. The weaker attacks become vary potent when combined with aforementioned Weakness and the raw speed and Trainer might of this deck.
Pokémon: 12 Pokémon gives good odds of avoiding a mulligan, and solid odds of avoiding a lone Pokémon start as well. The lowest I ever saw run with some success was six Pokémon (no Machop, just three each of the others), and even cutting back to 4/4/0 (again, no Machop) means giving your opponent a mulligan quite often. 10 is about as low as I would go - not too bad on mulligans but more prone to a single Pokémon open.
As such, Machop is filler - an extremely skilled player restricted to Base Set would likely just cut it or even replace it with something different for a more advanced build. Still, Low Kick hits just as hard as Jab and for the same low cost, and 50 HP is just enough not to be an easy OHKO. Otherwise the goal is to open with whatever your opponent is most vulnerable too (often their Weakness).
Hitmonchan is more sustainable and better for attacking with one Energy, but needs a full
fighting::fighting::colorless for the big hits that will matter if your opponent can mount their own counter offensive. Electabuzz can score 30 for lightning::colorless and 10 points of damage to self or a sweet 40 with no self-damage.
Trainers: All Trainers listed were common sights in the early days of the game, even after several sets. In fact, some are still common sights now! Bill was later re-released (and nerfed) as a Supporter and Computer Search as an Ace Spec. Several others have been effectively re-released with different names and similar or same effects, and a few have flat up been re-released with only "updated formatting" (Switch, PlusPower).
Bill, Computer Search, Item Finder and Professor Oak are your "Trainer Engine", driving your deck forward. The more skilled you were, the more you could play around with the counts for these cards, Bill probably being the most variable. Computer Search rarely dropped below three, Item Finder was usually run at only two or three, and Professor Oak was usually maxed out. These numbers usually vary according to each other - the all maxed out build is for your first time - later if you kept Bill and Professor Oak maxed out, you could lower Computer Search and Item Finder, as well as vice versa.
Bill is almost a no-brainer, especially when you are beginning - I found myself cutting it eventually when I had to choose between really useful other cards... or turning one card into two. Many would say I made the wrong choice, and I have never been able to determine it conclusively.
The heavy discard cost of Computer Search and Item Finder can be intimidating, but especially if you saw it used well back then (or today), you'll realize the raw draw power makes it pretty easy - a lot of your deck is redundancy (or at least expendable), so tossing three cards (one of those two Trainers plus the two card discard) for the exact card you need is usually worth it; these two could allow a single card to act as if it were maxed out.
Professor Oak would already be tempting because even at the cost of your hand prior to playing it, a new seven card hand is potent. Combine it with Computer Search and Item Finder to thin out your hand (ideally leaving nothing but Professor Oak) as Computer Search and Item Finder could get you the exact cards you needed (and could play) before hand. "Computer Search (or Item Finder), discard two for Professor Oak." was a common play, usually showing up multiple times in a game. This also meant that it was easy to burn through your entire deck - even skilled players risked decking out while otherwise making sound plays, though usually it only happened as a result of carelessness.
Now, the rest of the Trainers are essentially dirty tricks to sabotage your opponent. Thanks to Energy Removal/Super Energy Removal, it will be almost impossible for your opponent to build anything substantial with four Energy. Two Energy is only "doable" because much of the time a player won't want to waste an Energy Removal (let alone a Super Energy Removal) on a Pokémon they plan on KOing next turn.
Three Energy follows the same principle but also relies on Double Colorless Energy being your second Energy drop (so for attacks costing X:colorless::colorless: where X is a third Energy requirement). Blastoise decks aren't even safe; prior to Team Rocket (fourth set, not counting the reprint set Base Set 2) there wasn't an efficient way to recycle large amounts of basic Energy - Rain Dance decks had to fit in a Stage 2 line and nearly as many Trainers, so there wasn't a lot of Water Energy cards to play around with. They would be the exception and the most likely deck to pull off a four Energy attack with some regularity.
Gust of Wind functions like Pokémon Catcher does now; use it to bypass walls, force up Bench-sitters, and disrupt/prevent an opponent's set-up. Just like now, it is actually a well made, balanced card... the problem lies with the best cards in the card pool ignoring the "speed" limit. Most decks would run 3-4 Gust of Wind.
PlusPower was very important to this deck - HP scores were often just 10 or 20 points outside of being OHKOed by attacks of similar Stages. Even though PlusPower applied after Weakness/Resistance back in the day, it was still enough that each copy you could drop would increase the range of OHKOs. FTKOs were especially deadly - only Basic Pokémon were a concern (no way to play Evolutions that early) so that cut the card pool down to an effective 39 cards; only three Basic Pokémon were completely safe from OHKO: Chansey, Zapdos, and Onix!
Thanks to the Trainer Engine, it was only being Prized that made dropping four copies of PlusPower unreliable first/second turn. Two PlusPower was a pretty reliable tactic in opening, with three being somewhere in between. Of course, you shouldn't burn through your deck for that FTKO unless you are certain you can win quickly - there were no recursion cards at this time to replenish your deck (unless I missed it in an attack)! Also remember that if you get "tails" on a Thunder Punch (or when attacking while Confused), PlusPower will also increase the damage done by your Active to itself!
Scoop Up and Switch were both used, though often one in place of the other. I went for an even split here - again because this is meant as a foundational, learning build. Both could be used to shake Special Conditions/get something out of the Active slot. Scoop Up would of course cost you any attached Energy or Trainers, but as your opponent was also often running S/ER and you would be running SER, you usually only had one Energy to lose, often none! Especially if you had a back-up attacker ready to go, this just meant Scoop Up acted as healing. Switch lacked the healing element, but if you didn't want to discard any Energy it was obviously superior.
Energy: This part will seem almost boring, as the deck just has 8 Fighting Energy and six Lightning Energy. This doesn't give you much if any to spare... if you are trying to build up past that first, single Energy attack. In a game, usually you'll only do that with one or two of your attackers, so its adequate but still can be tight.
I am running out of time - I'll explain some early variants, then move onto Jungle and hopefully Fossil additions (and further variants) as well.
The original Haymaker deck build reportedly debuted with Base Set; some Magic: The Gathering player built it for his son based on Translations of Japanese cards. Again, the story goes that "Special Punch" is known as "Haymaker" on the Japanese card (and a "Haymaker" is a powerful punch in boxing, named as such for literally knocking the hay stuffing out of the practice dummy). So the original build was focused on Base Set Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, and Machop. That's right, little ol' Machop, without any Evolutions.
In fact, that became the definition for Haymaker: an aggressive beatdown deck built around Basic Pokémon with no Evolutions. Hitmonchan remained viable long enough (and a lot didn't know the supposed origin of the deck's name) so the name stuck even without the titular Pokémon. The rest of the deck would be the minimal amount of Energy needed plus Trainers. Here is an example list for Base Set only, and if you are wondering I am starting there as that is where the deck began and it will make a lot of concepts easier to identify and understand:
Pokémon x 12
4 x Electabuzz
4 x Hitmonchan
4 x Machop
Trainers x 34
4 x Bill
4 x Computer Search
4 x Energy Removal
4 x Gust of Wind
4 x Item Finder
4 x PlusPower
4 x Professor Oak
2 x Scoop Up
2 x Super Energy Removal
2 x Switch
Energy x 14
8 x Fighting Energy
6 x Lightning Energy
Strategy: Speed out your Basic attackers, exploiting two of the most common Weaknesses found in the Base Set: Fighting and Lightning. Together you could hit just over 1/3 of the Pokémon in the Base Set for double damage. Fighting Resistance was almost as common as Fighting Weakness, but many of those were Lightning Weak Pokémon. The focus is on using the less expensive attacks; despite the name of the deck, Special Punch (a.k.a. Haymaker) is the attack you'll use the least. The weaker attacks become vary potent when combined with aforementioned Weakness and the raw speed and Trainer might of this deck.
Pokémon: 12 Pokémon gives good odds of avoiding a mulligan, and solid odds of avoiding a lone Pokémon start as well. The lowest I ever saw run with some success was six Pokémon (no Machop, just three each of the others), and even cutting back to 4/4/0 (again, no Machop) means giving your opponent a mulligan quite often. 10 is about as low as I would go - not too bad on mulligans but more prone to a single Pokémon open.
As such, Machop is filler - an extremely skilled player restricted to Base Set would likely just cut it or even replace it with something different for a more advanced build. Still, Low Kick hits just as hard as Jab and for the same low cost, and 50 HP is just enough not to be an easy OHKO. Otherwise the goal is to open with whatever your opponent is most vulnerable too (often their Weakness).
Hitmonchan is more sustainable and better for attacking with one Energy, but needs a full
fighting::fighting::colorless for the big hits that will matter if your opponent can mount their own counter offensive. Electabuzz can score 30 for lightning::colorless and 10 points of damage to self or a sweet 40 with no self-damage.Trainers: All Trainers listed were common sights in the early days of the game, even after several sets. In fact, some are still common sights now! Bill was later re-released (and nerfed) as a Supporter and Computer Search as an Ace Spec. Several others have been effectively re-released with different names and similar or same effects, and a few have flat up been re-released with only "updated formatting" (Switch, PlusPower).
Bill, Computer Search, Item Finder and Professor Oak are your "Trainer Engine", driving your deck forward. The more skilled you were, the more you could play around with the counts for these cards, Bill probably being the most variable. Computer Search rarely dropped below three, Item Finder was usually run at only two or three, and Professor Oak was usually maxed out. These numbers usually vary according to each other - the all maxed out build is for your first time - later if you kept Bill and Professor Oak maxed out, you could lower Computer Search and Item Finder, as well as vice versa.
Bill is almost a no-brainer, especially when you are beginning - I found myself cutting it eventually when I had to choose between really useful other cards... or turning one card into two. Many would say I made the wrong choice, and I have never been able to determine it conclusively.
The heavy discard cost of Computer Search and Item Finder can be intimidating, but especially if you saw it used well back then (or today), you'll realize the raw draw power makes it pretty easy - a lot of your deck is redundancy (or at least expendable), so tossing three cards (one of those two Trainers plus the two card discard) for the exact card you need is usually worth it; these two could allow a single card to act as if it were maxed out.
Professor Oak would already be tempting because even at the cost of your hand prior to playing it, a new seven card hand is potent. Combine it with Computer Search and Item Finder to thin out your hand (ideally leaving nothing but Professor Oak) as Computer Search and Item Finder could get you the exact cards you needed (and could play) before hand. "Computer Search (or Item Finder), discard two for Professor Oak." was a common play, usually showing up multiple times in a game. This also meant that it was easy to burn through your entire deck - even skilled players risked decking out while otherwise making sound plays, though usually it only happened as a result of carelessness.
Now, the rest of the Trainers are essentially dirty tricks to sabotage your opponent. Thanks to Energy Removal/Super Energy Removal, it will be almost impossible for your opponent to build anything substantial with four Energy. Two Energy is only "doable" because much of the time a player won't want to waste an Energy Removal (let alone a Super Energy Removal) on a Pokémon they plan on KOing next turn.
Three Energy follows the same principle but also relies on Double Colorless Energy being your second Energy drop (so for attacks costing X:colorless::colorless: where X is a third Energy requirement). Blastoise decks aren't even safe; prior to Team Rocket (fourth set, not counting the reprint set Base Set 2) there wasn't an efficient way to recycle large amounts of basic Energy - Rain Dance decks had to fit in a Stage 2 line and nearly as many Trainers, so there wasn't a lot of Water Energy cards to play around with. They would be the exception and the most likely deck to pull off a four Energy attack with some regularity.
Gust of Wind functions like Pokémon Catcher does now; use it to bypass walls, force up Bench-sitters, and disrupt/prevent an opponent's set-up. Just like now, it is actually a well made, balanced card... the problem lies with the best cards in the card pool ignoring the "speed" limit.
Most decks would run 3-4 Gust of Wind.PlusPower was very important to this deck - HP scores were often just 10 or 20 points outside of being OHKOed by attacks of similar Stages. Even though PlusPower applied after Weakness/Resistance back in the day, it was still enough that each copy you could drop would increase the range of OHKOs. FTKOs were especially deadly - only Basic Pokémon were a concern (no way to play Evolutions that early) so that cut the card pool down to an effective 39 cards; only three Basic Pokémon were completely safe from OHKO: Chansey, Zapdos, and Onix!
Thanks to the Trainer Engine, it was only being Prized that made dropping four copies of PlusPower unreliable first/second turn. Two PlusPower was a pretty reliable tactic in opening, with three being somewhere in between. Of course, you shouldn't burn through your deck for that FTKO unless you are certain you can win quickly - there were no recursion cards at this time to replenish your deck (unless I missed it in an attack)! Also remember that if you get "tails" on a Thunder Punch (or when attacking while Confused), PlusPower will also increase the damage done by your Active to itself!
Scoop Up and Switch were both used, though often one in place of the other. I went for an even split here - again because this is meant as a foundational, learning build. Both could be used to shake Special Conditions/get something out of the Active slot. Scoop Up would of course cost you any attached Energy or Trainers, but as your opponent was also often running S/ER and you would be running SER, you usually only had one Energy to lose, often none! Especially if you had a back-up attacker ready to go, this just meant Scoop Up acted as healing. Switch lacked the healing element, but if you didn't want to discard any Energy it was obviously superior.
Energy: This part will seem almost boring, as the deck just has 8 Fighting Energy and six Lightning Energy. This doesn't give you much if any to spare... if you are trying to build up past that first, single Energy attack. In a game, usually you'll only do that with one or two of your attackers, so its adequate but still can be tight.
I am running out of time - I'll explain some early variants, then move onto Jungle and hopefully Fossil additions (and further variants) as well.
Last edited:
rileysill32
New Member
Can I ask why only the first 3 sets? With the limited pool of possibilities?
Ditto/ Clefable/ Wigglytuff/Muk was decent as well. I know Muk shuts off Ditto, but obviously
that is situational.
The first 3 set format wasn't a very exciting format, I would suggest trying out Base-Neo Destiny.
Thought I'm 99% positive that wasn't a format back then. (So long ago I don't remember),
You will find that the old 3 set format is very dry, very quickly.
Ditto/ Clefable/ Wigglytuff/Muk was decent as well. I know Muk shuts off Ditto, but obviously
that is situational.
The first 3 set format wasn't a very exciting format, I would suggest trying out Base-Neo Destiny.
Thought I'm 99% positive that wasn't a format back then. (So long ago I don't remember),
You will find that the old 3 set format is very dry, very quickly.
Otaku
Active Member
Wigglytuff/Muk was an established deck, with players divided on Clefable's usefulness - some preferred running both, others avoided Clefable - the only Clefairy available at this time was the Base Set version, which was not only a 40 HP, Fighting-Weak Basic Pokémon, but had terrible attacks and was a Holo-Rare.
Base-Neo Destiny wasn't very exciting either; you realize you just included the only two cards ever banned in Pokémon, right? :wink: It did exist as a format; it was called Unlimited and it only stopped existing because Unlimited always includes all sets and eventually we got something past Neo Destiny.
Base Set through Fossil is often chosen as an iconic representation of the beginnings of the game (including promos, it covers the first 151 Pokémon), and the way sets were released it makes some sense as well. Not a lot of actual diversity, but you don't really get that when you include cards from Base Set or Neo Genesis. A lot of modern design decisions didn't come about until the e-card series.
I could see including Team Rocket or even Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge as well, but for the most part, Base Set has such powerful cards that only a fraction of later sets were worth using. The same is true of Neo Genesis, though when you don't allow Sneasel or Slowking it is no where near as severe.
StormFront
New Member
Don't think running Machop and Hitmonchan is a good idea, because of Scyther and Articuno being so popular. Much better off using Magmar
Destiny Warrior
New Member
Pretty sure he said that that was a sample list for Base Set only, so Jungle Scyther and Fossil Articuno weren't being accounted for...
Otaku
Active Member
Yup. I figured why not start from the beginning, so that I can explain thoroughly since about half the competitive decks are major or minor Haymaker variants. :lol:
Continuing with Base Set only, back then there were still Haymaker variants; I'll discuss the earliest Potpourri builds, but it is mostly guesswork as I didn't learn the deck's name until later. The idea is pretty straightforward; pack one of every Type or every Type for which there exists a corresponding Weakness. This wasn't the only variant, but touching upon it will cover almost every other variant - Potpourri decks were hard to build and run, but adding a third or even four Pokémon Type to the foundational Haymaker wasn't uncommon.
So here is a rough list for a Potpourri build circa Base Set:
Pokémon x 14
2 x Electabuzz
2 x Farfetched (Optional)
2 x Hitmonchan
2 x Jynx
2 x Ponyta (or Magmar)
2 x Nidoran ♂
2 x Staryu
Trainers x 32
4 x Bill
3 x Computer Search
4 x Energy Removal
2 x Energy Retrieval
4 x Gust of Wind
3 x Item Finder
4 x PlusPower
4 x Professor Oak
4 x Switch
Energy x 14
2 x Double Colorless Energy
2 x Fighting Energy
2 x Fire Energy
2 x Grass Energy
2 x Lightning Energy
2 x Psychic Energy
2 x Water Energy
Strategy: Shoot for a donk! With this deck, you have a shot at FTKOing almost anything in the game.
Pokémon: Hitmonchan and Electabuzz function as they do in a normal Haymaker; Farfetch'd and Nidoran ♂ require a coin flip, but also deliver 30 points of damage, which meant that on their own they had a 50% chance of OHKOing the few 30 HP Pokémon (not impressive) but with two copies of PlusPower became threats to 50 HP Pokémon (regardless of Type-matching). Farfetch'd is also somewhat useful on the Defensive (Fighting Resistance) while Nidoran ♂ is of course amazing against Grass Weak Pokémon... when you get "heads" on Horn Hazard. If you leave Farfetch'd Out you probably would end up with more Trainers or Energy.
Jynx is almost on the same level as Hitmonchan and Electabuzz, but suffers due to self Weakness (since it was no where near Mewtwo EX level, you didn't need it to beat it) and two attacks that weren't guaranteed damage; you only have so much control over how much damage is on the Defending Pokémon so even Meditate isn't a sure thing except for an underwhelming 20. Psychic Resistance was also pretty big as most "Normal" and "Dragon" Type Colorless Pokémon had it.
Ponyta needed a Double Colorless Energy to attack first turn, but the next best option was Base Set Magmar and it couldn't attack at all first turn. It was also Energy hungry but some preferred it nonetheless; if you could afford the second attack, it hit reasonably hard. Staryu isn't going to last long, but 20 for one is a solid deal in a deck all about that fast, early hit.
Trainers: Again, same as with a normal Haymaker except you've got less room for the better tricks, plus enough of your Pokémon are small enough that I cut Scoop Up. As getting the right one Active is important, I ended up bumping up Switch. I cut SER because odds were less you could afford the Energy discard and if the deck works, you should be KOing a lot before it can set-up. Energy Retrieval was added as you only had Computer Search and draw power to get your Energy cards - it was pretty likely something you wanted to keep would get discarded. I could see cutting one to get something else in.
Energy: Two of each Basic Energy Type and two Double Colorless Energy (as it is useful with Farfetch'd and needed for a one-attachment attack by Ponyta. If you go really like on Trainers, you might sneak in one more, if not of each then of the most important, for the Energies.
Other Haymaker Variants: Just about every other Haymaker variant is about splitting the difference between Haymaker and Potpourri. Farfetch'd was somewhat common as people were not so sick of the coin flips at the time and if your opponent opened with Hitmonchan instead of Electabuzz, it was quite nice. It was not uncommon for Farfetch'd to even be powered up by one Basic Energy and a Double Colorless Energy to use its second attack. Magmar and Jynx were common choices for partners as well, but I think Magmar was used more for its popularity than its effectiveness; there wasn't a lot of Fire Weakness at the time.
Jungle: The second expansion gave Haymaker decks Scyther. Actually, Scyther was a common sight in many decks, with its 70 HP, free Retreat, Fighting Resistance, and solid 3-for-30 attack. Fighting Weakness and/or high attack costs kept Kangaskhan and Snorlax from being effective enough to bother with... remember we needed not just big, Basic Pokémon but fast attackers. Scyther basically replaced Farfetch'd in a lot of builds... yes, even though Scyther couldn't attack for damage first turn (and in most builds couldn't attack at all first turn). Grass Energy wasn't that effective to squeeze in, and thanks to about half the Grass Weak Pokémon being Fighting and Scyther being so good, you didn't worry about the donk in those match-ups.
Instead the mainstream Haymaker was just tweaked to look more like this:
Pokémon x 12
4 x Electabuzz
4 x Hitmonchan
4 x Scyther
Trainers x 32
4 x Bill
3 x Computer Search
4 x Energy Removal
4 x Gust of Wind
3 x Item Finder
4 x PlusPower
4 x Professor Oak
2 x Scoop Up
2 x Super Energy Removal
2 x Switch
Energy x 16
4 x Double Colorless Energy
7 x Fighting Energy
5 x Lightning Energy
Strategy: Same as before, only now you had Scyther to easily retreat out of the way if it opened, and to be an extra "cleaner" (again, 30 per turn for 3 was solid back then). Also another case of me repeating myself, this is a straight-forward build that is from memory with gaps filled in by logical deduction (I hope!); real lists often had some very strange numbers in them, to make room for nasty tricks like dropping a first turn Lass if you failed the donk.
Potpourri/Other Variants: Ran Scyther. Nidoran ♂ was retired and Double Colorless Energy was run more heavily to help Scyther.
Last edited:
rileysill32
New Member
Yes I do realize I included them. Obviously we all know that they were banned, and it made for a good game in my opinion. I guess I would have to take back the statement, when modified came in and it was Genesis - LC. That was a fun time.
I had the most fun back then, when we played with the stamp books.
I loved having the type month leagues that corresponded with the different sections of the booklets.
At the end we would have a tournament. So fun.
All in all, the best format in my humble opinion was neo genesis - skyridge, when they began doing battlezones and sanctioned tournaments had began to arise.
I just miss the old days of the game. It is very rare that I ever get to find somebody else who remembers how the game use to be. <3
I had the most fun back then, when we played with the stamp books.
I loved having the type month leagues that corresponded with the different sections of the booklets.
At the end we would have a tournament. So fun.
All in all, the best format in my humble opinion was neo genesis - skyridge, when they began doing battlezones and sanctioned tournaments had began to arise.
I just miss the old days of the game. It is very rare that I ever get to find somebody else who remembers how the game use to be. <3
MrJiggyFly
New Member
I played a lot back in the day. My deck of choice was Gengar with Murkrow and Brock's Golbat. Because it was slow to start I added in Mr.Mime and Elekid and also Scyther. This was during the Gym hero and Challenge and Team Rocket days. People playing the wigglytuff decks or the raindance decks hated the mime and I loved having elekid and Brock's Zubat in my opening hand, I'll use alert to draw a card switch to the elekid now you have to flip a coin just to attack. Sprout Tower ruined wigglys day too, many people in our league started playing stadiums just to get rid of the tower.
As far as the Haymaker goes, Rocket's Zapdos was in everything when it came out.
As far as the Haymaker goes, Rocket's Zapdos was in everything when it came out.
VibratingSky
New Member
Hey, if you still fancy sharing some deck ideas I am building 10 decks from Base Set to Team Rocket. I was origionally just the first three sets myself, but I simply wasnt getting the variety for more than 5 competitive decks and decking was deciding too many games.
Currently I have lists for the following:
Haymaker (fight/lightning, currently with aerodactyl, but these could be moved)
Rain Dance (mono water)
Wigglytuff (currently psy, but potentially colourless+electabuzz)
Venucenter (mono leaf)
Damage Swap (mono Psy)
The Cleaner (Fire/leaf)
Dark Raichu (mono lighting)
Dark Muk (mono leaf)
Dark Charizard (Fire/Lightning, under construction)
I still havent built 'Sponge', but this is simply a haymaker variant in my eyes.
I really want a fighting/Water deck of some kind but none really exist - so I may go for mono-fighting with hitmonchans/hitmonlees and a colourless support team (perhaps clefairy/clefable) verses psychic?
Currently I have lists for the following:
Haymaker (fight/lightning, currently with aerodactyl, but these could be moved)
Rain Dance (mono water)
Wigglytuff (currently psy, but potentially colourless+electabuzz)
Venucenter (mono leaf)
Damage Swap (mono Psy)
The Cleaner (Fire/leaf)
Dark Raichu (mono lighting)
Dark Muk (mono leaf)
Dark Charizard (Fire/Lightning, under construction)
I still havent built 'Sponge', but this is simply a haymaker variant in my eyes.
I really want a fighting/Water deck of some kind but none really exist - so I may go for mono-fighting with hitmonchans/hitmonlees and a colourless support team (perhaps clefairy/clefable) verses psychic?