Just came off of rewatching JWittz's "Haymaker is NOT the Best Retro Deck" video, which chronicles exactly how Lickitung came to be discovered. A very cool video as usual, I love replaying the old TCG games on GBC.
I disagree with that video. Lickitung was run pretty frequently on TCGone back in 2013, which was a whole year before it was "discovered" in that tournament.
I didn't know anything about competitive metas as a kid, but I knew Lickitung was annoyingly bulky and effective for being such a cheap and plentiful card.
In the Pokemon TCG Video game for GBC/DS, I created a deck meant to turbo out Blastoise. It would often get Blastoise out on the second turn, since you can't evolve on your first. It helped that Trainer cards were not once-per-turn too. In case you're wondering, Pokemon Breeder was the secret to Turn 2 Blastoise. It allowed you to skip the Wartortle stage and get access to Rain Dance then and there. Only a few cards ever gave me trouble after that, Mr. Mime being one of them. (stupid wall...)
you're reading erika's jigglypuff entirely wrong. the card says if the defending pokemon has damage counters the attack only does 10 instead of 40. if jiggly is damaged or not it does not matter, the way you describe the card would make it even more broken.
No, he read it right. He's saying an undamaged Pokemon (many times on the first turn) receives 40 damage, and with a trainer card the attack can be doubled to 80 to be able to one-shot a lot of Pokemon... Because they're not a lot of first generation cards that could tank that damage output.
I reviewed it, and just to mediate: he does say, "40 damage, plus 30 less if Erika's Jigglypuff had any damage counters on it." So yes, he did say it wrong, at least when first describing it.
Wow, this situation looks familiar. 1. Psychic being a dominant type 2. Fighting types pushed out of relevancy 3. Colourless (Normal) types becoming staples due to being able to compete with Psychic types.
To be fair, Hitmonchan and Machop from Base Set and Rocket's Hitmonchan were the only 3 Fighting types that were ever worth using in Gen 1. Jungle Mankey saw some niche use with Rocket's Trap and Rocket's Sneak Attack, but that was it. Psychic really only made use of Base Alakazam for stall, Movie Promo Mewtwo and Promo Mew for damage, Mr. Mime for walling heavy hitters, and Fossil Gastly for quick, light damage with a chance of Paralysis, free retreat and Resistance to Fighting and no Weakness. Colorless, however, covered a lot of bases. You had Base Chansey and Jungle Lickitung and Snorlax, and Erika's Dratini for stall, Jungle Kangaskhan for drawing, Jungle Wigglytuff and Erika's Jigglypuff for easy heavy damage, Jungle Clefable for being able to use your opponent's moves at the cost of only ONE energy (and WotC mistranslating it to not require any energy discards), Jungle Dodrio being able to reduce your Retreat Costs, and Ditto being able to copy your opponent's Pokémon. Colorless was extremely versatile.
Yeah however stall decks moving around damage made it so easy to just annihilate everything with Do The Wave. Like oh you're going to stall? Thanks my bench is now full, i have 2-3 Wigglytuff, and multiple damage buffs or gust of wins saved to force you to take ohko damage
For those that did play competitively in 99-00s, “The Cleaner” was a budget deck designed around Arcanine and Lickitung. While the designer of the deck never focused solely on Lickitung, most of the deck’s wins were through deck-outs with Lickitung alone, especially during Fossil format. It’s interesting how more people are surprised at how good the card is now, when it was always good in a format heavily reliant on Mr. Mime and Movie Promo Mewtwo.
I remember back in the day I built a tri type deck with Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, Scyther and Wigglytuff that used Double Energy plus Energy Search. I used to crush my friends with that deck. I found out later that it was a top meta deck or very close to one and I probably wasn't the first to build it.
@waddledoo2you13 bringing up magic in a pokemon tcg video is like going on a high school freshman basketball video and talking about the Boston Celtics lmfao
I used to actually pair Lickitung with Jungle Dodrio back during the Base - Fossil format. Lickitung's only worry was Hitmonchan, but having having two Dodrio to help offset the retreat cost and switching to Scyther fixed that.
The Pokémon TCG 2 game for GB features a trainer who is all about stalling the game with Energy Removals and Recycle Energy, Scoop Up and bulky Pokémon, mainly Lickitung. Fighting him is torture. The slow and agonizing kind
I remember terrorizing Friends and Locals with a Mr. Mime centric psychic deck hehe Paired with Mewtwo and Hitmonchan (to deal with colourless powerhouses) it was a menace of a deck for our casual tables.
Poor Electabuzz didnt make the list )': was really good in Haymaker for coverage, Also I think Chansey deserves to be in top 10, it was in Zam Damage swap decks and was splashable in any other deck due to its high HP stalling and colorless high damage double edge attack.
I remember when I was a kid going to my local tournaments I didnt really understand the whole "strategy" of battling and just kinda made a deck with cards that I had that I liked. However I remember my brother playing Rocket's Zapdos and it made me so mad because I would try to play decks with pokemon that Zapdos would easily get rid of and it got to the point where if my brother wanted to battle against me half the time I'd say no. I guess I didnt realize it at the time but he was more into competitive and strategy and I just liked how the cards looked and went to the tournaments just to get the promo cards since I think you got them for battling, not winning. Also side note MAN I love the old artwork on these cards. They just have something that cards these days dont capture.
Brings me back to the good ol days of my youth where I won a local tournament because I walled out a mirror match Mr. Mime but he didn't have anything on the bench.
ill never forget my "Haymaker" and "Rain Dance" decks like 23 years ago that 11 year old me built from a very old pokemon cards strategy guide. Hitmonchan/Scyther and Blastoise/Gyarados as the carries slapped in those days! I haven't really played pokemon since but im sure its a fun and exciting game still.
Wigglytuff+Nidoking always destroyed when i played with it. Using Nidoran to help fill up the bench, pushing toxic onto mons, then just obliterating with Do The Wave as a sweeper. Shit was great and I never saw others using that combination too often
Love it. It's always fascinating examining early TCGs when some of the most broken stuff was running around. Makes you wonder how much testing they really did during the design process. It's especially interesting considering that I barely played the TCG back in the day. Probably only played a handful of games, and none of them ever included any of these strong cards, even though we definitely had the cards. I think the most "meta" deck I ever saw played was at summer camp, and the dude had a grass deck with some Scythers, lol. And I 100% remember no one ever using Likitung. Think I even had one and threw it in a binder. It's funny to think back on that. =)
Given the hype behind Pokémon it was probably a rush job because at the time everyone thought it was a fad. Still pretty good if that’s what happened though, even with a few balancing issues. Core gameplay hasn’t changed even to this day.
It's actually the same thing with other TCGs like YuGiOh. When we look back at older versions of the card games using more modern deckbuilding ideas that were solved, you realize there were so many things that people missed. Stuff like Lickitung choking out the metagame was missed back then. With games like YuGiOh you have things like Solemn Warning which is a card that makes you pay half of your life to just straight up say "no you can't do that" to basically anything your opponent tries to do. Way back in the day, we all thought it was an absolutely worthlessly bad card because well, who the heck would give up half of their precious life to stop a single play? Well now we realize "wait I can pay half my life and stop my opponent's play which would make me lose the game!?"
@@P4brotagonist I’m familiar with yugioh. Nowadays the mindset is the only life point that matters is your last one. But I was mainly putting forward a theory on why those things were missed.
@@cinematographystudio The Pokémon TCG was actually developed in tandem with the original video games and unlike all other Pokemon spinoff media, isn't a direct response to "Pokémania". There is even a known Chansey proxy prototype from 1995. A reproduction of the card is included in the 25th anniversary deck provided to Creatures Inc. staff members, freelance artists and other industry figures. The early rulebooks also credited 4 playtesters. I think the game was seriously designed as a game to be played but the thing is Pokémon was conceived when there are basically no other domestic Japanese TCGs and the design principles on how to create a "good" TCG weren't well established yet.
The most broken card in gen 1 is 100% the Vending Promo Haunter that (thankfully) never came to America. Have you ever tried to play in a format that allows Vending Edition? It's the most cancerous card imaginable. The opponent uses Imposter Professor Oak to give you a new hand of 7 cards, slaps down Vileplume, then just sits around attacking you for 40-50 damage a turn while you have no way to get the trainer cards you of your hand. And every time you draw a new trainer card, that damage goes up. If you're not running Muk, you just lose most of the time. Thank God that Wizard of the Coast's plans to bring that set to America kept failing. It 100% would have warped the entire metagame.
I always laugh about lickitung now, as back when me and my brother played as kids and this was the current format, he typically beat me using lickitung decks. If only he went out to compete, oh well.
Lickitung was a great partner to Chansey, Mime and Alakazam in stall decks back in the day. People would deck themselves so quickly with trainer search cards.
Essentially a 25% chance and a 50% chance to retry during your next turn if the opponent doesn't have an option to counter the sleep, like switch, scoop up, full heal etc.
"To get a stage 2 pokemon you have to wait two turns or use Pokemon Breeder in one turn" *laughs in Dark Dragonair* Also, Licktung and Chancy being used as meat shield stalls with Alakazam, was such bullshit but I loved it lol.
I am little surprised that Nidoking did not make the list. I know there is a lot of psychic types; however, Toxic is basically a death sentence(20 damage per turn instead of the usual 10).
I feel like the ‘Venucenter’ strategy deserves at least an honourable mention, as it could literally save the game if your grass team was on the back-foot 🍃💪🏼
Video idea: This type of video, but for every generation. Also, you could explore the Pokémon BREAK mechanic? Either as a failed mechanic, or a top of its own.
I was a huge fan of Koffin 50hp, retreat 1, weak to psychic GG: 10 and flip a coin, heads poison, tails confuse. Coin flips suck, but when both results are good? Now we are talking; especially when one of those is the obnoxious confusion
Mime was one of those cards I always wanted, because my decks always lacked for sustainability but if I wanted to run things like Chansey or Kangaskhan, I'd have to invest in multiple cards. And being the poor kid, looking down the barrel of not only getting one of them but also a few copies of Double Colorless? No thanks I'll take the heehoo clown to go with my other psychic types. Especially since Meditate was a sufficient counter to Haymakers alongside Invisible Wall.
Butterfree was pretty good too. It's only weakness was being stage2 and needing 4 energy to use mega drain. But it resistanted fighting, healed two damage for every attack and could retreat for free.
Electabuzz is only remembered as part of the trio because most people learned about it from a trading card guide that came out shortly after Jungle Edition. As soon as the movie came out, Electabuzz immediately got the boot in favor of Promo Mewtwo. So the main trio was Hitmonchan-Mewtwo-Scyther, with a bunch of other Pokemon like Magmar, Electabuzz, and occasionally Lapras (which was used entirely to counter builds using Magmar) subbing in based on which matchup you want to give yourself an advantage over.
@@Mitjitsu Lapras was absolutely used in some Haymaker variants during the window between Fossil and Rocket. Mainly because every other Haymaker deck was running Magmar for its Mime-killing efficiency and Lapras had a decent combination of bulk, a 1 energy attack, and the ability to ramp up if your opponent wasn't spamming ER on it. Then Goop Gas Attack happened and Electabuzz started seeing more play, so that put a quick end to Lapras.
Where was the snorlax card?....I thought it was printed in the same set as Lickitung and also had more HP (while obviously being terrible due to only having 1 4 energy attack that does 30 damage) making lickitung the 4th heights HP basic pokemon
Mewtwo, Scyther, Mr. Mime, Chansey, Wigglytuff definitely Top 5, Mr mime and Chansey are the best stall cards, Mewtwo best attacker and resistant to energy removals, Scyther 0 retreat and fighting resist and also colorless attack, Wigglytuff just a hard hitting card when setup that won tournaments.
the really busted cards in OG pokemon weren't the 'mons, they were the Trainers. Being able to churn through your deck with Bill, Professor Oak, Computer Search, and Item Finder was absurd.
yup he's strong ngl but I think the science club is way more annoying than it ngl with spamming paralysis and negating pokepowers in the whole board with muk @@solidzack
You should make a video about the worst scarlet and violet Pokemon ex. In my opinion, Jinx ex is the worst for having No consistency or point. Kangeskon ex for practically the same reason. Charizard ex from 151 for being really hard to use. Great Tusk ex for not being that strong, and having a dumb name. And finally Squawkabilly ex for only being good on the first turn, its attack being inconvenient because energy must be in your discard pile, and that its biggest help Battle VIP Pass will soon rotate. Please make this video for me.
I have never played Pokemon TCG irl and my first and only Pokemon TCG experience was when Pokemon TCG GB was re-released for the NSO. I already finished the game. All I can say is, Blastoise rain dance is OP. Charizard is strong but its hard to setup. Chansey is a good defensive wall but thats just about it. Psychic types are fuckin OP(as usual. Even in Gen 1 games. Im not even surprised.) Also Mr. Mime belongs in hell. Seriously. Screw that card. Id burn it.
Number 1 was always Electabuzz... if you EVER played this game in the first release, Electabuzz was the strongest pokemon, making Mewtwo look bad. And despite competing even in national tournments and online at that time, I NEVER saw a single competitive deck using licktung.
Hitmonchan's special punch was originally a fighting and 2 colorless, meaning it could hit for 40 as quick as turn 2, which was insane at the time. Edit: I was mistaken 😅
Machop is actually a better Pokémon to use than Hitmonchan. You rarely get to use it's special punch attack, and Machop also has one less retreat cost. The early formats were warped around Movie Promo Mewtwo which made colorless Pokémon with resistance to psychic popular. As a result of this I pair Mewtwo with Fossil Magmar and Muk. Fossil Magmar can go toe to toe with a Likitung, and also hit Scyther for weakness. While Muk can shut down raindance decks and Mr Mime.
@@Tirgo69 Most attacks are only doing 10-30 damage. Only a Mewtwo Psyburn can one shot it. Even with PlusPowers you'll be struggling to take out a Machop in one hit. The only reason to run such a card is for tech reasons, as fighting types in general are bad due to a terrible weakness and many popular cards having a resistance to it. A card like Moltres would love to Gust stall Hitmonchan, and wreck your deck with its Wildfire attack.
@@mari_zz I'm not sure if double battles were a concept back then, but there were attacks like Articuno's Blizzard that would hit everyone on a bench. For example, your Articuno is able to deal extra damage to the bench, and the coin flip says your Mr. Mime will get hit hard by the effect, Invisible Wall will still be active
@@communistmallsanta1496 ah so it means any attack that damages Mr. Mime (including your own) and not any attack that deals damage (including Mr. Mime's)
In the Pokémon TCG game for GB one of the legendary cards is a promo Zapdos which has an attack and a poképower that deals damage to a random Pokémon, including your own. I assume Mr. Mime wouldn't be affected by it
this is why i dont like the poke tcg they power creep it to much, look at yugioh tcc and u see that cards from the first seasons still can be used/ or are to op even.
@@ArcheTelos i know that there is 1. but u can still with the older cards like dark magician, bleu eyes white dragon, red eyes black dragon to name some.
I mean all these major card games get powercrept in different fashions. MTG you have creatures that put 25 year old creatures to shame, but worse spells compared to the likes of ancestral and timespiral. Even in early days of yugioh blue-eyes wasn't exactly competitive because back then the only ways to bring it out were monster reborn/a broken card or double tribute, which was almost impossible to do competitively especially when most people would rather 1 tribute summoned skull. Pokemon got powercrept sure, but there really isn't much design space to use if you don't powercreep pokemon tcg where it's like oh one energy for 20 damage, amazing rate but only if we keep HP values super low forever.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 86 | คู่เอก "คมเพชร vs ชาติพยัคฆ์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/m3q_dRYDuU8/mqdefault.jpg)
Just came off of rewatching JWittz's "Haymaker is NOT the Best Retro Deck" video, which chronicles exactly how Lickitung came to be discovered. A very cool video as usual, I love replaying the old TCG games on GBC.
Same. Love the GBC game. Unlocked the impossible to get promo Venusaur the other day with a romhack. Lol
Cheers mate.
Murray and Ken are the hardest club masters in the game
I disagree with that video. Lickitung was run pretty frequently on TCGone back in 2013, which was a whole year before it was "discovered" in that tournament.
I didn't know anything about competitive metas as a kid, but I knew Lickitung was annoyingly bulky and effective for being such a cheap and plentiful card.
@pokebot451gonbow5 none of the clubs are difficult lmfao the game does not get hard until the final 5 battles.
The fact that Articuno had Freeze Dry before it was an actual move
There's quite a few moves that existed in the card game way before they were made into moves in the actual games
Flail from the first Magikarp card predated the in-game move too
How long will it take before grope gets added to the games?
As soon as they hire some Misty/Jessie shippers @@connoromalley4004
and why is that amazing?
I always liked Blastoise water decks. Way i saw it, you were able to break a fundamental aspect of the game with Blastoise. That was fun.
My favorite was articuno blizzard spam 🤣
In the Pokemon TCG Video game for GBC/DS, I created a deck meant to turbo out Blastoise. It would often get Blastoise out on the second turn, since you can't evolve on your first. It helped that Trainer cards were not once-per-turn too.
In case you're wondering, Pokemon Breeder was the secret to Turn 2 Blastoise. It allowed you to skip the Wartortle stage and get access to Rain Dance then and there. Only a few cards ever gave me trouble after that, Mr. Mime being one of them. (stupid wall...)
you're reading erika's jigglypuff entirely wrong. the card says if the defending pokemon has damage counters the attack only does 10 instead of 40. if jiggly is damaged or not it does not matter, the way you describe the card would make it even more broken.
No, he read it right. He's saying an undamaged Pokemon (many times on the first turn) receives 40 damage, and with a trainer card the attack can be doubled to 80 to be able to one-shot a lot of Pokemon... Because they're not a lot of first generation cards that could tank that damage output.
nah, he got it wrong, multiple times.
I reviewed it, and just to mediate: he does say, "40 damage, plus 30 less if Erika's Jigglypuff had any damage counters on it." So yes, he did say it wrong, at least when first describing it.
he has to redo the video now!
@Penguin_Happy you still can. Poke cards are still super prevalent in elementary schools.
Wow, this situation looks familiar.
1. Psychic being a dominant type
2. Fighting types pushed out of relevancy
3. Colourless (Normal) types becoming staples due to being able to compete with Psychic types.
Well you can't say they weren't accurate to the source material 😂
Colorless
@@PopoTCGnot if in the uk
To be fair, Hitmonchan and Machop from Base Set and Rocket's Hitmonchan were the only 3 Fighting types that were ever worth using in Gen 1. Jungle Mankey saw some niche use with Rocket's Trap and Rocket's Sneak Attack, but that was it.
Psychic really only made use of Base Alakazam for stall, Movie Promo Mewtwo and Promo Mew for damage, Mr. Mime for walling heavy hitters, and Fossil Gastly for quick, light damage with a chance of Paralysis, free retreat and Resistance to Fighting and no Weakness.
Colorless, however, covered a lot of bases. You had Base Chansey and Jungle Lickitung and Snorlax, and Erika's Dratini for stall, Jungle Kangaskhan for drawing, Jungle Wigglytuff and Erika's Jigglypuff for easy heavy damage, Jungle Clefable for being able to use your opponent's moves at the cost of only ONE energy (and WotC mistranslating it to not require any energy discards), Jungle Dodrio being able to reduce your Retreat Costs, and Ditto being able to copy your opponent's Pokémon.
Colorless was extremely versatile.
TCG's bias was Basic stages. Only Blastoise was the list's only big setup-payoff Evolution.
I had a Alakazam and Gengar deck which between them could just move damage counters around both players mons, it felt very strong.
That with the chansey and damage eater tenticools.
Yeah however stall decks moving around damage made it so easy to just annihilate everything with Do The Wave. Like oh you're going to stall? Thanks my bench is now full, i have 2-3 Wigglytuff, and multiple damage buffs or gust of wins saved to force you to take ohko damage
For those that did play competitively in 99-00s, “The Cleaner” was a budget deck designed around Arcanine and Lickitung. While the designer of the deck never focused solely on Lickitung, most of the deck’s wins were through deck-outs with Lickitung alone, especially during Fossil format.
It’s interesting how more people are surprised at how good the card is now, when it was always good in a format heavily reliant on Mr. Mime and Movie Promo Mewtwo.
One thing I liked as a kid is that Pokémon that are bad in the game boy games were solid in the TCG. Hitmonchan, scyther, aerodactyl.
I remember back in the day I built a tri type deck with Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, Scyther and Wigglytuff that used Double Energy plus Energy Search. I used to crush my friends with that deck. I found out later that it was a top meta deck or very close to one and I probably wasn't the first to build it.
It’s ok i had a deck in magic that turned out to be meta but needed something for flying creatures. Can’t hit them with normal ones.
@waddledoo2you13 bringing up magic in a pokemon tcg video is like going on a high school freshman basketball video and talking about the Boston Celtics lmfao
I used to actually pair Lickitung with Jungle Dodrio back during the Base - Fossil format. Lickitung's only worry was Hitmonchan, but having having two Dodrio to help offset the retreat cost and switching to Scyther fixed that.
The Pokémon TCG 2 game for GB features a trainer who is all about stalling the game with Energy Removals and Recycle Energy, Scoop Up and bulky Pokémon, mainly Lickitung. Fighting him is torture. The slow and agonizing kind
I remember terrorizing Friends and Locals with a Mr. Mime centric psychic deck hehe Paired with Mewtwo and Hitmonchan (to deal with colourless powerhouses) it was a menace of a deck for our casual tables.
Using this video as my guide to make some good decks dyring my replaythrough of the OG tcg
Bro just play nidoking, wigglytuff, khangaskan and a shit load of draw items. You will smash through everyone lol
Poor Electabuzz didnt make the list )': was really good in Haymaker for coverage, Also I think Chansey deserves to be in top 10, it was in Zam Damage swap decks and was splashable in any other deck due to its high HP stalling and colorless high damage double edge attack.
I remember when I was a kid going to my local tournaments I didnt really understand the whole "strategy" of battling and just kinda made a deck with cards that I had that I liked. However I remember my brother playing Rocket's Zapdos and it made me so mad because I would try to play decks with pokemon that Zapdos would easily get rid of and it got to the point where if my brother wanted to battle against me half the time I'd say no. I guess I didnt realize it at the time but he was more into competitive and strategy and I just liked how the cards looked and went to the tournaments just to get the promo cards since I think you got them for battling, not winning.
Also side note MAN I love the old artwork on these cards. They just have something that cards these days dont capture.
Brings me back to the good ol days of my youth where I won a local tournament because I walled out a mirror match Mr. Mime but he didn't have anything on the bench.
ill never forget my "Haymaker" and "Rain Dance" decks like 23 years ago that 11 year old me built from a very old pokemon cards strategy guide. Hitmonchan/Scyther and Blastoise/Gyarados as the carries slapped in those days! I haven't really played pokemon since but im sure its a fun and exciting game still.
I thought #1 was kangaskhan because the draw 2 attack
Wigglytuff+Nidoking always destroyed when i played with it. Using Nidoran to help fill up the bench, pushing toxic onto mons, then just obliterating with Do The Wave as a sweeper. Shit was great and I never saw others using that combination too often
Love it. It's always fascinating examining early TCGs when some of the most broken stuff was running around. Makes you wonder how much testing they really did during the design process.
It's especially interesting considering that I barely played the TCG back in the day. Probably only played a handful of games, and none of them ever included any of these strong cards, even though we definitely had the cards. I think the most "meta" deck I ever saw played was at summer camp, and the dude had a grass deck with some Scythers, lol. And I 100% remember no one ever using Likitung. Think I even had one and threw it in a binder.
It's funny to think back on that. =)
Given the hype behind Pokémon it was probably a rush job because at the time everyone thought it was a fad. Still pretty good if that’s what happened though, even with a few balancing issues. Core gameplay hasn’t changed even to this day.
It's actually the same thing with other TCGs like YuGiOh. When we look back at older versions of the card games using more modern deckbuilding ideas that were solved, you realize there were so many things that people missed. Stuff like Lickitung choking out the metagame was missed back then.
With games like YuGiOh you have things like Solemn Warning which is a card that makes you pay half of your life to just straight up say "no you can't do that" to basically anything your opponent tries to do. Way back in the day, we all thought it was an absolutely worthlessly bad card because well, who the heck would give up half of their precious life to stop a single play? Well now we realize "wait I can pay half my life and stop my opponent's play which would make me lose the game!?"
@@P4brotagonist I’m familiar with yugioh. Nowadays the mindset is the only life point that matters is your last one. But I was mainly putting forward a theory on why those things were missed.
@@cinematographystudio The Pokémon TCG was actually developed in tandem with the original video games and unlike all other Pokemon spinoff media, isn't a direct response to "Pokémania". There is even a known Chansey proxy prototype from 1995. A reproduction of the card is included in the 25th anniversary deck provided to Creatures Inc. staff members, freelance artists and other industry figures.
The early rulebooks also credited 4 playtesters. I think the game was seriously designed as a game to be played but the thing is Pokémon was conceived when there are basically no other domestic Japanese TCGs and the design principles on how to create a "good" TCG weren't well established yet.
The most broken card in gen 1 is 100% the Vending Promo Haunter that (thankfully) never came to America. Have you ever tried to play in a format that allows Vending Edition? It's the most cancerous card imaginable. The opponent uses Imposter Professor Oak to give you a new hand of 7 cards, slaps down Vileplume, then just sits around attacking you for 40-50 damage a turn while you have no way to get the trainer cards you of your hand. And every time you draw a new trainer card, that damage goes up. If you're not running Muk, you just lose most of the time.
Thank God that Wizard of the Coast's plans to bring that set to America kept failing. It 100% would have warped the entire metagame.
I always laugh about lickitung now, as back when me and my brother played as kids and this was the current format, he typically beat me using lickitung decks.
If only he went out to compete, oh well.
Lickitung was a great partner to Chansey, Mime and Alakazam in stall decks back in the day. People would deck themselves so quickly with trainer search cards.
With some luck, Wigglytuff can beat Mr Mime because the latter's pokepower turns off if it's asleep
Essentially a 25% chance and a 50% chance to retry during your next turn if the opponent doesn't have an option to counter the sleep, like switch, scoop up, full heal etc.
I loved using Clefable's metronome to use opponents attack without discarding anything
love the video! More base-fossil stuff PLEASEEE
"To get a stage 2 pokemon you have to wait two turns or use Pokemon Breeder in one turn"
*laughs in Dark Dragonair*
Also, Licktung and Chancy being used as meat shield stalls with Alakazam, was such bullshit but I loved it lol.
I had so many of those. Never foresaw the worth it would gain. Got the rocket set almost complete, then it got stolen. Loved that set.
Articuno blizzard spam was my favorite
I am little surprised that Nidoking did not make the list. I know there is a lot of psychic types; however, Toxic is basically a death sentence(20 damage per turn instead of the usual 10).
I feel like the ‘Venucenter’ strategy deserves at least an honourable mention, as it could literally save the game if your grass team was on the back-foot 🍃💪🏼
Video idea: This type of video, but for every generation.
Also, you could explore the Pokémon BREAK mechanic? Either as a failed mechanic, or a top of its own.
I know that Psychic’s weakness to itself was because the type was also used for Ghost, but it feels just wrong
My Deck : 1st turn Squirtle 2nd turn Pokemon Breeder Blastoise, Bill Professor Oak Rain Dance Win ^^
that's what I played too XD
I was a huge fan of Koffin
50hp, retreat 1, weak to psychic
GG: 10 and flip a coin, heads poison, tails confuse. Coin flips suck, but when both results are good? Now we are talking; especially when one of those is the obnoxious confusion
Used to run Lickitung with Alakazam to just stall things out and move damage around. Always felt like a good W
How about the top 10 best cards from the first 3 sets (Base Set, Jungle and Fossil)
Mr Mime, Alakazam, Chansey and Pokecenter, was a very great deck.
Mime was one of those cards I always wanted, because my decks always lacked for sustainability but if I wanted to run things like Chansey or Kangaskhan, I'd have to invest in multiple cards. And being the poor kid, looking down the barrel of not only getting one of them but also a few copies of Double Colorless? No thanks I'll take the heehoo clown to go with my other psychic types. Especially since Meditate was a sufficient counter to Haymakers alongside Invisible Wall.
I think Lickitung is overrated, it's slow and weak, it's just a damage sponge, a worse Chancey IMO.
the pendulum has swung from it being an underrated gem to being overrated.
I wish I saved my old pokemon cards 😢
Mr.Mime’s background info on the bottom is hilarious 👋👋 👋😵
Butterfree was pretty good too. It's only weakness was being stage2 and needing 4 energy to use mega drain. But it resistanted fighting, healed two damage for every attack and could retreat for free.
Surprised that Hitmonchan and Scyther made it, but the missing part of the Haymaker trio, Electabuzz, didn't.
Electabuzz is only remembered as part of the trio because most people learned about it from a trading card guide that came out shortly after Jungle Edition. As soon as the movie came out, Electabuzz immediately got the boot in favor of Promo Mewtwo. So the main trio was Hitmonchan-Mewtwo-Scyther, with a bunch of other Pokemon like Magmar, Electabuzz, and occasionally Lapras (which was used entirely to counter builds using Magmar) subbing in based on which matchup you want to give yourself an advantage over.
@TheLordTash Lapras is mostly used in Raindance and is mandatory to run as its your only Mr Mime counter
@@Mitjitsu Lapras was absolutely used in some Haymaker variants during the window between Fossil and Rocket. Mainly because every other Haymaker deck was running Magmar for its Mime-killing efficiency and Lapras had a decent combination of bulk, a 1 energy attack, and the ability to ramp up if your opponent wasn't spamming ER on it.
Then Goop Gas Attack happened and Electabuzz started seeing more play, so that put a quick end to Lapras.
I heard Mr mime got banned in many formats back in the day and even now since everybody has ridiculously damaging pokémon he would still be OP
Funny how gen 1 tcg muk had basically had its counter part weezings video game Ability neutralizing gas lol
Where was the snorlax card?....I thought it was printed in the same set as Lickitung and also had more HP (while obviously being terrible due to only having 1 4 energy attack that does 30 damage) making lickitung the 4th heights HP basic pokemon
snorlax had the same HP as lickitung, with an attack that's basically unusable.
Mewtwo, Scyther, Mr. Mime, Chansey, Wigglytuff definitely Top 5, Mr mime and Chansey are the best stall cards, Mewtwo best attacker and resistant to energy removals, Scyther 0 retreat and fighting resist and also colorless attack, Wigglytuff just a hard hitting card when setup that won tournaments.
*The old Pokemon TCG in a nutshell:*
Flip a coin. If heads, you win. If tails, nothing happens.
Charizard,Venazord were also very strong with the special powers!
I had no idea how good Lickitung was until I played the GBC game and got completely walled by it.
I used to play physic and fight type
With alacazaam and hitmonchamp
Top 10 competitive promo cards
Invisible Wall has only gotten more broken over time with power creep.
Was surprised how low hitmonchan and mrmime where
Imagine Mr Mine as it was back them in the more modern tcg meta
Slowking power to negate opponent’s trainers and draws was the best and he was launched before muk. Every good deck had at least 3
No mention of Slowking? Or, if that wasn't considered part of the early sets, then Dark Vileplume? Gottttta talk about Dark Vileplume...
the really busted cards in OG pokemon weren't the 'mons, they were the Trainers. Being able to churn through your deck with Bill, Professor Oak, Computer Search, and Item Finder was absurd.
Top 10 strongest Duelists in Pokemon TCG in the GBA
GB*
Didn't the psychic type leader combo Alakazam's Poképower with Chansey and Mr. Mime? I remember once he pulled off the combo it was basically gg
yup he's strong ngl but I think the science club is way more annoying than it ngl with spamming paralysis and negating pokepowers in the whole board with muk @@solidzack
You should make a video about the worst scarlet and violet Pokemon ex.
In my opinion, Jinx ex is the worst for having No consistency or point.
Kangeskon ex for practically the same reason.
Charizard ex from 151 for being really hard to use.
Great Tusk ex for not being that strong, and having a dumb name.
And finally Squawkabilly ex for only being good on the first turn, its attack being inconvenient because energy must be in your discard pile, and that its biggest help Battle VIP Pass will soon rotate.
Please make this video for me.
And also squawkabilly is really risky with how common Boss' Orders is and how many pokemon can do more than 160 damage.
I have never played Pokemon TCG irl and my first and only Pokemon TCG experience was when Pokemon TCG GB was re-released for the NSO. I already finished the game.
All I can say is, Blastoise rain dance is OP.
Charizard is strong but its hard to setup.
Chansey is a good defensive wall but thats just about it.
Psychic types are fuckin OP(as usual. Even in Gen 1 games. Im not even surprised.)
Also Mr. Mime belongs in hell. Seriously. Screw that card. Id burn it.
Puff 'n Tuff superiority!!
Number 1 was always Electabuzz... if you EVER played this game in the first release, Electabuzz was the strongest pokemon, making Mewtwo look bad. And despite competing even in national tournments and online at that time, I NEVER saw a single competitive deck using licktung.
Gang, you have to be working OVERTIME with all of these channels. 😩
Make sure youre taking your breaks. I commend the hustle tho
Kangaskhan you draw each turn to place pour board faster
Hitmonchan's special punch was originally a fighting and 2 colorless, meaning it could hit for 40 as quick as turn 2, which was insane at the time.
Edit: I was mistaken 😅
Pretty sure it's always been 2 Fighting 1 Colorless.
@Gynan holy moly you're right. I could've sworn it was, but maybe I was mistaking it for scyther because they were in the same haymaker deck.
You do Pokémon too?
Hitmonchan is a G!
When 70 HP was solid...
I run Mr Mime now because no pokemon does under 30 😂
Lickitung has no damage how is it good with just bulk
Mayhaps we could see a video of the best mega evolution pokémon. I'm very curious what were the best of that group
90 would have been 4th highest, Charizard had 120 hp
Machop is actually a better Pokémon to use than Hitmonchan. You rarely get to use it's special punch attack, and Machop also has one less retreat cost. The early formats were warped around Movie Promo Mewtwo which made colorless Pokémon with resistance to psychic popular. As a result of this I pair Mewtwo with Fossil Magmar and Muk. Fossil Magmar can go toe to toe with a Likitung, and also hit Scyther for weakness. While Muk can shut down raindance decks and Mr Mime.
Machop gets OHKOd by everything but whatever works
Hitmonchan was usually better, but Machop did have a niche in Dodrio decks specifically since it had only 1 retreat cost instead of 2
@@Tirgo69 Most attacks are only doing 10-30 damage. Only a Mewtwo Psyburn can one shot it. Even with PlusPowers you'll be struggling to take out a Machop in one hit. The only reason to run such a card is for tech reasons, as fighting types in general are bad due to a terrible weakness and many popular cards having a resistance to it. A card like Moltres would love to Gust stall Hitmonchan, and wreck your deck with its Wildfire attack.
10:43 *capability
Do you have a wow yt Channel?? your Voice sounds so similar
🥹🥹🥹🥹 I want to go back
doesn't the Mr. Mime card say that their own attacks also can't deal more than 30 damage?
Yes and no, the damage cap would only apply to Mr. Mime being targeted
@@communistmallsanta1496 but it says "(including your own)"
@@mari_zz I'm not sure if double battles were a concept back then, but there were attacks like Articuno's Blizzard that would hit everyone on a bench. For example, your Articuno is able to deal extra damage to the bench, and the coin flip says your Mr. Mime will get hit hard by the effect, Invisible Wall will still be active
@@communistmallsanta1496 ah so it means any attack that damages Mr. Mime (including your own) and not any attack that deals damage (including Mr. Mime's)
In the Pokémon TCG game for GB one of the legendary cards is a promo Zapdos which has an attack and a poképower that deals damage to a random Pokémon, including your own. I assume Mr. Mime wouldn't be affected by it
this is why i dont like the poke tcg they power creep it to much, look at yugioh tcc and u see that cards from the first seasons still can be used/ or are to op even.
This is the first time I've seen anybody downplay Yugioh's power creep
@@ArcheTelos i know that there is 1. but u can still with the older cards like dark magician, bleu eyes white dragon, red eyes black dragon to name some.
I mean all these major card games get powercrept in different fashions. MTG you have creatures that put 25 year old creatures to shame, but worse spells compared to the likes of ancestral and timespiral. Even in early days of yugioh blue-eyes wasn't exactly competitive because back then the only ways to bring it out were monster reborn/a broken card or double tribute, which was almost impossible to do competitively especially when most people would rather 1 tribute summoned skull. Pokemon got powercrept sure, but there really isn't much design space to use if you don't powercreep pokemon tcg where it's like oh one energy for 20 damage, amazing rate but only if we keep HP values super low forever.