Tag teams in general made evolutions not very worthwhile to play because of how strong they were for being only basic Pokemon -- it literally took until the first cards of the gen9 sets for stage 2 decks and other evolution focused decks in general to start returning to the meta. Thinking about it a little bit now, I kinda wonder if it was because they realized how absurdly and stupidly overpowered tag teams were that they made V Unions as hard to play as the did, requiring all 4 pieces in your discard pile before being able to play it -- sure, I do think they may have overcorrected in their efforts to make sure that a 3 prize basic Pokemon was balanced, but the thought process clearly seemed to be on nerfing what would otherwise be potentially insanely powerful cards
@theabsurdityseries5597 i played both during the time Pokémon was infinitely less interactive. At least in yugioh you have cards that can stop ur opp from jerking off for 5 mins straight.
Covid ironically saved the credibility of the Pokémon TCG. If Worlds had gone ahead with ADP still in rotation, it would've in all likelihood brought all official championships into disrepute.
GX Pokémon were quite powerful, but the EXs and some of the BREAKs from XY still competed up until the moment they rotated, so I think the power creep was more fair there.
GX was more balanced than EXs (at least when SuMo block started) due to evolutions being required again. Of course, there was still the problem of the meta being overrun by strong Basics. EX cards being basic versions of evolution Pokemon should have never been a thing.
There might be an argument for that, considering that each tag team got an alternate art print (some of which are extremely highly sought-after and expensive) in addition to the full-art and rainbow rare prints that were standard issue for other gx cards at the time. But I still personally believe that they weren't entirely meant for collectors primarily -- just look at things like the crystal type cards from way back in the day that had the mechanic of changing type to fit whatever energy you attached to them, or for that matter, the amazing rare and stellar ex cards we got more recently: all three of these "gimmick" cards have attacks that need up to 3 different energy types to use, and tend to be inconsistent at best and unplayable at worst because of this. Now compare this to how dominant tag teams were during the time they were around for: they were often easy to set up, and they didn't require evolution to get them online, couple this with high HP that dwarfed anything else and exceedingly overpowered attacks, and the best tag teams warped the meta around them, with PikaRom, MewMew, and ADP finding ways to continue to stay relevant until they eventually rotated out of standard. With that last sentence in mind, they HAD to have known how ridiculously overpowered they were making them, and thus made them give up 3 prizes to counterbalance their frankly insane power level in the hopes that this would prevent them from overrunning the format, but because they wanted these big, stupid basics to be played by people, they intentionally gave them the necessary support to get off the ground -- to be clear, these were measures they would NOT have taken if they were meant for collectors first and foremost, and the thought of it is more than a little bit ludicrous to me in hindsight. The fact is they simply didn't care they were making them overpowered -- in fact, by making them as brokenly OP as they were, this, coupled with the aforementioned alternate art printings made for each one, just ensured these cards would hold appeal to both players of the game and collectors alike -- effectively printing more money by incentivising people who bought the cards for any reason to seek them out
Bro, what does this have to do with collectors? Tag teams are great to collect beacuse of the concept. You have two pokemons in one card, intecarcting each other in a beautiful art. The text/effect on competitive does not matter at all. If the card is strong or weak, whatever. The fault is exclusivily of creatures inc.
tag teams had an interesting idea, putting 2 beloved pokemon on one card, akin to the Legends cards from HGSS. but the way they were executed was horrible and made the game borderline unplayable for a large amount of the late SM era into SWSH which was completely terrible til VSTARs. I think they recognize that the mechanic was a bad idea and a mistake, but as someone who played Baby Blacephalon in this era, i just think the era of 1 shots is bad for the game and makes it not fun. which sadly the game has kinda kicked back into again. hence why i have all of 2017 worlds/Guardians Rising built in paper.
From what I've heard, Zoroark GX is still incredible, as is Blacephalon, the usual picks, but I've also seen people use unique stuff like Wishiwashi GX
It's called SUM-LOT and there is a format for it, mostly control dominated tho. Every coin has another side to it... It's really fun if you're not in a tourney though.
I think the biggest impact is that they made the V pokemon way stronger than regular gxs to compensate, if you look at keldeo gx who had 170 hp and keldeo-v that had 210 hp which was released a few months later
@@keldeo05 not the case anymore, as it is now there is support V-EX pokemons that do get one shot by most main attackers and combat EX-V that can generally take 2 hit. Pokemons that can one shot combat pokemons do exist but they often require setup if they want to do so. The game is much better balanced than when they did tag team.
@@tolmir2929 I agree it's more balanced but it's definitely 2 prizes a turn, basically every good deck is just taking 2 or 3 prizes every turn past the second and now with dusknoir it's an even bigger thing
@@keldeo05 depend on what you play and how well you play, if you just put every 2 prizer on board so they can just counter catcher or boss order them you may lose 2 prizes per turn, but there are stall decks and control decks or even one prizer decks that will definitly not lose 2 prizes per turn. Dusknoir is not even that popular the main deck it's used in is Charizard . As you explain it it's like you are totally ignoring the cards that serve to counter your opponent plan and it's just people attacking every turn and one shotting the ennemy pokemon, it's rarely as straightforward as that.
the idea of tag teams was genius but they SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GX CARDS..they absolutely, undoubtedly should have been one-prizers. in the literal generation before sun and moon they did one-prizers with full art on them, why did they feel the need to make tag teams so fucking bulky??? they could've been 120-190 HP basics.......
I think 190HP basics could have been avoided, but Tag Teams easily could have been a mechanic in which you needed both evolution GXs in play to use them and the numbers they printed on them are still high enough that they'd see use.
They could have made them just basic GX that scaled with other basic GXs and just gave them a unique gimmick. But the designers at the same have gone on record saying they stopped caring about unique ideas and just wanted the numbers to go up.
@@WhimsicottTCG I wonder if this could have helped if each deck was limited to only one Tag Team GX card per deck... kind of like Radiant cards. (I don't know if that was actually something they tried to implement or not)
Well there are 3 variations of ex mons. The lower case 'ex' mons that were in Ruby and Sapphire and followed the evolution pathway, the EX Pokémon from BW that were sucky since they were all big basics even if the mon they were of wouldn't be a basic, then modern ex's which other than hp aren't really all that bad.
Yeh, the game is more fun when both players need some time to set up their board with stage 1 and 2 Pokemon. Such strong basic EX pokemon was a bad design choice.
@@lkjkhfggd I kind of like that evolution pokemon are stronger but require setup and basic are weaker but are faster, the meta as it is is quite interesting right now since it's a lot of different kind of decks between evolution basic or even 1 prizer and all of them have at least a few strong decks.
Ugh I wish there was another rfor at like this. I look at magic players with envy. I think pokemon having a group format would make the game explode@@WhimsicottTCG
I started the TCG in the late BW era. I found the XY era to be pretty BS in a lot of parts (Wailord, Seismitoad, FoGP Vileplume) but it was overall pretty OK. The first 2/3 of SM was a dream, but then I quit pretty soon after Team Up. Tag teams sucked. I rejoined about a year and a half ago when SV was just starting and the meta has been pretty good since (though I’m not a huge fan of Fez or Dusknoir)
Saw the thumbnail and instantly agreed. Tag team gave us some of the coolest cards but god it was so hard to keep up without them. At least as of today I’m still able to use my V cards against the current meta
@raywt Mewtwo & Mew's perfection allows it to copy attacks of Pokemon GX or EX from the discard pile or on your board. With the evolution Pokemon like those, you can discard them and then mewtwo mew can steal their attacks
From someone whos never played Pokemon TCG, it ridiculous that you can just place a powerhouse down like that Id imagine you'd need the required Pokemon on the field to play a Tag Team card but nope, just place it and destroy everything lol
Garchomp Giratina was my favorite tag team GX. The tag team supporters were cool, if maybe a little busted. But the tag team concept in general was bad, and our punishment for it was COVID-19. The start of the Sword and Shield block is when I got out of the physical TCG, zacian ADP was out of control.
Tag Teams were the best idea ever in concept, two Pokémon on one card. However making them 3 prizes worth of HP and keeping GX moves was way too much. It even brought back a way to use more Mega Pokémon. They were SO close but just made them way too powerful.
ADP is so broken i heard about it despite being a Yu-Gi-Oh fan (granted, Yu-Gi-Oh was itself struggling with a control-heavy format dominated by Adamancipator, Drytron and Eldlich during the pandemic)
As a single prize/Rogue enjoyer this mehcanic was brutal, I feel we are slowly healing from it but it certainly feels like it did pretty irepairbale damage to the power creep of the game
I prefer it as it is now, the less you can draw and choose your cards the more luck matters, one of the main problem with old tcg is their energy system that made luck to much of a problem, that is why pocket changed the system no more energy and no more prize cards which were the main features hurting consistency. Pokemon can still give you terrible hands that makes you lose on the spot but that's much rarer than it used to be.
I recently started getting into Pokemon TCG because of the mobile game. Still don't know much. But your video is extremely well put together and thoughtfully edited. It's crazy to think you aren't getting more views. Earned my sub
One thing that would have balanced tag team GX a bit: make them evolve from both pokemon on the card; to put it into play, both listed pokemon must be in play already. I never like fake-basic pokemon, including the pokemon V; evolution is one of the key features of the Pokemon franchise and should always remain central to the TCG.
Excellent video. As a long time PTCG player, the Tag Team era was both insanely fun and miserable simultaneously. You needed to have a good Tag Team deck, even casually, simply cause of the huge HP numbers. It wasn't just enough that these were effectly unkillable bosses, cards like Acerola were saving ADP and every TT decks from tempo swings. On one hand these cards were what a lot of fans wanted. On the other, no one asked for the level of power they came with. Their GX attacks were so overwhelming that they were more or less all game ending. That mixed with the set rotation led to a dominance I hadn't seen for a decade prior with lv X and other old unique mechanics before those were rotated out.
I just want to clarify that before the 2020 rotation, Tag teams were getting more popular and had a big meta share, but the early cardpool for both pikarom and reshizard was never strong enough to actually make them undisputed or anything. There was still eventually a lot of counterplay, as they were extremely weak to weaknesses, more than any other mechanic before it. In fact, Zoroark was arguably still the best deck. After the rotation though, this is where things really started to spiral out of control.
Reshizard had good counterplay but Pikarom was a bit rough. The usual zoroark checks seem good but they can skip a Buzzwole sledgehammer turn easily and make it hard to ever knock it out
@WhimsicottTCG naganadel was really really good against it. 1 riotous beating into naganadel gx attack into guzma second riotous beating made the matchup really hard to play for pikarom. 240hp isnt that much in the end. Trade made it super easy to find your pieces. Good healing tools didnt exist yet and if they did hurt the consistency too much for them to be good.
One of the nice things about Pokemon TCG Pocket is how down-crept it feels in terms of power scaling compared to some of the stuff we see here with Mewtwo EX only having 150 hp and only doing 150 damage.
@@NikolajLepka yeah the power down is nice, but i wish cards were more complex. It feels like the entire game comes down to luck once you get past the initial learning curve
This era was when i started playing the tcg, and I think it has permanently colored how I perceive card design in this game. I remember just thinking "wow these are cool". I do remember thinking Pikachu&Zekrom was annoying, but I didn't see the problem with them while trying to make Gardevoir&Sylveon GX work post rotation.
i started playing in the tag team era. i still have my lucametal zacian and eggrow dhelmise decks together. i might have a different take on this, but since this was the era when i got into the tcg i still have some nostalgia for this era
It's hard to have perspective on how things changed when you weren't there to see the change happen, in a same way it's hard to understand historical perspective that you weren't a part of. Everyone starts somewhere
Not sure, thanks for tuning in though. I think Burts and I have very different things to say on some topics as I'm a casual retro player and he's an involved standard player.
I am seeing the progress of Creatures trying to fix some of the shortcomings of Tag Teams. While it will take a bit, we have had some great formats in the SV era as well. And from what I have heard, BRS-SSP seems to have introduced counters to powerful cards and support for underutilized archetypes. I just hope that Pokémon continues to have a good amount of Deck variety in the format
They did fix a lot of the issues that Tag Teams brought, but the damage caps have not been reduced. In addition, they continue to make the same mistakes in printing cards like Squawkability ex and Fezandipiti ex
@WhimsicottTCG Sadly, these support Pokemon being printed will not slow games down at all. However, I would like to argue that Profs Research and Boss's Orders don't help the current format as well just like the SWSH days. Also, don't get me started on Prime Catcher!
Ugh I hated ADPZ decks. I played a ton of PTCGO from SM era to it's closure and I remember the absolute HELLSCAPE that was the meta. You had two major decks running around: ADPZ and when it made it's debut, Eternatus VMAX. and then Lucmetal was a little less common but still rampant. So you were either forced to play these stupidly op decks, or you would be playing Decidugoon or Altariagoon to get around it. I'm pretty sure half the reason for Obstagoon being one of the two Vivid Voltage gold cards was due to it's common usage in Decidugoon and Altariagoon in addition to Galarian Zigzagoon in Eternatus VMAX decks
I've recently been playing the Pokémon TCG game on Game Boy Color, which was released during Gen 1. Back then, the most HP any card had was Chansey with 120 HP and OHKOs actually required setup. Part of me wonders if the extreme power creep is partially to make games go faster at official tournaments. I wonder if someday we'll see a total reboot of the TCG to address some of the power creep.
I'll do a video on this. I typed up a full essay response then fell asleep and lost my comment. The closest we'll get to a total reset is Pokemon TCG Pocket, which has cards doing significantly less effects and damage.
Brave blade was such an insane attack and the reason it had the 230 number on it is literally only because of Tag teams. If you compare it to the strongest most recent basic 2-prizer 3 energy attackers that have to wait a turn before zacian, you get lapras with the 1 to 1 attack for 160, buzzwole with 160 too, literally a 70 damage difference which was until this point only about 20-30 per gen.
I don’t even have a lick of knowledge or care about the TCG, but I will watch this 10 minute video about it, because that’s less boring than finishing my overdue math homework.
i think tag team could have worked, if all of them would be more like zapdos articuno moltres tag team which needs different energies, having tag team cards with at least 3 different energie costs would balance them more out
this is when i left the game... i am slowly returning tho they should have had you discard the two GX pokemon in order to play the tagteam version like an evolution
Last time I played Pokemon tcg was in the early 2000’s. I decided to get back into the hobby just recently and had heard about the insane power creep since then. I’ve been mostly able to adapt by researching the current metas enough but sheesh, my attacks have to crest 300 damage every turn on a regular basis just to keep up with the enemy doing the same to me every turn as well.
Let's not kid ourselves: EVERYONE hates ADP. I played it briefly for a power high because it was so exceedingly broken, and even despite that, I can fully understand why people have such intense vitriol towards it: not only does it apply both effects of it's gx attack to give all your Pokemon 30+ damage and let you take an extra prize per KO for the reminder of the game, but it also took down both Dedenne gx AND Crobat V with it's other attack while also setting up a backup attacker to take it's place once you opponent knocked it out
Remember slapping these TagTeam EX's and VMAX decks in expanded with a Raticate and Crobat deck. The turn two Super Fang with Triple Acceleration Energy was a beast combined with hypnotoxic laser. Or if you didnt get hypnotoxic laser for the OKHO you could attach Poison Barb for them to knock themselves out. if they switched to bench the new active would be poisoned for the next Raticate to come and take the OHKO and you could knock out the benched 10hp pokemon by evolving a zubat into a Golbat with the Sneaky Bite ability. If you played against 2 prizers you avoid the second OHKO and go for the Critical Bite with the Crobat and take 2 extra prize cards. Games where pretty much decided on the opening hand or the second turn hand disruption and the metas was horrible disgusting garbage. But it was super satisfying when these massively overpowered cards got knocked out by a literal rat.
If there is something that I need back on PTCG live, it is that Super Fang Raticate. In my version of that deck, Raticate was paired with the Ariados that has Poisonous Nest ability. It was a surprisingly consistent and fast-paced deck. Good old times! 🐀
@WhimsicottTCG I didnt have the cards to start with the ariados and once I could have gotten it I had gotten the feel for the crobat strategy and felt it was more satisfying even if not as consistent 😄 but love to see another Raticate enjoyer, big respect!
This is what got me into pokemon tcg and i freaking loved the sets. I still have the decks and sometimes play with them with friends theyre still a blast
I 100% agree with Tag Teams (3 Prize Pokemon in general) were a mistake Tho i will say that Team Up format was not a bad format at all, yeah Pikarom was dominating and was kinda silly but didn't feel as bad again, it was more when we got more Tag Teams that it started to feel really bad at that point, and ofc didn't get better when ADP/Zacian was a thing, but when it was only Pikarom as the only real deck with a Tag Team in it, it wasen't really as bad again But great video for sure😎
As a stage 2 enjoyer, the TAG TEAM mechanic make me quit the game for a couple of year. Based video, completely encapsulated my opinion of the mechanic.
I joined Pokemon TCG after GX rotated so this power level is just what I’m used to lol I feel like it matches the craziness of competitive video game battles now lol
Not that they are competing with these old cards since they rotated years ago. Altough the oneshot potential could go down a notch, Dusknoir really screws with card balance hp-wise
I don't play the current Pokemon TCG (only played a couple years starting in 2007 to help a FLGS run a Pokmeon League because they needed more adults to play with the kids, lol) but am curious if the "SV Block" format will be enjoyed. I'm glad ex Pokemon still require evolution and you can't just throw down a Charizard as a basic. How have the ex Pokemon felt compared to the EX, GX, and V Pokemon of the previous sets? I know Worlds 2024 isn't a fun format to a lot of people, but wasn't sure how much of that was enabled by the few remaining SS Block cards in the game. When I played I really loved evolution because it was such a cool mechanic. It really set the game apart from what I was used to playing (Magic the Gathering).
SV was pretty successful for the first year, but things have slowly descended into fast aggressive 300HP KOs and multiple knockouts at once in the second year. How it will be remembered really depends on if they can fix the game, which I feel like is difficult with no sign of any floodgates (like Ability lock) to stop cards like Fezandipiti and the cards that power through the deck on turn 1
Ngl I actually like TEU - CRE as a format, but also I like every SM format so maybe it's brainrot. Vmaxes felt a lot worse to me after Tag Teams rotated out
They probably wanted to simplify the game for newer players, which is done by putting the power on Basics, since they require less resource management or deckbuilding skills
I played the TCG as a kid and have tons of amazing memories, even went to a few World championships (juniors division). I am just getting back into Pokemon with the release of the Pocket TCG mobile game, and it seems like the game changed drastically right after I left. This might be a terrible take, but to me it seems like the game became way more like Yugioh, where the object is to orchestrate huge combos in one or two turns and wipe your opponent off the face of the planet. I remember the game being more like a gradual escalation, with both sides chipping away at each other's big EXs while manually attaching most of your energies. Does that seem reasonable to any current players?
2011 Black & White was the first big shift away from the slower gamestates when increased focus was put on Big Basic Pokemon, when supported by Evolutions, rather than the opposite case. I think the real combo-feeling of the game hit with X&Y, which drastically improved the consistency of combo decks with cards like Shaymin EX, Battle Compressor, VS seeker, Max Elixir, Acro Bike, and Trainers' Mail leading to combo decks like Night March and Vespiquen succeeding and Archie's Blastoise winning 2015 Worlds. XY was either you played a deck that went through half the deck on the first turn, or you played a deck that stopped the opponent from doing anything (Trevenant, Seismitoad EX, Vileplume) Sun & Moon tried its best at first to slow combo decks, by putting more emphasis on Item punishment with Vileplume decks at the top of the meta and Garbodor Trashalanche which punished the opponent for playing Items and paired with Garbodor BKP which locked abilities, making hand disruption like N (Iono/Rocket's Admin) stick a lot better. It didn't ever fully nerf the Max Elixir decks from succeeding, but they played a lot more fair and had to respect Item lock/Item punishment being at the top of the meta for some time. Tag Teams absolutely re-introduced the combo feeling of XY and we really haven't escaped it since. It's just been at its worst again with this era providing so much on-board draw (Sqwuakabilly, Fezandipity, Ogrepon) and very few effective floodgate cards, as well as ramping up card effects significantly while not increasing the HP at the same rate.
Imagine playing with a Newbie and you slam down Arceus and Dialga and Palkia GX. That's like if the 3 God cards in Yu Gi Oh were all in a single card as a Normal Summon.
Ironically, Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX was a newbie favorite. It was the deck of choice for newer players since its power could let them win games by doing the same thing every time. I used to play wall decks back then vs. them and they'd quit the game immediately once they realized they had to change their game plan even slightly
the god cards in real yugioh arent good LOL they arent play starters to establish a baord and Slifer is the only real endboard piece. Obelisks protection is luaghable. Ra just sucks
I am starting to play Pokémon TCG because of Pocket, and personally, I don't like how powerful everything feels. It feels like as soon as I start the game, my opponent is able to FILL the board and search for any card in his deck multiple times and have 3 Ex Pokémon out and multiple energies and blah blah blah. It just doesn't feel like the flow of the game ramps up at a reasonable pace. It feels like each deck has one strategy, and all of the other cards are only there to search and draw that strategy. That's... not fun in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, I've had fun Pokémon matches, but I can't help but wish that with ALLLLLL the Pokémon you can collect from boosters, that more of them would be used in play. That's just my opinion, please let me know what you guys think.
The unfortunate part of TCGs is that some cards will just be better than others. I think you should explore cube/drafting formats though where you're able to make mishmash decks with drafting with what you have versus being worried about which cards are optimal.
We have regular expanded games at my LGS and one guy runs the mew tag team it pretty much kills everything it faces. I avoid playing against him due to how broken that deck is.
It's not tag teams that make me want to quit it's cards like alolan weezing, path to the peak Joleton EX, N, marine, snorlax pokemon GO, the stupid decision to get rid of game chat in tcgo, that made me want to quit some times.
@ombreofficiel i was like 11 to 13 when I knew about N. imagine having a yveltal EX ready to go and some one played N and gave you all basic energys that angered me it just depended on what decks you where playing at the time wheather you hated or liked N.
@Samuel-nj4yy no. If you joined then, you don't have perspective of how it was before, so it wouldn't seem different/bad that things were they way they were then. Perspectives are comparison, but if you don't have that comparison, then what you have doesn't seem that bad
@@ashmarten2884 i think every era of the game has fun decks to play, but whether the top meta of decks are fun or not will really decide how fun the actual game is at the time
Tbh Sun and Moon should be rotated out of expanded format and be put in either a new legacy format or just completely removed from format as I like some of the old sword and shield cards that have been put in expanded format yet I don't want to deal with annoying tag team gxs and boss's orders.
Idk why everyone's crying about tag teams being too strong when modern yugioh and cEDH are both still growing. It might not be very new player friendly, but that's a good thing imo. Not every game needs to be easy to play. Just look at modern pokemon video games. They're baby easy, but that also makes it super boring for anyone who played more than 3 generations back once you beat the main story
Yeah, which is ironic since the format right before Tag Teams is, in retrospect, dominated by a deck with *gasp* 180HP basic Pokemon, only for that to almost be a joke of a total come Tag Teams.
We recently had a few fun formats in the first year of the Scarlet & Violet TCG, but they sped up the game again by lowering the power of hand disruption by adding more basic draw, which has brought it back down to being awful again.
@@WhimsicottTCG Pokemon has gone on record saying they hate Stall/Control decks and want you to have to win by taking all 6 prize cards. The main cards they've banned are disruptive cards like Delinquent, Lusamine, Ghetsis, Let Loose Marshadow, Lt. Surge's Strategy, Jessie & James, Hex Maniac, etc. Pokemon doesn't like Stall strategies as they make games go to time and it's like game 1 or 2
@@djsedam123It makes sense to me, as that way tournaments can be played more easily -- that, and players are going to get bored if a game drags on too long as well. Even just waiting for your opponent to take their turn, only for them to continue to take their time can be frustrating and drag the game out for longer than it feels like it needs to. Either way, I personally don't see a problem with speeding the game up: the main issue that causes players to want to see the game slow back down some is that a lot of cards that get printed need to evolve, which takes multiple turns, and as such, it's less that games need to be "slowed down" and more so that having strong basics in a game that has an evolution system makes the decks that rely on evolving become less viable due to being unable to keep up
I stopped playing the TcG after the second set of sun and moon and when I got back into it around when paradox rift came out the jump in card power level was kinda crazy with the new stage 2 EX cards having well north of 250 and even 300 hp
@@WhimsicottTCG yea that's what I'm saying, like driftloon doing 300 damage in gardi decks when mega Charizard needed 5 energy to do that much and milled your own deck
Mythical lunch break algorithm pull
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This comment slaps so hard lmao. I'm definitely stealing it.
I'm actually on lunch now
Type business
real fr fr
If you ever feel useless, just remember that there were stage 2 evolution cards being released in the same sets as these tag team GXs
There were a few that saw play, but they were all just things for Mewtwo & Mew Tag Team GX to copy from the discard pile lol
Tag teams in general made evolutions not very worthwhile to play because of how strong they were for being only basic Pokemon -- it literally took until the first cards of the gen9 sets for stage 2 decks and other evolution focused decks in general to start returning to the meta. Thinking about it a little bit now, I kinda wonder if it was because they realized how absurdly and stupidly overpowered tag teams were that they made V Unions as hard to play as the did, requiring all 4 pieces in your discard pile before being able to play it -- sure, I do think they may have overcorrected in their efforts to make sure that a 3 prize basic Pokemon was balanced, but the thought process clearly seemed to be on nerfing what would otherwise be potentially insanely powerful cards
@@matthewkuscienko4616 the fact they made V-stars, which are basically GX cards in all but name, evolutions to help curve the damage.
A yes, that period of time when Pokemon TCG was faster, more solitaire, and more unfair than MODERN YUGIOH
My brother in Christ YOU WISH
@theabsurdityseries5597 i played both during the time Pokémon was infinitely less interactive. At least in yugioh you have cards that can stop ur opp from jerking off for 5 mins straight.
Lets not go thats far
I wouldn't go that far. YGO is a special level of unmatched bullshit, and Pokemon at least has rotation
Luckily these cards can eventually be rotated out... What is the rotation rate for the Pokemon TCG?
Covid ironically saved the credibility of the Pokémon TCG. If Worlds had gone ahead with ADP still in rotation, it would've in all likelihood brought all official championships into disrepute.
same thing sort of happened with Yu-Gi-Oh, since the pandemic was dominated by the control-heavy decks of Adamancipator, Drytron and Eldlich
As someone that had been power creeped out when gx pokemon were first introduced it's surprising to hear it somehow got worse
GX Pokémon were quite powerful, but the EXs and some of the BREAKs from XY still competed up until the moment they rotated, so I think the power creep was more fair there.
GX was more balanced than EXs (at least when SuMo block started) due to evolutions being required again. Of course, there was still the problem of the meta being overrun by strong Basics.
EX cards being basic versions of evolution Pokemon should have never been a thing.
This makes me wonder if Tag Teams were meant for collectors, and as a result balance was an afterthought.
Probably
There might be an argument for that, considering that each tag team got an alternate art print (some of which are extremely highly sought-after and expensive) in addition to the full-art and rainbow rare prints that were standard issue for other gx cards at the time. But I still personally believe that they weren't entirely meant for collectors primarily -- just look at things like the crystal type cards from way back in the day that had the mechanic of changing type to fit whatever energy you attached to them, or for that matter, the amazing rare and stellar ex cards we got more recently: all three of these "gimmick" cards have attacks that need up to 3 different energy types to use, and tend to be inconsistent at best and unplayable at worst because of this. Now compare this to how dominant tag teams were during the time they were around for: they were often easy to set up, and they didn't require evolution to get them online, couple this with high HP that dwarfed anything else and exceedingly overpowered attacks, and the best tag teams warped the meta around them, with PikaRom, MewMew, and ADP finding ways to continue to stay relevant until they eventually rotated out of standard. With that last sentence in mind, they HAD to have known how ridiculously overpowered they were making them, and thus made them give up 3 prizes to counterbalance their frankly insane power level in the hopes that this would prevent them from overrunning the format, but because they wanted these big, stupid basics to be played by people, they intentionally gave them the necessary support to get off the ground -- to be clear, these were measures they would NOT have taken if they were meant for collectors first and foremost, and the thought of it is more than a little bit ludicrous to me in hindsight. The fact is they simply didn't care they were making them overpowered -- in fact, by making them as brokenly OP as they were, this, coupled with the aforementioned alternate art printings made for each one, just ensured these cards would hold appeal to both players of the game and collectors alike -- effectively printing more money by incentivising people who bought the cards for any reason to seek them out
That's all pokemon is about. Face it collectors have ruined the game years ago.
Wdym the game is still fun as heck@@No_Lucks_Given
Bro, what does this have to do with collectors? Tag teams are great to collect beacuse of the concept. You have two pokemons in one card, intecarcting each other in a beautiful art. The text/effect on competitive does not matter at all. If the card is strong or weak, whatever. The fault is exclusivily of creatures inc.
tag teams had an interesting idea, putting 2 beloved pokemon on one card, akin to the Legends cards from HGSS. but the way they were executed was horrible and made the game borderline unplayable for a large amount of the late SM era into SWSH which was completely terrible til VSTARs. I think they recognize that the mechanic was a bad idea and a mistake, but as someone who played Baby Blacephalon in this era, i just think the era of 1 shots is bad for the game and makes it not fun. which sadly the game has kinda kicked back into again.
hence why i have all of 2017 worlds/Guardians Rising built in paper.
Guardians Rising goated format
I think it would be interesting to have a Sun and moon to Cosmic Eclipse format without tag teams
From what I've heard, Zoroark GX is still incredible, as is Blacephalon, the usual picks, but I've also seen people use unique stuff like Wishiwashi GX
How much Zoroark do you feel like playing against?????!!
It's called SUM-LOT and there is a format for it, mostly control dominated tho. Every coin has another side to it... It's really fun if you're not in a tourney though.
Yup, this is when I quite the game too! Up until this set Pokémon was extremely fun and I agree, Sun and moon had been a resounding success.
I think the biggest impact is that they made the V pokemon way stronger than regular gxs to compensate, if you look at keldeo gx who had 170 hp and keldeo-v that had 210 hp which was released a few months later
Not only just the HP, but the attack damage on the V Pokémon was incredibly high.
@WhimsicottTCG They shifted to a strict 1 shot or bust kind of meta that's up to this day, if you're not getting 2 prizes every turn you already lost
@@keldeo05 not the case anymore, as it is now there is support V-EX pokemons that do get one shot by most main attackers and combat EX-V that can generally take 2 hit. Pokemons that can one shot combat pokemons do exist but they often require setup if they want to do so. The game is much better balanced than when they did tag team.
@@tolmir2929 I agree it's more balanced but it's definitely 2 prizes a turn, basically every good deck is just taking 2 or 3 prizes every turn past the second and now with dusknoir it's an even bigger thing
@@keldeo05 depend on what you play and how well you play, if you just put every 2 prizer on board so they can just counter catcher or boss order them you may lose 2 prizes per turn, but there are stall decks and control decks or even one prizer decks that will definitly not lose 2 prizes per turn. Dusknoir is not even that popular the main deck it's used in is Charizard . As you explain it it's like you are totally ignoring the cards that serve to counter your opponent plan and it's just people attacking every turn and one shotting the ennemy pokemon, it's rarely as straightforward as that.
the idea of tag teams was genius but they SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GX CARDS..they absolutely, undoubtedly should have been one-prizers. in the literal generation before sun and moon they did one-prizers with full art on them, why did they feel the need to make tag teams so fucking bulky??? they could've been 120-190 HP basics.......
I think 190HP basics could have been avoided, but Tag Teams easily could have been a mechanic in which you needed both evolution GXs in play to use them and the numbers they printed on them are still high enough that they'd see use.
They could have made them just basic GX that scaled with other basic GXs and just gave them a unique gimmick. But the designers at the same have gone on record saying they stopped caring about unique ideas and just wanted the numbers to go up.
could of been the same card just you need the two pokes in your benched to tag up
@@WhimsicottTCG I wonder if this could have helped if each deck was limited to only one Tag Team GX card per deck... kind of like Radiant cards. (I don't know if that was actually something they tried to implement or not)
think it would have worked better if you had to actually play pokemon beforehand to 'fuse' them? Make them more high investment?
Ah yes because Big Basic EX Pokemon worked soooooo well first time around
Well there are 3 variations of ex mons. The lower case 'ex' mons that were in Ruby and Sapphire and followed the evolution pathway, the EX Pokémon from BW that were sucky since they were all big basics even if the mon they were of wouldn't be a basic, then modern ex's which other than hp aren't really all that bad.
Yeh, the game is more fun when both players need some time to set up their board with stage 1 and 2 Pokemon. Such strong basic EX pokemon was a bad design choice.
@@lkjkhfggd I kind of like that evolution pokemon are stronger but require setup and basic are weaker but are faster, the meta as it is is quite interesting right now since it's a lot of different kind of decks between evolution basic or even 1 prizer and all of them have at least a few strong decks.
@@toxic0470 You know the kind I meant the Big basic B W EX Pokemon
@@StickyTrap well you mentioned the first time around so ofc i would think lowercase ex since uppercase EXs have never come back since
So this is why there's no Tag Team cards for Blueberry Academy sets despite Blueberry Academy being all about duo battling.
@TheChocoboKid we did have a real double battle feature back in the Ruby Sapphire era of the game, but it was quickly abandoned and never brought back
Ugh I wish there was another rfor at like this.
I look at magic players with envy. I think pokemon having a group format would make the game explode@@WhimsicottTCG
The biggest mistake TCG Tag Team GX cards was me not buying and getting these cards.
I started the TCG in the late BW era. I found the XY era to be pretty BS in a lot of parts (Wailord, Seismitoad, FoGP Vileplume) but it was overall pretty OK. The first 2/3 of SM was a dream, but then I quit pretty soon after Team Up. Tag teams sucked. I rejoined about a year and a half ago when SV was just starting and the meta has been pretty good since (though I’m not a huge fan of Fez or Dusknoir)
We had a really good thing going with years 1-2 of SM and year 1 of SV
Saw the thumbnail and instantly agreed. Tag team gave us some of the coolest cards but god it was so hard to keep up without them. At least as of today I’m still able to use my V cards against the current meta
SUM-LOT was such a great format
and then comes this mechanic
6:31 i dont know a lot about tcg, so sorry if this is a dumb question--how do you play solgaleo, magcargo, and naganadel without the pre-evolutions?
@raywt Mewtwo & Mew's perfection allows it to copy attacks of Pokemon GX or EX from the discard pile or on your board. With the evolution Pokemon like those, you can discard them and then mewtwo mew can steal their attacks
@ ohh that's genius!! thank you for explaining!! :o
From someone whos never played Pokemon TCG, it ridiculous that you can just place a powerhouse down like that
Id imagine you'd need the required Pokemon on the field to play a Tag Team card but nope, just place it and destroy everything lol
Garchomp Giratina was my favorite tag team GX. The tag team supporters were cool, if maybe a little busted. But the tag team concept in general was bad, and our punishment for it was COVID-19. The start of the Sword and Shield block is when I got out of the physical TCG, zacian ADP was out of control.
I love the idea of ADP being so toxic it unleashed a plague
These effects are so ridiculous, I simply can’t believe it. Even as a casual player, these effects are ridiculous.
Tag Teams were the best idea ever in concept, two Pokémon on one card. However making them 3 prizes worth of HP and keeping GX moves was way too much. It even brought back a way to use more Mega Pokémon. They were SO close but just made them way too powerful.
ADP is so broken i heard about it despite being a Yu-Gi-Oh fan (granted, Yu-Gi-Oh was itself struggling with a control-heavy format dominated by Adamancipator, Drytron and Eldlich during the pandemic)
As a single prize/Rogue enjoyer this mehcanic was brutal, I feel we are slowly healing from it but it certainly feels like it did pretty irepairbale damage to the power creep of the game
So glad I got into the TCG right as Tag Team got rotated out.
Would love the game to get back to the days of taking 3 to 4 turns before attacking to setup boards and supporters that searched out one Pokemon.
I don't think standard will ever get to that point again. It hasn't been like that since 2010
I prefer it as it is now, the less you can draw and choose your cards the more luck matters, one of the main problem with old tcg is their energy system that made luck to much of a problem, that is why pocket changed the system no more energy and no more prize cards which were the main features hurting consistency. Pokemon can still give you terrible hands that makes you lose on the spot but that's much rarer than it used to be.
I recently started getting into Pokemon TCG because of the mobile game. Still don't know much. But your video is extremely well put together and thoughtfully edited. It's crazy to think you aren't getting more views. Earned my sub
One thing that would have balanced tag team GX a bit: make them evolve from both pokemon on the card; to put it into play, both listed pokemon must be in play already. I never like fake-basic pokemon, including the pokemon V; evolution is one of the key features of the Pokemon franchise and should always remain central to the TCG.
Moreover rare candies should finally rotate out to make room for first stages to become more relevant, they should make them more useful.
Tag teams: The only time the Legacy gamemode was safer than the Standard one
This is a very well put together video, hope to see more
Excellent video.
As a long time PTCG player, the Tag Team era was both insanely fun and miserable simultaneously.
You needed to have a good Tag Team deck, even casually, simply cause of the huge HP numbers. It wasn't just enough that these were effectly unkillable bosses, cards like Acerola were saving ADP and every TT decks from tempo swings. On one hand these cards were what a lot of fans wanted. On the other, no one asked for the level of power they came with. Their GX attacks were so overwhelming that they were more or less all game ending. That mixed with the set rotation led to a dominance I hadn't seen for a decade prior with lv X and other old unique mechanics before those were rotated out.
I just want to clarify that before the 2020 rotation, Tag teams were getting more popular and had a big meta share, but the early cardpool for both pikarom and reshizard was never strong enough to actually make them undisputed or anything. There was still eventually a lot of counterplay, as they were extremely weak to weaknesses, more than any other mechanic before it. In fact, Zoroark was arguably still the best deck. After the rotation though, this is where things really started to spiral out of control.
Reshizard had good counterplay but Pikarom was a bit rough. The usual zoroark checks seem good but they can skip a Buzzwole sledgehammer turn easily and make it hard to ever knock it out
@WhimsicottTCG naganadel was really really good against it. 1 riotous beating into naganadel gx attack into guzma second riotous beating made the matchup really hard to play for pikarom. 240hp isnt that much in the end. Trade made it super easy to find your pieces. Good healing tools didnt exist yet and if they did hurt the consistency too much for them to be good.
One of the nice things about Pokemon TCG Pocket is how down-crept it feels in terms of power scaling compared to some of the stuff we see here with Mewtwo EX only having 150 hp and only doing 150 damage.
@@NikolajLepka yeah the power down is nice, but i wish cards were more complex. It feels like the entire game comes down to luck once you get past the initial learning curve
@@WhimsicottTCG I feel like that's just the iinitial growth problems. Once it finds its own footing it may grow more complex
All of this just cuz someone had the idea of “what if we put more than 1 Pokémon on the card?”
This era was when i started playing the tcg, and I think it has permanently colored how I perceive card design in this game. I remember just thinking "wow these are cool". I do remember thinking Pikachu&Zekrom was annoying, but I didn't see the problem with them while trying to make Gardevoir&Sylveon GX work post rotation.
Garde & Sylveon was in a pretty good spot though, just very underrated.
i started playing in the tag team era. i still have my lucametal zacian and eggrow dhelmise decks together. i might have a different take on this, but since this was the era when i got into the tcg i still have some nostalgia for this era
It's hard to have perspective on how things changed when you weren't there to see the change happen, in a same way it's hard to understand historical perspective that you weren't a part of. Everyone starts somewhere
This is the channel I've been looking for! Commenting for algorithms
Thanks for tuning in
I can’t tell whether yours or Burt’s video came out first, but you fixed his!
Not sure, thanks for tuning in though. I think Burts and I have very different things to say on some topics as I'm a casual retro player and he's an involved standard player.
I am seeing the progress of Creatures trying to fix some of the shortcomings of Tag Teams. While it will take a bit, we have had some great formats in the SV era as well. And from what I have heard, BRS-SSP seems to have introduced counters to powerful cards and support for underutilized archetypes. I just hope that Pokémon continues to have a good amount of Deck variety in the format
They did fix a lot of the issues that Tag Teams brought, but the damage caps have not been reduced. In addition, they continue to make the same mistakes in printing cards like Squawkability ex and Fezandipiti ex
@WhimsicottTCG Sadly, these support Pokemon being printed will not slow games down at all. However, I would like to argue that Profs Research and Boss's Orders don't help the current format as well just like the SWSH days. Also, don't get me started on Prime Catcher!
the fact there’s an ability that just deletes your opponents energy is comedy
@@sirzirconium9231 was used quite a lot in control decks back then
ADP still gives me nightmares to this day…
Ugh I hated ADPZ decks. I played a ton of PTCGO from SM era to it's closure and I remember the absolute HELLSCAPE that was the meta. You had two major decks running around: ADPZ and when it made it's debut, Eternatus VMAX. and then Lucmetal was a little less common but still rampant. So you were either forced to play these stupidly op decks, or you would be playing Decidugoon or Altariagoon to get around it. I'm pretty sure half the reason for Obstagoon being one of the two Vivid Voltage gold cards was due to it's common usage in Decidugoon and Altariagoon in addition to Galarian Zigzagoon in Eternatus VMAX decks
I've recently been playing the Pokémon TCG game on Game Boy Color, which was released during Gen 1. Back then, the most HP any card had was Chansey with 120 HP and OHKOs actually required setup. Part of me wonders if the extreme power creep is partially to make games go faster at official tournaments. I wonder if someday we'll see a total reboot of the TCG to address some of the power creep.
I'll do a video on this. I typed up a full essay response then fell asleep and lost my comment.
The closest we'll get to a total reset is Pokemon TCG Pocket, which has cards doing significantly less effects and damage.
To be fair, at the same time the first full on comptetively awful card was in the Gen 2 neo set
Brave blade was such an insane attack and the reason it had the 230 number on it is literally only because of Tag teams. If you compare it to the strongest most recent basic 2-prizer 3 energy attackers that have to wait a turn before zacian, you get lapras with the 1 to 1 attack for 160, buzzwole with 160 too, literally a 70 damage difference which was until this point only about 20-30 per gen.
I don’t even have a lick of knowledge or care about the TCG, but I will watch this 10 minute video about it, because that’s less boring than finishing my overdue math homework.
i think tag team could have worked, if all of them would be more like zapdos articuno moltres tag team which needs different energies, having tag team cards with at least 3 different energie costs would balance them more out
Funnily enough that Tag Team was completely broken in the Expanded format lol
I was having fun one-tapping most Tag Team GXs with basic Blacephalon from unbroken bonds that has Fireball Circus... until ADP rolled in.
this is when i left the game... i am slowly returning tho
they should have had you discard the two GX pokemon in order to play the tagteam version like an evolution
Last time I played Pokemon tcg was in the early 2000’s. I decided to get back into the hobby just recently and had heard about the insane power creep since then. I’ve been mostly able to adapt by researching the current metas enough but sheesh, my attacks have to crest 300 damage every turn on a regular basis just to keep up with the enemy doing the same to me every turn as well.
I enjoy playing with TAG TEAMs casually! It is a shame they pushed out the evolving GXs though :(
Evolving Pokemon caughing baby vs Hydrogen bomb Tag Bolt for 4 prizes
I basically quit the game because of tag teams and old ptcgo going down.
Man i despise adp
Let's not kid ourselves: EVERYONE hates ADP. I played it briefly for a power high because it was so exceedingly broken, and even despite that, I can fully understand why people have such intense vitriol towards it: not only does it apply both effects of it's gx attack to give all your Pokemon 30+ damage and let you take an extra prize per KO for the reminder of the game, but it also took down both Dedenne gx AND Crobat V with it's other attack while also setting up a backup attacker to take it's place once you opponent knocked it out
this ^^
Remember slapping these TagTeam EX's and VMAX decks in expanded with a Raticate and Crobat deck.
The turn two Super Fang with Triple Acceleration Energy was a beast combined with hypnotoxic laser.
Or if you didnt get hypnotoxic laser for the OKHO you could attach Poison Barb for them to knock themselves out.
if they switched to bench the new active would be poisoned for the next Raticate to come and take the OHKO and you could knock out the benched 10hp pokemon by evolving a zubat into a Golbat with the Sneaky Bite ability.
If you played against 2 prizers you avoid the second OHKO and go for the Critical Bite with the Crobat and take 2 extra prize cards.
Games where pretty much decided on the opening hand or the second turn hand disruption and the metas was horrible disgusting garbage.
But it was super satisfying when these massively overpowered cards got knocked out by a literal rat.
If there is something that I need back on PTCG live, it is that Super Fang Raticate. In my version of that deck, Raticate was paired with the Ariados that has Poisonous Nest ability. It was a surprisingly consistent and fast-paced deck. Good old times! 🐀
Oh yeah I remember playing that deck a fair bit. I did it with Ariados from Ancient Origins which applied Poison to finish the KO
@WhimsicottTCG I didnt have the cards to start with the ariados and once I could have gotten it I had gotten the feel for the crobat strategy and felt it was more satisfying even if not as consistent 😄 but love to see another Raticate enjoyer, big respect!
This is what got me into pokemon tcg and i freaking loved the sets. I still have the decks and sometimes play with them with friends theyre still a blast
If you weren't around for what happened the Tag Teams, it's kind of hard to explain what was lost in the Tag Teams coming out
Yep, that's when I quit. Played from Day 1 WOTC to the Mew/Mewtwo Tag Team Tin. Never looked back.
These are still my favorite cards because of how ridiculous some of the energy costs are for the + on the gx moves 😂
I 100% agree with Tag Teams (3 Prize Pokemon in general) were a mistake
Tho i will say that Team Up format was not a bad format at all, yeah Pikarom was dominating and was kinda silly but didn't feel as bad again, it was more when we got more Tag Teams that it started to feel really bad at that point, and ofc didn't get better when ADP/Zacian was a thing, but when it was only Pikarom as the only real deck with a Tag Team in it, it wasen't really as bad again
But great video for sure😎
As a stage 2 enjoyer, the TAG TEAM mechanic make me quit the game for a couple of year.
Based video, completely encapsulated my opinion of the mechanic.
Thanks for tuning in
I don’t play the Pokemon TCG, but even I can see how those cards are insane. Like, seriously? A turn 1 emblem????? Crazy stuff.
The biggest crime of these tag team cards is that we didn’t get a groudon/cherim team up
Switched to Magic the Gathering cause of Tag Team. Honestly very happy I did.
I joined Pokemon TCG after GX rotated so this power level is just what I’m used to lol
I feel like it matches the craziness of competitive video game battles now lol
Competetive tcg was always crazy
All current V pokemon are still game breakers with Forest Seal Stone
@@kstanni87 i liked forest seal stone when it was first released, but it definitely got out of hand
I still remember when V Mega Gengar Spirit link was the worst thing in the TCG to ever happen
I don't even think Mega Gengar EX was very strong. Regular Gengar EX seemed to perform better, though I was absent from this period of the game
Now we have stage 2s with 330-340 hp and only give up 2 prizes…
@@lbesavant i don't think Stage 2s having that much HP is bad, though the fact that they can still easily be one hit KOd definitely is
Not that they are competing with these old cards since they rotated years ago. Altough the oneshot potential could go down a notch, Dusknoir really screws with card balance hp-wise
I don't play the current Pokemon TCG (only played a couple years starting in 2007 to help a FLGS run a Pokmeon League because they needed more adults to play with the kids, lol) but am curious if the "SV Block" format will be enjoyed. I'm glad ex Pokemon still require evolution and you can't just throw down a Charizard as a basic. How have the ex Pokemon felt compared to the EX, GX, and V Pokemon of the previous sets? I know Worlds 2024 isn't a fun format to a lot of people, but wasn't sure how much of that was enabled by the few remaining SS Block cards in the game. When I played I really loved evolution because it was such a cool mechanic. It really set the game apart from what I was used to playing (Magic the Gathering).
SV was pretty successful for the first year, but things have slowly descended into fast aggressive 300HP KOs and multiple knockouts at once in the second year. How it will be remembered really depends on if they can fix the game, which I feel like is difficult with no sign of any floodgates (like Ability lock) to stop cards like Fezandipiti and the cards that power through the deck on turn 1
Ngl I actually like TEU - CRE as a format, but also I like every SM format so maybe it's brainrot. Vmaxes felt a lot worse to me after Tag Teams rotated out
my question is why not have them be final evolutions any of the pokemon featured on the card? i feel like that would’ve balanced it out a bit
They probably wanted to simplify the game for newer players, which is done by putting the power on Basics, since they require less resource management or deckbuilding skills
Charizard ex has 330hp and just searches energy for itself now...
I played the TCG as a kid and have tons of amazing memories, even went to a few World championships (juniors division). I am just getting back into Pokemon with the release of the Pocket TCG mobile game, and it seems like the game changed drastically right after I left.
This might be a terrible take, but to me it seems like the game became way more like Yugioh, where the object is to orchestrate huge combos in one or two turns and wipe your opponent off the face of the planet. I remember the game being more like a gradual escalation, with both sides chipping away at each other's big EXs while manually attaching most of your energies. Does that seem reasonable to any current players?
2011 Black & White was the first big shift away from the slower gamestates when increased focus was put on Big Basic Pokemon, when supported by Evolutions, rather than the opposite case. I think the real combo-feeling of the game hit with X&Y, which drastically improved the consistency of combo decks with cards like Shaymin EX, Battle Compressor, VS seeker, Max Elixir, Acro Bike, and Trainers' Mail leading to combo decks like Night March and Vespiquen succeeding and Archie's Blastoise winning 2015 Worlds. XY was either you played a deck that went through half the deck on the first turn, or you played a deck that stopped the opponent from doing anything (Trevenant, Seismitoad EX, Vileplume)
Sun & Moon tried its best at first to slow combo decks, by putting more emphasis on Item punishment with Vileplume decks at the top of the meta and Garbodor Trashalanche which punished the opponent for playing Items and paired with Garbodor BKP which locked abilities, making hand disruption like N (Iono/Rocket's Admin) stick a lot better. It didn't ever fully nerf the Max Elixir decks from succeeding, but they played a lot more fair and had to respect Item lock/Item punishment being at the top of the meta for some time.
Tag Teams absolutely re-introduced the combo feeling of XY and we really haven't escaped it since. It's just been at its worst again with this era providing so much on-board draw (Sqwuakabilly, Fezandipity, Ogrepon) and very few effective floodgate cards, as well as ramping up card effects significantly while not increasing the HP at the same rate.
Imagine playing with a Newbie and you slam down Arceus and Dialga and Palkia GX.
That's like if the 3 God cards in Yu Gi Oh were all in a single card as a Normal Summon.
Ironically, Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX was a newbie favorite. It was the deck of choice for newer players since its power could let them win games by doing the same thing every time. I used to play wall decks back then vs. them and they'd quit the game immediately once they realized they had to change their game plan even slightly
the god cards in real yugioh arent good LOL
they arent play starters to establish a baord and Slifer is the only real endboard piece. Obelisks protection is luaghable. Ra just sucks
Cool video, i dont even play the tcg but still found this interesting lol
why is vortrox on a pokemon tcg video
Thanks for tuning in
I am starting to play Pokémon TCG because of Pocket, and personally, I don't like how powerful everything feels. It feels like as soon as I start the game, my opponent is able to FILL the board and search for any card in his deck multiple times and have 3 Ex Pokémon out and multiple energies and blah blah blah. It just doesn't feel like the flow of the game ramps up at a reasonable pace. It feels like each deck has one strategy, and all of the other cards are only there to search and draw that strategy. That's... not fun in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, I've had fun Pokémon matches, but I can't help but wish that with ALLLLLL the Pokémon you can collect from boosters, that more of them would be used in play.
That's just my opinion, please let me know what you guys think.
The unfortunate part of TCGs is that some cards will just be better than others. I think you should explore cube/drafting formats though where you're able to make mishmash decks with drafting with what you have versus being worried about which cards are optimal.
The power creep is insane 😭
We have regular expanded games at my LGS and one guy runs the mew tag team it pretty much kills everything it faces. I avoid playing against him due to how broken that deck is.
Mewtwo Mew has fallen off in Expanded these days because its not fast enough, but it definitely used to be one of the top dogs on its release
It's not tag teams that make me want to quit it's cards like alolan weezing, path to the peak Joleton EX, N, marine, snorlax pokemon GO, the stupid decision to get rid of game chat in tcgo, that made me want to quit some times.
N is one of the best card ever introduce to keep the game playable what are you talking about
@ombreofficiel i was like 11 to 13 when I knew about N. imagine having a yveltal EX ready to go and some one played N and gave you all basic energys that angered me it just depended on what decks you where playing at the time wheather you hated or liked N.
The days where expanded format was a nightmare.
nothing has changed there
The Pokémon TCG needs a serious pull-back in terms of power level. Mercadian Masques should be the baseline.
I agree to some extent. I'd like to maybe see a big reset like there was for Vanguard TCG back in the day
Eevee Snorlax Tag team GX literally was possible with welder
Hee hee hee new pokemon history video i like whimsicast
I'm looking forward to 1,000 HP Pokemon.
Is it bad that I joined the game during this time and thought it was fun then.
@Samuel-nj4yy no. If you joined then, you don't have perspective of how it was before, so it wouldn't seem different/bad that things were they way they were then. Perspectives are comparison, but if you don't have that comparison, then what you have doesn't seem that bad
Kind of like if you never ate anything but frozen pizza your whole life, but i sit here loathing that the local brick oven pizza parlor closed
“Surely, right?” 😂
I loved the early GX era tbh
Super fun era! I still revisit it today
Is this like the modern yugioh equivalent? Is it welcoming for new players?
@sunshinemegane2534 tag teams were very welcoming for new players since they were easy to play and games tended to end in 4-5 turns
Tag team was my favorite format of pokemon but i hated V and Vstar and VMax
If ADP has no haters then I am dead
adp was so fun to play back then
Love ur videos, instant click
Thanks for tuning in 👐
Mistake, yes, but there were lots of very fun decks to play.
@@ashmarten2884 i think every era of the game has fun decks to play, but whether the top meta of decks are fun or not will really decide how fun the actual game is at the time
@ tbf though, I only really started playing again in the pandemic, so tag teams weren’t as dominant then, so that influences my view on them
Great info :)
4:19 lol doo doo 💩
This is the power creep that got me to drop pokemok tcg ):
Tbh Sun and Moon should be rotated out of expanded format and be put in either a new legacy format or just completely removed from format as I like some of the old sword and shield cards that have been put in expanded format yet I don't want to deal with annoying tag team gxs and boss's orders.
Lmao tell me you’re a noob without telling m you’re a noob 😂
Now that I have pokemon tcg knowledge, I understand how f up these cards are
Idk why everyone's crying about tag teams being too strong when modern yugioh and cEDH are both still growing. It might not be very new player friendly, but that's a good thing imo. Not every game needs to be easy to play. Just look at modern pokemon video games. They're baby easy, but that also makes it super boring for anyone who played more than 3 generations back once you beat the main story
@xavierc.7478 no the problem with the tag teams is that they were too strong and they made the game too easy. They were too new player friendly
The game was not ready for such bulky basic pokemon
Yeah, which is ironic since the format right before Tag Teams is, in retrospect, dominated by a deck with *gasp* 180HP basic Pokemon, only for that to almost be a joke of a total come Tag Teams.
@@WhimsicottTCGnot to mention the decks that were "good" before tag teams are suddenly struggling to output the damage to compete with them
i just got back into the pokemon tcg 3 days ago and i immediately see a video about the set that is the reason i quit the game LMAO
Sorry to bring back the trauna, but thanks for the watch
Tag teams killed the game, there was no return after such shit.
We recently had a few fun formats in the first year of the Scarlet & Violet TCG, but they sped up the game again by lowering the power of hand disruption by adding more basic draw, which has brought it back down to being awful again.
@@WhimsicottTCG Pokemon has gone on record saying they hate Stall/Control decks and want you to have to win by taking all 6 prize cards. The main cards they've banned are disruptive cards like Delinquent, Lusamine, Ghetsis, Let Loose Marshadow, Lt. Surge's Strategy, Jessie & James, Hex Maniac, etc. Pokemon doesn't like Stall strategies as they make games go to time and it's like game 1 or 2
@@djsedam123It makes sense to me, as that way tournaments can be played more easily -- that, and players are going to get bored if a game drags on too long as well. Even just waiting for your opponent to take their turn, only for them to continue to take their time can be frustrating and drag the game out for longer than it feels like it needs to. Either way, I personally don't see a problem with speeding the game up: the main issue that causes players to want to see the game slow back down some is that a lot of cards that get printed need to evolve, which takes multiple turns, and as such, it's less that games need to be "slowed down" and more so that having strong basics in a game that has an evolution system makes the decks that rely on evolving become less viable due to being unable to keep up
This video is so validating for me lol
So the pokemon tcg is bad now?
@@MJ-oi6ul it's not in a great spot right now, but the game is changing constantly, so it's possible it'll have a recovery next year
I stopped playing the TcG after the second set of sun and moon and when I got back into it around when paradox rift came out the jump in card power level was kinda crazy with the new stage 2 EX cards having well north of 250 and even 300 hp
Yeah not just the HP but also the damage. Taking a One hit KO on anything is the norm now
@@WhimsicottTCG yea that's what I'm saying, like driftloon doing 300 damage in gardi decks when mega Charizard needed 5 energy to do that much and milled your own deck
@@samyollo8833 Or 50 damage to itself if it was the Dragon Type Mega
@@djsedam123 Mega Charizard Y(the fire type card) did 50 recoil whereas Mega Charizard X(dragon type) discarded 5 cards