Discussion History of Meta Decks

DarkMatterGaming

DarkMatterGaming

Aspiring Trainer
Member
In this day and age, playing Pokemon competitively has become easier and easier, with simulators like TCG One and PTCGO. However, there is a surprising lack of record keeping for decks in earlier formats, aside from the obvious Haymaker, Rain Dance, Do the Wave (all from base set) and others that have won previous Worlds.

So I'm coming here to ask two questions:

1. Is there already a compilation list like this, and I just haven't dug around enough to find it?

If not:

2. Who would want to help create an archive like this?

Now, my reasoning for these questions (and I'm not even sure if this was the 'correct' place to put it, but it didn't seem correct in metagame discussion since that's for current Standard cards) is simple: it's nice to look back and examine how the metagame changed from the Haymaker where 20 on T1 was fantastic to MegaRay and it's 240 on T1.

That, and it also helps newer players who are early on in Career mode in TCG One.

With that being said, these are the only decks I really know about right now:

Base Set
Haymaker
Rain Dance
"Do the Wave"

HGSS
Donphan Prime
Yanmega Prime

And those are all I can name right now.

So, if anyone can name some more, that'd be very appreciated.

Thank you!
 
DarkMatterGaming said:
In this day and age, playing Pokemon competitively has become easier and easier, with simulators like TCG One and PTCGO. However, there is a surprising lack of record keeping for decks in earlier formats, aside from the obvious Haymaker, Rain Dance, Do the Wave (all from base set) and others that have won previous Worlds.

So I'm coming here to ask two questions:

1. Is there already a compilation list like this, and I just haven't dug around enough to find it?

If not:

2. Who would want to help create an archive like this?

Now, my reasoning for these questions (and I'm not even sure if this was the 'correct' place to put it, but it didn't seem correct in metagame discussion since that's for current Standard cards) is simple: it's nice to look back and examine how the metagame changed from the Haymaker where 20 on T1 was fantastic to MegaRay and it's 240 on T1.

That, and it also helps newer players who are early on in Career mode in TCG One.

With that being said, these are the only decks I really know about right now:

Base Set
Haymaker
Rain Dance
"Do the Wave"

HGSS
Donphan Prime
Yanmega Prime

And those are all I can name right now.

So, if anyone can name some more, that'd be very appreciated.

Thank you!
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This is something I'm incredibly interested in, and I'd love to hear about more decks. I looked on Bulbapedia, and they have a list, although I don't know how accurate it is, and most of the decks don't have descriptions.
 
Bulbapedia's 2008 list forgot 2 of the most important decks lol. Plox (Gardevoir/Gallade) which is listed under DP - on was actually most dominant in this era. Empoleon MD variants, either straight up or paired with Bronzong, were popular too. The list Empoleon in the year before, but this version ran off of Empoleon MD as opposed to the one in DP.

It also doesn't list Intimidation, which was the rogue deck that popped up for the first time literally at the world championships, winning the Junior division and top 16ing in the Seniors. It paired Toxicroak and Scizor from Majestic Dawn. Banette SW Donk was another deck that existed, although it was really metagame dependent. If played+built correctly, it absolutely demolished Plox and was favorable against Blissey, but it did have a rather poor Empoleon matchup.

EDIT: I started in 2008, and my friends and I play decks from 2006/2007 all the time, so if you have any questions about any decks from 2006 onwards I'm more than happy to answer n_n
 
You don't know how much that's going to help things, I think.

Now all we need is some of the older-ish sets and we may have something here.
 
There is also Queendom, which ran from 2004-2006 I believe. Took both 1st and 3rd at worlds in 2004, if I remember correctly.
 
I always found Bulbapedia pretty useful, but it would be good to have a resource with decklists and descriptions of each meta deck from every season of the Pokemon TCG. However mammoth a task that might be...

Anyway, I remember Riptide being pretty much tier 0 around the time of the first rotation. It involved the Neo Genesis Feraligatr, which did 10+ damage, with 10 more damage from each energy in the discard pile, which you then shuffle back into your deck. It sounds amazingly fun, kind of like PLF Kingdra. But yeah that deck was obscenely good from what I've read.
 
Ms Hugo said:
I always found Bulbapedia pretty useful, but it would be good to have a resource with decklists and descriptions of each meta deck from every season of the Pokemon TCG. However mammoth a task that might be...

Anyway, I remember Riptide being pretty much tier 0 around the time of the first rotation. It involved the Neo Genesis Feraligatr, which did 10+ damage, with 10 more damage from each energy in the discard pile, which you then shuffle back into your deck. It sounds amazingly fun, kind of like PLF Kingdra. But yeah that deck was obscenely good from what I've read.
Click to expand...

It's a challenge I'm willing to take up, especially considering I have summer break within... the next month or so? and it'll give me something to do. The hardest part is easily going to be finding some of these decks, decklists to base off initially, meta cards within each set... Maybe for right now, starting small and building up to the decklists may be a better idea.

Anyway, information like that always helps; I'd heard about it too, but - with your information as well - it tells me that I can probably find information on it easily. Thank you!
 
Feraligtr was basically the top deck in its format, but another good one was the Typhlosion/Blaine's Arcanine deck. It worked essentially identical to the recent Typhlosion/Reshiram deck in that you would use Typhlosion's pokemon power to quickly power up an Arcanine then blast away for 120 damage, instantly knocking anything out at the time. I think the only reason that this wasn't best-deck-in-format was because of that awful weakness to water pokemon, which Feraligatr could easily exploit.

Anyway, that's my input. Good luck with the rest of your search! This sounds like a fun idea!
 
moriras said:
Feraligtr was basically the top deck in its format, but another good one was the Typhlosion/Blaine's Arcanine deck. It worked essentially identical to the recent Typhlosion/Reshiram deck
Click to expand...

Typhlosion/Reshiram being from 2011 is hardly "recent"
 
moriras said:
Feraligtr was basically the top deck in its format, but another good one was the Typhlosion/Blaine's Arcanine deck. It worked essentially identical to the recent Typhlosion/Reshiram deck in that you would use Typhlosion's pokemon power to quickly power up an Arcanine then blast away for 120 damage, instantly knocking anything out at the time. I think the only reason that this wasn't best-deck-in-format was because of that awful weakness to water pokemon, which Feraligatr could easily exploit.

Anyway, that's my input. Good luck with the rest of your search! This sounds like a fun idea!
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Were Meganium or EnteiCargo any good in that format? I remember hearing something about them...
 
EnteiCargo was good, but I don't know if it was as good as Typhlosion/Arcanine. I mean, it could definitely set up faster using Entei's pokemon power, but after a while, the deck would just run out of steam.

Regarding Meganium, I know it was a pretty good deck, but I don't really know the particulars about it. Meganium, Erika's Victreebel and Crobat were all good decks because they could hit Feraligatr for weakness, but other than that, I don't think they were top tier.
 
LUXCHOOOOOMP
<3

Can't actually tell you what time period it was from, because I suck at remembering time. Sableye Disruption was also big around the same time, and it grew even more powerful with a wonky rotation, changing to a new deck called SableDonk.
 
Oh, yeah I remember LuxChomp. It was so much fun to play it! My friend used to play a DialgaChomp deck and that was so annoying, but a lot of fun as well. I think that was back in 2010.
 
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