Discussion Most Dissapointing TCG Set

PineDog said:
Hey, you have Rattata, which doesn't actually work the way it should be since it relies on an ability and overly complicates a simple card!
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I think Steam m Gardevoir EX is the only deck that can really use that Rattata effectively but Garbodor makes using Pokemon with abilities hard to use.
 
PineDog said:
Hey, you have Rattata, which doesn't actually work the way it should be since it relies on an ability and overly complicates a simple card!
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The following is probably more detail than most care about:

You say "simple", I say "filler"; Rattata from XY: Evolutions would have been some brilliant card design work except they barely bumped up the HP (from 30 to 40), added a Retreat Cost of [C] to a card that used to have a free Retreat Cost, and dropped the damage from its "Bite Attack" to 10 (from 20). Any of these changes are not bad in an of themselves, but the HP increase only really matters in edge cases, and by "edge" I mostly mean Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank City Gym versus Rattata starts in Expanded, and so that when Trevenant BREAK uses "Silent Fear" it doesn't OHKO every one of these Rattata in play. Going from a perfect free Retreat Cost to [C] is a huge step down, and while I actually do not want cards capable of attacking for damage first turn, even by my logic that means Bite just needed to be replaced or have its cost increased.

I think I would have preferred an attack that let me discard all Tools in play for [C] or even [CC], as that might have given us a generic Tool counter but at a significant cost; decks that absolutely needed to discard Tools would pay while the rest could pick or choose, ideally so that Garbodor (plus some of the Tools still in the format) became neither overpowered nor useless. Still I give them points for at least trying to make an Evolving Basics not seem like filler, and I don't hold the loss of Psychic Resistance against them. ;)
 
I think each set manages to disappoint in their own way, though some managed to do this better than others. So far I admit very few cards in Evolutions really appeals to me. If I wanted to go into it I could easily name at least one thing in each set that ultimately disappointed me.

I mean for me Steam Siege having another M. Gardevoir in it was disappointing. Having M. Steelix EX be shiny, especially since Steelix EX is not, was disappointing. Having Gyarados EX/M. Gyarados EX be shiny was disappointing and I suspect only happened because of early nostalgia from GSC Shiny Gyarados thing. Is it necessary to go on?

Of course Base Set 2 has to be one of the biggest disappointments in tcg history. At least Legendary Collection offered the first ever reverse holos and they looked cool. I've always personally disliked sets that are majorly reprints. Yeah they might keep or replace cards for the current standard format but aside from that, meh. This assumes they were ever good cards to start with.
 
The most disappointing set in my opinion (except for reprint sets) is emerging powers. I just started playing at the time and the the only thing worth getting was Pokemon Catcher..... a set known for only one card (granted, it was a staple but still). pretty disappointing if you ask me
 
NightOfYuyuko said:
The most disappointing set in my opinion (except for reprint sets) is emerging powers. I just started playing at the time and the the only thing worth getting was Pokemon Catcher.... a set known for only one card (granted, it was a staple but still). pretty disappointing if you ask me
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From the play standpoint you are absolutely correct.

However from the collecting/trading aspect I can't agree. It was on of three BW sets that brought in completely new Pokémon to collect that hadn't existed before. That has some merit too. Now if it had been a set that had Pokémon we'd already had before that would be a different story.
 
-I honestly love all pokemon sets but they alwase make a mistake or mess something up in XY my best cards from my booster box was a mega veansuar and 3 emolga exs's, yes 3. The set itself had poor artwork and no holos I could find. Even when I bought ANOTHER box I got Fullart Skymory EX and Yveltal EX and that was it.

-Flashfire was ok...but they could have made holo cards less rare then secret rares

-Furious Fists was a big faliure and only Mega Lucario was a hit while Mega Herracross was "Left Behind" without Mega Pinsir and Mega Scizor

-Phantom Forces finally brought full arts and spirit links! but it did not print full arts for Agieslash wich I HATE!!!

-Primal Clash brought Gardevoir EX but unfortuatly there were so many Ex's and holos It took a long time to get no-holo rares and the fact of Trait cards being introduced was kinda icky

-Roaring Skyies ruined Winnona full art and Bird type pokemon in genral Talonflame should have been an ultra rare with Altaria EX and Mega Altaria EX and Pidgeon and Mega Pidgeot Raquazza could have stayed and dragonite but Hydrogon? and Wally? uh-uh

-My personal most hated set ever Ancient Origins
-Booster Box 1: Giritina EX
-Full Art Hoopa EX
-Sceptile EX
-Machamp EX

-BREAK through loved the ex's hated the BREAK cards exept Riachu and Florgess

-BREAKpoint ughhhhhhhhhhhh make it end with your breakness...I loved mega scizor though and made a deck quickly

-Generations hey I hate the cards love the art in the final accounting it either you...or Evolutions

-Fates Collide: Dear Pokemon WHAT IN THE WORLD WHY PRINT A MAROWAK IN THE SET AND NO CUBONE AND WEIRD EX POKEMON LIKE DIANCE AND NO MEGA WHY EMOAR AND NO SERPERIOR OR SAMORAT* sorry for bad speeling pookemon

-Steam Siege LOVE THE CARDS HATE THAT POKEMON XY IS ENDING SOON WITH SO MANY HOLES AND NO FULL ART ASH

-Evolutions I gave a sign with my hand when I saw the trailer...you know what
 
For me personally it's probably "EX Power Keepers".

Most of the card designs are hideous:

- The set is filled with basic Ken Sugimori artwork, which I've always hated (in the TCG).

- The cards with non-Sugimori artwork are also hideous (except for like 5 cards).

- This set has the worst looking EX cards by far. If I look at them for too long I get sore eyes.

- By far the ugliest looking gold star cards ever made. Nothing else to say, they are just straight up ugly and a big downgrade from the previous ones.
 
FullArtGardevoir said:
-Fates Collide: Dear Pokemon WHAT IN THE WORLD WHY PRINT A MAROWAK IN THE SET AND NO CUBONE AND WEIRD EX POKEMON LIKE DIANCE AND NO MEGA WHY EMOAR AND NO SERPERIOR OR SAMORAT* sorry for bad speeling pookemon

-Steam Siege LOVE THE CARDS HATE THAT POKEMON XY IS ENDING SOON WITH SO MANY HOLES AND NO FULL ART ASH
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Do not diss the Diance ;). Seriously it is a good card and has a place in my post rotation fairy deck but it still seems a bit out of place for the set. I cannot disagree at all with having a Marowak in the set without a Cubone. Seriously, they couldn't have made some random Cubone. Of course in Japan the Marowak was a promo and they should have stuck to that internationally. Emboar, Serperior and Samurott are not the only starters without megas. Meganium, Typhlosion, Feraligatr, Torterra, Infernape and Empoleon also lack megas. It's not that big of a deal.

We actually don't have that many holes but you are right we're missing some Pokémon. Mega Abomansow, Mega Medicham, Mega Sableye, Mega Banette, Mega Latias, Mega Lopunny, Mega Pinsir, Mega Sharpedo and Mega Camerupt. These last two really bother me since they had new EX's in Primal Clash though I understand that was already a big set. To make matters worse though they could have made their megas secret rares in the Aqua/Magma set and dropped the ball on that one.

What personally annoys me, though it's a promo card thing and not a set thing per say, is that we got a dark type Greninja as far back as I want to say Phantom Forces but we have not gotten a fighting type Chesnaught or a Psychic type Delphox. What is up with that. Now if we want to go into alternate typings, THAT has a lot of holes.

Oh and it's highly unlikely, though I suppose not impossible, that we'll ever have a full art Ash.
 
Emerging Powers! I can't tell you how many useless cards I collected from that set just trying to pull a Pokemon Catcher! Lol.
 
Kinda surprised Flashfire hasn't been said all too often, because that, in my opinion, isn't just the worst XY set. It's more than just the worst XY set. No...Flashfire is one of the WORST sets Pokemon has ever put out. Why? The entire set is fanservice for Charizard. Sure you have Pyroar, Megaphone and...Blacksmith as some decent cards, but other than that? Charizard, Charizard, Charizard. Honestly, they could have put 'Zard in XY Base, but alas, Charizard is such a WONDERFUL Pokemon that it gets its own set, then a box, and a tin around the same time. And then you have the art. I'm not kidding when I say it's the worst art we've had in a painfully long time.
Sure, BW-era sets has that god-awful plasma Beartic and some other misses, but if one set can have just as many bad cards artwise as an entire era(and not to mention the other early XY sets), then there's a problem going on. Luckily we had some really nice Full arts, and Ryo Ueda's full arts were still decent at the time, but those weren't anything special.



Anyways, enough of me ranting about that pure disappointment of a set...Emerging Powers is also relatively disappointing but I don't mind the full arts and I understand that they had to make a filler set to get all the B/W collection cards internationally, and NVI wasn't coming out for a few months so it's perfectly understandable. After a while, I kinda just shrugged it off as the "whatever" set of Gen V.
 
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With my limited perspective: Steam Siege, Fates Collide, and Generations currently. Fates Collide was cool for a little while but now that set is basically null in standard. Steam Siege was overall underwhelming due to how they designed it without Garbodor in mind when Garbodor is a real threat. Generations was just kinda small and nothing about the set really stood out to me. For my favorite set, in context, Phantom Forces when it was released, as much as Battle Compressor became a cancerous card, I really enjoyed that format.
 
Primal Clash hands down. Being the first set with Primal Pokemon, and having some sweet cards like Wailord EX, Groudon EX, Kyogre EX, and my personal favorite Gardevoir EX, I expected the pulls to be a little above average. WRONG! At the time I wasn't at the level I am now, so a booster box was just way out of my league. On the much anticipated release date, I rushed out to my local Target and waited with bated breath as the 19 year-old employee stocked the shelves with boosters, blisters, and everything in between. First 20 collective packs. Nothing. 3 Blisters. Still nothing. 1 tin. Getting ready to give up. I normally don't buy Ultra Rares or anything just to have them. So I splurged and bought an Elite Trainer Box. Finally I got something, a Gardevoir EX. This may be a petty reason, but that's why Primal Clash disappointed me. I love cards, don't get me wrong. But seriously... Even to this day I have a bad taste in my mouth because of that set. Luckily after that, I was on a hot streak with pulls so it kinda made up for it:p
 
Fossil for sure. Fossil is the smallest main expansion set with 62 cards (Jungle had 64). While Jungle had only one Trainer (Poke Ball), it wasn't a complete waste. There were cards like Scyther (top tier as hell), Clefable, Mr. Mime and Wigglytuff. Clefable could use one of your opponent's attacks for one Energy, but it had a pre-evolution in another set. Mr. Mime is frustrating as hell if you don't have things like Goop Gas Attack, FO Muk or status on your side.
What if I told you that every card in Fossil absolutely sucks? Sure, we have Ditto, but there are so many shenanigans you can play with Ditto. Ditto copies the HP of your Pokemon, as well as attacks, Retreat Cost and stuff like that. The problem is? It only has 50 HP. A lot of things can swing for 60 and above, like Swords Dance Scyther, a possible turn two Electabuzz, Wigglytuff and Blastoise. If it's not in the active, it doesn't retain the HP anymore. Why is this a problem? Gust of Wind, a Lysandre in Item form. Imagine Pokemon Catcher, but with no coin flip. This way, you can knock out Ditto and the Pokemom you gusted. Fossil Muk is good on paper (his Pokemon Power disables all other Pokemon Powers, which were basically Abilities before the Poke Power and Poke Body split in the E Card series). The only problem? The only tier 1 deck runs zero cards that have abilities. It also has 60 HP, leaving it one-shottable by many cards if you can gust him. Aerodactyl is a Stage 1 who prevents evolutions from being played. Decent ability, shuts off even Pokemon Breeder. A couple problems though; its typing sucks. Fighting is resisted by a lot of things, including Rocket's Zapdos and Scyther. It also has 2 retreag, 60 HP and a Grass weakness. Why is that bad? Scyther. Scyther has a 3 for 30 attack called Slash that conveniently kills it in one shot. You can't retreat, you're resisted and one-shotted by Scyther, also one shotted by Blastoise and Wiggly. The other two fossil evolutions (Omanyte and that Naruto guy) are mediocre. Other than that, every card in Fossil sucks. Also, your 16 Rare Holos at the beginning of the set are also reprinted as non-holos, which was started in Jungle. So, you have 46 unique cards in Fossil, all of which are, again, complete trash. It still gets love though, because it was one of the older sets.
 
Magmar (Fossil) is a good card too. 70 HP, low retreat cost, low energy requirement, and hits Scyther for Super Effective.
 
matthewbny said:
What if I told you that every card in Fossil absolutely sucks?
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You would undermine your argument via hyperbole... or make a joke that I wouldn't get. Not sure which it actually is. ;) I'll take this moment to point out that yeah, Fossil was more disappointing to me than Base Set or Jungle but that was because at the time, I was starting to "catch on" how a lot of cards I was pulling weren't too good.

Looking at the cards, both then and now, you're mostly overselling Jungle and underselling Fossil. Some of your "facts" are in error, while others require faulty logic. I'll explain but since you just might not care and there is so much to refute, I'll spoiler tag it. If you can make a counterargument that explains how what factual information I have from this time (some first hand from being there, some first hand from testing later on, some second hand from studying up on the matter over the years).

matthewbny said:
Fossil for sure. Fossil is the smallest main expansion set with 62 cards (Jungle had 64). While Jungle had only one Trainer (Poke Ball), it wasn't a complete waste. There were cards like Scyther (top tier as hell), Clefable, Mr. Mime and Wigglytuff. Clefable could use one of your opponent's attacks for one Energy, but it had a pre-evolution in another set. Mr. Mime is frustrating as hell if you don't have things like Goop Gas Attack, FO Muk or status on your side.
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Those were some great cards from that Jungle... specifically two of what you named. The others were greatly exaggerated or relied on a "stunted" metagame a bit more than others. Note: At the time I myself also thought these four were all "great". Being a little too generous with two of the cards isn't the real issue though; when I get to Fossil, I am going to give you cards that - while different in function - were about as important as these four, plus a few more.
  • Scyther was some form of staple (true, loose, or near) as far as I can tell.
  • Wigglytuff ended up being one of the three major archetypes and one of the few worthwhile Stage 1 cards.
  • Mr. Mime was solid stall, but was feared mostly because players lacked the cards or the knowledge of the cards to counter it, even at first. Gust of Wind meant just ignoring "Invisible Wall" as you hit an unprotected target. Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal meant Mr. Mime was just stalling, not attacking. So did any healing of your own... while without healing (or similar) effects, Mr. Mime would only last two turns against a competitive deck. Then we get Muk (Fossil) and its Pokémon Power, and after that Goop Gas Attack and Mr. Mime is more of a footnote than a serious threat.
  • Clefable was like Wigglytuff, but falling short. Like Mr. Mime players with more cards and knowledge eroded its advantage. Clefairy (Base Set) wasn't as good as Jigglypuff (Jungle), and copying attacks only helps when those attacks are worth copying. Base Set Hitmonchan hits Clefairy for 40 damage with "Jab" (thanks to Weakness), at a cost of just [F]. Clefairy hits it for 40 back, using "Metronome" to copy Special Punch. One is a Stage 1 with a 40 HP, Fighting Weak Basic and less deck space for stuff like PlusPower, the other is a 70 HP Basic. Could be nasty against other top decks like Rain Dance and Wiggly/Muk. Just remember the attack had to come from the Defending Pokémon; no copying something better from the Bench!
  • Snorlax did get its own deck but not until Team Rocket, and then it took a lot longer for it to spread (and I think it was just barely good enough to be competitive, and I'm a fan of it!)
  • Ponyta was sometimes used to counter Scyther
  • Jigglypuff was sometimes used to counter Mr. Mime
  • Other Pokémon just lucked out that they were the first versions of someone's favorites (like the Eeveelutions). Not much else this set though.
matthewbny said:
Sure, we have Ditto, but there are so many shenanigans you can play with Ditto. Ditto copies the HP of your Pokemon, as well as attacks, Retreat Cost and stuff like that. The problem is? It only has 50 HP. A lot of things can swing for 60 and above, like Swords Dance Scyther, a possible turn two Electabuzz, Wigglytuff and Blastoise. If it's not in the active, it doesn't retain the HP anymore. Why is this a problem? Gust of Wind, a Lysandre in Item form. Imagine Pokemon Catcher, but with no coin flip. This way, you can knock out Ditto and the Pokemom you gusted.
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You under emphasized or left out some very important things about Ditto.
  • The "neutral" thing is that it was a rulings nightmare; it might still have the record for the number of pages of rulings just for stuff relating directly to it. @_@
  • Ditto copies the opponent's Active in every way, except it cannot Evolve and always has its "Transform" Pokémon Power on top of everything else.
  • Transform allows Ditto to treat every unit of Energy as attached to it as providing all Types of Energy. Worked with Double Colorless Energy as well.
  • Most important: Where did the damage come from to KO an injured Ditto? You had to attack it the turn before. You're not getting an extra Prize, you're burning a Gust of Wind to claim a Prize you should have earned the previous turn!
  • Two-attack combos to do 60 weren't impressive back then barring special circumstances.
Ditto was the Fossil equivalent to Jungle Scyther, in that it was a Basic Pokémon that was either a staple, loose staple, or near staple. A bit less widespread than Scyther, it was also more powerful. Scyther was used as a pivot Pokémon, to wall against Fighting Types (70 HP plus -30 Fighting Resistance), and as a universal opener/cleaner. Nothing was Grass Resistant at this time, and 30-for-three was good (but not great). You rarely pulled off a "Swords Dance" because until Rainbow Energy came along, decks using Scyther rarely packed a source of [G] Energy. Even when you did, Gust of Wind would reset the effect (and potentially bring up something smaller/more important to KO) while Energy Removal meant you couldn't power up "Slash" the next turn anyway. Sometimes Scyther would be used as "bait"; toss it up front when you did have a source of [G] Energy, Swords Dance, and hope your opponent burned his or her Energy removing Trainers on that instead of your "real" threat. For a deck like Haymaker, Scyther was only the idea opening Pokémon because you could retreat it into whichever of your other Basic attackers matched the Weakness of the opponent's Active.

Ditto was great at opening because of its relative speed; thanks to Double Colorless Energy, while Electabuzz needed two turns to Thunderpunch, Ditto could force an enemy Electabuzz up front and Thunderpunch it right away! Your opponent had to deal with Ditto promptly because if he or she didn't, Ditto got wicked strong so fast. I mean, unless the opponent had an abysmal set up. ;) Obviously Ditto was rubbish when an effect was shutting down its Pokémon Power, and that usually lead to a KO, but what Ditto could accomplish before then was usually most impressive. Ditto did show up in some Haymaker builds, and if a deck had Double Colorless Energy at a two or three count, you really wanted to consider at least one Ditto as well for what the lil' fellow could do with them (even while the rest of the deck might be failing).

I am uncertain as to when Ditto stopped being worth the effort. I mean a lot of these earlier Pokémon took a major hit with the Gym Hero and Gym Challenge releases, but I'm not sure about Ditto. Plus I remember it being handy against Sneasel (Neo Genesis) when it showed up! So ultimately, Ditto was to Fossil what Scyther was to Jungle: a stellar card. In the specifics they differ, and I'd say that Ditto had a somewhat narrower but deeper impact.
matthewbny said:
Fossil Muk is good on paper (his Pokemon Power disables all other Pokemon Powers, which were basically Abilities before the Poke Power and Poke Body split in the E Card series). The only problem? The only tier 1 deck runs zero cards that have abilities. It also has 60 HP, leaving it one-shottable by many cards if you can gust him.
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  • I'll explain Tiers below, and how this is misleading.
  • Muk in Fossil has 70 HP, not 60. ;)
  • Neither 60 nor 70 HP was not easy to one-shot except for
    • Haymaker decks that hadn't burned through too many resources.
    • Rain Dance decks that not only set up before losing Rain Dance, but managed space for PlusPower.
    • Wigglytuff decks with a full Bench and one PlusPower.
    • Like Garbodor w/Garbotoxin now, you do not use it in match-ups where you don't expect to need it. Instead it just becomes discard fodder.
    • Not "Movie Promo" Mewtwo (WotC Black Star Promos 3, 14) as it needed either three turns to manually build or to attack twice; first to use "Energy Absorption", and then the next turn to "Psyburn".
So Tiers for early decks can get confusing; even seemingly well written, knowledgeable articles of the time can be misleading or flat out wrong because the lack of what now seems like "basic" TCG (or Pokémon TCG) knowledge was more widespread, while the card supply (and thus card pool) was often erratic. So many decks seemed viable at first, because people either didn't have the "good" stuff, didn't know what it was, or had it but didn't know how to use it well. I mean I stumbled upon Haymaker myself, then I "tweaked" it until I ruined it. Because I didn't know I'd stumbled upon the best, I first thought I was hot stuff then thought I had lost my skill. Yes, I ought to have known better!

Generally, I consider a few Haymaker variants as Tier 1 for the Base Set through Team Rocket (or earlier) era. I define Haymaker as a "beatdown" variant, "beatdown" being one of the generic deck archetypes common to most TCGs; it is the one where the primary method of winning is attacking for damage. Haymaker decks are beatdown decks that exclusively use Basic Pokémon, ones big enough to not be an easy OHKO (smaller becomes "weenie rush", another generic TCG archetype), and adds in control/disruption elements as well. Haymaker decks were at least 50% Trainer, and some managed to push it to more like 75-80%! If it contained Evolutions or skimped on Trainers, it wasn't "Haymaker". Technically Hitmonchan (Base Set) should also be a requirement, since "haymaker" is a punching term. Ditto sometimes showed up in this deck, as did Mr. Mime (Jungle), so while it was usually a deck without Pokémon Powers, not always. The variants of which I speak would be Potpourri (greater focus on Type coverage), or simply the fact that shortly after Fossil you had a stable of potential Haymaker Pokémon so large, and always had enough Trainer options, that you couldn't be sure exactly which of these cards would be in the deck, and which would be cut.

Tier 2 is Rain Dance; as I'll be explaining soon it gained some important cards in Fossil and without a few other cards, would have reigned (pun intended) over the metagame and an apparently rust proofed iron fist. ;) Extreme Energy removal (like some Haymaker decks that nearly or in fact did max out both Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal), Fossil Muk, and Fossil Aerodactyl were what kept Rain Dance down. Remember, prior to Team Rocket, there was no effective way to recycle Pokémon and/or Energy from the discard pile. The best Rain Dance could do was Energy Retrieval, and this was back when it required a discard cost to use. >_< The other two counters need no explanation. Notice how Weakness is not on here; once Fossil hit this deck could diversify its Weaknesses and that gave you a choice; take down Blastoise and hope another wouldn't hit the field before you finished off whatever was currently powered up, or take down whatever is powered up and hope your opponent ran low on Energy. If you use Energy Removal or Super Energy Removal to try and do both... congrats, that is why I listed Energy removing as an issue and not Weakness, since one works without the other. Like Haymaker, there are variants; less so in terms of Pokémon once Fossil hit, but definitely with Trainers. Not enough room to copy Haymaker in depth, but maybe some PlusPower, maybe some healing (Scoop Up), maybe some Super Energy Removal, etc.

Now comes Wigglytuff variants, Muk variants, Aerodcatyl variants, Clefable variants, etc. Probably the best Tier 3 decks were near-Haymaker decks that included Muk to deal with Rain Dance and a few other nuisance Pokémon Powers, and Wigglytuff decks doing the same. You almost had a proper rock-paper-scissors relationship between Haymaker, Rain Dance, and WigglyMuk decks, but it wasn't an equally distributed relationship and again, all those minor variants played a role; a Rain Dance deck not focused on beating Haymaker probably at a disadvantage, but any Rain Dance deck was in for a rough time against WigglyMuk. Then you throw in the other variants which you'll notice tend to all have some level of "anti-Rain Maker" to them: Areodactyl to try and block Blastoise from hitting the field, Muk to shut off Rain Dance, Clefable can copy good attacks off of Fossil Aritunco, and if Clefable (or Wigglytuff) aren't backed by Muk then they are probably backed by various Haymaker Pokémon and Trainers (albeit not as a true Haymaker deck).
matthewbny said:
Aerodactyl is a Stage 1 who prevents evolutions from being played. Decent ability, shuts off even Pokemon Breeder. A couple problems though; its typing sucks. Fighting is resisted by a lot of things, including Rocket's Zapdos and Scyther. It also has 2 retreag, 60 HP and a Grass weakness. Why is that bad? Scyther. Scyther has a 3 for 30 attack called Slash that conveniently kills it in one shot. You can't retreat, you're resisted and one-shotted by Scyther, also one shotted by Blastoise and Wiggly.
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  • Aerodactyl has the mixed blessing of Evolving from Mysterious Fossil; harder to search than an actual Evolving Basic, but it doesn't give up a Prize.
  • Aerodactyl is not meant to be an attacker, though it can if it must.
    • Many Colorless Pokémon and most Lightning Types are Fighting Weak
    • Weakness is more of a benefit than Resistance is a detriment, though they were much closer back then as opposed to how they are now.
    • 60 HP is again not good but also not too bad for this time period
    • Fighting Resistance is also on Aerodactyl.
    • You didn't drop it unless you expected to deal with Evolutions, though Mysterious Fossil could still be of use in general.
Aerodactyl was not a great card, but it was reasonably good (especially when the metagame reflected card scarcity/player ignorance and had more Evolutions). Its Pokémon Power meant nothing against Haymaker decks, but could cripple Rain Dance, Wigglytuff decks, and Clefable decks. Yes decks using those three could OHKO Aerodactyl but only if they Evolved first. Scyther needs to turns to build; as Aerodactyl was almost always going to back up Basic Pokémon attackers, such decks were usually packing Energy Removal and/or Super Energy Removal. Even if Scyther did OHKO Aerodactyl, that meant forcing it Active with Gust of Wind or your opponent having a bad set up his or herself, plus if there was a Mysterious Fossil on the Bench, it would likely Evolve before you had a chance to enjoy breaking the Evolution lock.

Aerodactyl was supposed to be a Bench-sitter, but if it had to attack, its Resistance could be an asset against Base Set Hitmonchan; exploiting Weakness is more helpful than dealing with Resistance is hurtful, but that doesn't mean Resistance was meaningless either. What kept it back wast that you couldn't Evolve two at once, so spares had to be kept in hand or deck (the former kind of tricky when relying on Professor Oak) and the simple fact that the top deck in the game didn't care about Aerodactyl, and in fact would usually just be a stronger version of what was backing your Aerodactyl.
matthewbny said:
The other two fossil evolutions (Omanyte and that Naruto guy) are mediocre. Other than that, every card in Fossil sucks. Also, your 16 Rare Holos at the beginning of the set are also reprinted as non-holos, which was started in Jungle. So, you have 46 unique cards in Fossil, all of which are, again, complete trash. It still gets love though, because it was one of the older sets.
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Omantye, Omastar, Kabuto, and Kabutops were indeed bad. That is also only four cards from the set, even if the set is named after them, Aerodactyl, and Mysterious Fosssil. Now how about the rest? Well some of those are bad as well, but some ended up being quite good!
  • Articuno gave Rain Dance decks a 70 HP, Fighting Resistant Basic with no Weakness and two then good attacks. Prior to this, Rain Dance had to use Stage 1 Pokémon. See also Lapras.
  • Haunter was great; its Pokémon Power was a precursor to the "Baby Rule" introduced in the Neo sets (and thankfully abandoned after the e-card expansions). It got a decent Gastly this set as well, but unfortunately the Gengar was poor.
  • Lapras gave Rain Dance decks an 80 HP big, Basic Pokémon with solid attacks. "Confuse Ray" was pricey, but useful against the unprepared... or even the prepared once they ran low on cards, while Water Gun just had a good Energy/damage yield for the time. Well, on a Basic Pokémon, anyway. Prior to this the deck had to make room for one or two Stage 1 lines! See also Articuno. Also please note that Potpourri decks (a Haymaker variant) sometimes used this to strike at Water Weakness.
  • Moltres while more gimmick than actual competitive deck, this did give us the first active mill deck for Pokémon. Being a 70 HP Basic was just big enough that opposing decks might struggle with a OHKO. With the right Trainer support, you might just barely deck out your opponent before he or she KO's your last Basic/takes six Prizes.
  • Magmar was a Haymaker Pokémon. Let me repeat, this card was part of Haymaker! Not every variant, but more than just Potpourri. It was useful for stalling in general as well, provided a deck ran a source of [R] Energy.
  • Psyduck was infamous as an opener. The idea was you would open with it, lock your opponent out of the Trainers they needed for the first few turns while building your own side of the field, and if all went well you would then shift to offense and crush them. It went well often enough to be a legit presence in the competitive game, where it might also see a Lass used the turn you shifted to offense (so that your opponent had to top deck a worthwhile Trainer as well).
  • Mr. Fuji was not a particular good card, but as a Trainer it was "good enough" to be a welcome addition to the card pool (unlike Poké Ball) If it was more important to replenish resources and/or deny your opponent a Prize, there you go.
  • Energy Search improved mixed Type decks, especially those with low Energy counts. Like Haymaker. Only reason it isn't more important is because we got Rainbow Energy next set, so decks started running even fewer basic Energy cards, at which point Energy Search was no longer worth it.
  • Gambler carried a huge risk but also a huge reward; if you had a hand too important to trash with your Professor Oak, it was a lifesaver a little over 50% of the time. Why a little over? I am assuming your don't deviate too much from the expected lifetime average for the coin flips, so half the time you shuffle your hand away to draw eight cards. Its other use is when you either want "tails" (and only drawing one card) to replenish your deck, or you drew into something you needed when drawing a single card. In a well built deck, that second one is less crazy than it sounds. Other shuffle-and-draw cards replaced it, but again it had a little time to shine before.
  • Recycle is like Mr. Fuji; it wasn't competitive overall but it was a nice option to have - one card and a little luck meant you could control your topdeck and get back a precious, used up card. Even though Item Finder could snag them without a flip, most Trainer cards would be solid picks, but the real goal would be Double Colorless Energy.
  • Mysterious Fossil - Clefairy Doll that can Evolve; this could misdirect your opponent while buying time. Of course, like the rest of these Trainers that was barely competitive, but still it did come in handy sometimes.
  • I would have listed more, but this threshold was where I wouldn't have to go through Jungle again to get a few more borderline cards. ;)

So for anyone not wanting the detailed explanation I realize I just spent a few hours typing (hey, gotta justify my screen name somehow), the short version is that Fossil has about six cards that were proven in the competitive sphere, including most of what matthewbny dismissed. There were also a few in Jungle he missed that were important for a short period, only somewhat important later, or just failed because their final Stage failed. Including those then Fossil doesn't just gain two or three, but about another half dozen worthwhile cards.

None of this means that @matthewbny can't call this his most disappointing set! It still may be, but it will need to be for other reasons than he articulated.
 
Otaku said:
You would undermine your argument via hyperbole... or make a joke that I wouldn't get. Not sure which it actually is. ;) I'll take this moment to point out that yeah, Fossil was more disappointing to me than Base Set or Jungle but that was because at the time, I was starting to "catch on" how a lot of cards I was pulling weren't too good.

Looking at the cards, both then and now, you're mostly overselling Jungle and underselling Fossil. Some of your "facts" are in error, while others require faulty logic. I'll explain but since you just might not care and there is so much to refute, I'll spoiler tag it. If you can make a counterargument that explains how what factual information I have from this time (some first hand from being there, some first hand from testing later on, some second hand from studying up on the matter over the years).

Those were some great cards from that Jungle... specifically two of what you named. The others were greatly exaggerated or relied on a "stunted" metagame a bit more than others. Note: At the time I myself also thought these four were all "great". Being a little too generous with two of the cards isn't the real issue though; when I get to Fossil, I am going to give you cards that - while different in function - were about as important as these four, plus a few more.
  • Scyther was some form of staple (true, loose, or near) as far as I can tell.
  • Wigglytuff ended up being one of the three major archetypes and one of the few worthwhile Stage 1 cards.
  • Mr. Mime was solid stall, but was feared mostly because players lacked the cards or the knowledge of the cards to counter it, even at first. Gust of Wind meant just ignoring "Invisible Wall" as you hit an unprotected target. Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal meant Mr. Mime was just stalling, not attacking. So did any healing of your own... while without healing (or similar) effects, Mr. Mime would only last two turns against a competitive deck. Then we get Muk (Fossil) and its Pokémon Power, and after that Goop Gas Attack and Mr. Mime is more of a footnote than a serious threat.
  • Clefable was like Wigglytuff, but falling short. Like Mr. Mime players with more cards and knowledge eroded its advantage. Clefairy (Base Set) wasn't as good as Jigglypuff (Jungle), and copying attacks only helps when those attacks are worth copying. Base Set Hitmonchan hits Clefairy for 40 damage with "Jab" (thanks to Weakness), at a cost of just [F]. Clefairy hits it for 40 back, using "Metronome" to copy Special Punch. One is a Stage 1 with a 40 HP, Fighting Weak Basic and less deck space for stuff like PlusPower, the other is a 70 HP Basic. Could be nasty against other top decks like Rain Dance and Wiggly/Muk. Just remember the attack had to come from the Defending Pokémon; no copying something better from the Bench!
  • Snorlax did get its own deck but not until Team Rocket, and then it took a lot longer for it to spread (and I think it was just barely good enough to be competitive, and I'm a fan of it!)
  • Ponyta was sometimes used to counter Scyther
  • Jigglypuff was sometimes used to counter Mr. Mime
  • Other Pokémon just lucked out that they were the first versions of someone's favorites (like the Eeveelutions). Not much else this set though.
You under emphasized or left out some very important things about Ditto.
  • The "neutral" thing is that it was a rulings nightmare; it might still have the record for the number of pages of rulings just for stuff relating directly to it. @_@
  • Ditto copies the opponent's Active in every way, except it cannot Evolve and always has its "Transform" Pokémon Power on top of everything else.
  • Transform allows Ditto to treat every unit of Energy as attached to it as providing all Types of Energy. Worked with Double Colorless Energy as well.
  • Most important: Where did the damage come from to KO an injured Ditto? You had to attack it the turn before. You're not getting an extra Prize, you're burning a Gust of Wind to claim a Prize you should have earned the previous turn!
  • Two-attack combos to do 60 weren't impressive back then barring special circumstances.
Ditto was the Fossil equivalent to Jungle Scyther, in that it was a Basic Pokémon that was either a staple, loose staple, or near staple. A bit less widespread than Scyther, it was also more powerful. Scyther was used as a pivot Pokémon, to wall against Fighting Types (70 HP plus -30 Fighting Resistance), and as a universal opener/cleaner. Nothing was Grass Resistant at this time, and 30-for-three was good (but not great). You rarely pulled off a "Swords Dance" because until Rainbow Energy came along, decks using Scyther rarely packed a source of [G] Energy. Even when you did, Gust of Wind would reset the effect (and potentially bring up something smaller/more important to KO) while Energy Removal meant you couldn't power up "Slash" the next turn anyway. Sometimes Scyther would be used as "bait"; toss it up front when you did have a source of [G] Energy, Swords Dance, and hope your opponent burned his or her Energy removing Trainers on that instead of your "real" threat. For a deck like Haymaker, Scyther was only the idea opening Pokémon because you could retreat it into whichever of your other Basic attackers matched the Weakness of the opponent's Active.

Ditto was great at opening because of its relative speed; thanks to Double Colorless Energy, while Electabuzz needed two turns to Thunderpunch, Ditto could force an enemy Electabuzz up front and Thunderpunch it right away! Your opponent had to deal with Ditto promptly because if he or she didn't, Ditto got wicked strong so fast. I mean, unless the opponent had an abysmal set up. ;) Obviously Ditto was rubbish when an effect was shutting down its Pokémon Power, and that usually lead to a KO, but what Ditto could accomplish before then was usually most impressive. Ditto did show up in some Haymaker builds, and if a deck had Double Colorless Energy at a two or three count, you really wanted to consider at least one Ditto as well for what the lil' fellow could do with them (even while the rest of the deck might be failing).

I am uncertain as to when Ditto stopped being worth the effort. I mean a lot of these earlier Pokémon took a major hit with the Gym Hero and Gym Challenge releases, but I'm not sure about Ditto. Plus I remember it being handy against Sneasel (Neo Genesis) when it showed up! So ultimately, Ditto was to Fossil what Scyther was to Jungle: a stellar card. In the specifics they differ, and I'd say that Ditto had a somewhat narrower but deeper impact.
  • I'll explain Tiers below, and how this is misleading.
  • Muk in Fossil has 70 HP, not 60. ;)
  • Neither 60 nor 70 HP was not easy to one-shot except for
    • Haymaker decks that hadn't burned through too many resources.
    • Rain Dance decks that not only set up before losing Rain Dance, but managed space for PlusPower.
    • Wigglytuff decks with a full Bench and one PlusPower.
    • Like Garbodor w/Garbotoxin now, you do not use it in match-ups where you don't expect to need it. Instead it just becomes discard fodder.
    • Not "Movie Promo" Mewtwo (WotC Black Star Promos 3, 14) as it needed either three turns to manually build or to attack twice; first to use "Energy Absorption", and then the next turn to "Psyburn".
So Tiers for early decks can get confusing; even seemingly well written, knowledgeable articles of the time can be misleading or flat out wrong because the lack of what now seems like "basic" TCG (or Pokémon TCG) knowledge was more widespread, while the card supply (and thus card pool) was often erratic. So many decks seemed viable at first, because people either didn't have the "good" stuff, didn't know what it was, or had it but didn't know how to use it well. I mean I stumbled upon Haymaker myself, then I "tweaked" it until I ruined it. Because I didn't know I'd stumbled upon the best, I first thought I was hot stuff then thought I had lost my skill. Yes, I ought to have known better!

Generally, I consider a few Haymaker variants as Tier 1 for the Base Set through Team Rocket (or earlier) era. I define Haymaker as a "beatdown" variant, "beatdown" being one of the generic deck archetypes common to most TCGs; it is the one where the primary method of winning is attacking for damage. Haymaker decks are beatdown decks that exclusively use Basic Pokémon, ones big enough to not be an easy OHKO (smaller becomes "weenie rush", another generic TCG archetype), and adds in control/disruption elements as well. Haymaker decks were at least 50% Trainer, and some managed to push it to more like 75-80%! If it contained Evolutions or skimped on Trainers, it wasn't "Haymaker". Technically Hitmonchan (Base Set) should also be a requirement, since "haymaker" is a punching term. Ditto sometimes showed up in this deck, as did Mr. Mime (Jungle), so while it was usually a deck without Pokémon Powers, not always. The variants of which I speak would be Potpourri (greater focus on Type coverage), or simply the fact that shortly after Fossil you had a stable of potential Haymaker Pokémon so large, and always had enough Trainer options, that you couldn't be sure exactly which of these cards would be in the deck, and which would be cut.

Tier 2 is Rain Dance; as I'll be explaining soon it gained some important cards in Fossil and without a few other cards, would have reigned (pun intended) over the metagame and an apparently rust proofed iron fist. ;) Extreme Energy removal (like some Haymaker decks that nearly or in fact did max out both Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal), Fossil Muk, and Fossil Aerodactyl were what kept Rain Dance down. Remember, prior to Team Rocket, there was no effective way to recycle Pokémon and/or Energy from the discard pile. The best Rain Dance could do was Energy Retrieval, and this was back when it required a discard cost to use. >_< The other two counters need no explanation. Notice how Weakness is not on here; once Fossil hit this deck could diversify its Weaknesses and that gave you a choice; take down Blastoise and hope another wouldn't hit the field before you finished off whatever was currently powered up, or take down whatever is powered up and hope your opponent ran low on Energy. If you use Energy Removal or Super Energy Removal to try and do both... congrats, that is why I listed Energy removing as an issue and not Weakness, since one works without the other. Like Haymaker, there are variants; less so in terms of Pokémon once Fossil hit, but definitely with Trainers. Not enough room to copy Haymaker in depth, but maybe some PlusPower, maybe some healing (Scoop Up), maybe some Super Energy Removal, etc.

Now comes Wigglytuff variants, Muk variants, Aerodcatyl variants, Clefable variants, etc. Probably the best Tier 3 decks were near-Haymaker decks that included Muk to deal with Rain Dance and a few other nuisance Pokémon Powers, and Wigglytuff decks doing the same. You almost had a proper rock-paper-scissors relationship between Haymaker, Rain Dance, and WigglyMuk decks, but it wasn't an equally distributed relationship and again, all those minor variants played a role; a Rain Dance deck not focused on beating Haymaker probably at a disadvantage, but any Rain Dance deck was in for a rough time against WigglyMuk. Then you throw in the other variants which you'll notice tend to all have some level of "anti-Rain Maker" to them: Areodactyl to try and block Blastoise from hitting the field, Muk to shut off Rain Dance, Clefable can copy good attacks off of Fossil Aritunco, and if Clefable (or Wigglytuff) aren't backed by Muk then they are probably backed by various Haymaker Pokémon and Trainers (albeit not as a true Haymaker deck).
  • Aerodactyl has the mixed blessing of Evolving from Mysterious Fossil; harder to search than an actual Evolving Basic, but it doesn't give up a Prize.
  • Aerodactyl is not meant to be an attacker, though it can if it must.
    • Many Colorless Pokémon and most Lightning Types are Fighting Weak
    • Weakness is more of a benefit than Resistance is a detriment, though they were much closer back then as opposed to how they are now.
    • 60 HP is again not good but also not too bad for this time period
    • Fighting Resistance is also on Aerodactyl.
    • You didn't drop it unless you expected to deal with Evolutions, though Mysterious Fossil could still be of use in general.
Aerodactyl was not a great card, but it was reasonably good (especially when the metagame reflected card scarcity/player ignorance and had more Evolutions). Its Pokémon Power meant nothing against Haymaker decks, but could cripple Rain Dance, Wigglytuff decks, and Clefable decks. Yes decks using those three could OHKO Aerodactyl but only if they Evolved first. Scyther needs to turns to build; as Aerodactyl was almost always going to back up Basic Pokémon attackers, such decks were usually packing Energy Removal and/or Super Energy Removal. Even if Scyther did OHKO Aerodactyl, that meant forcing it Active with Gust of Wind or your opponent having a bad set up his or herself, plus if there was a Mysterious Fossil on the Bench, it would likely Evolve before you had a chance to enjoy breaking the Evolution lock.

Aerodactyl was supposed to be a Bench-sitter, but if it had to attack, its Resistance could be an asset against Base Set Hitmonchan; exploiting Weakness is more helpful than dealing with Resistance is hurtful, but that doesn't mean Resistance was meaningless either. What kept it back wast that you couldn't Evolve two at once, so spares had to be kept in hand or deck (the former kind of tricky when relying on Professor Oak) and the simple fact that the top deck in the game didn't care about Aerodactyl, and in fact would usually just be a stronger version of what was backing your Aerodactyl.
Omantye, Omastar, Kabuto, and Kabutops were indeed bad. That is also only four cards from the set, even if the set is named after them, Aerodactyl, and Mysterious Fosssil. Now how about the rest? Well some of those are bad as well, but some ended up being quite good!
  • Articuno gave Rain Dance decks a 70 HP, Fighting Resistant Basic with no Weakness and two then good attacks. Prior to this, Rain Dance had to use Stage 1 Pokémon. See also Lapras.
  • Haunter was great; its Pokémon Power was a precursor to the "Baby Rule" introduced in the Neo sets (and thankfully abandoned after the e-card expansions). It got a decent Gastly this set as well, but unfortunately the Gengar was poor.
  • Lapras gave Rain Dance decks an 80 HP big, Basic Pokémon with solid attacks. "Confuse Ray" was pricey, but useful against the unprepared... or even the prepared once they ran low on cards, while Water Gun just had a good Energy/damage yield for the time. Well, on a Basic Pokémon, anyway. Prior to this the deck had to make room for one or two Stage 1 lines! See also Articuno. Also please note that Potpourri decks (a Haymaker variant) sometimes used this to strike at Water Weakness.
  • Moltres while more gimmick than actual competitive deck, this did give us the first active mill deck for Pokémon. Being a 70 HP Basic was just big enough that opposing decks might struggle with a OHKO. With the right Trainer support, you might just barely deck out your opponent before he or she KO's your last Basic/takes six Prizes.
  • Magmar was a Haymaker Pokémon. Let me repeat, this card was part of Haymaker! Not every variant, but more than just Potpourri. It was useful for stalling in general as well, provided a deck ran a source of [R] Energy.
  • Psyduck was infamous as an opener. The idea was you would open with it, lock your opponent out of the Trainers they needed for the first few turns while building your own side of the field, and if all went well you would then shift to offense and crush them. It went well often enough to be a legit presence in the competitive game, where it might also see a Lass used the turn you shifted to offense (so that your opponent had to top deck a worthwhile Trainer as well).
  • Mr. Fuji was not a particular good card, but as a Trainer it was "good enough" to be a welcome addition to the card pool (unlike Poké Ball) If it was more important to replenish resources and/or deny your opponent a Prize, there you go.
  • Energy Search improved mixed Type decks, especially those with low Energy counts. Like Haymaker. Only reason it isn't more important is because we got Rainbow Energy next set, so decks started running even fewer basic Energy cards, at which point Energy Search was no longer worth it.
  • Gambler carried a huge risk but also a huge reward; if you had a hand too important to trash with your Professor Oak, it was a lifesaver a little over 50% of the time. Why a little over? I am assuming your don't deviate too much from the expected lifetime average for the coin flips, so half the time you shuffle your hand away to draw eight cards. Its other use is when you either want "tails" (and only drawing one card) to replenish your deck, or you drew into something you needed when drawing a single card. In a well built deck, that second one is less crazy than it sounds. Other shuffle-and-draw cards replaced it, but again it had a little time to shine before.
  • Recycle is like Mr. Fuji; it wasn't competitive overall but it was a nice option to have - one card and a little luck meant you could control your topdeck and get back a precious, used up card. Even though Item Finder could snag them without a flip, most Trainer cards would be solid picks, but the real goal would be Double Colorless Energy.
  • Mysterious Fossil - Clefairy Doll that can Evolve; this could misdirect your opponent while buying time. Of course, like the rest of these Trainers that was barely competitive, but still it did come in handy sometimes.
  • I would have listed more, but this threshold was where I wouldn't have to go through Jungle again to get a few more borderline cards. ;)

So for anyone not wanting the detailed explanation I realize I just spent a few hours typing (hey, gotta justify my screen name somehow), the short version is that Fossil has about six cards that were proven in the competitive sphere, including most of what matthewbny dismissed. There were also a few in Jungle he missed that were important for a short period, only somewhat important later, or just failed because their final Stage failed. Including those then Fossil doesn't just gain two or three, but about another half dozen worthwhile cards.

None of this means that @matthewbny can't call this his most disappointing set! It still may be, but it will need to be for other reasons than he articulated.
Click to expand...

Alright, time for some good conversation about Gen 1! I should have clarified what I meant about the metagame; I considered Base Set - Gym Challenge to be the metagame, as I haven't really heard anything about the Gym expansions from you, though you mentioned Team Rocket. The reason I mention this is that while bringing up some of the Tiering, you mention things from certain time periods (for example, you mentioned that one of the reasons Blastoise was Tier 2 was because prior to TR there was no way to recycle Pokemon and Energy (Nightly Garbage Run is a godsend, and not just for Rain Dance).

Anyways, on to the counterarguments:
Clefable was like Wigglytuff, but falling short. Like Mr. Mime players with more cards and knowledge eroded its advantage. Clefairy (Base Set) wasn't as good as Jigglypuff (Jungle), and copying attacks only helps when those attacks are worth copying. Base Set Hitmonchan hits Clefairy for 40 damage with "Jab" (thanks to Weakness), at a cost of just [F]. Clefairy hits it for 40 back, using "Metronome" to copy Special Punch. One is a Stage 1 with a 40 HP, Fighting Weak Basic and less deck space for stuff like PlusPower, the other is a 70 HP Basic. Could be nasty against other top decks like Rain Dance and Wiggly/Muk. Just remember the attack had to come from the Defending Pokémon; no copying something better from the Bench!
Click to expand...
Clefable and Wigglytuff are two different Pokemon with two different roles. Both are Stage 1 Colorless type Pokemon with Fighting weakness and Psychic resistance, but they simply cannot be compared. I play Gen 1 (which includes Base - Gym Challenge, which is another reason why I consider this the metagame) extensively on TCGOne, though, so it's not as I am inexperienced about the expansions and the metagame and such, though despite the inclusion of 7 sets there are many good cards in between them.

Now, onto Clefable vs. Ditto (which you did not argue, but this is more for anyone's reading): Clefable is more stable, but you have to ask yourself: sacrifice 2-4 cards and be able to Copy attacks, or use Ditto, a Basic who copies (almost) everything? Now, it's a lot more complicated than that. Ditto's ability is a double-edged sword in this case; many cards are able to play around Ditto's ability and cripple it with status (take Electabuzz, for example). Energy Removal shenanigans can also help deter Ditto; outside of Recycle, Trash Exchange and Gastly (might have glossed over a few of them), there aren't any other ways of retrieving DCE. Other attackers in your deck would also appreciate DCE more than Ditto, such as Scyther. There are many situations in which Ditto or Clefable would top the other, it simply comes down to preference.

Snorlax did get its own deck but not until Team Rocket, and then it took a lot longer for it to spread (and I think it was just barely good enough to be competitive, and I'm a fan of it!)
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Snorlax decks are really fun to play around, and in fact I don't seem them to be competitive at all. It has a 4 for 30, flip for paralysis attack. Sure, you could use Dark Gloom and TR Drowzee, but good luck trying to get all the Energy on a Snorlax without it getting SER'd and keeping the opponent from knocking it out in the two to four turns (again, not accounting for S/ER) it needs to get powered up.
Ponyta was sometimes used to counter Scyther
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Ponyta was not in Base Set, Rapidash was. But I like this, actually, and haven't thought of it before. I might tech this in one of my decks for future use.
Jigglypuff was sometimes used to counter Mr. Mime
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Fair enough, but the reason I didn't include it as a notable Pokemon is that isn't notable (outside of that, which other things can do, like Electabuzz and Hitmonchan, if you can play around weakness). It has pretty high HP for a Pokemon that can evolve, so I'll give him that.
Other Pokémon just lucked out that they were the first versions of someone's favorites (like the Eeveelutions). Not much else this set though.
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This thread is about subjectivity, at its heart, and I like a lot of the artworks on the Jungle cards as opposed to the other two Classic sets.

Ditto was great at opening because of its relative speed; thanks to Double Colorless Energy, while Electabuzz needed two turns to Thunderpunch, Ditto could force an enemy Electabuzz up front and Thunderpunch it right away! Your opponent had to deal with Ditto promptly because if he or she didn't, Ditto got wicked strong so fast. I mean, unless the opponent had an abysmal set up. ;) Obviously Ditto was rubbish when an effect was shutting down its Pokémon Power, and that usually lead to a KO, but what Ditto could accomplish before then was usually most impressive. Ditto did show up in some Haymaker builds, and if a deck had Double Colorless Energy at a two or three count, you really wanted to consider at least one Ditto as well for what the lil' fellow could do with them (even while the rest of the deck might be failing).

I am uncertain as to when Ditto stopped being worth the effort. I mean a lot of these earlier Pokémon took a major hit with the Gym Hero and Gym Challenge releases, but I'm not sure about Ditto. Plus I remember it being handy against Sneasel (Neo Genesis) when it showed up! So ultimately, Ditto was to Fossil what Scyther was to Jungle: a stellar card. In the specifics they differ, and I'd say that Ditto had a somewhat narrower but deeper impact.
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Again, Ditto is a situational Pokemon. It's good in some cases, but it has a lot left to be desired. Whether or not you choose Clefable or Ditto is entirely up to you, but it I were using Ditto I would pack a couple Full Heal Energy, an extra Switch or Scoop Up, and make sure I have some solid, non-ability attackers in my Deck. Clefable only needs one Energy to take any attack, while Ditto needs DCEs and whatnot.

Omantye, Omastar, Kabuto, and Kabutops were indeed bad. That is also only four cards from the set, even if the set is named after them, Aerodactyl, and Mysterious Fosssil. Now how about the rest? Well some of those are bad as well, but some ended up being quite good!
  • Articuno gave Rain Dance decks a 70 HP, Fighting Resistant Basic with no Weakness and two then good attacks. Prior to this, Rain Dance had to use Stage 1 Pokémon. See also Lapras.
  • Haunter was great; its Pokémon Power was a precursor to the "Baby Rule" introduced in the Neo sets (and thankfully abandoned after the e-card expansions). It got a decent Gastly this set as well, but unfortunately the Gengar was poor.
  • Lapras gave Rain Dance decks an 80 HP big, Basic Pokémon with solid attacks. "Confuse Ray" was pricey, but useful against the unprepared... or even the prepared once they ran low on cards, while Water Gun just had a good Energy/damage yield for the time. Well, on a Basic Pokémon, anyway. Prior to this the deck had to make room for one or two Stage 1 lines! See also Articuno. Also please note that Potpourri decks (a Haymaker variant) sometimes used this to strike at Water Weakness.
  • Moltres while more gimmick than actual competitive deck, this did give us the first active mill deck for Pokémon. Being a 70 HP Basic was just big enough that opposing decks might struggle with a OHKO. With the right Trainer support, you might just barely deck out your opponent before he or she KO's your last Basic/takes six Prizes.
  • Magmar was a Haymaker Pokémon. Let me repeat, this card was part of Haymaker! Not every variant, but more than just Potpourri. It was useful for stalling in general as well, provided a deck ran a source of [R] Energy.
  • Psyduck was infamous as an opener. The idea was you would open with it, lock your opponent out of the Trainers they needed for the first few turns while building your own side of the field, and if all went well you would then shift to offense and crush them. It went well often enough to be a legit presence in the competitive game, where it might also see a Lass used the turn you shifted to offense (so that your opponent had to top deck a worthwhile Trainer as well).
  • Mr. Fuji was not a particular good card, but as a Trainer it was "good enough" to be a welcome addition to the card pool (unlike Poké Ball) If it was more important to replenish resources and/or deny your opponent a Prize, there you go.
  • Energy Search improved mixed Type decks, especially those with low Energy counts. Like Haymaker. Only reason it isn't more important is because we got Rainbow Energy next set, so decks started running even fewer basic Energy cards, at which point Energy Search was no longer worth it.
  • Gambler carried a huge risk but also a huge reward; if you had a hand too important to trash with your Professor Oak, it was a lifesaver a little over 50% of the time. Why a little over? I am assuming your don't deviate too much from the expected lifetime average for the coin flips, so half the time you shuffle your hand away to draw eight cards. Its other use is when you either want "tails" (and only drawing one card) to replenish your deck, or you drew into something you needed when drawing a single card. In a well built deck, that second one is less crazy than it sounds. Other shuffle-and-draw cards replaced it, but again it had a little time to shine before.
  • Recycle is like Mr. Fuji; it wasn't competitive overall but it was a nice option to have - one card and a little luck meant you could control your topdeck and get back a precious, used up card. Even though Item Finder could snag them without a flip, most Trainer cards would be solid picks, but the real goal would be Double Colorless Energy.
  • Mysterious Fossil - Clefairy Doll that can Evolve; this could misdirect your opponent while buying time. Of course, like the rest of these Trainers that was barely competitive, but still it did come in handy sometimes.
  • I would have listed more, but this threshold was where I wouldn't have to go through Jungle again to get a few more borderline cards. ;)
Click to expand...
I overlooked Articuno and Magmar, but I do not run Articuno in my Rain Dance decks. However, it is a really good card, and I'll actually give that to you for pointing that out! Articuno's only problem is that is a huge energy hog between using Lapras, Blastoise and Articuno. I might start using it, actually, and the extra 10 on your opponent's bench could help bring 70 HPs into snipeable range with Blastoise' Hydro Pump.

Magmar is a decent at best counter to Scyther which can 2HKO Scyther if he's lucky, but I haven't seen many Haymaker decks use Magmar. For starters, you're running at least four different types of Energies: Fighting for Hitmonchan, Electric for Electabuzz, DCE for Scyther, and Fire for Magmar. If your solution to Energy bricking like this is dropping Hitmonchan, you miss doing 1 for 20s, and if you drop Electabuzz (which can give your opponent status and 2HKO a Blastoise), Haymaker doesn't feel the same. Getting rid of Scyther is a big no-no, because it's your pivot Pokemon.

Lapras is a very underwhelming attacker. Water Gun is bad, and it shares a Lightning weakness with Blastoise. It can also be OHKO'd by Thunderpunch turn 2, while on turn 2 Lapras can Confuse Ray or do 20 with Water Gun. Pass. 80HP is cool, but suffers victim from the Electabuzz curse.

Psyduck warrants you to carry Psychic energies, and not many Psychic types in this meta are good enough to warrant being used, other than maybe Mewtwo or Rocket's Mewtwo. You could solve this by running Rainbow Energy, but you'd have to find Psyduck if you didn't start out with him, find a way to promote him, etc. Also suffers from the Electabuzz curse. It doesn't even have the best artwork, compared to the WBSP 20 promo (which is a reprint of the same card).

I know the pros and cons of Gambler, and it's actually pretty good against decks that carry Rocket's Sneak Attack, Rocket's Trap or Lass (if you drew into it, post-Lass). It is a good comeback card when you're running low on cards or need to hit the 'Reset' button. Also, I don't really understand why you would say a little over half of the time, since a coin flip is 50-50; unless you are somehow able to know the population of all the amount of Heads or Tails flipped for Gambler, you wouldn't be able to know if it was the other way around. In fact, the same could apply for Tails. That's besides the point, but the point of Gambler is in the name; mediocre effect at Tails, great effect at Heads (unless your intention is to nuke your hand because you're about to deck out, which happens a lot).

Recycle is meh. 50% chance of topdecking any card from your discard pile is nice, but you won't always get what you want when you want it. You only have a 50% chance each time to recycle it, and otherwise it gets wasted. I know this was what you were trying to illustrate last point, but I had to clarify because you most likely phrased it wrong.

I am exhausted from quoting and doing counterarguments. ;p
 
Call of Legends was a very underwhelming set. That was a set I skipped buying a box for.

Evolutions as an upcoming set is disappointing me trying to rile up love for the past of the TCG but only saddens me with by making cards weaker.
 
This is going to sound shallow, but I was really disappointed when EX Hidden Legends came out, mostly due to the reverse holo pattern.
 
matthewbny said:
I am exhausted from quoting and doing counterarguments. ;p
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I am enraged because I hit some shortcut command I don't know to close this tab after I'd already been typing my own answer for 30 minutes. Guess this time I'll make sure to go with "More Options..." and "Preview Post" so that every few points I've got a back up. XP I will express happiness to discuss the matter though! So starting over again, at least I'll realize that a Quote-A-Thon is a bad idea. I think I will use Spoiler Tags again to break things up a bit; let me know if this is a problem for you in future posts.

Coming back after I finished it... wow this took a long time. I mean besides the initial hiccup, I had a few more times when suddenly my computer and PokéBeach decided to stop talking to each other. =P Feel free to focus in on very specific points and save the rest for another post, if you feel like responding at all. Maybe we should move this to a Private Conservation, though I know some really do like reading this kind of thing. XD Again, feel free to explain yourself because some things may have changed since then, and/or you're using a card pool from a time I was inactive. Was playing before, was playing after, but during this exact time I wasn't able.

You bring up some important background information: you're discussing something that is current, yes? The "Gen I" format one of the unofficial TCG emulators. My experience prior to Gym Heroes comes from actually playing the game in my High School. My experience post Neo Genesis comes from joining the online Pokémon community and finally discovering the local Pokémon Leagues. Given the nature of the thread, I didn't understand that this was more of a "I saw all these at once and [insert set] disappointed me." For me it was all happening as the sets initially released. This does make a difference, but I am uncertain how much.

The obvious thing is if you tell me in this Gen I format, it all works a certain way... well can you send me some links I can read for myself about it via a Private Conversation? I mean I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt; the collective body of knowledge about how to play the TCG effectively is so vast compared to back then, and it will come as only a mild surprise to find some old "sacred cows" need to be barbecued.
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Anyway my knowledge of Base Set through Gym Heroes and Base Set through Gym Challenge comes through research, not playing it casually, let alone first hand in a competitive environment. I will add that while this is ultimately subjective, that doesn't mean objective facts never come into play; you might have a preference which you don't understand and never will, but even then there may be a reason for it. If you supply no reason and are just like "I don't care for [insert expansion], and I don't know nor do I care why I don't care. =P" well yeah, I have to just take that at face value.
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So you bring up Clefable and Wigglytuff. I brought them both up because they were Colorless Stage 1 attackers, but I was not stating they were equals. In fact quite the opposite; I pointed out Clefable was the lesser. While they have different attacks, when I saw (or could get to work) Clefable, it was by backing it with Muk. I suppose Dark Vileplume (instead of Muk) may have helped as well had I thought of it. With just filler for the Bench, Wigglytuff can still be a beast, with a PlusPower hitting that magic 70 damage to OHKO most Haymaker Pokémon, Muk, etc. It makes for a fearsome beatdown focus, but being an Evolution eats up more deck space than Haymaker Basics, as well as makes it slower. Even without Base Set Hitmonchan, a Haymaker is going to have an edge because of it. Clefable needs less Energy so it might be faster, but it is so unreliable. "Metronome" can only copy the Defending Pokémon's attacks, so if it has nothing worth copying or is already fast enough to utilize them, Clefable loses its edge. Until Neo Genesis 30/111, your only choice was Clefairy (Base Set 5/102; Base Set 2 6/130). Fighting Weakness and 40 HP was awful, and while "Sing" was decent for stalling, if you could use its Metronome, you had to accept it was luck. Yes indeed Jigglypuff (Jungle 54/64; Base Set 2 77/130) was quite important to Wigglytuff.
As for using that Jigglypuff (as well as Ponyta), I must apologize. First for claiming Ponyta (Base Set 60/102; Legendary Collection 87/110) was in Jungle, and second for not being clear; these two cards were used as counters specifically after Jungle but before Fossil. Rain Dance (and a few other decks) would use Jigglypuff to hit Mr. Mime (Jungle 6/64, 22/64; Base Set 2 27/130) underneath its "Invisible Wall" Pokémon Power while also soaking the damage it could try and do with its "Meditate" Attack. If you didn't have enough Energy to use "Pound", you could also try "Lullaby" and hope Mr. Mime failed to wake up (and that your opponent could not otherwise ditch Sleep). Ponyta was for Scyther, but as you are using Gym Challenge, you can use Blaine's Ponyta (Gym Challenge 64/132) and it's "Hind Kick" instead. Unless 10 more HP or a 50% chance of getting to switch Blaine's Ponyta with something from your Bench is a problem.
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Now as for Ditto versus Clefable... I didn't make that comparison, but I'll run with it. I pointed out that Ditto was to Fossil as Scyther was to Jungle: the Basic Pokémon that could work in several established decks of the time. They are most definitely not alike, and I pointed out that basically, Ditto can do more but only if the deck can accommodate it and the opponent can't effectively mess with it, while Scyther is just that useful pivot Pokémon, opener, and cleaner that most decks can use well.

Comparing and contrasting it with Clefable, there is no real contest: Ditto wins. Why? Basic versus Stage 1 is a start; you have to wait a turn for Clefable, plus its two cards versus one. I suppose if you want a deck focus, go with Clefable. Remember though like I said, Metronome relies on the opposing Active having something worth copying; there are times when there won't be good pickings, or at least not for what you want to do at the time (go for damage, stall, disrupt, etc.). Ditto is not your deck focus; it is something you add in specifically because it usually functions independent of your deck's focus, but able to share resources with it.

Few attackers "appreciate" Double Colorless Energy more than Ditto, but yes sometimes a deck strategy requires you use it elsewhere. Fortunately it is not dependent upon it, merely gifted in its usage. Ditto works well with any Energy (at least in this card pool). Whatever deck my opponent is using, if it has a single Energy attack worth copying, Ditto can do it for any Energy card (at least in this card pool). Of course, this does not apply if Pokémon Powers are being shut down. That is where Clefable does have an edge. You can use Full Heal Energy with Ditto, but unless Chaos Gym, Dark Vileplume, etc. are in play, it just works better to use Switch, Warp Point, or (if you can afford to lose the attached Energy) Scoop Up. Bring up your pivot Pokémon, then retreat back into Ditto.

You didn't acknowledge my point about how if you do 50+ damage to Ditto while its "Transformation" Pokémon Power has copied a higher HP score, you're not getting a "bonus" KO should Ditto revert to itself. There is at least one combo where you can get that damage onto Ditto without using an attack, but it isn't a particularly good one. If you know of something that can do it without being unreliable, needing too many cards, etc. let me know. Otherwise, Ditto is living on borrowed time but in a good way; you should have taken a KO, but you didn't get it yet. I get Ditto for possibly an entire extra turn. Especially if I can heal it, or at least when you hit it, you did enough damage to be really significant (like the 70 that would OHKO most Haymaker Pokémon, Clefable, etc.), I'm really coming out ahead even if Ditto attacks, scores a KO, and you promote something in between turns that has less maximum HP than Ditto has damage counters on itself. Of course, Ditto is less impressive post Team Rocket, owing to Dark Gloom, Drowzee (Team Rocket 54/82; Legendary Collection 73/110), Goop Gas Attack, and any time you can attack and do 50+ damage while also inflicting a Special Condition. That last one also applies pre-Team Rocket.
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Gave the ball game away with that not so subtle spoiler tag title, but the instant you brought up Drowzee (Team Rocket 54/82; Legendary Collection 73/110) I knew you wouldn't think highly of the deck. It was in the build I was shown initially as well; during the Neo-era. I know why the deck's creator added it, since it is on theme, but that's not a "current" version of the deck. You're so much better off ditching it and using the space for more important support... like Dark Vileplume. No Trainers for your opponent unless he or she is running Muk. The Turbo Snorlax player probably won't be using them either, but he or she does have the option of allowing Dark Vileplume to become Active, intentionally confusing it via Dark Gloom (should the flip cooperate), enjoying Trainers again, and preferably Benching Dark Vileplume to cure it of Confusion and restore the Trainer lock.

I dropped the Drowzee pretty quick and I cannot brag about it because I'm pretty sure so did most other people who stuck with the deck. Snorlax can Paralyze with its attack, and will always have the "last flip". You can have up to three Dark Gloom in play, each giving a 50% chance of inflicting Confusion. If you are playing under the rules which these cards released, then Confusion may be the best Special Condition. Not because back then a Pokémon did 20 damage to itself instead of placing three damage counters; unless it was self weak or used a damage boosting trick, the three damage counters are obviously better. Originally, you had to flip a coin if you wanted to retreat your Confused Active. You paid the Retreat Cost before the flip. If "heads", you retreated. "Tails", and the retreat failed. Even though under the original rules you could retreat your Active Pokémon as many times as you could pay the Retreat Cost, while Confused you only got one attempt to retreat that Confused Active; if you failed, it could not attempt to retreat again that turn.

So... your opponent would be looking at dealing with Paralysis about half the time (from Snorlax using "Body Slam"). Though the other half of the time Body Slam would only do damage, each Dark Gloom gave a 50% chance of Confusion and as I just explained, that wasn't as easy to deal with as it is now. If Full Heal Energy is actually a common play in the Gen 1 format... okay, well this isn't as big of a deal. Full Heal Energy was a joke back in the day, because apart from Trainer lock, it was just easier to use stuff like Switch and your pivot Pokémon. So maybe Dark Vileplume won't make much of a difference to your evaluation, but do let me know.
Just bringing up Articuno again to ask what were you running instead? Might explain some more of your metagame since this just strikes me as such a big deal.

What does your Rain Dance deck do on its first turn? How about when Pokémon Powers are down? Mr. Mime up front and stalling? Your opponent gets something up and running you can't OHKO? Maybe something about your Gen I format metagame chances this, but when I was both playing back in the day and testing in more recent years, this is where Lapras mattered. You could open with it and do 10 damage to get the ball rolling. Next turn, even if Blastoise is late, you can attack another Energy. If your opponent can't deal out much of a counterattack, just use "Water Gun" again for 20 damage. Next turn you'll be a third [W] energy and a PlusPower away from doing 70; not good, but you can work with it. More likely though your opponent will have something up front and swinging away, so use "Confuse Ray"; even if it it "tails", even if your opponent finishes off Lapras hopefully you just bought the time you needed to get Blastoise on the field and Articuno ready to attack the next turn. If your opponent doesn't heal any of that damage, "Blizzard" finishes off the typical Haymaker Pokémon. If you have a total fail and Blastoise either can't hit the field or Rain Dance is down, then Lapras can apply some pressure long before most other options. Other than Lightning Types, most other attackers have to invest heavily or take multiple turns for the KO.

Now you definitely can bring up some other openers. In fact, please do! :) Lapras may not be the best option in every metagame, and I certainly am not suggesting it needs to be maxed out even when it is a good fit for Rain Dance.
While it was used in Haymaker to hit Fire Weakness, like Scyther this was almost secondary to the other uses of Magmar (Fossil 39/62); this is where that control/disruption side of Haymaker is a bit more blatant. "Smokescreen" does 10 damage for just [R]; notice the wording "If the Defending Pokémon tries to attack...". That means the effect is on the Defending Pokémon, not Magmar. Now remember Haymaker decks tend to be loaded not only with hard-hitting attackers, but with control/disruptive cards as well. In some matches, when pushing for quick KOs wouldn't suffice, you dialed it back and played up the control angle... and then once was the right time, crushed them mercilessly. >.>
Magmar could keep pressure up since it was still doing damage, and it was hard for other cards to attack it as your opponent had to shake the effects of Smokescreen (like Switch into Scyther then retreat back into the former Active) and get in a hit worth the effort even though the Magmar player is probably judiciously using Energy Removal to keep anything from using an attack worth more than [X] or [CC]. If your opponent tries to ignore the accumulating damage, well it eventually adds up to a KO. Should your opponent actually deal with it, such as using Scoop Up, that's a resource they've burned. Sometimes you'll be "safe" (your opponent won't have anything that can attack the next turn, or at least attack for a worthwhile amount of damage), and it will be worth attaching another [R] Energy so Magmar can shift to "Smog". No protective effect, but now its 20 damage and a 50% chance of Poison. As this is a Haymaker deck, PlusPower is also a factor. This is why your opponent might have to use that Scoop Up; if he or she has something important up front, you might be able to go from doing a tiny 10 damage per turn to pushing for 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 damage plus Poison (on "heads").
So now we get to more specialized use of Magmar in Haymaker; actually exploiting Weakness and getting around certain protective effects. Magmar lacks the impressive damage-to-Energy ratio of Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, etc. but when Weakness is present, it can still match or surpass them. The fact that it is specialized doesn't change the fact that suddenly Smokescreen is now 20-for-one and Smog 40-for-two (plus their respective effects). When Mr. Mime comes knocking, Electabuzz can only manage 10 per turn and a 50% chance of Paralysis, Hitmonchan 20 per turn but he takes double damage from Meditate, Scyther cannot even touch Mr. Mime, etc. Well, Magmar can stall about as well as Electabuzz or go for 20 damage plus Poison; "heads" means your opponent must rid Mr. Mime of damage and Poison. If only one or the other is removed, Magmar either will or has a 50% chance of KOing Mr. Mime the next turn. Less impressive once Goop Gas Attack becomes an option, but still handy. Magmar also was a must for many Fire decks that needed to stall a little while building, but I don't really count that since said decks never achieved much competitively, at least when the card pool could field "real" decks.
Haymaker could get hard to predict. While it was unlikely you'd see all of them together in a winning deck, by the time of Fossil the Haymaker stable of potential attackers included
  • Ditto (Fossil 3/62; 18/62)
  • Electabuzz (Base Set 20/102; Base Set 2 24/130; Best of Game 1; Platinum 128/127)
  • Hitmonchan (Base Set 7/102; Base Set 2 8/130; Best of Game 2; Platinum 129/127)
  • Jynx (Base Set 31/102; Base Set 2 45/130; Legendary Collection 26/110)
  • Lapras (Fossil 10/64, 25/64)
  • Magmar (Fossil 39/62)
  • Mewtwo (WotC Black Star Promos 3, 14)
  • Mr. Mime (Jungle 6/64, 22/64; Base Set 2 27/130)
  • Scyther (Jungle 10/64, 26/64; Base Set 2 17/130; Platinum 130/127)
A few more would be available in the sets your format adds, like Erika's Jigglypuff. Generally two or three of these plus Scyther would share a deck. Scyther was your pivot Pokémon that could attack for any Energy; as stated in a previous post, using "Swords Dance" was only worth it when you not only had a source of [G] Energy attached, but when nothing else of yours was worth using to attack at the moment. If Scyther could use "Slash", then the obvious thing was to do that, then do it again next turn, for a total of 60 damage and no risk of your opponent resetting the effect of Swords Dance.

The inclusion of Ditto depended upon whether you thought you were better or worse off having a bit of wildcard. Haymaker was usually in trouble if an opponent somehow actually got his or her own heavy, especially an Evolution, up and running. Ditto could be a valuable countermeasure at that time, unless Abilities were down, copying the HP and the attacks of that Evolution, sometimes being faster about it than the Evolution due to its trick with Double Colorless Energy. On the other hand if it was just about copying fellow Haymaker Pokémon or there was another factor that made copying that rare Evolution ineffective, yeah, Ditto might be no better than anything else or even much worse.
Electabuzz was almost as likely as Scyther, but the metagame could change that; Fighting heavy means "skip 'Buzz in favor of something else." Hitmonchan was actually a bit below Electabuzz, but still likely: if there was a lot of Psychic attackers and/or Fighting Resistance expected, you had other options that would be wise to pursue. Jynx was the original "Psychic attacker" in certain Haymaker builds. I don't think she was in the original, but shortly after people would try to include her and even after something better came along, she was the only big, Basic Psychic Type with a good single Energy attack that could do damage. Lapras is one of the least used options; it just isn't sufficiently Energy efficient but when the metagame shifts and Water Weakness is there to exploit, it fakes it well enough. Also another decent option should someone be trying to stall, thanks to its Confuse Ray. I pretty much explained Magmar earlier; useful when the disruption side of Haymaker was needed more than its brute force, and while less impressive at exploiting Weakness than the others, it still benefited from that as well. Again, another solid option for dealing with Mr. Mime pre-Goop Gas Attack.

Mewtwo, at least in my experience, took over Haymaker. Some people don't even like to consider hit "Haymaker" anymore once Mewtwo shows up because
  • It can crowd out Hitmonchan
  • It takes at least two turns before it attacks for damage
I for one welcome our new tweaked clone of Lord Freeza Mew overlord. ;) It exploits Psychic Weakness and can be used even when resources or low; if you have one source of [P] Energy left, it can attach a second and even a third from the discard pile. The spare is so that a single Energy Removal isn't enough to stop it from attacking the next turn. With Mr. Fuji, you can try to use it to soak a hit while recycling Energy cards; not a major power play, but just good enough I don't want to rule it out as being non-competitive. When I tested the game without Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal being legal, this card loved Super Potion... but that's not particularly relevant. Then again, explaining why this card gets used doesn't require much. Mr. Mime might seem odd, as it cannot attack first turn, but it can be a magnificent opener and closer. As an opener you don't use it to attack, but to stall; as a closer you may use it to attack, stall, or do both at the same time. Probably one of the lesser used options, but an option nonetheless.

So Haymaker decks can mix and match these cards, and some will attempt to include a very wide swath: Potpourri decks. The goal is to hit each Weakness in the game, which back then meant running a Fighting Type, Fire Type, Grass Type, Lightning Type, Psychic Type, and Water Type. How do you do that? Numbers get pretty tight but after Energy Search and especially after Rainbow Energy, it could prove competitive (Potpourri actually goes back to Base Set - it just wasn't worth it even though it was tried). Then of course there are Trapper decks, basically take a Haymaker deck and gut it to make room for multiple copies of Imposter Oak's Revenge, Rocket's Sneak Attack, and The Rocket's Trap. As mentioned before, several beatdown decks were just Haymaker except they included a Stage 1 like Wigglytuff or Muk. In any of these, you didn't have to sweet which Pokémon you got in your opening hand; usually a Scoop Up or Switch would put a Scyther you either drew into or searched out (Professor Oak, Computer Search, Item Finder, Bill, Erika), odds were good you'd get what you needed.

The big thing to understand though, is that Haymaker was modular. Not just in that two Haymaker lists could pick and choose what suited the anticipated metagame, but in how while you play them? Your deck might be half unneeded and you were okay with that. Here are some examples if this isn't clear. If Scyther and Ditto shared a deck, you didn't painstakingly split your Double Colorless Energy between them (at least not most of the time). Instead you determined which was more important for the current match up, and attached to it; Scyther could still be your pivot Pokémon and so would be used regardless of attaching any Energy to it, while if Ditto was a poor fit for the match-up, you just used it as discard fodder. If neither were needed, you saved the Double Colorless Energy for paying Retreat Costs. Potpourri decks especially would just focus on exactly what the match-up called for and the rest would get discarded, but even with regular Haymaker decks it was "Well, didn't open with Hitmonchan, don't see any Fighting Weakness present or likely to hit the field later, so he's discard fodder and my Fighting Energy can fill [C] requirements."
Psyduck (Fossil 53/62; WotC Black Star Promos 20) was used in more control oriented Haymaker builds prior to Gym Heroes; open with Psyduck to buy time, then after you are satisfied with your set up, retreat or Switch to your preferred beatstick, use PlusPower (optional), use Lass (optional) and then start attacking. Some Psychic decks would also use it to help stall (most of those weren't any great shakes the first few turns anyway), and it was used as a lead in to Dark Vileplume as well. I understand you like the promo version's art, but the Fossil version was first and likely the only reason the promo version exists as it does is because they had alternate art to go with the Fossil version. In some parallel reality, the Fossil version doesn't exist and that same art was used to make a promo version of Psyduck (Team Rocket 65/82). ;) Kidding aside, yeah this Psyduck is still to the Fossil expansion's credit. As for the "Electabuzz" curse, it is just generally accepted if you have Fighting Weakness or Lightning Weakness, you have a high probability of being FTKO'd. I never heard it referred to as a curse because it was just a given... and by the time I got back from my first hiatus and Erika's Jigglypuff was present, there was no reason to even focus upon it, since anything with 60 or less HP was a probable OHKO against Haymaker.
Glad you understand Gambler. I tried to explain where "a little over 50-50" came from, but I see how you missed it; not my best work because I start to explain, bring up another aspect of the card, then make a clunky return to the first point. Oops. =P Oversimplifying probability, 50% of the time you're getting that eight card hand you wanted, the other 50% you're getting just one card. Now... what happens when that one card is Professor Oak? Or at least a Bill or Erika?

Now... I got confused by your comments about Recycle. As stated it is not reliable, and neither is my memory. So did all the card effects that cared about the top card of your deck release later? Okay, then it was still the easiest way to get Double Colorless Energy back from the discard pile. If it isn't clear from the rest of this, I am not a "binary rating system" kind of guy. Recycle isn't a good card, but its effect might prove valuable in certain decks, and it is pretty plausible that it could be a good card in the right card pool. You don't want to count it? I can live with that.
 
matthewbny said:
\I overlooked Articuno and Magmar, but I do not run Articuno in my Rain Dance decks. However, it is a really good card, and I'll actually give that to you for pointing that out! Articuno's only problem is that is a huge energy hog between using Lapras, Blastoise and Articuno. I might start using it, actually, and the extra 10 on your opponent's bench could help bring 70 HPs into snipeable range with Blastoise' Hydro Pump.

Lapras is a very underwhelming attacker. Water Gun is bad, and it shares a Lightning weakness with Blastoise. It can also be OHKO'd by Thunderpunch turn 2, while on turn 2 Lapras can Confuse Ray or do 20 with Water Gun. Pass. 80HP is cool, but suffers victim from the Electabuzz curse.
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Just a quick note from someone who used Rain Dance for the majority of the time back then. Both Articuno and Lapras are good for the deck. Articuno is a good back up hitter or front hitter if you only have one Blastoise and want to keep it safe and that blizzard attack could, as you say, put others into position for OHKO for Blastoise. Lapras is a good mime counter and a decent early leader because it only needs 1 energy to start and 2 for a possible confusion. If there is some gen 1 alternative to Lapras and Articuno I too am curious as to what they are.

Yeah the Electabuzz was a huge problem, but no deck and no card is perfect.

Just wondering, huge energy hogs? Between the three they take up thirteen energies I think for max effect. I never had such a problem with energy, especially since later on you wouldn't be powering Larpas up anyway.

I just think that Articuno and Lapras were two of the bigger gems in Fossil myself, along with possible Aerodactyl. Kabuto and Kabutops were nice too, I had a deck that worked with them on the Gameboy Pokémon TCG.
 
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