Speaking of Pokemon, I'd like to get back into the Pokemon TCG league. It's soooo much better than Yu-Gi-Oh where there's like no deck variation to be used. You can pretty much make 50% of your deck from the restriction list.
Are we talking about the same game?
Granted, the Pokemon TCG seems better now in this regard from my very limited knowledge, but back in the day the Pokemon TCG was infamous for having an incredibly small number of useful, competitive cards. A (EDIT: NOT) brief history:
An American novelist who never even played the game saw a list of the base set cards from Japan before they were released here, and theorized that evolution cards were crap and Hitmonchan was the best Pokemon. He was right, and this idea that he called "Haymaker" became known as the "dominant deck archetype" for as long as I played the game.
Base Set: All decks included Professor Oak (unquestionably the best card in the game) and Computer Search, almost always 4 of each. They also used lots of Bills, Potions, Plus Powers, Defenders, Itemfinders, Gust of Winds, and Energy Removals. The only Pokemon used were Hitmonchan, Electrabuzz (who Hitmonchan countered), and Machop (A worse Hitmonchan). The other deck archetype was "Rain Dance", revolving around Blastoise; this deck was effective in Base set, but required more luck and was more susceptible to things like Gust of Wind. Rain Dance slowly died out over the course of the game as Haymaker proved superior. A lot of people who didn't understand that the point of Haymaker was to avoid evolution cards tried to use Kadabra against it, to limited success.
Jungle and Movie Mewtwo: Jungle added Scyther, who was the first 70 HP Pokemon with no retreat cost, and resistant to Hitmonchan and with colorless attack to boot. Almost all decks threw in Scythers, and everyone always wanted to lead with a Scyther first turn or swap to him whenever they were in a tight spot. Around this time we also got the promotional card Movie Mewtwo, who was similar to Hitmonchan, but countered him! We also go Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff; for as long as I played the game, Wigglytuff was the ONLY evolution worth playing. (It was a very "broken" card.) Mr. Mime also saw occasional play.
At this point, the game was pretty much rock-paper-scissors, where Hitmonchan beat Wigglytuff, who beat Mewtwo, who beat Hitmonchan... with Scyther as a defensive wild card offering you some mobility.
Fossil came out, and I'm not sure of a single decent card it added. Some people randomly played Lapras...
Rocket gave us Rocket Sneak Attack, a very mean card that made the game more agressive. Dark Vileplume let people make some really eccentric decks outside the Haymaker style, but nothing really effective. The special energy cards in Rocket saw occasional use for a long time, as was Nightly Garbage Run which gave rise to oddball stall decks.
Gym 1 made the game pretty interesting, even if it didn't add all that much. Erika's Dratini was a really fun card, almost a more defensive alternative to Scyther. No Removal Gym saw widespread use, and several decks used Rocket's Training Gym.
Gym 2 wrecked the game. Rocket's Zapdos was the new, absurdly overpowered card on the block. He had all the abilities of Hitmonchan, Mewtwo, and Wigglytuff in one card, with no weaknesses. On top of that, Team Rocket's Trap (TRT) was a ridiculously overpowered and luck-driven trainer card that stood to completely shut down your opponent... I remember one top player remarking that now you had to play a Trap deck if you wanted to win, and when two Trap decks play, whoever goes first wins. People kept trying to find ways to beat Rocket Zapdos, but none succeeded. (Though someone discovered that Clefable from Jungle could kill it in one hit for one energy, no good Trap deck should let their opponent play a Clefable.)
The game was dead... but then Neo came and saved it. In my opinion Neo was the golden age of the game; Cleffa was a fantastic new card that countered TRT completely, and the fact that you could Breeder it into Clefable sort of countered Zapdos a little. Metal and Darkness Energy were fantastic additions, with Metal Chansey (all the way from base set) being one of my favorite obscure strategies. Murkrow brought Shutdown decks back, and Sneasel was the latest addition to the Haymaker metagame. (Made things really interesting.) Ecogym and Sprout Tower were often used, while Gold Berry and Mary made stall decks much more viable. Gligar was a fun new offensive alternative to Scyther.
The new two Neo sets didn't really change much, which was probably for the best. I quit the game around the time Neo 3 came out.
...good times...good times...
For the record, my puzzle involves two Chanseys fighting two Hitmonchans. It's madness.
EDIT: Did I just type all that? .........why?
