Being a player of the TCG since HS triumphant, I was really curious to find out what kind of cards and decks were being played in the base set, jungle/fossil, Neo sets, and most important to me, the RS generation's sets.
a question from a noob to the veterans
- Thread starter J-chan lll
- Start date
Search up stuuf like LuxChomp and GardyGallade. Those decks were good!
Back in EX deoxys-on, I played metanite, a metagross-dragonite build that beasted me to top 16 regionals. That was the only season I played, wanna play again this year
Plus D&D are a T2 haymaker.
LBS was one of the bigger metas a year or two after Ruby/Sapphire. It revolved around BLastoise EX (FR/LG) and Holon's Electrode/Magnemite.
LuxChomp was big along with SableLock and Gyarados 1-2 years ago.
Infernape/Delcatty was huge in Holon Phantoms on. In the delta species era, Flygon EX Spread, Kingdra EX swarm, MetaNite, and RaiEggs were all big.
As far as I'm aware, Rain Dance Blastoise was spammed throughout the Base set era, along with Haymaker. They were pretty much "the" decks to play.
Plox/GG was without a doubt, however, the biggest meta deck ever. It's the entire reason that Time limits were shortened in swiss, and ultimately placed for the first time on Top Cut matches which used to have none (at least in my area.) It controlled the meta. You either played Plox, or played to counter it. Otherwise you lost. Not to mention Plox vs Plox matches would take forever. I remember specifically a Spring Battle roads where top cut consisted of 3 Plox and a Skittles (lol Skittles ended up winning.) The tournament started at 10. It finished at 7:30 PM. (again, this was a Battle Roads)
LuxChomp was big along with SableLock and Gyarados 1-2 years ago.
Infernape/Delcatty was huge in Holon Phantoms on. In the delta species era, Flygon EX Spread, Kingdra EX swarm, MetaNite, and RaiEggs were all big.
As far as I'm aware, Rain Dance Blastoise was spammed throughout the Base set era, along with Haymaker. They were pretty much "the" decks to play.
Plox/GG was without a doubt, however, the biggest meta deck ever. It's the entire reason that Time limits were shortened in swiss, and ultimately placed for the first time on Top Cut matches which used to have none (at least in my area.) It controlled the meta. You either played Plox, or played to counter it. Otherwise you lost. Not to mention Plox vs Plox matches would take forever. I remember specifically a Spring Battle roads where top cut consisted of 3 Plox and a Skittles (lol Skittles ended up winning.) The tournament started at 10. It finished at 7:30 PM. (again, this was a Battle Roads)
The strategy behind Plox/GG is to get a Gardevoir Secret Wonders into play, load it up with energy, and then repeatedly shut down the other decks in the metagame with its "Psychic Lock" attack (most decks relied heavily on Poke-powers back then, which are all shut off by Psychic Lock). Ideally, you would would swarm with other Gardevoirs, and then occasionally use Gallade to deal extremely significant damage to the opponent's Pokemon (read the card and you'll see just how brutal it was...Think Reshiram and Azelf rolled into one).
In the Holon Phantoms-on format, your typical Gardevoir build looked like this...
2 Baltoy GE
2 Claydol GE
4 Ralts SW
2-3 Kirlia SW
3 Gardevoir SW
1-2 Gallade SW
1 Chatot MD
1-0-1 stage two tech line (Dusknoir became the most commonly-used line, since it added yet another layer of major board control on top of power lock)
0-4 basic tech cards (Absol ex, Pachirisu GE, Jirachi ex, and Jolteon* became the three most commonly used cards for these spots - each serving a different purpose)
Trainers/Stadiums/Supporters:
0-3 Windstorm
1-2 Lake Boundary
4-6 mix of Celio's Network and Bebe's Search
4 Rare Candy
4 Roseanne's Research
2-4 Team Galactic's Wager (used to make the lock even more devastating)
Energy:
4 Call
4 Double Rainbow
2-4 Scramble
3-7 mixture of Psychic, Fighting, Multi, and Holon Energy WP (the fourth of which was reprinted and thus legal for play)
Although there's a lot of variation in this list, it should cover pretty much every style of Gardevoir/Gallade/Claydol played back then.
Later on, when DRE and Scramble rotated, Garde/Gallade became "defanged," and thus needed a reboot. So for about a year and half, it was a mediocre, upper tier three deck.
Then, when Double Colorless Energy and Spiritomb AR came out, its viability increased exponentially, since it: A) regained its energy speed; and B) regained a chance at early game disruption via 'Tomb. The build of this 2009-2010 era looked much like what you see above from 2007-2008, only plus some modified legal choices (Uxie) and minus the cards that rotated out.
In the Holon Phantoms-on format, your typical Gardevoir build looked like this...
2 Baltoy GE
2 Claydol GE
4 Ralts SW
2-3 Kirlia SW
3 Gardevoir SW
1-2 Gallade SW
1 Chatot MD
1-0-1 stage two tech line (Dusknoir became the most commonly-used line, since it added yet another layer of major board control on top of power lock)
0-4 basic tech cards (Absol ex, Pachirisu GE, Jirachi ex, and Jolteon* became the three most commonly used cards for these spots - each serving a different purpose)
Trainers/Stadiums/Supporters:
0-3 Windstorm
1-2 Lake Boundary
4-6 mix of Celio's Network and Bebe's Search
4 Rare Candy
4 Roseanne's Research
2-4 Team Galactic's Wager (used to make the lock even more devastating)
Energy:
4 Call
4 Double Rainbow
2-4 Scramble
3-7 mixture of Psychic, Fighting, Multi, and Holon Energy WP (the fourth of which was reprinted and thus legal for play)
Although there's a lot of variation in this list, it should cover pretty much every style of Gardevoir/Gallade/Claydol played back then.
Later on, when DRE and Scramble rotated, Garde/Gallade became "defanged," and thus needed a reboot. So for about a year and half, it was a mediocre, upper tier three deck.
Then, when Double Colorless Energy and Spiritomb AR came out, its viability increased exponentially, since it: A) regained its energy speed; and B) regained a chance at early game disruption via 'Tomb. The build of this 2009-2010 era looked much like what you see above from 2007-2008, only plus some modified legal choices (Uxie) and minus the cards that rotated out.
I have only been playing since Rising Rivals, but I think that I can provide a pretty significant list. Let see.
I know that around the Base era Haymaker was a popular deck. Haymaker was centered around Scyther for Jungle, Electabuzz from Base Set and Hipmonchan from Base Set. The main point of haymaker was to power up hard hitting, high HP'd basics as early as possible. I don't know much more about this period unfortunately; however, I believe that Dark Vileplume and Wigglytuff were played.
My knowledge of old popular decks sorta stops for a while, but I know so stuff from around 2004. Gardevoir EX variants were pretty popular, or at least performed well at 2004 worlds. The idea was to use Gardevoir EX as your main attacker, and get as many energy on your field ASAP. Gardevoir for Ruby and Sapphire was used for energy acceleration, and could also function as a back up attacker. Other card that saw play in this deck were Delcatty (draw power) and Magneton.
Another deck that saw a lot of play at 2004 world's was Team Magma decks. The idea of Team Magma decks was to use Pokémon that could utilize team magma cards, such as Magma Energy and Team Magma Ball. The main Pokémon that this deck focused on were Team Magma's Groudon,Team Magma's Aggron, and Team Magma's Claydol.
Mewtrick was a popular deck around 2006. Not quite sure how it works, but it was focused around this awesome Mew. Manectric EX was probably used too.
I'm too lazy to finish this post, sorry. If you wanna see more decks, Bulbapedia has a great list here.
I know that around the Base era Haymaker was a popular deck. Haymaker was centered around Scyther for Jungle, Electabuzz from Base Set and Hipmonchan from Base Set. The main point of haymaker was to power up hard hitting, high HP'd basics as early as possible. I don't know much more about this period unfortunately; however, I believe that Dark Vileplume and Wigglytuff were played.
My knowledge of old popular decks sorta stops for a while, but I know so stuff from around 2004. Gardevoir EX variants were pretty popular, or at least performed well at 2004 worlds. The idea was to use Gardevoir EX as your main attacker, and get as many energy on your field ASAP. Gardevoir for Ruby and Sapphire was used for energy acceleration, and could also function as a back up attacker. Other card that saw play in this deck were Delcatty (draw power) and Magneton.
Another deck that saw a lot of play at 2004 world's was Team Magma decks. The idea of Team Magma decks was to use Pokémon that could utilize team magma cards, such as Magma Energy and Team Magma Ball. The main Pokémon that this deck focused on were Team Magma's Groudon,Team Magma's Aggron, and Team Magma's Claydol.
Mewtrick was a popular deck around 2006. Not quite sure how it works, but it was focused around this awesome Mew. Manectric EX was probably used too.
I'm too lazy to finish this post, sorry. If you wanna see more decks, Bulbapedia has a great list here.