Silly question why 70% of fire pokemon had an attack based on discard energy? Its look like an kind of archetype thing, did any other type has an archetype kind of moves?
Sure.
Water types tend to have additional damage per Water energy attached.
Psychic types tend more for damage based on Energy attached to the target of the attack.
(Psychic types based on ghost Pokémon will favour placing damage counters over dealing direct damage.)
Fighting types, I think, are most generous with damage output, but tend to have recoil/etc.
Electric and Grass types tend to have lower damage output, with status to make up the difference. (Jumpluff is a really extreme example – it's uncommon for an S2 to have single-Energy cost attacks, but some Jumpluff prints have had *multiple* attacks w/ single Energy costs.
Man, I gotta say. The Pokémon TCG never really had a good reason for power creep.
I used to do a lot of fakes in the EX/Gen III era, and there was something of a formula to a Pokémon's HP, attack costs, etc. where you could easily pick out where a fake would fit into a metagame, would define the metagame, or else was so broken as to be completely unbelievable, and it'd fit a general formula along these lines;
Pokemon HP:
- 40-50 for a basic that evolved; usually 60-80 for a basic that didn't evolve
- 60-80 for a stage 1; 80-100 for a stage 1 that didn't evolve
- 80-120 for a stage 2. 120 HP used to be a hard cap.
- EX status, across the board, tended to add an extra 40-60 HP. (This was the only way to exceed the 120 HP hard cap; Stage 2 EXs would shatter that barrier.)
Pokemon damage output:
- Where energy cost is explicitly defined - 20 damage
- Where energy cost is not explicitly defined (i.e. colourless attack cost) - 10 damage
- so, e.g. [R][C] = 30 damage. but usually status would deduct -10 points, and things like flip status would usually actually be on par. [C][C][C] might be a Double Lariat attack, so 40 flip for +0-40, but given its base damage is 40, you're looking at a range of 40-80. that's only +20 above the base of 60; you'd actually be able to look at an attack like that and actually determine it's poor return, w/ 40+20=60, but unreliable. (More realistically, an attack like Double Lariat tended to be on final evolution stages, with a slight bias of extra damage, to compensate for it being an evolved Pokémon)
Weakness was always x2
Resistance was always -30
Retreat was very much "Pokédex-based", if you like. The general rule was that higher HP = greater retreat, but there were more exceptions to the rule than not.
I think by the DP-era, you had some violations to this philosophy (Lv. Xes didn't seem to stick to any rules, imo), but I think by BW, the power-creep was full on, and there really hasn't been any looking back.
I just think, as a collector, it really sucks to see this power creep manifest so blatantly and so ridiculously – I've had a lot of time to get used to the idea that 120 HP was no longer the limit, and then watch the damage output formulas change, but it's so weird that we're now at a point where this Blaziken card exceeds the HP rule I'm used to, exceeds the damage output I'm used to, and isn't even broken.
Most of the cards I have 'agree' with the Base–early DP formulas; collecting XY Evolutions felt weird, but those cards were so engrained that I could swallow it. EX R&S is the set I came closest to finishing (only missing about ~10 holos, and ~2 EX to finish the set) and it was my first set w/ Kouki Saitou art, so I can't tell you how much of an impression this Blaziken card had on me
but I literally wouldn't want this card. Putting it into my binder of cards would be so frustrating. I could explain HP, damage, etc. of the rest of the binder, why they're all more or less consistent, etc.... but this has gotten silly. IDK. I just see the damage output on that Fire Stream attack and think it's ridiculous.. but it's not even that good, relative to the current meta.
(For people with no idea what I'm on about. It 'should' have 120 HP, Flame Stream should deal out 70 *at absolute most*, and 10 per bench would be adequate 'incentive' to play a Stage 2 in the meta, vs. a non-evolving basic. The 2 retreat isn't unheard of, and does actually match the original print. In that case, I would've rounded down to 110 HP instead of 120, the original print was actually just 100. It also went for a 'low' damage output of 50 – could be compensatory for a 'broken' Poke-Power, but I don't really recall the cards ever doing that sort of punitive compensation.)
