Previous meta-game cards/decks

[Salamencetrainer34]

So, I always wondered, what metagame cards/decks were before BW? I only know Luxchomp, but have no idea what it does.

So,, discuss the the before BW metagame stuff. Also, no deck list required. Only strategy.

 

[ashtavakra]

Luxchomp is in no way shape or form old school.

Old school would be, Haymaker or Chansey/Sneasel/Slowking pre ban era. Entei/Magcargo is another.
Parasect/Feraligatr, Dark Feraligatr, Moltres/Typholosion, Alakazam/Tentacool/Slowbro was fun also.
It really depends on the exact time frame you are looking for.

The decks I listed were all 2002 and before. Pre Ruby/Sapphire

Haymaker would be equivalent to today's big basics decks.
CSS was basically loading your bench with slowking preventing your opponent from using trainers,
Stalling with chansey with attached special metal energies, then sneasel for beat up clean up late/early game.
EMGO using entei from neo revelations as an energy acceleration for magcargo, simple enough with high damage output
Parasect Feraligatr was the most raw powered deck probably out of the first 3-4 formats. You had an unlimited amount of damage
based on your water energy in your discard pile for 3 energies, but the problem was you had to shuffle those energies back into the deck,
combined with parasect's poke power, the after affect of shuffling the energies was stopped, making it easy to hit for 80-120 per turn for only 3 energies.
out rageous damage in those times.
Dark Feraligatr was huge because he could bypass all baby powers and get easy prizes. There wasn't hardly a single deck that didn't play at least 1 cleffa, tyrogue, and or elekid.
Moltres/ Typhlosion was a mill deck. Moltres from fossil could take cards off your opponents deck per fire energy discarded, you would cycle fires with benched typholisions back to moltres, and mill away.
ATS was the very first true stall damage. Moving damage counters off your active with alakazam and slowbro and moving the damage to tenacool whom you would return to your hand once per turn. taking damage off the board without the use of trainers.
There was also Light Dragonite, when boost energy came out. You wouldn't have to discard the boost energy and Light Dragonite could only be affected by damage, no other affects from attacks.
Charizard/ Electabuzz was also a nice card after the release of boost energy. No true synergy, but you always had to discard the boost anyways at the end of the turn, so why not fire spin it away?
Tentacruel Aquapolis / Dark Espeon wass HUGE. Tentacruel would attach energies to your opponents active if they had less than your active.
Giving more power to Dark Espeon who attacked all your opponents pokemon for each energy attached to each of them.
Xatu could utilize all pokemon tool cards, Xatu tool box was pretty decent, I remember playing this at a Battlezone, Somebody PLEASE tell me you remember Battlezones!!
There was also, Meganium or Venesaur/Exeggutor, double grass energy attached with meganium's power or attach a 2nd energy with Venesaur. There were some lists that ran ALL 3 of them in a deck. Exeggutor was reprinted in legendary collection the roll for each energy attached, 20 for each heads guy.
But probably the best deck in the "old school" was:
Scizor/Muk/Furret - Scizor did a base of 30 damage, + you got to roll 1 dice for each metal attached and he did 20 more for each heads.
So Furret would search out special energies from the deck, giving you a way to get those special metals up quickly and stall. When you finally had played all your special metals, you laid down the muk to shut off all powers in play. Back then we had power charge too, at the flip of a coin you could get back 2 energy cards (special or basic) from the discard and shuffle them into the deck.
There were a lot more decks back in the day, I could probably go on for a while longer.

 

[Blui]

Are talking pre BW-On?

If so I remember google.dec (aka The Truth). Which combined all these basic attackers with Vileploom (trainer lock) and Reuniclus (Damage swap). Also Gyarados/Karp, get 3 Magikarp in the discard and attack or 90 for 0.

 

[Salamencetrainer34]

Changed post to be more clear.

 

[RogueChomp]

Well here's a bunch of them:

HGSS-on

ReshiPhlosion- Used Typhlosion Prime from HGSS to power up Reshiram BW for VERY consistent BlueFlares.

CaKE (Cobalion NV, Kyurem NV, Electrode Prime)- Used Electrode Prime as energy acceleration to power up Cobalion or Kyurem T2 depending on the matchup.

PrimeTime- Used Yanmega Prime, Magnezone Prime, and Kingdra Prime to take quick KOs and big KOs with Magnezone. Yanmega could attack for no energy, Kingdra only needed one, and Magnezone could OHKO anything with Lost Burn while using Magentic Draw pokepower to draw and Kindras Spray Splash make sure of KOs.

CMT (Celebi Prime/Mewtwo EX/Tornadus)- Used Celebi to power up Mewtwo EX or Tornadus very quickly. Extremely fast, but somewhat low damage and can be inconsistent.

ZPST- Used Pachirisu CoL and Shaymin UL to power up Zekrom BW or Tornadus EP as early as T1. Fast but vulnerable and inconsistent.

Durant NV- Used Catchers and Hammers to disrupt your opponent while decking them out with Durant. Twins and Rotom UD were amazing in here to get what you needed. Very fun, ultra consistent with Revive, and one of my favorite decks in HGSS on. Various techs like Bellsprout TM or Smoochum HGSS were used for certain matchups.

Donphan Prime/Mewtwo/Rocky Helmet or Donphan/Dragons- Fast, bulky attacker in Donphan Prime while winning the Mewtwo Wars with Rocky Helmet and Mewtwos. Put damage on Reshis, Zekroms, or Kyurems to outrage depending on type matchup.

Gothitelle EP/Reuniclus BW- Faster, less bulky, one sided trainer lock The Truth deck. Used Gothitelle to sweep while Reuniclus cleared of damage and removed it with Blissey Prime HGSS or Max Potion.

Chandelure NV/Vileplume UD/Dodrio/Blissey- Used multiple Chandelures to do damage, Blissey to heal of damage, Vileplume to trainer lock, and Dodrio for retreat. Abused the heck out of Tropical Beach and Twins and Pichu HGSS.

Quad Terrakion NV- Curran Hill invented this during States and led it to a win I think. Used Terrakions to attack with EXP Shares as energy acceleration and got off consistent Retaliates. Very consistent.

ZekEels- Zekeels was Zekeels and nothing more.

Darkrai variants- Focused on T1 or 2 Darkrais while abusing Smeargle UD/Col to get as much draw as possible. Defenders + Eviolites countered Terrakions as well as Tornadus EXs.

Mew Prime/Accelgor DE/Vileplume UD/Chandelure NV/etc- The lock deck that worked the best (other than Frillish). When set up, as long as the player got consistent Deck and Covers with Mew Prime copying Accelgor, the lock stayed and if the player was smart, they would win. Had problems with Time. Used Chandy to have the KOs always go into your turn. Very fun, very good, should have won Worlds lol.

Zekeels/Terrakion- Exactly what it was

MewtwoEels- Exactly what it was

Klingklang- Big EXs with Klingklang BW, Max Potions, Prism, Rainbow, won Nationals in Masters somehow

Quad Entei EX- Won Canadian Nationals I think. Used Entei to attack (very bulky) and healing cards to tank. Entei could accelerate to other Enteis.
Very annoying, yet fun. Yes I like annoying decks.

MagneBoar- Emboar was used to accelerate fires to the field and Reshiram and Magnezone were used to hit for damage. Ran out of energy pretty quickly.
Reshiboar- Emboar accelerated to Reshiram
Landorus/Terrakion- Used Landorus NV for acceleration and speed, Terrakion for bulk and damage
Hammertime- Darkrai/Sableye/Hammers Disruption and consistency
I think that's all for HGSS....

MD-On
Staples- Uxie let you draw until you had 7 when you played it down. Azelf let you look at your prizes and replace a card from your hand with a pokemon you found there. Broken Time Space allowed for faster evolving
Machamp SF- Used Take out to Auto KO any basic and donk. Extremely fast.

SP variants- took easy KOs, very fast, very strategic. Garchomp C lv.X healed off damage on SPs, Luxray GL Lv.X had a catcher like ability and did 60 for 2. Energy Gain was a tool that counted as a colorless energy when attached to SPs. Crobat G did more damage when placed down, Poketurn returned SPs to your hand, Cyrus Conspiracy made the deck, and there were countless other cards that made these decks great.
Popular ones were LuxChomp, DialgaChomp, BlazeChomp, BLG, RogueChomp, and more...

VileGar- Used Vileplume UD and Spirtiomb AR to lock trainers and dealt massive damage through Shadow Room and Poltergeist from Gengar SF. Very strong, especially with Fainting Spell (when Gengar is KOd from damage, you flip a coin and if heads, your opponent's active is KO'd.)

Gyarados SF- Discard Magikarps, do damage. Very fast, very consistent, definitely one of the Tier 1s. Did the damage for 0 energy, so it could abuse SSU and Rescue Energy and Broken Time Space.

Drapion SF/Vileplume UD- Trainer lock along with Drapions sniping and lock and special conditions.

SableDonk- Donk deck, caused the mid season rotation. That's how broken it became.

Sablelock- Used Cyrus's Initiative to disrupt. idk what else about it really, never understood how it won....

MewPerior- Used Mew Prime to copy Rhyperior Lv.Xs attack and do massive damage , OHKOing everything. Had major problems with Dialga G Lv.X, so some variants used Blaziken FB, which doesn't help all that much.

Machamp SF/Vileplume UD- Luxchomp counterdeck. Damage and lock respectively.

Regigigas Lv.X- Regi was used to tank and used promo Regi to Drag off either big retreat pokemon or easy KOs. Had built in acceleration and healing.

Kingdra LA- Used Kingdra to deal quick, hard damage with both Kingdras (LA and Prime)
and many more! Such a great format where rogues could exist without being stomped on. Donphan Prime was popular too.

MagneRock- Used Regirock LA for acceleration and Magnezone Prime for attacking with Lost Burn

LostGar- Overhyped by Japan, tried to get 6 pokemon in your opponent's Lost Zone to win the game with Lost World.
DP-on
Claydol GE was THE best support card other than Uxie.
All that I know
Gardy Gallade- Gardevoir for Psychic Lock to stop Powers and Gallade to do massive damage.

Gengar AR/Spiritomb- Gengar uses Shadow Skip into Spiritomb AR to lock trainers. Sometimes used Dusknoir DP to remove support pokemon from play.

Sceptile/Leafeon- Used Sceptiles to have grass doubling and Leafeon for more acceleration. Leafeon hit for massive damage.

Charizard AR- Hit for big damage with each fire in play and sometimes used Ninetails for acceleration.

Salamence AR/SF/Delcatty- Used Salamence + Delcatty to accelerate energies into play and Salamence SF was used for quick, hard damage.

Kingdra LA
Machamp SF
Empoleon/Bronzong MD
Magnezone SF- Used Magnezone for acceleration, Magnezone Lv.X could move energies around and autoparalyze.
Gyarados SF-Had Felicity's Drawings to discard Magikarps.
Regigigas
So many more!

 

[ashtavakra]

Quad Terrakion NV- Curran Hill invented this during States and led it to a win I think. Used Terrakions to attack with EXP Shares as energy acceleration and got off consistent Retaliates. Very consistent.

Quad Terrakion & Terrakion/ Landorus were being played pre states.
They were actually being played well before next destinies was even released, in saint louis.
I don't even know how Curran Hill is tbh. Just saying though. He didn't create the deck. It was a commonly used pokemon that was just good for a quad game run.