In Memory of the Pokemon TCG(WotC Era)

[Ness]

Then:

Now:

Remember when Pokemon TCG was simple, and each Pokemon had one card(maybe 2) each? The base, jungle, and fossil sets were simple. But then Nintendo/Wizards got greedy and tried to milk the cow with the Team Rocket and Gym Leader sets. This complexity is what pushed away the fad and casual buyers that made the cards popular in the first place. Only the hardcores stuck around for the 2nd rebirth of the TCG, the Neo sets. Genesis/Discovery/Whatever the 3rd were were good for the TCG and introduced the new Pokemon like they should have. But once again, Nintendo/WotC got greedy and decided to make the same mistake again.

This downward spiral hurt the Pokemon TCG and pushed Wizards out of business. Nintendo scooped up the TCG rights and destroyed it even more, basically killing off any remaining fans the TCG had left. The cards were ugly, complex, and too colorful, and the "simplicity" of the original cards was lost. Nintendo has kept trying, and though the Vulpix card above is an example of them trying to go back to its roots, its too late. The TCG will never become even remotely close to what it once was.

Too bad, because the TCG was awesome back in the day. It was the perfect compliment to the video game. Anyway, this is just a eulogy thread for the TCG and what it once was... a simple, fun game. WotC should have just stuck with 1, maybe 2 cards per Pokemon.

Before I go, just a fun list of the differences between the two metagames:

Dominant Video Game Pokemon(RBY Era):

Alakazam
Chansey
Mewtwo
Slowbro
Snorlax
Tauros

Dominant TCG Pokemon(Base-Jungle-Fossil Era):

Blastoise
Electabuzz
Farfetch'd
Hitmonchan
Mr. Mime
Wigglytuff

 

[Great Sage]

Um, what's so wrong about the second card? It's not like flavor text is important anyway...

EDIT: I took a look at some of the more recent cards, and I don't see anything really bad about them.

 

[Carl]

i'm confused... what is the point or purpose of this thread?? to say the tcg was never really that good in the first place or what?

 

[Pokézoni]

You spoke the truth... but you definitely picked the wrong dang cards to make a point.

Why didn't you show like, the Fighting type Elekid, or the Steel Tyranitar with the two weaknesses, next to a berry, a special trainer card, and a stadium card?

Sure, it was fun... it was simple... but that was the problem... it was TOO simple. You had only a few decks that truly worked consitently, like Rain Dance, or the Haymaker based decks, or once fossil came out, the domination of Psychics.

My best deck was a fast hybrid Ghost-Electric... working off of Electabuzz and Gastly (who worked so well together), and pulling some unexpected mid-game sweeps with tricky damage moving through Gengar... with Mewtwo providing late game firepower, and Mr. Mime preventing the opponent's late game firepower.

Sure, it got harder, and more things were added to it... but it's actually quite versatile these days, and it's much more difficult to counter every strategy these days...

It's no different than any game with a simple mechanic that draws a lot of popularity... if you kept it simple and didn't evolve the game, eventually people would become bored of it.

 

[theamericandream38]

Or that one fucking card that cant be hurt by basic pokemon or the rare candy trainer card that fucking breaks the game like no other... All in all I completely agree that the old tcg was awesome and the new tcg blows ass

 

[SeductionWeasel]

Uh, Ness's point is that the Vulpix card shows the game trying to go back to its roots, but in between the Zapdos and the Vulpix it got too complicated to redeem.

 

[The Plant]

For a while pokemon was easily the most screwed up TCG I ever played. The Coin flip gave you something like an 85% chance of winning. Had they just banned like 6 cards everything would been fine but nope they kept everything legal, screw them. (also sneasal and slowking were never the cards that should've gotten the axe first, a certain never banned hand destroying trainer was)

 

[The.Lost.Hylian]

You forgot Scyther in the TCG dominant cards list.

 

[Kromlech]

Damn that takes me back.

Just a few months ago I wanted to join a tourney for old times sakes, but all my cards were too old and rotated out of tourney play.
Also, my deck was older than most of the players there. That makes me feel pretty fking old.

 

[Deck Knight]

Two Words: Delta Species. (Apparently also Holon Phantoms)

Seriously, I saw fighting-type ELECTABUZZ. You know they're milking it when they can't even stick to logical card types.

Ex:

Electric/Steel Dragonite. Sensical...

Worst offenders:

Fire/Steel Mewtwo. Alrighty.

Fire/Steel Tyranitar.

Metaleon. Err.... Eevee.

Electro-Beldum. Now with Electirized Take Down.

2nd Place:

Electric/Steel PIDGEOT. OK, even with Pidgeot learning Steel Wing, this is still a HORRENDOUS stretch.

WINNER:

Dark/Steel Cradily. The mind reels, considering Cradily doesn't learn ANY Dark OR Steel moves.

 

[Pokézoni]

Uh, Ness's point is that the Vulpix card shows the game trying to go back to its roots, but in between the Zapdos and the Vulpix it got too complicated to redeem.

Yah, but those two cards would make you think nothing's wrong, since they're going back to their roots.

You really need to show some of the bogus cards that showed up in between that made the game horrendously lopsided.

I think the problem was adding too many mechanics with not enough information on the card. I remember the confusion that took place when "Dark" pokemon entered the TCG with special rules, with the Team Rocket expansion... whatever genius said "hey, let's do the same thing with baby pokemon, and delta species, and a bunch of other random ideas" needs to be locked in a room full of angry Sunkerns.

 

[Ness]

Two Words: Delta Species. (Apparently also Holon Phantoms)

Seriously, I saw fighting-type ELECTABUZZ. You know they're milking it when they can't even stick to logical card types.

Ex:

Electric/Steel Dragonite. Sensical...

Worst offenders:

Fire/Steel Mewtwo. Alrighty.

Fire/Steel Tyranitar.

Metaleon. Err.... Eevee.

Electro-Beldum. Now with Electirized Take Down.

2nd Place:

Electric/Steel PIDGEOT. OK, even with Pidgeot learning Steel Wing, this is still a HORRENDOUS stretch.

WINNER:

Dark/Steel Cradily. The mind reels, considering Cradily doesn't learn ANY Dark OR Steel moves.

This is what I was referring to, I just couldn't find pictures for them. I wanted to put them in between though.

But really, Base/Jungle/Fossil was fine as it was. Neo Series was good too, but all the cash in crap in between like gym leaders and team rocket wasn't needed.

I don't ever think Pokemon TCG is going to make a comeback, but the card game was nothing but high quality and a very fun game. I kind of hope someone makes a program like Apprentice but newer for it.

 

[Callum]

You forgot Promo Mewtwo in the list of game-dominating cards. 40 turn 2 damage was scary.

 

[c l e a r]

hmmm. Ness, do you even have any idea what you are talking about?

There still TONS of people playing the game. There are nationals, regionals, battle roads all over the place. In our Toronto Battle roads, we have average of 28 people in each battle road in the area for the 15+ catergory alone. Nationals is coming up and I expect at least 60 people to show up for that division.

The Delta stuff is made because they need something more interesting than average joe Fighting/Dark Tyranitar to fill in before the D/P stuff came along, it did provide an interesting environment with tons of decks to play. Another thing, the "beginning" sets are always simple artwork, then they step it up a notch when there are artists really DRAWING the Pokemon you know?

If anything, Nintendo saved the TCG from what Wizards failed. If there is anything that they screwed up, it was Sneasel from Neo Genesis and the retarded babies from the same series.

right now is even more crazy, 2nd turn stage 2s, 3rd turn 60 damage plus status effect. There are so many ways to juggle the energies around. It does not take 4 turns anymore to set up for good damage.

 

[CZ]

Ah, yes, I remember the good old Scyther/Movie Promo Mewtwo/Electabuzz/Mr. Mime haymaker deck of mass destriction that I used. That was when the game was simple. I was glancing through the current cards on SPP and all I can say is wow. They took a (IMO) simple, fun card game and turned it into a really complex, senseless thing.

 

[touched]

Yeah I think the TCG has been ruined. I remember my Blastoise-Gyarados rain deck that I used. It was sexy. Anyway I think that Nintendo has been trying too hard to get the most money they can outta this thing, too.

 

[Mekkah]

If I may ask as an almost complete novice at the higher stages of TCG playing, why is Farfetch'd up there? Because it has a 50% chance of dealing 30 damage before having to resort to a triple colorless one?

 

[theamericandream38]

Yeah lol that was a bad example as there were way more dominant cards than farfetch'd

 

[Problem2]

Fire/Steel type Tyranitar that's weak against Grass? WTF x100!

 

[Origin]

I liked my old TCG deck.... back when there were only three types of booster packs.

Energy Removal Deck! Focus being to remove lots and lots of energies, and prevent the opponent from attacking, while making the opponent switch pokemon over and over again :-D


But yea.. they ruined it because they got greedy.
I even remember the old POKEMON CARD GAME for GBA, that game was great.

 

[spies]

Wasn't Farfetch'd really really early TCG? I guess the possibility of doing 30 damage turn 1 and then 30 more second turn (with double colorless energy) was appealing, and it also resisted fighting to deal with Hitmonchans

 

[Great Sage]

Yeah, and then when Jungle came out, Scyther took its place.

 

[Deck Knight]

I liked my old TCG deck.... back when there were only three types of booster packs.

Energy Removal Deck! Focus being to remove lots and lots of energies, and prevent the opponent from attacking, while making the opponent switch pokemon over and over again :-D


But yea.. they ruined it because they got greedy.
I even remember the old POKEMON CARD GAME for GBA, that game was great.

My favorite deck was a Haymaker with Fossil Aerodactyl and a gratuitous number of energy and super energy removal. Shutting down evolution decks while employing haymaker cards was quite GG. (also didn't hurt that Aero had 0 retreat cost and fighting resist, just incase GoW came along.) Actually, the Pokemon TCG is where the initial inspiration for my name came from.

 

[c l e a r]

SER and ER is broken, it makes the game into 1-2 energy attack game.

The Delta Species, in fact, is very fun to play with, there are still great Pokemon with free retreat costs and cards that deal lots of damage.

 

[metalScyther]

TCG was the fucking shit back in the day. I remember I had a 100 damage charizard, a 120 damage arcanine, a japanese mewtwo with 3 moves, a japanese nidoking with 120 hp. I used to trade that shit all the time back in like 5th grade. Good times. I remember at one point, I had 3 original blastoises and 3 100 damage zapdoses(not the gay fossil ones).

Yeah, I was kind of a dork back in the day.