Old School Pokemon Packs
2016-8-23 Imagine someone who is playing Pokemon GO, who hasn't played a game or bought cards since the first gen, and they see these new packs and they instantly remind them of the Base set packs because of the old-style artwork. 'Oh, this is neat! You know what? I'll buy a pack or two.' And then they see all of the old artwork on the cards.
So I've been playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game for the GameBoy Color a lot recently, and got a cool idea for an old school donk deck. If you ever feel like playing with the first few sets of cards, then this might be something to try out.Anyway, here's the list:Pokemon: 124 Staryu (Base)4 Hitmonchan (Base)4 Rattata (Base)Trainers: 404 Professor Oak (Base)4 Bill (Base)4 Energy Search (Fossil)4 Switch (Base)4 PokeBall (Jungle)4 Computer Search (Base)4 PlusPower (Base)4 Defender (Base)4 ItemFinder (Base)4 Gust of Wind (Base)Energy: 84 Water Energy4 Fighting EnergyBasic Strategy:Win on one of the very first turns (preferably on turn 1).Explanation of the CardsHitmonchan, Staryu, RattataThese are the attackers of the deck. Why pick them? Each can do 20 damage for 1 energy. They are some of the best basic attackers in my opinion.
Pokemon List
Also, you must remember that old cards weren't nearly as powerful as they are today. Now 90 HP for a Stage 1 is bad. Back then, that was very good. Anyway, what these guys are here to do is pack on quick damage in combination with PlusPower. In this way, they have the potential to do 60 damage for 1 energy, and that's not even accounting for weakness. That's the other reason for the choices. You can play them against different types.
Realistically, Rattata could be swapped out for Machop, but Psychic resistance could be nice if you ever have to play a 'real' match. That's the other reason I chose Hitmonchan over Machop. It has more HP and a second attack that can be useful in fuller games. It has 2 retreat, but that's basically irrelevant.PlusPowerThis card is very simple: your attack does 10 extra damage after weakness and resistance. Play 4 and you're doing 60 damage for 1 energy. That's enough to KO a lot of basic Pokemon.
And if you have a type advantage, you'll be doing 80 (20x2=40 and 40+40=80). Naturally, your goal is to get as many of these as you need.Professor OakThis card is excellent draw power. You discard your hand and draw 7 cards. In this deck, your hand isn't too important. And any important stuff can be burned through, since this deck is literally 2/3 Trainers. With the help of this card, you could draw your entire deck on the first turn.
4 of these gives you 28 cards. If you add the 7 cards you started with and the 1 card you drew at the start of your turn, it makes 36 cards. Odds are that you'll get 2 PlusPowers this way.BillGood old Bill. It's a shame he's a Supporter now. With old school cards, he wasn't which means if you played 4 in a turn, you'd draw 8 cards.
You've got to remember that you're drawing a ton of cards with Professor Oaks. So use up your Bills, attach any needed PlusPowers you may have gotten (if you need them) and continue burning through your deck before using an Oak.Defender, Gust of WindDefender makes the Pokemon it's attached to take 20 less damage. Gust of Wind allows you to switch one of your opponent's benched Pokemon with his active. These are here in case you have to play full games.SwitchThis is here in case you have to switch out a Pokemon (for example, you start with Hitmonchan and it turns out you're playing against a fire deck, which Staryu has an advantage over).ItemFinderThis card is great. You discard 2 cards and take a Trainer from your discard pile. Like this, you can discard useless cards (Pokemon, Energy, and a lot of Trainers will be useless to you in your situation; use your best judgment to figure out which ones those are) and get back draw power cards like Bill and Professor Oak. If you recycle these guys, you can literally draw your entire deck on turn 1.Computer Search, Energy Search, PokeBallThese are here for thinning your deck and also finding you what you need.
Computer search makes you discard 2 cards and pick any card you want from your deck. This is excellent because you can find Trainers like PlusPower and Professor Oak. Energy Search lets you take a basic Energy from your deck. This can be useful from time to time, but mainly it's there to get cards out of your deck. Same with PokeBall (though that lets you find a Pokemon and only if you get heads).The idea behind thinning your deck is that it's easier to draw Trainers if there is a higher density of them. Take this example: In scenario 1, you have 30 cards left in your deck with 1 PlusPower among Energy and Pokemon somewhere in there.
If you use a Professor Oak, you'll draw 7 and have about a 25% chance of drawing that PlusPower. In scenario 2, you used Energy Searches, PokeBalls, and other search cards to thin your deck down to 20 cards with 1 PlusPower still in there. Using an Oak now will give you about a 33% chance of drawing that PlusPower.Water Energy, Fighting EnergyWell, they're energy. You'll only really need 1 to use your most important attack, though more fighting energy might be useful for Hitmonchan if you have to play a full match. There are 4 of each in case some are prized, and because I run 4 of everything else.So that actually about sums up the strategy. If you know why all the cards are there, you can figure out how to play the deck.
You just thin your deck, draw a lot of cards, then try to get the turn 1 KO.So tell me what you guys thought! Remember, this is a deck based on old school cards and was made just for fun. I am not a fan of donking, but it's sometimes fun just to try out.