I think something you forgot with Lance's deck is Aerodactyl can be absolutely brutal when playing first because you get the chance to evolve all your pokemon, then evolve into Aerodactyl and stop the opponent's evolutions.
It’s absolutely a strategy. I was just looking at it from the viewpoint that it COULD still stifle your own deck here. Aerodactyl works best if you focus on using basics.
Hey, Paraspectre! Just wanted to let you know, you are currently one of my favourite youtubers and I appreciate all the work and effort you put into your videos. They bring me comfort and joy and it always brightens my day to see a new upload! Keep up the great work!
As someone who’s still obsessed with the original cards, this has really become my favorite channel to listen to while I’m at the gym or doing stuff around the house
For simplicity’s sake. If you’re ACTUALLY basing a deck around Misty, you certainly wouldn’t only use two Staryu and a Starmie unless you were doing it for a challenge
That gengar is sooooo cool , I always want it to make it viable on base neo decks but that 3 energy attack cost is so difficult to pull off due to energy removals :(. Great video my guy.
Alakazam and mr mime are such a crazy combination. It'll be super hard for the enemy to deal with him. My deck in my latest playthrough was used Sabrina's team as a core but with slowbro instead of venemoth
I just can't help but smile when I wake up and there is a new paraspectre video to sweeten my daily morning routine befor I goo to work. Thx man alway enjoy your content
Content wise, i think the generation by generation idea is awesome! Maybe go through their respective TCG series? Might need to look back at Kanto with the team rocket and gym leaders sets. Also makes me want to see a tournament with players using these decks.
@Paraspectre Might I suggest doing a video on the rival teams in TCG form? Since in Gen 1, your rivals team changes? Heck, you could add the rivals Yellow teams for added length. o o
I thought this was going to be the set that had _gym leader’s name_ Pokémon. Ex. Erika’s Jigglypuff, Brock’s Zubat, Misty’s Dewgong. I always wondered if they had a deck strategy together and they had really unique Pokémon. I kind of remember someone getting Dragonair/Dragonite? 😳
your videos really make me wanna try to build old-school decks for tabletop formats with my friends. super nostalgic for all the cards of this era, and I really wish the tcg weren't so guilty of power creep
I never got to experience the Pokemon TCG as kid since I never knew its existence until much later. My real experience on this card game is where I played the TCG for GBC during my first college life in which that is where I have a lot of memories on having a good time.
It was funny to see Agatha at the top with a grass psychic type. When lost origins came out, I ran a grass psychic lost zone deck with Giratina v star. I'm just picturing a fairly normal battle until she whips out a beefed up Giratina and runs your pockets.
Personally, I think this concept could be expanded slightly to include all the versions of these trainers. For example, maybe consider Brock with the Fossils because of Gen 2's rematch fight. Or consider Koga with the Venomoth line due to Yellow. At the least, I think it would be interesting to see how some choices would drastically allow shaping a deck, but it would also need to allow not requiring every pokemon as there would be too much for some and too little for others...
@@Paraspectre Really looking forward to the Johto gym leaders version. Especially if you also do one about the johto VS set. It's really disappointing we never got that set in the West.
Some teams in yellow are very different. Blane has a Ninetales, Rapidash and Arcanine, while Koga has three venonat and a venomoth, so there would be some very noticeable shifts.
This reminds me when playing the original pokemon trading card game on the gameboy the way I beat the psychic gym leader was that it consued all his deck cards and thus lost by default.
It is technically possible. You could code an actual tourney in a TCG emulator. Or you could go the content route and get some friends together and battle it out with the deck in a real tournament.
Sweet video. I pretty much agree with what you had. There can be preferences with the elite four which put one above another, but that is personal taste at that point. I definitly want to build the good decks here and battle.
@@Paraspectre Personally Lance having Gyarados, which is my favorite mon, adds some points. Plus Hyper Beam from Dragonaire dealing damage and knocking off an energy from the defending mon can be crippling. But yes, Agatha is first b/c Gengar and Haunter are so much fun to play. Then Lance. I actuall have Bruno above Loreli b/c Cloyster could do absoluting nothing and has 50hp; you don't attack with Slowbro if you want to utilize the full potential of the power; Lapras only does 30 damage and needs 3 energy to do it; Jynx is fine; Dewgong is good dealing 50. Bruno has the hitmon's and Lee's move are both great, Chan's quick jab's are very good; and while Onix is a dud, use it as a stall to evolve and power up The Champ and do some damage. It would be sweet to battle your Loreli deck vs my Bruno deck, winner gets the Agatha deck vs Lance. Then to cap off a potential tie, if the Lance deck beats Agatha, they get an Ash deck customized to cherry pick any of the mon he used in the anime vs a Gary deck. Legit would consider flying out if you wanted to do this. I have base -> gym hero/challenge printed out as proxies.
I agree. I have played ptcgo ( by that I mean playing with modern cards ) but the dynamics and dependency on single cards was frustrating. Also I'm done with it because ptcgl really sucks.
I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing videos of each generations gym leaders evaluated this way but keeping future gen’s to just the card sets that came out in those gen’s. Example: Gen 3 gym leaders are only limited to cards that came out in Gen 3 range.
Shoutouts to the Karate Master that mulls for Hitmonchan in the opener 50% of the time and might actually be the strongest deck as a result, full of slots for trainer cards in the rest of the deck.
I JUST realized that when you say "paraspectre will return", it's an homage to Bond, because you love the films so much. I feel a little silly for not realizing it until now. 😅
Funnily enough, going by the Gym Heroes/Challenge cards, Brock probably has the strongest deck archetypes. He's still probably not the *best* if you stick with your rules of one card per Pokémon on the actual team, but he's got a lot more potential than Base Set Onix/friggin' Fossil Geodude allow for. Actually, this might be a fun topic to revisit after you've gone through Gym Heroes/Challenge, since there's a lot of experimental moves in those sets. Good stuff as always!
@@zoa1-99....... You misunderstood the intent of the video; from the thumbnail art, Paraspectre was pretty clear that this wouldn't be focusing on the Gym sets. Moreover, in addition to leaving your own comment expressing your frustration (which, I don't share your sentiments, but is perfectly fair to do), you posted under some random dude's comment and co-opted it to reiterate your stance (which is a pretty weird thing to do). Ergo, you're not chill; ergo, dude chill.
@@BearofLightness "Thier original Pokemon TCG cards" means stuff like Misty's Goldeen, Brock's Geodude etc. The base set etc, aren't their original cards, easy to comprehend logic, I was lied to. You mentioned the lack of Gym sets, so it's not a random post. I took the time to read it then I responded.
Cool video idea, ive been trying arround with upgrading my waterblast starter deck with better versions of the pokemon within but its hard sorting through all of the different versions.
Funnily, I actually already did a gym leader deck challenge with Giovanni (including Persian from Yellow) in the GB game. The worst part was trying to get all the cards before being able to play, especially Nidoking.
Id love for you to go all the way through to gen 9 with this. But maybe to balance the teams make all gym leaders capable of using all stages of their Pokémon. Example brock can use steelix if you do his team updated. ALSO allow decks to be build as you would a normal deck (example misty has 1 starmie but she can have to to 4 in her deck) tell me what you think. I love the videos and hope to see more
While an interesting concept, the problem with these decks is that they all get absolutely destroyed by cards and decks that were so prominent back then. Brock stands no chance against Scyther, Misty loses to Electabuzz, Surge is done in by Hitmonchan, Blaine to Rain Dance decks, Erika to Fossil Magmar, Giovanni to Scyther and Promo Mewtwo, and Sabrina to any Haymaker deck that includes Promo Mewtwo. The main thing to remember is that Stage 2 Pokémon were rarely ever used between these 3 sets, with the exceptions of Venusaur and Blastoise. The path to leveling them up was too risky, especially since their Basic Pokémon had a tendency to be too fragile, with common weaknesses and low HP. If you got them to a Stage 2, you'd likely have taken on too much damage to make any use of them.
My best Gen1 deck was 4 Jigglypuffs, 4 Wigglytuffs, 4 Poke Dolls, 4 Mysterious Fossils, 2-3 Scythers, 2-3 Electabuzz. I would usually have a Wigglytuff dropping 60 DAMAGE hits by the SECOND MOVE of the match. No other deck can do 60 DAMAGE BY MOVE 2. So if you're not taking advantage of the full bench, then you don't understand how OVERPOWERED Wigglytuff is. I seriously won many TCG tournaments with my Wigglytuff deck.
I'll have to search Reddit but I did a breakdown of the card art of this set. I think all together there were just nine artists and one of those is Imakuni? and I'm not sure if he counts. That said for a second largely use the stock market I think they did it in some very creative ways like kogas Beedrill
Would the rankings still stand if items were taken into consideration. For example, Lt. Surge uses X Speed while Misty uses X Defense. Becaue X Speed does not exist in the TCG, I assume Misty gets Defender while Surge gets nothing.
You could view it that way, yeah. This is kinda why I feel like it was a mistake of me to pretend they are the decks though. I really just want to compare the Pokémon themselves
I probably used Koga's team to a T before. Grass is definitely my favorite type in the early TCG, because it's so versatile - varied weaknesses, lots of status options, healing (on the actual Grass and Bug types) and a surprising amount of searchability (Bellsprout, Oddish and Nidoran F all can look for basic pokemon). Koga's particular brand of Grass deck is pretty fun to use too. Weezing + Defender is a pretty sick combination for dealing damage and Muk helps countering Psychic matchups (since Psychic in that format would probably rely on Alakazam's, Mr. Mime's and Slowbro's pokepowers. Yeah, definitely the one I'd use. For the E4, I think I actually like Bruno's deck most. It's definitely shaky because Fighting is so well-resisted in the early sets, but the hard and fast hitting from Hitmonchan is just too good. Stretch Kick also lets you somewhat bypass the resistances. Definitely my pick for fun, but I think Lorelei is the best one. Dewgong always makes me think it's there just to redeem the RBY version of it since it's so strong and Lapras is just really solid. Slowbro doesn't even need energy to be useful and Jynx' moves are cheap enough to not mess up consistency. I went with free picking for trainer cards in my thoughts, which enables stuff like Defender-Selfdestruct or Defender-Take Down, but if you were crazy for pain, you could in theory limit yourself to the items they programmed to use (or equivalent options)
I've got to swap Lorelei with Agatha, especially if you limit unevolved attacks. Too much waiting to get the right evolution so you can attack. I think Lorelei will be more consistent
I just thought it would be simpler to examine their teams as they exactly are. If you were to build a deck around any of them, I think it would require a lot of customization
@Paraspectre Adding 4 of each in Blaine's or even Lt. Surge's team would give them a way better chance against Sabrina, Erika or Giovanni. Same for Bruno; he has a pretty beefed deck if it has 3 hitmonchan, hitmonlee, machamp evolution-line and a few onix. The rest of the 60 cards is just filling with 3 Prof. Oak, Bill, PC Search, Poketrader, Item Finder, (Super) Energy Removal and like 14-20 Energy (to keep it somewhat balanced instead of the usual 10-16 Energies)...
I agree! But I wanted to only compare their teams as they actually are. It would be a different ballpark if you’re comparing their Gold/Silver or Black/White 2 teams as well
This video prompted me to go look at Geodude's stone barrage some more. You've talked about it before, but I don't think you ever went very far into the math. You are of course correct that it usually does 0 or 10 damage, and that it technically could do an infinite amount of damage. But the math works out so that it actually only averages 10 damage per attack. And at a cost of 2 energies, that makes it the worst attack I could find in the Gen 1 and 2 sets in terms of average damage per energy with no other beneficial effects. (Neo Genesis Clefairy is a close second, since it also averages 10 damage for 2 energies without beneficial effects. But since it's more likely to do 10 damage than 0 damage, it's probably still better.)
I haven't noticed it until now but the in game order of the Elite 4 are kinda in the order of who would beat who. Lorelei's Ice Types lose to Bruno(ignoring the fact that Slowbro would mop the floor with Bruno), Bruno is unable to really hit Agatha's Ghost and Poison Types in a meaningful way, Agatha can't really beat Lance because he has a massive Base Stat advantage. Lance is on top because he never fought Lorelei in the bracket.
17:52 Ugh just do a single video covering all three team(s) and negate duplicates. Reference that if x mon is in this deck it lands at rank d instead of g sort of thing. It would be a solid video and you know it.
I'm not surprised just like in the games Sabrina is always the best and the hardest to deal with. Also Psychic gym leaders are always the most annoying to deal with anyways.
I think something that needs mentioned is that you can only have 4 copies of a card that isnt a basic energy. This means Misty only has four pokemon max as Starmie has to to evolve from Staryu, for a maximum of 240 total HP. Granted that is in flux due to recover being a thing and you'll probably have plenty of energy because what else are you going to stuff this deck with, but it runs in to the awkward situation of some stuff just one shotting it. 60 is not a high bar to clear. Misty may in fact be worse than Brock if you look at these leaders through the lens of a legal 60 card deck.
Yeah I just wanted to keep it simple and look at their exact teams. If you were to build a legit Misty deck, you would never only use two Staryu and a Starmie, unless it was for a challenge idea.
I think Lorelei would be the strongest. Honestly I've found both the Lapras and Dewgong to be very, very strong when combined with the right trainers, which these decks would be loaded up with tons of.
@@Paraspectre here's the write up on the card art I did if you're interested: I like the set and the art but it does feel very... a lot. So there are 250 cards in the english sets, in terms of unique art, and you could add __________'s Chansey and Imakuni?'s Doduo if you wanted to and that would make it 252. If you're thinking "Hey isn't it 252 in english also?" you'd be right but Koga and Giovanni didn't have theme decks, so they didn't have special non-holo variants, so their art is just the same. There were three cards that had art changes but they kept the same artist so you can buff it to 255 if you really want but you'd need to add 2 more to the art done by Ken Sugimori. Out of the 250 unique arts 194 are by Ken Sugimori. That means only 56 cards across both sets have different artists (Not counting __________'s Chansey and Imakuni?'s Doduo. Though both Kagemaru Himeno and Imakuni? only illustrated those cards). Keiji Kinebuchi illustrated 19 cards. These were mostly Stadium Cards, but there were a handful of other odd ones, including Master Ball, which isn't as good as its Ace Spec print, but you can have 4 of them! Sumiyoshi Kizuki illustrated 3 cards, Recall, Tickling Machine, Koga's Ninja Trick. The later does have an alternate art. These early Sumiyoshi Kizuki cards are really some of my favorites, honestly. Hikaru Koike illustrated one card, Max Revive. They seem very strange, they did illustrations for Graveler and Guard Spec. from the vending series, Magneton, Elekid, Porygon2 from Aquapolis, Beedrill Jolteon, Ledian and Steelix from Skyrige, Aerodactyl ex, Gardevoir ex from Sandstrom, and Vaporeon ex from Delta species, then nothing ever again. Their CG art looks very different from Keiji Kinebuchi and way different from Big Mama Togawa and CG gangs that probably ended up replacing them. Shame, I actually quite like this better than most CG cards we get. Shin-ichi Yoshida illustrated 3 cards, Rocket's Mewtwo, Rocket's Snorlax, and Rocket's Zapdos. They're some of the most recognizable cards in these sets I think Benimaru Itoh illustrated one card, Brock's Onix. He only illustrated 5 cards ever and Brock's Onix and a Steelix Promo he did are very different looking from the VHS Mewtwo promo he drew. Oh by the way, he's a manga artist (he did the Star Fox and Super Metroid comics in Nintendo Power), did the character designs for Earthbound, and currently works on the Kirby series. I love his art, wish they'd hire him more often (or at all). The person who drew the most cards outside Sugimori was Atsuko Nishida, aka the woman who designed Pikachu. This one took a bit because she drew promo art for 4 of the cards that weren't used in the set properly (and sadly we only ever got one of these arts as promo 19). All told, 30 of the English cards we got were illustrated by Nishida. And all totaled my math is off I fucked up somewhere. Anyway. It's very interesting to me that they didn't invest too much in outside artists for these sets, instead using their two main internal artists, Sugimori and Nishida, as well as Creature's resident CGI artist, Kinebuchi. If I were to guess these sets were being created during a financial crunch. Based on the timing, I'm guessing they had to budget these due to the Electric Soldier Porygon incident. Whatever it was, it got Ken Sugimori to do some actual original art for the TCG, which he hasn't done very often. The only exceptions are the Entei and Charizard from the Neo 2 file and the Shining Pokemon from Neo Destiny.
Overall your analysis was good but I disagree with you on Agatha. I actually consider her deck to be the 2nd weakest of the elite four. The reason being her ghost pokemon all suck against colorless types due to resistance. They especially suck against Snorlax who has pokemon power: thick skinned which renders both Haunter’s sleep attacks useless. I used to wipe the floor with all the psychic club members using my colorless decks.
I think something you forgot with Lance's deck is Aerodactyl can be absolutely brutal when playing first because you get the chance to evolve all your pokemon, then evolve into Aerodactyl and stop the opponent's evolutions.
It’s absolutely a strategy. I was just looking at it from the viewpoint that it COULD still stifle your own deck here. Aerodactyl works best if you focus on using basics.
Next can you rate each trainer based on their tcg pokemon in the gym set like blaines charizard, etc
Seconded!
THIS! I dont know why he didn't in the first place
Yeah, that's what i thought this video WAS initially.
I was wondering why this _wasn’t_ that
Do you know how many trainers are in the game?
This is such a fun idea. I really think that the classic TCG has a lot of untapped potential, so this channel is always a blast.
Thanks! I plan on doing more of these
the megaman X ost sounds so fire when talking about pokemon idk why, specially when it thematically fits the pokemon type
So many of them matched up quite well
Hey, Paraspectre! Just wanted to let you know, you are currently one of my favourite youtubers and I appreciate all the work and effort you put into your videos.
They bring me comfort and joy and it always brightens my day to see a new upload! Keep up the great work!
That’s honestly really awesome to hear, thank you.
As someone who’s still obsessed with the original cards, this has really become my favorite channel to listen to while I’m at the gym or doing stuff around the house
I appreciate that!
At the beginning, I thought you were doing a video about Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge's cards. 🤣 Very nice video!
Same :/
Great video! Can't wait to see where it goes next!
Poor, poor Brock
You're only giving them one copy of each Pokemon? I think I can finally see why Paraspectre doesn't think Wigglytuff is good.
Para catching shit for his hot take on wiggs is becoming my new favorite meme
Well, his video, his rules.
Yeah, there's a lot to argue about his way of deckbuilding, but fun videos like these keeps me coming back. Good job!
For simplicity’s sake. If you’re ACTUALLY basing a deck around Misty, you certainly wouldn’t only use two Staryu and a Starmie unless you were doing it for a challenge
Jungles Jigglypuff is just as good as the Wiggly after. Instant sleep...
Bruh!😂 At 22:11, didn't expect for you to include the bloopers. Either way, awesome video!
Legit might actually use some of these for TCG GB deck ideas. The Sabrina and Giovanni ones in particular seem super fun
Agrega las expansiones R y quizá alguno de los 12 mostrados en el vídeo pueda subir o descender un par de puestos por las cartas " dark "
I agree. So many ideas for a challenge video
That gengar is sooooo cool , I always want it to make it viable on base neo decks but that 3 energy attack cost is so difficult to pull off due to energy removals :(. Great video my guy.
Thank you! Yeah Gengar’s card pretty much rocks.
Alakazam and mr mime are such a crazy combination. It'll be super hard for the enemy to deal with him. My deck in my latest playthrough was used Sabrina's team as a core but with slowbro instead of venemoth
Yeah Slowbro would make it even more rough to deal with that deck
I just can't help but smile when I wake up and there is a new paraspectre video to sweeten my daily morning routine befor I goo to work.
Thx man alway enjoy your content
Why thanks!
i had no idea this was a video i needed in my life
keep it up homie
Thank you 😊
Content wise, i think the generation by generation idea is awesome! Maybe go through their respective TCG series? Might need to look back at Kanto with the team rocket and gym leaders sets.
Also makes me want to see a tournament with players using these decks.
Yes, I plan on going further with this idea 😊
@Paraspectre Might I suggest doing a video on the rival teams in TCG form? Since in Gen 1, your rivals team changes? Heck, you could add the rivals Yellow teams for added length. o o
It's always a good day when you post Paraspectre
Why thank you!
I thought this was going to be the set that had _gym leader’s name_ Pokémon. Ex. Erika’s Jigglypuff, Brock’s Zubat, Misty’s Dewgong. I always wondered if they had a deck strategy together and they had really unique Pokémon. I kind of remember someone getting Dragonair/Dragonite? 😳
This was a really fun video idea. Interesting to think of what the decks would look like with such a limitation.
Yeah I thought it would be simpler just to compare their Pokémon alone rather than make decks
Always a good night when there’s a new paraspectre video to watch
your videos really make me wanna try to build old-school decks for tabletop formats with my friends. super nostalgic for all the cards of this era, and I really wish the tcg weren't so guilty of power creep
Sounds fun! Sure. If you need to study them go ahead. I look forward to more from your card analysis.
Oh there will be more ☺️
I never got to experience the Pokemon TCG as kid since I never knew its existence until much later. My real experience on this card game is where I played the TCG for GBC during my first college life in which that is where I have a lot of memories on having a good time.
It’s still a really fun solo experience too
It was funny to see Agatha at the top with a grass psychic type. When lost origins came out, I ran a grass psychic lost zone deck with Giratina v star. I'm just picturing a fairly normal battle until she whips out a beefed up Giratina and runs your pockets.
Did you take into consideration though that they have different rosters in r/b and yellow?
I sure did! But I’m a chronologist, so I had to start at the beginning
@@Paraspectre sent you an intresting email
Loving the MMX music
This was a great idea
Ngl. I love the Mega Man X music in the back with you trying to match them based on the respective maverick
It surprisingly lined up quite well. Only a couple were kinda there by default like Storm Eagle
@@Paraspectre I'm so used to fighting Storm Eagle first out of boredom that I didn't even notice that lmao
Try the Gym Leaders in Kanto of G/S/C. Way more interesting combo's.
The leader of the fighting dojo would be interesting also.
I certainly plan on doing more with this idea
Personally, I think this concept could be expanded slightly to include all the versions of these trainers. For example, maybe consider Brock with the Fossils because of Gen 2's rematch fight. Or consider Koga with the Venomoth line due to Yellow.
At the least, I think it would be interesting to see how some choices would drastically allow shaping a deck, but it would also need to allow not requiring every pokemon as there would be too much for some and too little for others...
I plan on making more videos with this idea. But I had to start from the beginning: first games with the first cards
@@Paraspectre I absolutely can agree with that. Start with the basic answer, and explore new avenues as you wish. I really tend to enjoy your videos.
@@Paraspectre Really looking forward to the Johto gym leaders version. Especially if you also do one about the johto VS set. It's really disappointing we never got that set in the West.
I love this kinda content lol what an absolute classic. Would yellow be much different? I suppose the change to yellow are mostly movesets…
Some teams in yellow are very different. Blane has a Ninetales, Rapidash and Arcanine, while Koga has three venonat and a venomoth, so there would be some very noticeable shifts.
Yeah, Yellow is different, but I wanted to start with the first games with the first cards. Keeps it simple and organized
This reminds me when playing the original pokemon trading card game on the gameboy the way I beat the psychic gym leader was that it consued all his deck cards and thus lost by default.
Not sure if it would be possible, but seeing a TCG game tourney with all 8 gym leaders using cards from the sets would be fun content to see.
It is technically possible. You could code an actual tourney in a TCG emulator. Or you could go the content route and get some friends together and battle it out with the deck in a real tournament.
I think they would require some customization to have it be a fair fight. Whoever is representing Brock would have no chance ☺️
@@ParaspectreSo basically Brock becomes the Matthew of the tournament? 🤣
So fitting ☺️
@Paraspectre What cha mean! All yah got tah do is draw straws. Totally fair. XD
Love this, thank you.
Thank you for checking it out 😊
While I normally enjoy the BGM during your vids, as a huge mega man fan I'm LOVING the BGM in this one 🤘😎🤘
Almost everything matched up perfectly too
Sweet video. I pretty much agree with what you had. There can be preferences with the elite four which put one above another, but that is personal taste at that point. I definitly want to build the good decks here and battle.
Yeah the elite four was pretty much a toss up for me
@@Paraspectre Personally Lance having Gyarados, which is my favorite mon, adds some points. Plus Hyper Beam from Dragonaire dealing damage and knocking off an energy from the defending mon can be crippling. But yes, Agatha is first b/c Gengar and Haunter are so much fun to play. Then Lance. I actuall have Bruno above Loreli b/c Cloyster could do absoluting nothing and has 50hp; you don't attack with Slowbro if you want to utilize the full potential of the power; Lapras only does 30 damage and needs 3 energy to do it; Jynx is fine; Dewgong is good dealing 50. Bruno has the hitmon's and Lee's move are both great, Chan's quick jab's are very good; and while Onix is a dud, use it as a stall to evolve and power up The Champ and do some damage.
It would be sweet to battle your Loreli deck vs my Bruno deck, winner gets the Agatha deck vs Lance. Then to cap off a potential tie, if the Lance deck beats Agatha, they get an Ash deck customized to cherry pick any of the mon he used in the anime vs a Gary deck. Legit would consider flying out if you wanted to do this. I have base -> gym hero/challenge printed out as proxies.
Old Pokémon was simple and the best. Enjoyable up to around 2008
I agree. I have played ptcgo ( by that I mean playing with modern cards ) but the dynamics and dependency on single cards was frustrating. Also I'm done with it because ptcgl really sucks.
That's a shame; as someone who basically only bought them for the art, that aspect has really just gotten better over the years.
I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing videos of each generations gym leaders evaluated this way but keeping future gen’s to just the card sets that came out in those gen’s. Example: Gen 3 gym leaders are only limited to cards that came out in Gen 3 range.
Shoutouts to the Karate Master that mulls for Hitmonchan in the opener 50% of the time and might actually be the strongest deck as a result, full of slots for trainer cards in the rest of the deck.
I JUST realized that when you say "paraspectre will return", it's an homage to Bond, because you love the films so much.
I feel a little silly for not realizing it until now. 😅
Haha you may be the only person to ever actually acknowledge that though 😅
I too like the Fossil Raichu. Maybe it's the artwork.
It’s a fun one to pull off
Funnily enough, going by the Gym Heroes/Challenge cards, Brock probably has the strongest deck archetypes. He's still probably not the *best* if you stick with your rules of one card per Pokémon on the actual team, but he's got a lot more potential than Base Set Onix/friggin' Fossil Geodude allow for. Actually, this might be a fun topic to revisit after you've gone through Gym Heroes/Challenge, since there's a lot of experimental moves in those sets.
Good stuff as always!
but he didn't so this video is clickbait.
@@zoa1-99....... dude chill
@@BearofLightness I am chill, I'm just stating a very obvious point that I've been misled.
@@zoa1-99....... You misunderstood the intent of the video; from the thumbnail art, Paraspectre was pretty clear that this wouldn't be focusing on the Gym sets. Moreover, in addition to leaving your own comment expressing your frustration (which, I don't share your sentiments, but is perfectly fair to do), you posted under some random dude's comment and co-opted it to reiterate your stance (which is a pretty weird thing to do). Ergo, you're not chill; ergo, dude chill.
@@BearofLightness "Thier original Pokemon TCG cards" means stuff like Misty's Goldeen, Brock's Geodude etc. The base set etc, aren't their original cards, easy to comprehend logic, I was lied to. You mentioned the lack of Gym sets, so it's not a random post. I took the time to read it then I responded.
Cool video idea, ive been trying arround with upgrading my waterblast starter deck with better versions of the pokemon within but its hard sorting through all of the different versions.
Funnily, I actually already did a gym leader deck challenge with Giovanni (including Persian from Yellow) in the GB game. The worst part was trying to get all the cards before being able to play, especially Nidoking.
I love the megaman theme music in through background!
It just seemed like the right choice
You should do the gym leader hero’s series as if the gym leaders had those Pokémon as their badge defense team
I kinda like the idea of a TCG based game with the main series gym leaders using decks based in their in-game teams now.
That would be quite enjoyable. Perfect for a rom hack
Challenge run idea: any Pokemon, any number, but you can only use attacks that flip coins. Y'know, if you feel like hating everything for a bit.
Good vid, but I was wondering if it's possible to add custom cards to the game?
Definitely do this with other reigons, and maybe a full theoretical decklist for each?
I plan on doing more of these, yes. There are a lot of possible video ideas for them
@@Paraspectre hell yeah!
I dont know if you ever got into the gym heroes and gym challenge sets but those are some of my favorite sets of all time
I will be getting to them in due time! Going over every card and a video like this
Excellent soundtrack choice.
I think you majorly underrate Arodactyl here. Especially if you're not allowing the basics to attack
It’s just a hypothetical for this deck example alone. Aerodactyl can be an absolute game changer.
I played competitively with a Koga's deck 20 years ago LOL
It was extremely effective... but not with the basic set versions of the cards.
what about using the cards that were released as the gym leaders set?
I plan on doing just that!
Id love for you to go all the way through to gen 9 with this. But maybe to balance the teams make all gym leaders capable of using all stages of their Pokémon. Example brock can use steelix if you do his team updated. ALSO allow decks to be build as you would a normal deck (example misty has 1 starmie but she can have to to 4 in her deck) tell me what you think. I love the videos and hope to see more
Would you do this again with the Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge cards?
Absolutely. Maybe down the road
Something i like thinking about is "what games is onix usable in"
So far the only that really come to mind are pokemon masters ex and the card game
While an interesting concept, the problem with these decks is that they all get absolutely destroyed by cards and decks that were so prominent back then.
Brock stands no chance against Scyther, Misty loses to Electabuzz, Surge is done in by Hitmonchan, Blaine to Rain Dance decks, Erika to Fossil Magmar, Giovanni to Scyther and Promo Mewtwo, and Sabrina to any Haymaker deck that includes Promo Mewtwo.
The main thing to remember is that Stage 2 Pokémon were rarely ever used between these 3 sets, with the exceptions of Venusaur and Blastoise. The path to leveling them up was too risky, especially since their Basic Pokémon had a tendency to be too fragile, with common weaknesses and low HP. If you got them to a Stage 2, you'd likely have taken on too much damage to make any use of them.
I mean… if you’re using any of these gym leader “decks” against a well built deck, I think it’s lights out every time.
Wizards OTC run of Pokemon really was the gold standard.
Since Brock's deck would suck so much... Time for. Challenge Playthrough of TCG?
Yeah that would be horrible.
Lance's deck may work if evolve ur Pokemon first, then lock down ur opponent. That way the match would be one sided
My best Gen1 deck was 4 Jigglypuffs, 4 Wigglytuffs, 4 Poke Dolls, 4 Mysterious Fossils, 2-3 Scythers, 2-3 Electabuzz. I would usually have a Wigglytuff dropping 60 DAMAGE hits by the SECOND MOVE of the match. No other deck can do 60 DAMAGE BY MOVE 2. So if you're not taking advantage of the full bench, then you don't understand how OVERPOWERED Wigglytuff is. I seriously won many TCG tournaments with my Wigglytuff deck.
You could have included the Rocket set’s basic Pokémon for some of these.
I'll have to search Reddit but I did a breakdown of the card art of this set. I think all together there were just nine artists and one of those is Imakuni? and I'm not sure if he counts.
That said for a second largely use the stock market I think they did it in some very creative ways like kogas Beedrill
Why not their mons from Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge?
I plan on doing so!
( spanish )
Ya ha habido un intento de armar un deck tematico de cada lider?...
If Elite 4 is part 2, can part 3 be the gym leaders in Gen 2, including any Johto pokemon?
I’ll definitely be making more videos with this idea
Paraspectre will return in “The Man with the Gholdengo”
Wow. Yes. Too bad I made my channel before SV came out. Also not a huge Gholdengo fan ☺️
Would love to se this for jhoto
I’m quite sure I’ll be doing this
Would the rankings still stand if items were taken into consideration. For example, Lt. Surge uses X Speed while Misty uses X Defense. Becaue X Speed does not exist in the TCG, I assume Misty gets Defender while Surge gets nothing.
You could view it that way, yeah. This is kinda why I feel like it was a mistake of me to pretend they are the decks though. I really just want to compare the Pokémon themselves
Will you be doing gen 2 using the sets up until when all of gen 2 was released?
I certainly will!
@@Paraspectre woo! You got my subscription :)
You should do it for every region. And with stuff like "Misty's Goldeen"
I actually plan on it!
@Paraspectre buddy you juat earned a subscriber!
I used the shit out of Rapidash at Wizards when I was like 7 or 8
A solid card for sure
I got a paras full art from crown zenith and a parasect from lost origin trainer gallery holo
You should allow them to use their teams from heart gold and soul silver
Anyone else notice the megaman x soundtrack in the background?! Nice choice!!!!
I probably used Koga's team to a T before. Grass is definitely my favorite type in the early TCG, because it's so versatile - varied weaknesses, lots of status options, healing (on the actual Grass and Bug types) and a surprising amount of searchability (Bellsprout, Oddish and Nidoran F all can look for basic pokemon). Koga's particular brand of Grass deck is pretty fun to use too. Weezing + Defender is a pretty sick combination for dealing damage and Muk helps countering Psychic matchups (since Psychic in that format would probably rely on Alakazam's, Mr. Mime's and Slowbro's pokepowers. Yeah, definitely the one I'd use.
For the E4, I think I actually like Bruno's deck most. It's definitely shaky because Fighting is so well-resisted in the early sets, but the hard and fast hitting from Hitmonchan is just too good. Stretch Kick also lets you somewhat bypass the resistances. Definitely my pick for fun, but I think Lorelei is the best one. Dewgong always makes me think it's there just to redeem the RBY version of it since it's so strong and Lapras is just really solid. Slowbro doesn't even need energy to be useful and Jynx' moves are cheap enough to not mess up consistency.
I went with free picking for trainer cards in my thoughts, which enables stuff like Defender-Selfdestruct or Defender-Take Down, but if you were crazy for pain, you could in theory limit yourself to the items they programmed to use (or equivalent options)
I could see an argument for any of the elite four being the best. I liked all of them
Oh, I thought this was going to be based on cards with names “[Trainer Name]’s [pokemon name]”
That video will also happen. Gotta start from the beginning
@@Paraspectre cool
I've got to swap Lorelei with Agatha, especially if you limit unevolved attacks. Too much waiting to get the right evolution so you can attack. I think Lorelei will be more consistent
I could see an argument for any of the elite four being the best. My Ice challenge was pretty easy
Bruno perks up on hearing he might be the very best, like no one's ever said
Fun video!
It's a nice idea, but why not working with the rules of TGC; use a maximum of 4 copies of each card? Very different result would occur than this list.
I just thought it would be simpler to examine their teams as they exactly are. If you were to build a deck around any of them, I think it would require a lot of customization
@Paraspectre Adding 4 of each in Blaine's or even Lt. Surge's team would give them a way better chance against Sabrina, Erika or Giovanni. Same for Bruno; he has a pretty beefed deck if it has 3 hitmonchan, hitmonlee, machamp evolution-line and a few onix.
The rest of the 60 cards is just filling with 3 Prof. Oak, Bill, PC Search, Poketrader, Item Finder, (Super) Energy Removal and like 14-20 Energy (to keep it somewhat balanced instead of the usual 10-16 Energies)...
I agree! But I wanted to only compare their teams as they actually are. It would be a different ballpark if you’re comparing their Gold/Silver or Black/White 2 teams as well
Why didnt you let them use the actuall gym leader card
Because I’m starting with the originals. I can always do this later on
This video prompted me to go look at Geodude's stone barrage some more. You've talked about it before, but I don't think you ever went very far into the math.
You are of course correct that it usually does 0 or 10 damage, and that it technically could do an infinite amount of damage. But the math works out so that it actually only averages 10 damage per attack. And at a cost of 2 energies, that makes it the worst attack I could find in the Gen 1 and 2 sets in terms of average damage per energy with no other beneficial effects. (Neo Genesis Clefairy is a close second, since it also averages 10 damage for 2 energies without beneficial effects. But since it's more likely to do 10 damage than 0 damage, it's probably still better.)
It’s probably one of my least favorite attacks. You’re almost always left disappointed
Do play throughs with these decks in reverse order.
A Brock challenge might break me
I haven't noticed it until now but the in game order of the Elite 4 are kinda in the order of who would beat who.
Lorelei's Ice Types lose to Bruno(ignoring the fact that Slowbro would mop the floor with Bruno), Bruno is unable to really hit Agatha's Ghost and Poison Types in a meaningful way, Agatha can't really beat Lance because he has a massive Base Stat advantage. Lance is on top because he never fought Lorelei in the bracket.
I also never thought of this
17:52 Ugh just do a single video covering all three team(s) and negate duplicates. Reference that if x mon is in this deck it lands at rank d instead of g sort of thing. It would be a solid video and you know it.
Loved the mega man x music 😁
Absolute classic
I'm a full evolution line anarchist with this I think. Let Brock use Golem, why not?
If you were building a Brock “themed” deck, then go for it! I just wanted to keep it simple and look at their exact teams.
16:55 Scott's Thoughts.
I remember Blaine had a Moltress
I'm not surprised just like in the games Sabrina is always the best and the hardest to deal with. Also Psychic gym leaders are always the most annoying to deal with anyways.
Me thinking venomoth is suppose to be psychic type
Venomoth and Golduck. They never reached their full potential
I think something that needs mentioned is that you can only have 4 copies of a card that isnt a basic energy. This means Misty only has four pokemon max as Starmie has to to evolve from Staryu, for a maximum of 240 total HP. Granted that is in flux due to recover being a thing and you'll probably have plenty of energy because what else are you going to stuff this deck with, but it runs in to the awkward situation of some stuff just one shotting it. 60 is not a high bar to clear. Misty may in fact be worse than Brock if you look at these leaders through the lens of a legal 60 card deck.
Yeah I just wanted to keep it simple and look at their exact teams. If you were to build a legit Misty deck, you would never only use two Staryu and a Starmie, unless it was for a challenge idea.
I think Lorelei would be the strongest. Honestly I've found both the Lapras and Dewgong to be very, very strong when combined with the right trainers, which these decks would be loaded up with tons of.
I can see that for sure. I pretty much used her exact deck already and that challenge wasn’t difficult.
Fossil Arbok is truly goat'd
Madlad snek
Oh nevermind this video isn't about gym Heroes or challenge. I'll come back for that one
Yep! That video is in the works
@@Paraspectre here's the write up on the card art I did if you're interested: I like the set and the art but it does feel very... a lot. So there are 250 cards in the english sets, in terms of unique art, and you could add __________'s Chansey and Imakuni?'s Doduo if you wanted to and that would make it 252. If you're thinking "Hey isn't it 252 in english also?" you'd be right but Koga and Giovanni didn't have theme decks, so they didn't have special non-holo variants, so their art is just the same. There were three cards that had art changes but they kept the same artist so you can buff it to 255 if you really want but you'd need to add 2 more to the art done by Ken Sugimori.
Out of the 250 unique arts 194 are by Ken Sugimori. That means only 56 cards across both sets have different artists (Not counting __________'s Chansey and Imakuni?'s Doduo. Though both Kagemaru Himeno and Imakuni? only illustrated those cards).
Keiji Kinebuchi illustrated 19 cards. These were mostly Stadium Cards, but there were a handful of other odd ones, including Master Ball, which isn't as good as its Ace Spec print, but you can have 4 of them!
Sumiyoshi Kizuki illustrated 3 cards, Recall, Tickling Machine, Koga's Ninja Trick. The later does have an alternate art. These early Sumiyoshi Kizuki cards are really some of my favorites, honestly.
Hikaru Koike illustrated one card, Max Revive. They seem very strange, they did illustrations for Graveler and Guard Spec. from the vending series, Magneton, Elekid, Porygon2 from Aquapolis, Beedrill Jolteon, Ledian and Steelix from Skyrige, Aerodactyl ex, Gardevoir ex from Sandstrom, and Vaporeon ex from Delta species, then nothing ever again. Their CG art looks very different from Keiji Kinebuchi and way different from Big Mama Togawa and CG gangs that probably ended up replacing them. Shame, I actually quite like this better than most CG cards we get.
Shin-ichi Yoshida illustrated 3 cards, Rocket's Mewtwo, Rocket's Snorlax, and Rocket's Zapdos. They're some of the most recognizable cards in these sets I think
Benimaru Itoh illustrated one card, Brock's Onix. He only illustrated 5 cards ever and Brock's Onix and a Steelix Promo he did are very different looking from the VHS Mewtwo promo he drew. Oh by the way, he's a manga artist (he did the Star Fox and Super Metroid comics in Nintendo Power), did the character designs for Earthbound, and currently works on the Kirby series. I love his art, wish they'd hire him more often (or at all).
The person who drew the most cards outside Sugimori was Atsuko Nishida, aka the woman who designed Pikachu. This one took a bit because she drew promo art for 4 of the cards that weren't used in the set properly (and sadly we only ever got one of these arts as promo 19). All told, 30 of the English cards we got were illustrated by Nishida.
And all totaled my math is off I fucked up somewhere. Anyway. It's very interesting to me that they didn't invest too much in outside artists for these sets, instead using their two main internal artists, Sugimori and Nishida, as well as Creature's resident CGI artist, Kinebuchi. If I were to guess these sets were being created during a financial crunch. Based on the timing, I'm guessing they had to budget these due to the Electric Soldier Porygon incident. Whatever it was, it got Ken Sugimori to do some actual original art for the TCG, which he hasn't done very often. The only exceptions are the Entei and Charizard from the Neo 2 file and the Shining Pokemon from Neo Destiny.
4-4 if they only 2 Pokémon. In my opinion
Overall your analysis was good but I disagree with you on Agatha. I actually consider her deck to be the 2nd weakest of the elite four. The reason being her ghost pokemon all suck against colorless types due to resistance. They especially suck against Snorlax who has pokemon power: thick skinned which renders both Haunter’s sleep attacks useless.
I used to wipe the floor with all the psychic club members using my colorless decks.
I think that’s a very fair point actually. It wasn’t fair to ding Fighting for all of the resistances out there when Psychic has its fair share too
Do this again with gym challenge? :) Could do the same with gen 2 with the VS series 👀