If I were designing crystal Pokémon, I would've kept the lower power level but made their attack costs only have colorless energy, as well as keeping the ability the same. This way, the crystal Pokemon could still be the versatile attacks they were intended to be, but now they are much easier to power up. Keeping the ability the same by maintaining the restricted energy types to gain the type change effect, I think, would keep them balanced as they are still limited in what types they can change into to hit for weakness.
I think their moves would still need to be improved, but otherwise I totally agree. The Crystal Pokémon should’ve been built around changing their type, not around attaching 4-6 energies one at a time. Releasing a basic Pokémon with a poke power to swap or move basic energy from one Pokémon to another would have been good for the Crystal Pokémon, allowing them to change type without sinking more energy from your hand into them. You could have incredibly versatile attackers with relatively low-powered moves, allowing for some very useful early game type coverage or a way to build up a pool of diverse energy for attacks that depend on having different types of energy attached. A true colorless/rainbow deck would be pretty cool to see, even back before steel, dragon, and dark energies were a thing.
Their attacks were also overpriced at the time in addition to making all crystal Pokémon cost colorless energy they also need to cost one or even two energies less overall.
In the modern PTCG, you can find all kinds of Pokemon that have odd conditions or costs for their attacks but have big payoffs for it. Such as discarding a bunch of Tool cards; having damage counters on every Pokemon you have in play; dealing a ton of damage to yourself in exchange, etc., etc. Sure, most of these attacks don't make meta Pokemon, but at the least, they're compelling and interesting, encouraging you to try playing the game in different ways to use these odd attacks. The throughline between them all that the Crystal Pokemon ignored.... the attacks actually did damage or did something crazy, when you finally jumped through the hoops, you got a payoff for it. Crystal Pokemon had all the hoops but very little payoff.
Exactly. Even by the standards of their time, they have some ludicrously expensive attacks for such pitiful damage output. If I’m paying 4 energy for an attack, 1 Fire, 2 Lightning, and 1 colorless, I better be winning the game next turn, damn it!
There's a Rom Hack for the GBC TCG game called TCG Neo that has Crystal Pokemon that seem pretty viable. The type changing ability lets you choose a type, as long as it matches another Pokemon in play, and their attacks only require two energy types.
Ah, memories flooding back. Life was simpler back then: just school, soccer, friends, Pokemon matches where no one actually understood a single rule about the game, trading cards just looking at their power level and artwork without understanding their actual value in cash. I really really liked Feraligatr back then, lol. I miss those times so much...
I think the easy way to fix some of them would have been to make it so that Crystal Pokémon could select their type based on the energy requirements of their attacks. That way, they can select their typing without attaching an energy while preventing them from being able to pick any type.
5:08 I disagree with the concept that crystal crobat needs 4 energy. It needs 3. You don’t have to squeeze 100% out of these Pokémon. If your deck uses the types of one of the attacks, you can just use the 1 attack. It would be flexible like a modal card where some decks use it for the first attack and others for the second. The problem is that they weren’t costed to be this way, presumably fearful that the changing types would make them too strong. So I see these as flexible cards that weren’t powered up enough to compete with their contemporaries.
Seems like Pokemon always wanted to do the whole Terrestrialize thing since the beginning, but just never knew how to make it work in the card game. They should revisit this for the cards and find a way to make it work.
I pulled Crystal Lugia when i was a little lad and had no idea of it's rarity. I didn't play the game and was more focused on collecting the cards, just thought it was neat. Fast forward to just a few months ago when going through my binder it was pointed out that Aquapolis Lugia can easily reach $2k. Insane
One of my favorite combos for enabling unusual energy costs is Ho-Oh EX and Ninja Boy. Ho-Oh's ability allows you to revive Ho-Oh from the discard and attach 3 energy of different types to it. You could use Ninja boy to swap Ho-Oh with amazing rare, Kyogre, Raikou or Yveltal depending on the energy you were running. This ability was the first ability to be able to activate in the discard pile, a quality that I'd love to see on more cards, especially with the potential it could have with V-Union's discard summoning requirements. I'd love to see a full deck revolving around Pokemon like Lost Thunder Giratina coming back over and over again to keep you up on resources
The recent Ho-oh V has a similar ability getting 4 basic energies of any types with the downside that your turn immediately ends. Still good in Ninja Bird decks, especially if you're going first and can't attack anyways.
Ngl, the fact that Crobat loses out to what I believe is a slightly improved version of an original base set pokémon (if memory serves, the improvement is that the original's attack would always discard all energy as opposed to potentially only two or even none) is kind of sad...
I'm amazed that Crystal Pokemon released and they have little to no synergy with Crystal Energy. I would've had them at least synergize with that! Like, why not have them have their first move require one of any of their three Crystal types, and their second attack require two energies of their three Crystal types + a Rainbow Energy? To illustrate, Crystal Lugia would need only one Psychic, Fire, OR Water energy to use Psychic, and then two of any combination of Psychic, Fire, OR Water Energy (so Water + Water or Fire + Psychic would work) AND a Rainbow Energy would allow it to use Steam Blast. Then the Crystal Pokemon would've been able to synergize with Rainbow and Crystal Energies while also being able to use Crystal Type to exploit weaknesses.
I went through the history of the cards recently and like gen to 2 to gen 3 were home to some of the worst gimmick mon I think I've ever seen(usually because of the energy issue or them simply discarding most of the energy off of it for a super weak attack). Its very interesting to see the growing pains of a card game looking for innovation.
So you're telling me that pokémon came up with a mechanic which is giving special crystal pokémon the ability to change their types? This mechanic may not have been very strong, but it was definitely before it's time lol. I can't believe Terastillization was invented like 20 years ago
I love this series. If I could, could I suggest that you cover Amazing Rares next in this series? I played the game throughout their entire legality. Unlike most of these other ones also I feel like they could be interesting to talk about as some of them had some neat things about them.
I think in Japan the TCG there changed the card backs once Ruby and Sapphire cards started to be printed so they had a proper rotation for these cards while in the west we’ve had the same card back since the game was initially released.
Been watching ur yugioh content for a while despite not playing yugioh, very excited to see u make pokemon content as I just got into it :D so much content to binge
Was this set cycle still in the WotC era ? I like the idea similar to MtG multicolour card except that It didn’t work in practice because the energy don’t go in your permanent mana pool like Lands do, I’ve always wondered what the game could be like if you just collect energy once per turn but have to tap them to attack/retreat 🤔 Also after looking at modern gen 9 this also looks like an early Tera concept ☀️
They were indeed among the last sets localized but Wizards of the Coast, but this had no impact on them mechanically because WotC since the beginning were merely translating and distributing the TCG outside of Japan, they had no say in any actual mechanics for the game.
It’s funny, if this was closer to the new mechanics in the newest games, Terastallization, it might have been ok. It not only changes their type, it also increases their Same type attack bonus. If Crystal type boosted the damage the turn a basic energy was attached and the attacks were cheaper, it probably would have been an ok poke-body.
I remember seeing one of this cards as a kid and thinking 'Oh my god, how are you supposed to USE this?". I thought I was just a special one off. Now I now it was a shitty part of a shitty set...
Given the Crystal Pokémon are colorless it make sense for charizard and Crobat as they are flying type Pokémon and most of flying type Pokémon are colorless. Kingdra is included as dragon were also colorless. The Crystal type poke-bodies did predicted type change on charizard, which became a lighting type delta spicies during the EX era and Crobat went from grass to psychic at the Diamond and pearl set due to change of the poison type Pokémon. Kingdra ends up requiring both the water and lighting evergy as a dragon-type starting with black and white set. Lugia may use multiple energy a couple of time, it became a water-type during the heartgold soulsilver set.
It sucks because right after the e-reader cards, we got scramble energy. Which would have been 3 rainbow energies for specifically non-ex evolution Pokemon when you were behind on prizes. But there were just better Pokemon. I think there was a deck called 4 corners which was a bunch of strong stage 1 single prize Pokemon of different types to hit different weakness
Here's how I would fix crystal Pokémon. Make all of their attacks cost only colourless energies. Give their attack a little buff. And have their crystal poke-body make them change into any type, that you last attached an energy to. It's not a perfect fix, but it does tackle alot of their problems.
These were never intended to be good. Just like the blatantly underpowered Shining Pokémon from the NEO sets, these were chase cards for collectors. Keeping collector sought cards separate from the strong playable cards helps to keep the game accessible by keeping playable cards cheap, while broadening your audience and encouraging trading between the camps rather than players just hoarding a few sought after cards to themselves.
How did they not reuse Crystal Type for the Tera cards? Just make it so only the first energy attached changes it's type and make the cost of the moves colorless
Can you make a video about the current way of making a deck in the current rules and playing. I am just getting back into the Pokemon Trading Card Game world. And I don't even know where to begin with building a deck because I'm hearing something about standard format and current format previous four bats and I'm a little lost. Try to find videos on UA-cam to help. And your channel is full of amazing videos about different things but I can't find one on your Channel about the formats. What that means what that's about. I don't know if you can make a video about that stuff but that'd be fantastic if you could appreciate your Channel
The real worst part about Crystal Pokemon is that Lugia's Steam blast is *Water Water Fire* Any, but Ho-oh's Scalding Steam is *Fire Water Water* Any. For exactly zero reason.
At least these cards look amazing in binders, are go for quite abit of money Sometimes, when something fails in one way, it success in others But yeah these things sound like they suck oof
Great vid but not a fan of the subtitles for the narration in lieu of visual content. Made the video a little distracting seeing all the cards cut away and move around to make space for subtitles.
Nowadays, crystal Pokémon cards are mostly just investments because money is the only reason anyone what's them. That's what Pokémon and all collectibles seem to devolve into is investment to make money.
The e-reader card series showed some very obvious transitional pains from WotC to Nintendo, Nintendo REALLY struggled to develop interesting cards until a few EX sets in.
I remember buying these at a young age when i went to the card store. They werent good but i loved the concept. Pretty much the start of the various card types.
Truth be told. If they wanted the mechanic to work. They could've made all their attack colorless and still have their crystal body type change and just make their moves change type with them depending on which was the last energy you attached.
If I were designing crystal Pokémon, I would've kept the lower power level but made their attack costs only have colorless energy, as well as keeping the ability the same. This way, the crystal Pokemon could still be the versatile attacks they were intended to be, but now they are much easier to power up. Keeping the ability the same by maintaining the restricted energy types to gain the type change effect, I think, would keep them balanced as they are still limited in what types they can change into to hit for weakness.
crystal pokemon may be bad, but god damn they are fucking expensive now.
I think their moves would still need to be improved, but otherwise I totally agree. The Crystal Pokémon should’ve been built around changing their type, not around attaching 4-6 energies one at a time.
Releasing a basic Pokémon with a poke power to swap or move basic energy from one Pokémon to another would have been good for the Crystal Pokémon, allowing them to change type without sinking more energy from your hand into them. You could have incredibly versatile attackers with relatively low-powered moves, allowing for some very useful early game type coverage or a way to build up a pool of diverse energy for attacks that depend on having different types of energy attached. A true colorless/rainbow deck would be pretty cool to see, even back before steel, dragon, and dark energies were a thing.
Their attacks were also overpriced at the time in addition to making all crystal Pokémon cost colorless energy they also need to cost one or even two energies less overall.
@@zPamboliw😅
The original terastallization
They’ve been trying to do Tera Pokémon since gen 1, and the trading cards haven’t forgotten. It’s sort of adorable
How ironic that the crystal cards are the worst mechanic cards in competitive history but are also some of the most expensive to get now haha
It's almost like... that was the point.
@@Tvboy777It's almost like, that wasn't the whole point.
Infamy tax meets low print runs :(
The art and style was sooo cool tho. They are in my binder to this day
Very Lucky, these cards are very expensive now
@UnforgivenRonin yeah I have some first edition charizards as well
Multi type energy attacks will always be the worst or the best, with no mid point between.
In the modern PTCG, you can find all kinds of Pokemon that have odd conditions or costs for their attacks but have big payoffs for it. Such as discarding a bunch of Tool cards; having damage counters on every Pokemon you have in play; dealing a ton of damage to yourself in exchange, etc., etc.
Sure, most of these attacks don't make meta Pokemon, but at the least, they're compelling and interesting, encouraging you to try playing the game in different ways to use these odd attacks. The throughline between them all that the Crystal Pokemon ignored.... the attacks actually did damage or did something crazy, when you finally jumped through the hoops, you got a payoff for it. Crystal Pokemon had all the hoops but very little payoff.
Exactly.
Even by the standards of their time, they have some ludicrously expensive attacks for such pitiful damage output. If I’m paying 4 energy for an attack, 1 Fire, 2 Lightning, and 1 colorless, I better be winning the game next turn, damn it!
0:29 Crystal pokemon second wave was Skyridge, not Expedition. Expedition was the first ereader expansion and had no Crystal pokemon
Every video this dude makes has a very obvious error
Yeah Skyridge is the one with more new crystal Pokémon unlike Aqua who had 3
13:36 Amazing Rayquaza deals 80 damage per energy type discarded, so it needs 5 different energies to deal 400, not 4.
I think Logs was counting the classic energy attachment you get every turn on top of that
There's a Rom Hack for the GBC TCG game called TCG Neo that has Crystal Pokemon that seem pretty viable. The type changing ability lets you choose a type, as long as it matches another Pokemon in play, and their attacks only require two energy types.
Ooh. Thanks for pointing it out to me!
Ah, memories flooding back. Life was simpler back then: just school, soccer, friends, Pokemon matches where no one actually understood a single rule about the game, trading cards just looking at their power level and artwork without understanding their actual value in cash. I really really liked Feraligatr back then, lol. I miss those times so much...
So crystal Pokémon’s gimmick is basically a specific Terastallization?
A very clunky and oddly specific terastallization 😅
Tera is also specific to the Pokemon. The mechanic just doesn't translate well
I think the easy way to fix some of them would have been to make it so that Crystal Pokémon could select their type based on the energy requirements of their attacks. That way, they can select their typing without attaching an energy while preventing them from being able to pick any type.
Honestly I saw the whole E-reader era as "These cards look cool and have really good card art...and that's about it" lol
5:08 I disagree with the concept that crystal crobat needs 4 energy. It needs 3. You don’t have to squeeze 100% out of these Pokémon. If your deck uses the types of one of the attacks, you can just use the 1 attack. It would be flexible like a modal card where some decks use it for the first attack and others for the second. The problem is that they weren’t costed to be this way, presumably fearful that the changing types would make them too strong. So I see these as flexible cards that weren’t powered up enough to compete with their contemporaries.
Seems like Pokemon always wanted to do the whole Terrestrialize thing since the beginning, but just never knew how to make it work in the card game. They should revisit this for the cards and find a way to make it work.
I pulled Crystal Lugia when i was a little lad and had no idea of it's rarity. I didn't play the game and was more focused on collecting the cards, just thought it was neat. Fast forward to just a few months ago when going through my binder it was pointed out that Aquapolis Lugia can easily reach $2k. Insane
One of my favorite combos for enabling unusual energy costs is Ho-Oh EX and Ninja Boy. Ho-Oh's ability allows you to revive Ho-Oh from the discard and attach 3 energy of different types to it. You could use Ninja boy to swap Ho-Oh with amazing rare, Kyogre, Raikou or Yveltal depending on the energy you were running.
This ability was the first ability to be able to activate in the discard pile, a quality that I'd love to see on more cards, especially with the potential it could have with V-Union's discard summoning requirements. I'd love to see a full deck revolving around Pokemon like Lost Thunder Giratina coming back over and over again to keep you up on resources
The recent Ho-oh V has a similar ability getting 4 basic energies of any types with the downside that your turn immediately ends. Still good in Ninja Bird decks, especially if you're going first and can't attack anyways.
Ngl, the fact that Crobat loses out to what I believe is a slightly improved version of an original base set pokémon (if memory serves, the improvement is that the original's attack would always discard all energy as opposed to potentially only two or even none) is kind of sad...
I'm amazed that Crystal Pokemon released and they have little to no synergy with Crystal Energy. I would've had them at least synergize with that!
Like, why not have them have their first move require one of any of their three Crystal types, and their second attack require two energies of their three Crystal types + a Rainbow Energy? To illustrate, Crystal Lugia would need only one Psychic, Fire, OR Water energy to use Psychic, and then two of any combination of Psychic, Fire, OR Water Energy (so Water + Water or Fire + Psychic would work) AND a Rainbow Energy would allow it to use Steam Blast.
Then the Crystal Pokemon would've been able to synergize with Rainbow and Crystal Energies while also being able to use Crystal Type to exploit weaknesses.
I grew up with Pokémon, and I deadass have never heard of these Crystal Pokémon before
I went through the history of the cards recently and like gen to 2 to gen 3 were home to some of the worst gimmick mon I think I've ever seen(usually because of the energy issue or them simply discarding most of the energy off of it for a super weak attack). Its very interesting to see the growing pains of a card game looking for innovation.
So you're telling me that pokémon came up with a mechanic which is giving special crystal pokémon the ability to change their types? This mechanic may not have been very strong, but it was definitely before it's time lol. I can't believe Terastillization was invented like 20 years ago
It’s like they didn’t play a single test game when designing the cards, otherwise you have to think they were designed to fail miserably.
I love this series. If I could, could I suggest that you cover Amazing Rares next in this series? I played the game throughout their entire legality. Unlike most of these other ones also I feel like they could be interesting to talk about as some of them had some neat things about them.
I think in Japan the TCG there changed the card backs once Ruby and Sapphire cards started to be printed so they had a proper rotation for these cards while in the west we’ve had the same card back since the game was initially released.
Been watching ur yugioh content for a while despite not playing yugioh, very excited to see u make pokemon content as I just got into it :D so much content to binge
Hope you enjoy it!
Just wanna point out, 4 x 80 is 320, not 400.
Holy crap, they were doing Terastalyzing YEARS ahead of the main games 😂
RIP crystal types you would have loved reversal energy
Was this set cycle still in the WotC era ? I like the idea similar to MtG multicolour card except that It didn’t work in practice because the energy don’t go in your permanent mana pool like Lands do, I’ve always wondered what the game could be like if you just collect energy once per turn but have to tap them to attack/retreat 🤔 Also after looking at modern gen 9 this also looks like an early Tera concept ☀️
They were indeed among the last sets localized but Wizards of the Coast, but this had no impact on them mechanically because WotC since the beginning were merely translating and distributing the TCG outside of Japan, they had no say in any actual mechanics for the game.
@@Dunsparce206 interesting, didnt know that wotc was only translating, cheers
why does crystal nidoking change type if you attach a fire energy when it’s attack takes fighting instead… 4:09
I remember these cards, the guys were very bad. Just for collection purposes basically
It’s funny, if this was closer to the new mechanics in the newest games, Terastallization, it might have been ok. It not only changes their type, it also increases their Same type attack bonus. If Crystal type boosted the damage the turn a basic energy was attached and the attacks were cheaper, it probably would have been an ok poke-body.
Hey does the crystal nidoking have the wrong energy type in its ability?
Yes, it’s a well known mistake
SO this is where they recycled the idea for the Terastalize pokemons in the video games. They are truly running out of ideas.
I remember seeing one of this cards as a kid and thinking 'Oh my god, how are you supposed to USE this?". I thought I was just a special one off. Now I now it was a shitty part of a shitty set...
Given the Crystal Pokémon are colorless it make sense for charizard and Crobat as they are flying type Pokémon and most of flying type Pokémon are colorless. Kingdra is included as dragon were also colorless. The Crystal type poke-bodies did predicted type change on charizard, which became a lighting type delta spicies during the EX era and Crobat went from grass to psychic at the Diamond and pearl set due to change of the poison type Pokémon. Kingdra ends up requiring both the water and lighting evergy as a dragon-type starting with black and white set. Lugia may use multiple energy a couple of time, it became a water-type during the heartgold soulsilver set.
It sucks because right after the e-reader cards, we got scramble energy. Which would have been 3 rainbow energies for specifically non-ex evolution Pokemon when you were behind on prizes. But there were just better Pokemon. I think there was a deck called 4 corners which was a bunch of strong stage 1 single prize Pokemon of different types to hit different weakness
how to fix crystal pokémon.... makes every attack colorless. the type of pokemon will depend on the strategy of your deck.
Here's how I would fix crystal Pokémon. Make all of their attacks cost only colourless energies. Give their attack a little buff. And have their crystal poke-body make them change into any type, that you last attached an energy to. It's not a perfect fix, but it does tackle alot of their problems.
These were never intended to be good. Just like the blatantly underpowered Shining Pokémon from the NEO sets, these were chase cards for collectors. Keeping collector sought cards separate from the strong playable cards helps to keep the game accessible by keeping playable cards cheap, while broadening your audience and encouraging trading between the camps rather than players just hoarding a few sought after cards to themselves.
Certain e star cards are e reader cards and can be used in Pokemon FireRed, LeafGreen, and Emerald to do something like the Rainbow energy and Zapdos
I feel like something like this is gonna happen with terapigos in the future
How did they not reuse Crystal Type for the Tera cards? Just make it so only the first energy attached changes it's type and make the cost of the moves colorless
It didn't help that these were secret rare cards either. I only ever pulled Kingdra.
Can you make a video about the current way of making a deck in the current rules and playing. I am just getting back into the Pokemon Trading Card Game world. And I don't even know where to begin with building a deck because I'm hearing something about standard format and current format previous four bats and I'm a little lost. Try to find videos on UA-cam to help. And your channel is full of amazing videos about different things but I can't find one on your Channel about the formats. What that means what that's about. I don't know if you can make a video about that stuff but that'd be fantastic if you could appreciate your Channel
The real worst part about Crystal Pokemon is that Lugia's Steam blast is *Water Water Fire* Any, but Ho-oh's Scalding Steam is *Fire Water Water* Any. For exactly zero reason.
9:22 *Moon-LIGHT, not Moon-LIT
They were really cool when they came out tho
Is crystal where we got tera
Seems like teratalizastion in scarlet and violet was inspired by crystal Pokémon
what if every crystal attack only used colorless energy? that might be interesting!
Tcgs early stellar tera pokemon before terastalizing ever existed 😂
Multiply all their damage by two and they're good!
Man, I may not understand Pokemon TCG, but I kind of want these terrible cards. They look quite cool.
At least these cards look amazing in binders, are go for quite abit of money
Sometimes, when something fails in one way, it success in others
But yeah these things sound like they suck oof
Yea they look really amazing.
Crystal pokemon
Such much potential
Man it was wasted
Wait so it's Tera Pokemon?
Great vid but not a fan of the subtitles for the narration in lieu of visual content. Made the video a little distracting seeing all the cards cut away and move around to make space for subtitles.
wow they just are completely scuffed.
There were no crystal pokemon in Expedition
I really hate the face design of the E series cards
Soo these are the ancestors of terrastalize
That crystal nidoking may be the worst card I've ever seen, holy moly
Protean in Pokemon games: One of the most broken abilities, had to be nerfed in Scarlet and Violet
Protean in Pokemon TCG: Awful. Not worth touching.
While cool looking cards, not sure how you would make this work in competitive.
crystal wasn't entirely terrible, it did lead way to delta species.
Nowadays, crystal Pokémon cards are mostly just investments because money is the only reason anyone what's them. That's what Pokémon and all collectibles seem to devolve into is investment to make money.
Yes but they're the most expensive and best looking in the history of tcg.
Bring back Meowie!
We have Crystal nidoking card.
best looking 3 sets of pokemon ever made, that being said; I don't play the game.
And now they are $500 in average i😅
The e-reader card series showed some very obvious transitional pains from WotC to Nintendo, Nintendo REALLY struggled to develop interesting cards until a few EX sets in.
I remember buying these at a young age when i went to the card store. They werent good but i loved the concept. Pretty much the start of the various card types.
Sounds like someone who wants the prices of these to go down.
Truth be told. If they wanted the mechanic to work. They could've made all their attack colorless and still have their crystal body type change and just make their moves change type with them depending on which was the last energy you attached.